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Upper Class Women in the 19 th century And their influence in American Identity, the economy & political issues U.S. History to 1877 Mike Bergeron & Matt Hebert Spring 2016

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Upper Class Women in the 19th centuryAnd their influence in American Identity, the economy & political issues

U.S. History to 1877Mike Bergeron & Matt Hebert

Spring 2016

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Who Are We Talking About?Woman Like

Lucy Stone - Lecturer and organizer of women’s conferences 1848 (Haas, Ch.5 Sec.1)(Photo: Oberlin College Archives)

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Who Are We Talking About?Woman Like

Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis – One of the organizers of the National Women’s Rights Convention of 1850 (Haas, Ch.5 Sec.1)(Photo: Wikipedia)

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Who Are We Talking About?Also

Matilda Joslyn Gage - A leader of the Women’s Rights Movement(Haas, Ch.5 Sec.1)(Photo: Wikipedia)

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Who Are We Talking About?And

Elizabeth Cady Stanton – Writer of the Declaration of Sentiments 1848. Mentor to Susan B. Anthony (Haas, Ch.5 Sec.1)(Photo: Wikipedia)

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Who Are We Talking About?And Of Course

Susan B. Anthony – One of the great leaders of the Women’s Movement. (Haas, Ch.5 Sec.1)(Photo: Wikipedia)

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Women in the 19th century• Americans in the 18 century

lived under patriarchy, a social system in which males where the primary authority figures, central to social organization, occupying roles of political leadership, moral authority, and control of property

• Women sexuality was strictly controlled due to Primogeniture, the right of secession belonging to the firstborn child, especially to futile rule by which the whole real estate and intestate past to the eldest son

• Women had no control over their own wealth or propertyMoore, Crystal. "Lecture on The Role of Women in Early

America.” YouTube, 2014. Web.

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Women in the 19th Century• Woman fought for more than 200 years to obtain the rights they were guaranteed

in the U.S. Constitution.

• When the 19th century began, a woman was not permitted to vote or hold office. They had limited rights to their own wage or property. Women couldn’t take custody of her children if she divorced nor did she not have access to higher education (Maclean, Maggie. “Civil War Women. 1 Apr. 2014. web)

• Despite a lack of formal leadership roles, women became very important in conversion and religious upbringing of their children informally through family structure and through their maternal roles.

• During the period of the revivals, religion was often passed to children through the teaching and influence of mothers who were seen as the moral and spiritual foundation of the family.

(Boundless. “Women and Church Governance.” Boundless U.S. History. Boundless, 21 Jul. 2015. )

• After the Civil War the woman suffrage movement began

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Early Century Identity

• Cult of domesticity• Considered to have more important rolls in

family life and children and responsible for the religious teachings

• Not many rights inside or outside of the home compared to men

• Started gaining more independent consciousness during the 19th Century

(Haas, Ch.5 Sec.1)

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Identity Change• Married Women’s Property Act 1839 (Mississippi)

helped women gain wealth through divorce• Women started voicing more concern for their own

rights and independence just before the midpoint of the Century

• Women were able to divorce in Indiana granted on the basis of adultery, desertion, drunkenness, and cruelty

• In New York, Indiana, Maine, Missouri, and Ohio, women's property rights had been expanded to allow married women to keep their own wages

(Ch.5 Sec.1)

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Married Women’s Property Act• A married woman could not

-make contracts -keep or control her own wages or any rents-transfer property, -sell property -bring any lawsuit (1)

1.(Lewis, Jone. "1848: Women Finally Win Property Rights After Marriage." About.com Education. 1 Dec. 2014. Web.)

• In 1839, laws enabled women to own real and personal property, participate in contracts and lawsuits, inherit family valuables and work for a salary. (2)

• By the end of the Civil War, 29 states had passed some version of a Married Women's Property Act.(2)

2.("Married Women's Property Acts in the United States." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web.)

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Identity Change Cont.• Upper Class Women were afforded an

Education in arts and science which allowed for development of better reasoning skills

• Women's Rights Movement - A mass movement throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries that promoted extending voting rights to women

• Brought together for the first time many of those who had been working individually for women's rights

(Haas, Ch.5 Sec.1)

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Photo: Getty Images

How Did It Start?

