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Essays describing the roles of women during the civil war
The effect the revolution has on the role of women in American society
How the american revolution affected women
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Mothers of America
During the 1770’s and early 1800’s to 1840’s, the many different beliefs on American motherhood between the American revolution and civil war was the mark of the women’s era and were influences that stimulated the start of “republican motherhood” and “cult of domesticity”. Women during the American revolution played an essential role in staying home managing, cooking, cleaning, and most importantly, raising their sons as patriots while the husbands were are at war. Furthermore, women during the 1820’s began to work in factories, such as the Lowell Mills, and the Seneca Falls Convention, the first ever women's right convention was a milestone.In the beginning, many women reform movements that occurred helped
For example, women supported the non-importation act and non-consumption act by doing everyday activity such as drinking tea is halted or wearing imported clothing made from Britain is no longer warned. To show their support for the war, it was most ideal through accustomed through home occupations. With this intention, they utilized their skills to contribute to the revolutionary cause by sewing, spinning, and weaving their own clothing or material rather than buying British goods.(Doc 1) Even though the acts were manifested, women helped by enforcing it in the home environment which had a huge impact in having a wide spread effect. Correspondingly, “Republican Motherhood” was a term given for the women before and after the revolutionary war. It was an objective that the women should maintain the motive of republicanism and pass it on to future generations. Where as the son shall follow the road to independence and take roll in the government and the daughter follow her mother's footsteps in doing domestic work. Ultimately, the ideas of republican mother expanded after the revolutionary war. “Benjamin Rush,Thoughts Upon Female Education, 1787. “By a peculiar and suitable education”.None the less, education for women was encouraged to instruct their sons and to raise them as patriots.
Developed in the late 1820’s and 1830’s, the ideas of transcendentalism was a core belief that human beings are best when they are truly independent. Margaret Fuller, author of Women in the Nineteenth Century, was associated with this transcendentalist movement. For this reason, it is best believed that the education of women should be developed to their full potential and that women need the freedom to be able to develop.(Doc 5) Also, women should not be limited to doing labor work or being mothers but the education of women should be exceeding. Years after the Seneca Falls Convention there has been different opinions on the beliefs of women’s equality and rights. Although women are inferior to men since birth, they are distinguished as the caretaker of men.(Doc 7) And because the roll of the women was to nurture men, the ideal of “American womanhood” was subjected. For example, Catherine Beecher book called, A treatise on Domestic Economy, was her philosophy that men should dominate the political and economic rolls. Additionally, it was also a handbook/guidebook for the use of young women at home and at
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.
“Deborah Sampson, the daughter of a poor Massachusetts farmer, disguised herself as a man and in 1782, at age twenty-one, enlisted in the Continental army. Ultimately, her commanding officer discovered her secret but kept it to himself, and she was honorably discharged at the end of the war.” She was one of the few women who fought in the Revolution. This example pictured the figure of women fighting alongside men. This encouraged the expansion of wife’s opportunities. Deborah, after the Revolution along with other known female figures, reinforced the ideology of Republican Motherhood which saw the marriage as a “voluntary union held together by affection and mutual dependency rather than male authority.” (Foner, p. 190). This ideal of “companionate” marriage changed the structure of the whole family itself, the now called Modern Family in which workers, laborers and domestic servants are now not considered member of the family anymore. However even if women thought that after the war they would have been seen from the society in a different way it never happened. The revolution haven’t changed the perception of the woman and the emancipated ideal
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.
The time before the Revolutionary War, women’s main role was in the home. They were the manufacturers of the home, taking raw materials and turning them into household goods. The women were the consumers and before the Revolution they led the boycotts against British goods. During the Revolutionary War, they became the men at home on top of the roles they already had. They became spies, nurses, propagandists, and even took over the battlefield.
Women, like black slaves, were treated unequally from the male before the nineteenth century. The role of the women played the part of their description, physically and emotionally weak, which during this time period all women did was took care of their household and husband, and followed their orders. Women were classified as the “weaker sex” or below the standards of men in the early part of the century. Soon after the decades unfolded, women gradually surfaced to breathe the air of freedom and self determination, when they were given specific freedoms such as the opportunity for an education, their voting rights, ownership of property, and being employed.
