Women and power were not synonymous in colonial America. Men owned companies, worked in government, and controlled every aspect of life. This is mainly due to the popular religion of Christianity because in the bible, women do not hold roles of power and the focus is on men. The bible says all women were made from men and that women should not have rights, so most people believed that because they were fundamentalists. Fundamentalists are people who believe in every word of the bible and follow it to the exact word. This society eventually caused women to crack, and look for ways that they could have a voice. The horrid treatment of women was not the only way, as Quakers were not horrible to women. Quakers believe in an inner light and they …show more content…
Most of the women involved with women’s rights were Quakers, so the same principles and ideas from the religion carried over to the movement. The ideas of love, harmony, empathy, and equality of all sexes and colors were strong in the feminist movement and had their root in the Society of Friends. Since the Quakers were generally the only ones in early America to believe in equality of the sexes, there was a struggle between the society and the outside world that came to light when the women’s rights movement began. Quakers were the driving force of the movement, with 40% of women involved being a Quaker. They did not see why the rest of the world ignored women and hoped that they would see the same equality they were raised with. This is why four out of the five of the women who created the Seneca Falls convention were Quakers: they had been living with equality their whole lives and wanted the rest of the world to have it …show more content…
After years upon years of being put down and seen as less by society, women were ready to stand up. The Quaker women started this battle, based upon the Society of Friend’s ideals of equality. Women were considered to be property, owned by their husbands and doing what their husbands wanted. Their daily routines consist of doing chores, cleaning, cooking, and staying out of their husband’s ways. Women were not thought to be anything but housewives and this caused them to feel disrespected. They would be beaten and expected to take it and apologize, even if they did not do anything. This treatment happened daily and eventually women were sick of it. Quaker women thought, if God saw them as equal to men, why couldn’t the rest of the world? They gathered everyone who believed in equality, and started a fight that has lasted to the present day. Being a Quaker helped women realize that their opinions mattered, they were equal to men, and that they were not objects solely for male enjoyment. This connects to the American Revolution and the enlightenment ideals. The enlightenment ideals spread across Europe and then to America and into the houses of all the men in the land. They heard these radical ideals, that all men were created equal, and agreed. The American men were strong believers in Locke and the rest of the enlightenment thinkers, so much so that they took these ideals and
Before the Revolution, women were not allowed a voice in the political world. They almost had no rights, especially if they were married. They were granted fewer opportunities than men. Women were to stay at home care for the household and family. However, that soon began to change. When the Stamp Act was passed in 1765, it required colonist to pay a tax on every piece of printed-paper they used. Women refused to pay for the shipped items from the mother country, “The first political act of American women was to say ‘No’(Berkin 13). As from then, an uprising in issues began to unroll. Women began to seek their voice been heard and act out on problems that were uprising, such as the British Tea. As the war broke out, women’s lives changed even more. While men were in compact, they kept their families alive by managing the farms and businesses, something that they did not do before the war. As the fighting advanced, armies would rummage through towns, destroying homes and seizing food-leaving families with nothing. Women were attacked while their property was being stripped away from them; some women destroyed their own property to keep their family safe. “Women’s efforts to save the family resources were made more difficult by the demands of the military.
However, the writers of the Constitution had omitted women in that pivotal statement which left women to be denied these “unalienable” rights given to every countryman. Gaining the support of many, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the leader of the Women’s Rights Movement declared at Seneca Falls that women had the same rights as men including the right to vote and be a part of government. The Women’s Rights movement gained support due to the years of abuse women endured. For years, men had “the power to chastise and imprison his wife…” and they were tired of suffering (Doc I). The new concept of the cult of domesticity supported women’s roles in society but created greater divisions between men and women.
The Awakening experienced a feminization of religion in theology and church membership. Many middle class women found strength in controlling their own morality and fostering the moral life of American spirituality. Since they were fighting for a world that was better for everyone, also known as an utopia, female reformers realized that fighting for their own rights would permit a more wholesome life for other women in the United States (Document 5). Female reformers such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton realized that women did not have to submit to men but could instead stand up for her own rights (Document 7). In addition, women made up the majority of new church membership, leading to an increase in their role in society. Due to a multitude of factors, most important of which is women taking a greater role in society due to their involvement in religion, the Second Great Awakening drastically influenced the women’s rights
After reading her book, it doesn't seem right that a women's right movement would not come out of the antislavery movement in the early part of this century. The United States was under a lot of stress as a country. They were still forming governments and unity amongst themselves. States were divided by slavery. As abolitionist groups started to form and slavery was being fought, women started to realize that they had no rights and began their battle.
In the 1840’s, most of American women were beginning to become agitated by the morals and values that were expected of womanhood. “Historians have named this the ’Cult of True Womanhood’: that is, the idea that the only ‘true’ woman was a pious, submissive wife and mother concerned exclusively with home and family” (History.com). Voting was only the right of men, but women were on the brink to let their voices be heard. Women pioneers such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott wrote eleven resolutions in The Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments; this historical document demanded abolishment of any laws that authorized unequal treatment of women and to allow for passage of a suffrage amendment.
...intolerance over the immorality of slavery. A movement to treat the insane humanely was taken up by reformer Dorothea Dix. She believed the insane deserved better treatment as they were not criminals, they were simply ill. Other reformers, such as Horace Mann sought to equalize the social classes by providing free and better education for the poor (a public education system). This cause was instrumental in sparking the flame of education which would spread though the Untied States like wildfire. Desiring equality with men, women took advantage of this spirit of reform and proceeded with the Seneca Fall Convention in New York, 1848. Drafting a document similar to the Declaration of Independence, women sought equality in all aspects of life. These and other reforms in the 1840s were a direct result of the Jacksonian ideal which “celebrated the era of the common man”.
