Migrant Mother is a photograph that exemplifies the difficult role of being a single mother during difficult times and has even become a symbol of the Great Depression. As a photo taken of a woman and by a woman, Migrant Mother was revolutionary for its time. While the photograph was hugely popular and successful in raising awareness and donations, it was not so successful in telling the true narrative of its subjects - Florence Owens Thompson and her children. It is important to understand the context of the time and place that this photograph was taken. In 1936, it had been 16 years since women gained the right to vote. Many of the men in the 1930’s were away at war, leaving the women to fend for themselves. This meant that there were many …show more content…
They were an agricultural family who stopped in the area after their car broke down. Additionally, Thompson was not a single mother. Her first husband had died in 1931 and she later married a man named Jim Hill who was the father to her 6th and youngest daughter, Norma (Pruitt 2024). All this is to say how easy it is to paint a narrative. Lange did not ask for all the details of Thompson’s life, but she also left out much information that may have changed society’s views on the photograph and might have even made it less successful. So how is it that this photo came to be so popular? Well, one of the best ways to get people to feel charitable is to show them a video of a homeless puppy, a homeless orphan, or a photo of a single mother struggling to feed her children. People naturally feel emotions when viewing media depicting things like these and want to do something to help. This false narrative of Migrant Mother that people seemed to have adopted of a struggling single mother on a pea picking farm made the American public feel sorry for Thompson and others like her and eventually led to donations and government
Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence. By Carol Berkin (New York: Vintage Books, 2006). 194 pp. Reviewed by Melissa Velazquez, October 12, 2015.
Towards the end of the book, Gordon asserts her feminist utopianism deductible from her assertion that the tragedy of the orphan affair was a missed opportunity for the women of Clifton-Morenci to show their solidarity for the common child welfare. She says that the common interest by the Anglo and Mexican mothers to care for the city’s orphans should have yielded in a formidable interest for child protection and welfare . In this regard, the only weakness that can be associated with her work is that she erroneously surmises the irrelevance of white and middle class feminism to the experiences of women of colour. Paradoxically, this is the same concept that her laborious work authoritatively disapproves. Despite this apparent setback, the creativity and strength of her work largely overshadows this weakness to the readers’ eye .
In Carol Berkin Revolutionary Mothers, Berkin goes beyond the history books, and argues that the Revolutionary period was not just a romantic period in our nation history, but a time of change of both men and women of race, social class, and culture. Berkin describes women involvement in boycotts, protest, and their experiences during the war and on the home front. She goes into a whole different level and focuses her views on women of lower social classes, the Native Americans and African Americans – groups whom faced difficult obstacle during the Revolution. She brings to life the importance of Revolutionary Women. Berkin gives us true stories introducing us to ordinary women of all social classes who were involved and affected by the Revolution War.
In Florence Kelley’s speech, she discusses her anger about child labor. She gives numerous examples of how child labor is immoral and wrong, which creates a vindictive and scolding tone. Primarily through imagery, parallel structure, and exemplification, Kelley calls attention to the horror of child labor.
During the late 1800’s and early 1900’s the fight for equal and just treatment for both women and children was one of the most historically prominent movements in America. Courageous women everywhere fought, protested and petitioned with the hope that they would achieve equal rights and better treatment for all, especially children. One of these women is known as Florence Kelley. On July 22, 1905, Kelley made her mark on the nation when she delivered a speech before the National American Woman Suffrage Association, raising awareness of the cruel truth of the severity behind child labor through the use of repetition, imagery and oxymorons.
For, in relinquishing, a mother feels strong and liberal; and in guild she finds the motivation to right wrong. Women throughout time have been compelled to cope with the remonstrances of motherhood along with society’s anticipations Morrison’s authorship elucidates the conditions of motherhood showing how black women’s existence is warped by severing conditions of slavery. In this novel, it becomes apparent how in a patriarchal society a woman can feel guilty when choosing interests, career and self-development before motherhood. The sacrifice that has to be made by a mother is evident and natural, but equality in a relationship means shared responsibility and with that, the sacrifices are less on both part. Although motherhood can be a wonderful experience many women fear it in view of the tamming of the other and the obligation that eventually lies on the mother.
