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Essays on women's rights in the 19th century
Women’s rights in the mid 1800s
Women's rights in the 19th century in america
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Kathryn Kish Sklar
I have read Kathryn Kish Sklar book, brief History with documents of "Women's Rights Emerges within the Antislavery Movement, 1830-1870" with great interest and I have learned a lot. I share her fascination with the contours of nineteenth century women's rights movements, and their search for meaningful lessons we can draw from the past about American political culture today. I find their categories of so compelling, that when reading them, I frequently lost focus about women's rights movements history and became absorbed in their accounts of civic life.
I feel Kathryn Kish Sklar has every right to produce this documentary, after studying women's rights movements since before college at Radcliff College, Harvard University and U. of Michigan where earned various degrees in history, and literature. 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. Her book includes brief documentaries of Grimke Sisters, Maria Stewart, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Sojourner Truth; all became important symbols of the continuity between the antislavery and women's rights movements.
Beginning in the 1830s, white and black women in the North became active in trying to end slavery. These Women were inspired in many cases by the religious revivals sweeping the nation. While women in the movement at first focused their efforts upon emancipation, the intense criticsm that greeted their activities gradually pushed some of them toward an advocacy of women's rights as well. They discovered that they first had to defend their right to speak at all in a society in which women were expected to restrict their activities to a purely domestic sphere. Angelina and Sarah Grimke , left South Carolina because they were swept up in the religious current called the "Second Great Awakening" and felt that Philadelphia Quakers offered a surer form of saving their souls than the Protestant ministers of Charleston. During their influential speaking tour in 1837, about the anti-slavery movement, everyone wanted to hear them, so they broke the prohibitions against women speaking in public and, when clergymen opposed such public speaking by women, they launched the women's rights movement.
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.
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...
...eenth century's most important woman's rights advocates, antislavery leaders, and feminist thinkers (Lerner). "Whatever is morally right for a man to do, it is morally right for a woman to do. I recognize no rights but human rights - I know nothing of men's rights and women's rights; for in Christ Jesus, there is neither male nor female" (Grimke, Angelina). "Here then I plant myself. God created us equal;- he created us free agents; - he is our Lawgiver, our King, and our Judge, and to him alone is woman bound to be in subjection, and to him alone is she accountable for the use of those talents with which Her Heavenly Father has entrusted her. One is her Master even Christ" (Grimke, Sarah). As women who spoke publicly against slavery and for women's rights, they continued to inspire female activists to not give up and keep fighting for all human beings to be equal.
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.
Only a third of these girls went on to marry farmers. They instead chose to marry artisans or workers in the city . The young women were moving to the city, and away from the farms. Women were choosing their own husbands, and marrying for affection, instead of letting their parents pick their spouse. During this period was the Second Great Awaking in America, and women moving toward religion during the uncertain times. The leaders of the evangelical clergy preached against drunkenness. They also preached that women were morally stronger than men were. This led women into the temperance movement, increasing their political activities. The Second Great Awaking also led people to realize that slavery was wrong, and “a sin against humanity”. By the 1830s, many American women were involved in trying to end slavery. Women being involved in the movement to end slavery divided the abolitionists. This division was the beginning of the women’s rights movement. In 1840, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were told not to go to the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London. This refusal to let them attend, led them to discuss women’s rights. The launched the women’s right movement and changed the fabric of
...wo decades was that in the 1920’s women’s rights advocates were able to pass the 19th amendment, granting women suffrage, and increasing political interest among women. Both time periods were difficult ones for minorities and women, though some victories were had.
The fight for women’s rights began long before the Civil War, but the most prominent issue began after the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments joined the Constitution. The rights to all “citizens” of the United States identified all true “citizens” as men and therefore incited a revolution in civil rights for women (“The Fight for Women’s Suffrage”). The National Women’s Suffrage Convention of 1868
MacLean, Nancy. A. The American Women's Movement, 1945-2000. A Brief History with Documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin, a.k.a.
Women began standing up for more rights and realizing that they could be treated better. 1840 the World Anti-slavery Convention in London showed a great example of inferiority of women. Women were denied a seat at the convention because they were women. Women like Elizabeth C. Stanton and Lucretia C. Mott were enraged and inspired to launch the women’s rights movement. Elizabeth Stanton promoted women’s right to vote. “If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to forment a rebellion and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.
University of South Carolina, 2004. Pearson Education. Info please. Almanacs: “Key Events in Women’s Rights Movement” 2005 31 March 2005. Wohlpart, Jim.
But when the “Women’s Movement,” is referred to, one would most likely think about the strides taken during the 1960’s for equal treatment of women. The sixties started off with a bang for women, as the Food and Drug Administration approved birth control pills, President John F. Kennedy established the President's Commission on the Status of Women and appointed Eleanor Roosevelt as chairwoman, and Betty Friedan published her famous and groundbreaking book, “The Feminine Mystique” (Imbornoni). The Women’s Movement of the 1960’s was a ground-breaking part of American history because along with African-Americans another minority group stood up for equality, women were finished with being complacent, and it changed women’s lives today.
This movement had great leaders who were willing to deal with the ridicule and the disrespect that came along with being a woman. At that time they were fighting for what they thought to be true and realistic. Some of the great women who were willing to deal with those things were Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Jane Hunt, Mary McClintock, and Martha C. Wright. These women gave this movement, its spark by conduction the first ever women 's right’s convention. This convention was held in a church in Seneca Falls in 1848. At this convection they expressed their problems with how they were treated, as being less than a man. These women offered solutions to the problem by drafting the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions. They cleverly based the document after the Declaration of Independence. The opening line of their document was “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal” (Shi & Mayer 361). In this declaration they discuss the history of how women have been treated and how men have denied them rights, which go against everything they believe in. This convention was the spark that really
As this movement was slowly developing, women continued to fight for anti-slavery reform. During this, opponents to women participation in the efforts came forth and voiced their own critical opinions. Around 1837, the General Association of Congregational Ministers of Massachusetts had issued their "Pastoral Letter," a response to the political activity of the Grimke’s, two sisters who were heavily active and public in their fight for anti-slavery reform. In this letter, the ministers urged women to reject stepping out of the “public sphere” and to instead embrace the private, encouraging "the cultivation of private Christian character, and private efforts for the spiritual good of individuals" (General Association, 2006). In response to these views, Susan Grimke challenged the le...
It addresses the women’s suffrage movement and also the lecture made by a woman. This woman was the president of the National Women Suffrage association (NAWSA), her name is Mrs. Carrie Chapman-Catt. Carrie was president of the NAWSA from 1900 to 1904 and again in 1915 to 1920. In this article the purpose was to summarize and reflect on the lecture given by Mrs. Carrie Chapman-Catt. Her ways of presenting the suffrage cause was through a legal and political actions. She became interested in the suffrage movement in 1880 in Iowa with her first husband ,Leo Chapman. She remarried and her second husband. Carrie was very determined, supervised events and strongly believed that women have the natural right to be socially and politically equal to
As previously mentioned, the labor of feminist movements were bearly recognized and dawdling in progress. However, such reform as the temperance and abolitionist movements revealed feminist interest. In 1883 activists African-American Sojourner Truth, not well known, gave life to the previously mentioned movements. Nineteen years later, "Elizabeth Cady Stanton (d.1902) drafted the Seneca Falls Declaration outlining the new movement's ideology and political strategies."???(www.pacificu.edu)???? Yet another, December 1955, in Montgomery, Al., the much-publicized Rosa Parks acted out in civil disobedience, "Riding a crowded bus bomb from work, she refused to give up her seat so that a white man void sit