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The Beginnings of the Women’s Rights Movement
What is the difference in the cartoon on the top and the one on the bottom?
Based on yesterday’s discussion what does this cartoon suggest about the role of women in 1800’s society?
What was the role of women in society prior to 1800?
• Women could not vote• Women could not hold public office• Women could not serve on juries• Few women received a higher
education• Women could not work in most trades
or professions
What was the role of women in society prior to 1800?
• When they did work, women were paid less than men doing the same jobs, and their fathers or husbands often took what money they did earn
• Married women lost legal control of any money or property they owned before marriage to their husbands.
What was the role of women in society prior to 1800?
• Married women could not testify against their husbands in court, sue for divorce, or gain custody of their children
What was happening in the early 1800’s that caused a desired shift in women’s role?
• The Second Great Awakening led women to take on more active roles in public life.
What was happening in the early 1800’s that caused a desired shift in women’s role?
• Women Enter the workplace• New mills and factories needed
workers and women answered the call.
What was happening in the early 1800’s that caused a desired shift in women’s role?
• Many urban middle-class northern women begin to hire poor women to do their housework.• Allows the middle-class
women more time to think about the society in which they wanted to raise their children
Social Issues of the 1800’s
• Abolition• There are parallels to the
rights of slaves and the rights of women.
• The issue of slavery becomes an Ah-ha moment for women.
“It's a matter of taking the side of the weak against the strong, something the best people have always done.” ― Harriet Beecher Stowe
Women shared the same “lack of power” and “lack of rights” like slaves
“The investigation of the rights of the slave has led me to a better understanding of my own…Human beings have rights, because they are moral beings…If rights are founded on the nature of our moral being, then the mere circumstance of sex does not give to man higher rights and responsibilities, than to woman.”– Angelina Grimké
The women’s rights movement worked for two things:
• Greater rights for women
• Opportunities for women
What did the women’s rights movement aim to achieve?
Social Issues of the 1800’s
• Temperance• How did male use of alcohol
affect women?
Elizabeth Cady
Stanton
Lucretia Mott
Two women that begin to call for change
The Declaration of Sentiments
• The document was modeled in the same language as the Declaration of Independence
• It was ridiculed• The convention itself resulted in few
concrete improvements in women’s rights…• But it marked the beginning of
the Women’s rights movement in the United States
Key ladies in the early women’s rights movement
Margaret Fuller
A transcendentalist that believed women’s powers of intellect were equal to those of men. Any woman should be able to pursue any career they choose. She believed what women needed was “as a soul to live freely and unimpeded.”
Key ladies in the early women’s rights movement
Amelia Bloomer
A young woman inspired by the Seneca Falls convention. She published a newspaper, The Lily. She advocated for equality of women in all things; including the right to wear pants!
Key ladies in the early women’s rights movement
Susan B. Anthony
Anthony would help lead the charge to win a single, critical right for women: the right to vote!
