Wk5 as1 bergeron-hebert

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

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)

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)

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

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

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

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 property
Moore, Crystal. "Lecture on The Role of Women in Early
America.” YouTube, 2014. Web.

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

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)

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)

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.)

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)

Photo: Getty Images
How Did It Start?

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)

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

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)

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)

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)

• 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

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)

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)

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)

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)

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.)

Economic impacts
• During the second half of the nineteenth
century, women gained economic
rights related to property, child custody, and divorce
• During the early
twentieth 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.

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.

Works Cited
1. Boles, John B. “The history Engine” Historyengine.com
2. 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. Web
8. Hoffberger, Courtney. Nineteenth Century Reform Movements: Women’s Rights
9. Lewis, Jone. "1848: Women Finally Win Property Rights After Marriage." About.com Education. 1 Dec. 2014. Web
10. Maclean, Maggie. “Civil War Women. 1 Apr. 2014. web
11. Married Women's Property Acts in the United States." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web
12. 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.

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