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The Second Great Awakening

• Started conversations in churches regarding social issues

• Stimulated the establishment of many reform movements designed to remedy the evils of society and work towards the moral perfection of society

• Served as an organizing process for social networks and provided mass communication

(Haas, Ch.5 Sec.1)

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PICTURE BY: PIXABAY.COM(HTTPS://PIXABAY.COM/PHOTO-1069781/)

The Second Great Awakening helped the start of volunteer women societies as most church groups were made up of women

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Voluntary Societies

Primarily sponsored by affluent women

Societies that broadened their focus from traditional religious concerns to larger societal ones

Influenced abolition groups and supporters of the temperance movement

(Haas, Ch.5 Sec.1)

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Feminist Movements• Started before the Civil War, but

but really gained attention when Pres. Andrew Jackson praised unions by Sarah Thompson, calling her “a woman of highest respectability”

• Demanded equal political, economic and social rights for all women

• Combated sexual discrimination and together gained equal opportunities for women and men

(Maclean, Maggie. “Civil War Women. 1 Apr. 2014. web)

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Women After the Civil War

• Many women were forced to perform manual labor following the Civil War.

• many women lost their husbands during the war and had to take on the responsibility of earning income themselves. Also, the freeing of slaves meant that some women lost help and had to perform activities themselves.

• Women had to find ways to supplement their income by doing things like selling butter, sewing, taking in borders and accepting other odd jobs.

(Boles, John B. “The history Engine” Historyengine.com)

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• Life for women following the Civil War provided many opportunities that were not available to them beforehand. State federations of women's clubs were organized. These clubs broadened women's

interests. These organizations also allowed them to get involved in their communities.

• Women advocated health reform in schools, city beautification projects and other important civic improvements.

• (Boles,John B. “The History Engine.” Historyengine.com)

Women after the Civil War

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Politics• Women and minorities were decidedly overlooked in

the expansion of democracy across early nineteenth century America

• The goal of the women's rights movement was to have equality among the sexes with regards to politics

• They also fought for legal and social equality as well• Following the inaugural convention of 1850 there were

national women’s conventions almost every year up to the civil war

(Haas, Ch.5 Sec.1)

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Politics Cont.• No matter what class (upper or middle) women

were not allowed to vote• Even when suffrage was expanded to all white

males, women were left behind• Despite the cult of domesticity, many women were

active outside of their homes with social and political ventures

• Many involved themselves with reform movements

(Haas, Ch.5 Sec.1)

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Politics Cont.• One such movement was the abolition of slavery

with the Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women in 1838

• Then there was the women’s suffrage movement the began in Seneca Falls, New York in July 1848

• There the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions was signed by 68 women and 32 men and was modeled after the Declaration of Independence

(Haas, Ch.5 Sec.1)

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Politics Cont.• Social reform prior to the Civil War came

largely out of this new devotion to religion• Reforms took the shape of social movements

for temperance, women's rights, and the abolition of slavery (Haas, Ch.5 Sec.1)

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Seneca Falls Convention• the Seneca Falls Convention was the first women's rights

convention

• It approved a "Declaration of Sentiments" authored by Elizabeth Cady Stanton that listed among the "injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman

“He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns.He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what shall be the proper causes of divorce, in case of separation, to whom the guardianship of the children shall be given; as to be wholly regardless of the happiness of the women—the law, in all cases, going upon a false supposition of the supremacy of a man, and giving all power into his hands.”

Source "Married Women's Property Acts in the United States." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web.

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Education Reform• Women’s rights and abolition were joined by education reform as

significant social and political changes in the 1800s

• In education, women were seen “as the paragon of moral virtue” and “their role was defined as being moral and loving teachers

• teachers in the school system were predominantly women

Source: Hoffberger, Courtney. Nineteenth Century Reform Movements: Women’s Rights

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Education• While men were expected to handle "worldly affairs" and thereby required both

reading and writing skills, women were often only required to learn to read so as to ensure religious scholarship. This educational disparity between reading and writing explains why colonial women often could read but not write or sign their names.

• tax supported schooling for girls began as early as 1767 in New England

• women’s colleges were founded during the mid-and late 19th century in response to a need for advanced education for women at the time when they were not admitted to most institutions of higher education

• the first mixed sex Institute of higher education in the United States was over Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, which was established in 1833.v

Source: Boundless. “Women and Education.” US History to 1877. Boundless, 21 Jul. 2015.

