8.3 Women and ReformOBJECTIVES:1. Explain why women’s opportunities were limited in the mid-1850s

2. Identify the reform movements women participated in

3. Describe the progress of the expanding women’s rights movement

Women’s Roles in the mid-1800’s

• “Cult of domesticity” = idea that after marriage, women should stay at home

• teacher, servant, or seamstress

• **1850 • 1 in 10 women worked outside the home• paid only ½ as much as men

• Women are inspired by the reform movements arising from the 2nd Great Awakening

Temperance Movement• Excessive use of alcohol was widespread in the 1800’s.

• Why??

• Women led the early movements to limit or ban the use of alcohol by founding temperance societies.

• **FYI: The first prohibition of alcohol was passed by the state of Maine in 1851.

Education for Women Sarah and Angelina Grimke led the way

not only in abolition, but also education for women.

1821: Emma Willard founds one of the nation’s first schools for girls in Troy, NY.

1834: Canterbury, Connecticut - first attempt at desegregation-town forces it to close

Women and Health Reform

Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, M.D. was nations first female doctor

Catherine Beecher Conducted a study of women’s health in the 1850’s.¾ of women were ill due to ○ poor hygiene○ lack of exercise○ corsets/clothing fashions.

Amelia Bloomer: invented “Bloomers,” or pants for women.

WOMEN’S RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Seneca Falls Convention

Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton

1848 “Declaration of Sentiments,” Seneca Falls, NY “all men and women are

created equal,”

Sojourner Truth –

African-American female Abolitionist challenged prejudice against

women and African-Americans.

Seneca Falls Declaration – 1848 (abridged)

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon the institution of a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness….

Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half the people of this country, their social and religious degradation--in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of the United States.

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Sojourner Truth (1797-1883): Ain't I A Woman?Delivered 1851Women's Convention, Akron, Ohio

Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Women’s Changing Roles

Women address gender inequity