Antislavery Movement Dbq

THOUGHT PAPER #2
In the 19-th Century, many Americans were intent on reforming and improving the American society. The reformers had their own thoughts and ideas on how to reform and improve the society that they were living in. America, during the 19-th century, saw a lot of movements. People found out that there are some things wrong, and they felt that these things needed to be changed on some point in the future.
One of these movements was the Anti-Slavery movements. Antislavery movements helped women to start fighting for their rights. There had always been anti-slavery feeling in the US. Americans, both north and South, were aware of the hypocrisy that the United States had been founded on rhetoric of universal human liberty and yet

practiced chattel slavery. With the beginning of the cotton boom around the turn of the 19th century, Southern anti-slavery became rarer and rarer. The abolitionist movement in the North is generally dated as beginning in the 1830s when William Lloyd Garrison began publishing the Liberator and a very dedicated group of evangelical Christians who were opposed to slavery began to organize themselves.

In contrast to previous anti-slavery groups, abolitionists tended to be moral absolutists who saw slavery as a sin that needed to be ended immediately. Many of them also eschewed electoral politics as a hopelessly flawed institution. The American Woman's Rights movement grew out of abolitionism in direct but complex ways. The movement's early leaders began their fight for social justice with the cause of the slaves, and learned from Anti-Slavery Societies how to organize, publicize and articulate a political protest During the 1830’s, women became deeply involved in antislavery societies. The American Anti-Slavery Society was founded in 1833. The role of women in the abolition movement divided the otherwise male dominated Society. Many white female abolitionists combined their interests of women rights with abolition. Women were very active in the abolitionist movement. Abolitionism was a political movement of the 18th and 19th century that sought to make slavery illegal in the United States and British West Indies. Beginning during the Enlightenment in Europe and the United States, the movement attracted many followers and

had significant political results. It succeeded in making slavery illegal in the United States, the British Empire and French colonies. It was a political movement that sought to abolish slavery and the slave trade, started with The Enlightenment and became a large movement in several nations of the 19th century. The movement continues to this day. The abolitionist movement came to rely heavily on the money raised by women. During the late 19th century, a great many women were involved in the Temperance Movement, and it was a wish to see Prohibition passed that gave the impetus to large numbers of women to support the campaign for women's suffrage. Another movement that is worth to mention would be the Progressive movement. There were lot of factors that led to reform this type of event. The Progressive Movement was the culmination of several attempts to bring changes in the way that business and political machines had gained control over the government and economy of the United States. The causal factors were many, some of them were; the Laissez Faire attitude of government, the growth and power of trusts and monopolies such as Standard Oil and U.S. Steel, abuses of consumers by various businesses, unsafe and unhealthy working conditions, child labor, poor sanitation in cities, disease in cities, graft and corruption in city and state governments. Some of the earlier movements that came together at the time of the Progressive Movement were the Populist Movement which was a political revolt by the American Farmers that came to a head in 1892 with the Populist Party and the Omaha Platform. The Populists wanted reform in political and economic policy. They called for direct election of senators, government ownership of, government control of monopolies and going off of the gold standard onto the silver standard ("free silver"} which would create inflation and ease the farmers’ debts. Additionally there was the Woman's Suffrage movement that was gaining momentum with more aggressive leadership like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. There were some spectacular events like the Triangle Shirtwaist fire in which many female workers burned to death in a garment sweat shop. One of the key ingredients was the rise of the "muckrakers" journalists who wrote lurid tales about the abuses of big business and the rotten conditions in cities. With a higher rate of literacy and the advent of news magazines more and more middle class Americans read these stories and demanded change. Several political began to promise the American people change and improvement. Ultimately women got the right to vote, senators were elected directly by the people, pure food and drug legislation was passed, child labor legislation was passed and health standards were improved as a result of the Progressive movement. In addition, industrialization played a huge role in the American Society by creating more product cheaper, it created opportunity for large number of workers to work together, meeting regularly, discussing problems, exchanging views leading to establishment of trade unions. Large scale production of articles making them available to all at reduced prices. Standard of life went up Increase in internal and international trade, it was a turning point since it changed the whole composition of families who had too move to the city so that they could work. It was one of the main contributions to the growth of cities. In the end it made US a global power.
What I learned from this class is that there are differences between women of the 19th century and the 21st century. Women in the 19-th century did not have the same rights to education, which limited their choices in life. Women did not have the same rights to and choices in birth control back then as they do now, which meant they spent most of their time pregnant and raising children and had less ability to work outside of the home. Women were rarely allowed to be employed outside of the home unless it was considered women's work and that meant most women were unable to find a job that paid a decent living wage, which kept most women stuck with having to find a husband in order to be financially supported. However, urbanization and industrialization helped to change that because with so many jobs opening up, male employers were more concerned with finding workers and less concerned with what gender those workers were.