Women’s SuffrageWomen’s Suffrage

Essential Questions

• How did ideas about women’s roles evolve throughout United States history, and what impact did these ideas have on women’s involvement in society?

• What were some different points of view regarding women’s political involvement in the 19th and early 20th centuries?

• How significant were the actions of individual women in the women’s suffrage movement? Why did these women become involved?

• What was the relationship between the women’s rights movement and other social movements of the 19th and 20th centuries?

• What lessons might we learn from the women’s suffrage movement to help solve societal problems today and in the future?

Women in Colonial Times: Indentured Servitude

• Most early colonial women came as indentured servants

• Required to work for several years

• Difficult labor• Frequently mistreated

A certificate of indenture

Women in Colonial Times:The Early Years

• Performed traditional household roles

• Partnered with their husbands in farm work

• Risked early death

• Typically remarried if widowed

• Legally inferior to men

Women in Colonial Times:The Second Generation and Beyond• Sons did more of

the farm work• New trades for men• Growth of towns

and cities• A return to more

traditional roles and less equality for women

Women in Colonial Times:Religious Attitudes

• Puritanism was dominant in New England

• women’s propensity toward “unacceptable” behavior

• The Salem Witch TrialsIllustration depicting the Salem Witch Trials

Women in the American Revolution

• Active support roles

• A few assumed military roles:

– Deborah Sampson

– Molly Corbin

– “Molly Pitcher”

• Mercy Otis Warren “Molly Pitcher” in action

Mary Wollstonecraft

• Argued in favor of equal education for women and men

• A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

• Felt women and men should be subject to the same moral expectations

• Often considered one of the earliest feminist writings

“Republican Motherhood”• Women’s new role to spread

republican values to their children

• Sons expected to grow up to be strong and virtuous leaders

• Daughters would grow up to raise similarly civic-minded children

• Early precursor to increased women’s education and women’s rights

Abigail Adams: “Remember the Ladies”

• Letter to her husband, John Adams

• Asked him to “Remember the Ladies” in the new laws of the land

• Consistent with “Republican Motherhood”