During America's early history, women were denied some of the rights to well-being by men. For example, married women couldn't own property and had no legal claim to any money that they might earn, and women hadn't the right to vote. They were expected to focus on housework and motherhood, and didn't have to join politics. On the contrary, they didn't have to be interested in them. Then, in order to ratify this amendment they were prompted to a long and hard fight; victory took decades of agitation and protest. Beginning in the 19th century, some generations of women's suffrage supporters lobbied to achieve what a lot of Americans needed: a radical change of the Constitution. The movement for women's rights began to organize after 1848 at the national level. In July of that year, reformers Elizabeth Cady Stanton(1815-1902) and Lucretia Mott (1793-1880), along with Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) and other activists organized the first convention for women's rights at Seneca Falls, New York. More than 300 people, mostly women but also some men, attended it. Then, they raised public awar...
Up until and during the mid -1800’s, women were stereotyped and not given the same rights that men had. Women were not allowed to vote, speak publically, stand for office and had no influence in public affairs. They received poorer education than men did and there was not one church, except for the Quakers, that allowed women to have a say in church affairs. Women also did not have any legal rights and were not permitted to own property. Overall, people believed that a woman only belonged in the home and that the only rule she may ever obtain was over her children. However, during the pre- Civil war era, woman began to stand up for what they believed in and to change the way that people viewed society (Lerner, 1971). Two of the most famous pioneers in the women’s rights movement, as well as abolition, were two sisters from South Carolina: Sarah and Angelina Grimké.
In her book, First Generations Women in Colonial America, Carol Berkin depicts the everyday lives of women living during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Berkin relays accounts of European, Native American, and African women's struggles and achievements within the patriarchal colonies in which women lived and interacted with. Until the first publication of First Generations little was published about the lives of women in the early colonies. This could be explained by a problem that Berkin frequently ran into, as a result of the patriarchal family dynamic women often did not receive a formally educated and subsequently could not write down stories from day to day lives. This caused Berkin to draw conclusions from public accounts and the journals of men during the time period. PUT THESIS HERE! ABOUT HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT THE BOOK.
Women had a role in the forming of our country that many historians overlook. In the years leading to the revolution and after women were political activists. During the war, women took care of the home front. Some poor women followed the army and assisted to the troops. They acted as cooks, laundresses and nurses. There were even soldiers and spies that were women. After the revolution, women advocated for higher education. In the early 1800’s women aided in the increase of factories, and the changing of American society. Women in America were an important and active part of achieving independence and the framing of American life over the years.
The colonial woman has often been imagined as a demure person, dressed in long skirt,apron and bonnet, toiling away at the spinning wheel, while tending to the stew at the hearth. In reality, the women of the early settlements of the United States were much more influential, strong and vital to the existence of the colonies. Her role,however, has shifted as the needs of the times dictated.
Women spent majority of their day ironing, washing clothes, baking, sewing clothes and raising their children (page 17). Religion also added to women’s lesser status (page 18). Religion was at the core life of Americans, female submission was decreed to be part of God’s order (page 18). Lucretia Mott soon pointed out that many scriptures celebrated female strength and independence (page 18). As a young girl Elizabeth Cady Stanton learned about laws that limited rights of wives and as an adult found ways to reform marriage and divorce laws (page 23). Things were looking up for women, by 1850 female wage workers made up nearly a quarter of the manufacturing labor work force (page 30). Women were still excluded from occupations such as the military, ministry, law, medicine and jobs felt inappropriate for women (page 32). During this antebellum period women were starting to rise up and realize they deserved to have the same rights and privileges men received. This gave women hope that things could change. By the second quarter of the 19th century few positive changes for women pushed Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Susan B Anthony, Lucy Stone and others to challenge injustices and reform efforts (page
Before the American Revolution, women did not realize just how unfairly men were treating them until they experienced working, managing a household, and life without their husbands. It made them aware of their place in society and many wondered just why they were inferior to men at that time. That American Revolution was what led up to the women's rights movement of 1848 and without it, who knows when women would have ever revolted against this unjust behavior and obtained the right to vote in 1920.
Women have always been fighting for their rights for voting, the right to have an abortion, equal pay as men, being able to joined the armed forces just to name a few. The most notable women’s rights movement was headed in Seneca Falls, New York. The movement came to be known as the Seneca Falls convention and it was lead by women’s rights activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton during July 19th and 20th in 1848. Stanton created this convention in New York because of a visit from Lucretia Mott from Boston. Mott was a Quaker who was an excellent public speaker, abolitionist and social reformer. She was a proponent of women’s rights. The meeting lasted for only two days and was compiled of six sessions, which included lectures on law, humorous presentations and discussions concerning women’s role in society. The convention was organized by a mostly radical group of Quakers while ironically their leader Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a non-Quaker skeptic. Stanton and her Quaker followers presented a document entitled the Declaration of Sentiments to the convention, which was accompanied by a list of resolutions that were to be debated by the members of the convention before it was signed. One hundred of the three hundred attendees of the Seneca Falls Convention signed the Declaration of Sentiments. The Seneca Falls Convention was merely a single step in the right direction for the women’s rights movement; it was seen as a revolution in which women were fighting desperately for equality to their male counterparts. The Declaration of Sentiments became a staple document in the women’s suffrage, as it was the first time that men and women came together to demand women’s right to vote. Women’s suffrage gained national attention due to the conventio...
The Women’s Rights Movement was a long and persistent battle fought by many brave female advocates that came before us such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and Susan B. Anthony. These women selflessly dedicated their lives to the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which forever changed the lives of womankind in America. Prior to their efforts, the United States was still in shambles over the Civil War and spent most of its focus on rebuilding the country and securing rights to African American men. Several activists resented the fact that women were not included in this effort and took matters into their own hands.