Education did not form part of the life of women before the Revolutionary War and therefore, considered irrelevant. Women’s education did not extend beyond that of what they learned from their mothers growing up. This was especially true for underprivileged women who had only acquired skills pertaining to domesticity unlike elite white women during that time that in addition to having acquired domestic skills they learned to read a result becoming literate. However, once the Revolutionary War ended women as well as men recognized the great need for women to obtain a greater education. Nonetheless, their views in regards to this subject differed greatly in that while some women including men believed the sole purpose of educating women was in order to better fulfil their roles and duties as wives and mothers others believed the purpose of education for women was for them “to move beyond the household field.” The essays of Benjamin Rush and Judith Sargent Murray provide two different points of view with respects to the necessity for women to be well educated in post-revolutionary America.
For over centuries, society had established the societal standard of the women. This societal standard pictured the ideal American woman running the household and taking care of the children while her husband provided for the family. However, between 1770 and 1860, this societal standard began to tear at the seams. Throughout this time period, women began to search for a new ideal of American womanhood by questioning and breaking the barriers society had placed upon them.
This discrimination towards this sex was reinforced by the idea that women was made for man. Not only was this idea prevalent within society but it furthermore is resonated through the laws and documents the government put in place. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony fought to establish equality between both sexes within the nation. This is illustrated within the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions at Seneca Falls when these women stated, “The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object he establishment of an absolute tyranny over her.” This quote expresses the past of women rights and how from the beginning of time women have been seen as inferior to man. This furthermore resonated to express the idea that women were not only inferior but also a material object in a man’s life. Stanton and Anthony put a large emphasis into this ideal, making it their driving force into establishing women’s rights in America.
Often historical events leading up to the twentieth century are dominated by men and the role of women is seemingly non-existent outside of reproduction. When one thinks of notable and memorable names and events of the Revolution, men are the first to be mentioned. The American Revolution was mainly dominated by men including George Washington, Samuel Adams, and Benjamin Franklin. There is no denying that men were vitally important to the American Revolution, but what were the women doing? Often overlooked, the women of the Revolution played a key role in the outcome of the nation. The women of the American Revolution, although not always recognized, were an influential society that assumed risky jobs like soldiers, as well as involvement
To begin with, there are many events in United States history that have shaped our general understanding of women’s involvement in economics, politics, the debates of gender and sexuality, and so forth. Women for many centuries have not been seen as a significant part of history, however under thorough analyzation of certain events, there are many women and woman-based events responsible for the progressiveness we experience in our daily lives as men, women, children, and individuals altogether. Many of these events aid people today to reflect on the treatment of current individuals today and to raise awareness to significant issues that were not resolved or acknowledged in the past.
The late nineteenth century was a critical time in reshaping the rights of women. Commonly this era is considered to be the beginning of what is know to western feminists as “first-wave feminism.” First-wave feminism predominately fought for legal rights such as suffrage, and property rights. A major hallmark of first-wave feminism is the concept of the “New Woman.” The phrase New Woman described educated, independent, career oriented women who stood in response to the idea of the “Cult of Domesticity,” that is the idea that women are meant to be domestic and submissive (Stevens 27).
Republican motherhood was the ideas that by educating women, we would create more intelligent and virtuous citizens, and that this concept would eventually close the equality gap between men and women creating success of the new republic. Republican motherhood influenced an increase in women’s involvement as seen in politics, education, and domesticity. Links said historians agreed that “republican motherhood” was “the ideology that blended the domestic and public spheres. Women would stay at home to provide the best possible atmosphere for republican husbands and to inculcate proper principles for republican sons. They would, in fact, embody the virtues of republican government and pass them along to their husbands and children” (“Post-Revolutionary
Vindication of the Rights for Women by Mary Wollstonecraft was published in 1792, during the French Revolution. Wollstonecraft preached that intellect will always govern to persuade women not to endeavor to acquire knowledge but convince them that the soft phrases, acceptability of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are most preferred. By intellect, I mean the men because they were the ones that were allowed to get an education therefore allowing them to become intellectual. Wollstonecraft cleverly does not try to prove her point through protests or accusations, but argue that women are not naturally inferior to men, but appear to be only because they lack education. She suggests that both men and women should be treated as rational beings and imagines a social order founded on reason. She believed it was unfair for women to be treated differently and passionately wanted to make a change. That it was time to let go of feelings and begin the thought process behind the rationality of the women’s predicament. Men felt that while they would get an education an...
Women were not permitted to directly involve themselves in politics; however, the idea of Republican motherhood gave women the ability to expand their learning in the field. This was done to encourage women to take on the role as an educator and teach their sons the necessary material, such as the principles of liberty and government, required of them to become proper future citizens. Although the idea did not grant women with real civil rights, it did present them with the chance to be apart of politics, by being educators amongst the topics, and also reinforced the trend that men are companions in marriage rather than authoritative figures. This trend posed insight into the little rights and little freedom that women were given at the time.