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Chapter 9. Section 3 The Movement for Women’s Rights. Private Roles for Women. As industrialization and urbanization took hold in the US, women in the North felt the impact
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Chapter 9 Section 3The Movement for Women’s Rights
Private Roles for Women • As industrialization and urbanization took hold in the US, women in the North felt the impact • Many lower-class women took jobs in factories. Middle-class women were freed from chores such as growing their own food and making their own clothes • Most people thought middle-class women should spend their energy raising and education their children, entertain guests, serve their husbands, do community service and engage in at-home activities (quilting) • Men were expected politics, law and public speaking
Private Roles for Women • There were strict legal restrictions for women including being denied the right to vote, in most states married women could not own property, make a will, they could not keep money earned (it was given to a husband or father) • Catharine Beecher tried to win respect for women as wives, mothers and teachers • Catharine and her sister Mary Beecher created the Hartford Female Seminary • While teaching, Catharine began to write books that lobbied for the education of women
Public Roles for Women • As women became educated, they grew eager to apply their knowledge and skills beyond the home • The religious revivals and reform helped heighten women’s sense of potential and power • Women played a prominent role in nearly every avenue of reform • Due to this, many northern middle-class women became more conscious of their inferior position in society • The battle to end slavery was the primary means by which women emerged into the public world of politics
Public Roles for Women • There were parallels between enslaved African Americans and women – neither could vote, hold office, and both were denied full rights as citizens • Many men were very dissatisfied with women’s position in the movement • The World Anti-Slavery Convention voted to prohibit women from participating • This angered two women- Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cody Stanton who later organized a convention on women’s rights
Turning Point: Seneca Falls Convention • The Seneca Falls Convention was the first women’s rights convention in the United States • At the convention Stanon wrote and presented a historic set of resolutions called the Declaration of Sentiments (much like the Declaration of Independence) • The convention passed 12 resolutions by 68 women and 32 men, they protested the lack of legal and political rights for women • The ninth resolution was very controversial – it called for women’s suffrage (right to vote) • The convention did not trigger an avalanche of women’s rights – most Americans thought women should influence public affairs through their work in the home
Turning Point: Seneca Falls Convention • No African American women attended the convention- slavery was a more pressing issue