The two works of literature nudging at the idea of women and their roles as domestic laborers were the works of Zora Neale Hurston in her short story “Sweat”, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Whatever the setting may be, whether it is the 1920’s with a woman putting her blood, sweat and tears into her job to provide for herself and her husband, or the 1890’s where a new mother is forced to stay at home and not express herself to her full potential, women have been forced into these boxes of what is and is not acceptable to do as a woman working or living at home. “Sweat” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” draw attention to suppressing a woman’s freedom to work along with suppressing a woman’s freedom to act upon her
Society continually places restrictive standards on the female gender not only fifty years ago, but in today’s society as well. While many women have overcome many unfair prejudices and oppressions in the last fifty or so years, late nineteenth and early twentieth century women were forced to deal with a less understanding culture. In its various formulations, patriarchy posits men's traits and/or intentions as the cause of women's oppression. This way of thinking diverts attention from theorizing the social relations that place women in a disadvantageous position in every sphere of life and channels it towards men as the cause of women's oppression (Gimenez). Different people had many ways of voicing their opinions concerning gender inequalities amound women, including expressing their voices and opinions through their literature. By writing stories such as Daisy Miller and The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Henry James let readers understand and develop their own ideas on such a serious topic that took a major toll in American History. In this essay, I am going to compare Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” to James’ “Daisy Miller” as portraits of American women in peril and also the men that had a great influence.
Moran, Mickey. “1930s, America- Feminist Void?” Loyno. Department of History, 1988. Web. 11 May. 2014.
... lived in New York tenements. In Riis’s book, How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York, he uses prolific prose coupled with emotionally powerful illustrations that paint a vivid picture of immigrant families living in tenements in the late 1800s. Throughout Riss’s book, exposes how immigrant children were forced to work in factories and sweatshops. As a result, Riss successfully achieves his goal of educating the middle class regarding the challenges that urban immigrants faced. Lastly, although Riss tact regarding racial epithets of the immigrants he wrote on and photographed are offensive, the importance of Riss’s photographs outweighs the racial insults because his pictures lie not only in their power to enlighten but also to move his readers regarding how immigrant families were forced into making their children work.
As man developed more complex social systems, society placed more emphasis of childbearing. Over time, motherhood was raised to the status of “saintly”. This was certainly true in western cultures during the late 19th/early 20th century. Charlotte Perkins Gilman did not agree with the image of motherhood that society proposed to its members at the time. “Arguably ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ reveals women’s frustration in a culture that seemingly glorifies motherhood while it actually relegates women to nursery-prisons” (Bauer 65). Among the many other social commentaries contained within this story, is the symbolic use of the nursery as a prison for the main character.
First to understand why this story is critical to empowering women who wished to remain tied to their domestic roots, we need to look at the limitations imposed upon their resistance. Within the public sphere women had the option of peaceful protest which allowed for them to sway the political system that had oppressed them for so long. Unfortunately public protest could not change the oppression that took place in the private sphere of domesticity. We can see in the story that Mother has no intere...
When looking at two nineteenth century works of change for two females in an American society, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Stephen Crane come to mind. A feminist socialist and a realist novelist capture moments that make their readers rethink life and the world surrounding. Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” was first published in 1892, about a white middle-class woman who was confined to an upstairs room by her husband and doctor, the room’s wallpaper imprisons her and as well as liberates herself when she tears the wallpaper off at the end of the story. On the other hand, Crane’s 1893 Maggie: A Girl of the Streets is the realist account of a New York girl and her trials of growing up with an alcoholic mother and slum life world. The imagery in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Stephen Crane’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets uses color in unconventional ways by embedding color in their narratives to symbolize the opposite of their common meanings, allowing these colors to represent unique associations; to support their thematic concerns of emotional, mental and societal challenges throughout their stories; offering their reader's the opportunity to question the conventionality of both gender and social systems.
Barrie shows these throughout the book in differing situations as well as his emphasis on the importance of mothers. In today’s society, women have many more rights than ever before, therefore, we study literature to identify the changes we have reached
Each year, the requirements that immigrants need to have access to the country have become more difficult with each new year. Apart from the legal requirements necessary to enter the U.S., this process can be affected by the race and origin of an immigrant. The authors of “The Border: A Double Sonnet” and “The New Colossus” share their perspective on immigration through their poems. Each author’s perspective has been influenced by their time, the privilege and restrictions they faced due to their race, and regulations due to the impact of their poetry about immigration in the U.S. Beginning with a long time between the events that happen in the poem “The Border: A Double Sonnet” written by Alberto Rios and the poem “The New Colossus” written