What Was The Women's Movement In The Late 1800s

Looking back to 1877 it would not appear much progress had been made toward the ideals held in the Declaration of Independence when it came to blacks and women. While black males had been granted the right to vote and hold office by this time, those rights were being severely hindered by terrorist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. Women still did not have the right to vote nor would they until the ratification of the Ninetieth Amendment in 1920, forty-three years later, more than seventy years after the women’s movement began in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York. Looking back, it would seem little to no progress had been made for these two groups. As they say hindsight is 20-20, but what if we were to change our perspective and not look back at history but to look forward from the times?

Although the Slave Trade Act did not abolish slavery it did prohibit the introduction of newly captured slaves into America. In 1820 the Missouri compromise banned the expansion of slavery north of the southern boundary of Missouri and by the 1840’s former slave Fredrick Douglass became a well-known influential abolitionist who gained the ear of blacks and whites alike. More and more people began to join the abolitionist movement and their voice went from a small whisper to a loud roar. The movement saw setbacks in the mid to late 1850’s such as the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Dred Scott decision which only empowered the movement that much more. Then came the Civil War which would bring about largest most immediate change for the black community, the abolition of slavery. Reconstruction brought with it the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to protect the black communities. Black schools were founded and black children were finally able to get an