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The First Degree

Catherine Brewer becomes the first woman to earn a bachelor's degree, graduating from Wesleyan College in Macon, Ga. July 16, 1840

Helen Magill becomes the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in Greek at Boston University in 1877

Source: "Historic Firsts in Women's Education in the United States." US News. U.S.News & World Report, 11 Mar. 2009. Web.

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Workforce & Economy

• In 1870, women were 15% of the total workforce, primarily as factory workers, teachers, dressmakers, milliners, and tailors.

• women of influential status within their communities could have their feelings heard.

• The increase of women in the labor force of gained momentum in the late 19th century. At this point women married early on and were defined by their marriages. If they entered the workforce, it was only out of necessity.

Source: "Married Women's Property Acts in the United States." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web.

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Wage Wars• Lowell's Boston Manufacturing Company

dominated the textile industry in the United States in the 1820s, developing efficient and novel systems of labor and production. Lowell popularized use of the wage laborer when someone sells their labor to an employer under contract

• Following attempts on the part of management to reduce wages, the Lowell Mill Girls, a group of female textile workers in Lowell, Massachusetts, actively participated in early labor reform in the 1830s and 1840s . They distributed legislative petitions, formed labor organizations, contributed essays and articles to pro-labor newspapers and protested through turn-outs or strikes .

Boundless. “Factories, Working Women, and Wage Labor.” US History to 1877. Boundless, 21 Jul. 2015

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Women as Consumers• Manufactured clothing became widely available because of the Civil War. the need

to produce uniforms for the army was in high demand. Women often were the majority sewers

• The manufacturers of sewing machines realized the potential of the home customer and devised time payment plans and trade-in allowances to finance purchases

• By the 1870s, paper patterns, advertised in or sold along with women’s magazines like Godey Lady’s Book and Leslies Illustrated, brought international fashion to even to faraway frontier homes and standardized women’s clothing even before it was mass produced.

(Source: Hartman, Dorothy W. "Lives of Women." - Conner Prairie Interactive History Park. Web.)

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Economic impacts

• During the second half of the nineteenth century, women gained economic

rights related to property, child custody, and divorce

• During the earlytwentieth century, political rights were extended to women

• Women gained full equality in the labor market and improved rights over their own body

Source: Doepke, Matthias, Alessandra Voena, and Michele Tertilt. The Economics and Politics of Women’s Rights. Northwestern. Web.

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Economic Issues

• The Women in Lowell Massachusetts formed the female labor reform Association to advocate for the 10 hour workday.

• Sarah Bagley was the organizations first president. Under her leadership they

convince the Massachusetts legislator to conduct the first investigation into labor conditions by governmental body in the United States.

Source: O'connor, Karen. Gender and Women's Leadership: A Reference Handbook, Volume 1. Print.

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Works Cited1. Boles, John B. “The history Engine” Historyengine.com2. Boundless. “Women and Church Governance.” Boundless U.S. History. Boundless, 21 Jul. 2015.3. Boundless. “Women and Education.” US History to 1877. Boundless, 21 Jul. 2015.4. Doepke, Matthias, Alessandra Voena, and Michele Tertilt. The Economics and Politics of Women’s Rights. Northwestern. Web.5. Haas, J. (2016, March 7). US History to 1877. Retrieved from US History to 1877: https://www.boundless.com/reader/textbooks/6149/6. Hartman, Dorothy W. "Lives of Women." - Conner Prairie Interactive History Park. Web.7. Historic Firsts in Women's Education in the United States." US News. U.S.News & World Report, 11 Mar. 2009. Web8. Hoffberger, Courtney. Nineteenth Century Reform Movements: Women’s Rights9. Lewis, Jone. "1848: Women Finally Win Property Rights After Marriage." About.com Education. 1 Dec. 2014. Web10. Maclean, Maggie. “Civil War Women. 1 Apr. 2014. web11. Married Women's Property Acts in the United States." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web12. Moore, Crystal. "Lecture on The Role of Women in Early America.” YouTube, 2014. Web.13. O’Connor, Karen. Gender and Women's Leadership: A Reference Handbook, Volume 1. Print.