The Beginnings of the Women’s Rights Movement

1. The Beginnings of the Women’s Rights Movement Based on yesterday’s discussion what does this cartoon suggest about the role of women in 1800’s society? What is the difference in the cartoon on the top and the one on the bottom?

2. What was the role of women in society prior to 1800? • Women could not vote • Women could not hold public office • Women could not serve on juries • Few women received a higher education • Women could not work in most trades or professions

3. What was the role of women in society prior to 1800? • When they did work, women were paid less than men doing the same jobs, and their fathers or husbands often took what money they did earn • Married women lost legal control of any money or property they owned before marriage to their husbands.

4. What was the role of women in society prior to 1800? • Married women could not testify against their husbands in court, sue for divorce, or gain custody of their children

5. What was happening in the early 1800’s that caused a desired shift in women’s role? • The Second Great Awakening led women to take on more active roles in public life.

6. What was happening in the early 1800’s that caused a desired shift in women’s role? • Women Enter the workplace • New mills and factories needed workers and women answered the call.

7. What was happening in the early 1800’s that caused a desired shift in women’s role? • Many urban middle-class northern women begin to hire poor women to do their housework. • Allows the middle-class women more time to think about the society in which they wanted to raise their children

8. Social Issues of the 1800’s • Abolition • There are parallels to the rights of slaves and the rights of women. • The issue of slavery becomes an Ah-ha moment for women.

9. “It's a matter of taking the side of the weak against the strong, something the best people have always done.” ― Harriet Beecher Stowe Women shared the same “lack of power” and “lack of rights” like slaves

10. “The investigation of the rights of the slave has led me to a better understanding of my own…Human beings have rights, because they are moral beings…If rights are founded on the nature of our moral being, then the merecircumstanceof sex does not give to man higher rights and responsibilities, than to woman.”– Angelina Grimké

11. What did the women’s rights movement aim to achieve? • The women’s rights movement worked for two things: • Greater rights for women • Opportunities for women

12. Social Issues of the 1800’s • Temperance • How did male use of alcohol affect women?

13. Two women that begin to call for change Lucretia Mott Elizabeth Cady Stanton

14. Seneca Falls Convention

15. Seneca Falls Convention

16. The Declaration of Sentiments • The document was modeled in the same language as the Declaration of Independence • It was ridiculed • The convention itself resulted in few concrete improvements in women’s rights… • But it marked the beginning of the Women’s rights movement in the United States

17. Key ladies in the early women’s rights movement Margaret Fuller A transcendentalist that believed women’s powers of intellect were equal to those of men. Any woman should be able to pursue any career they choose. She believed what women needed was “as a soul to live freely and unimpeded.”

18. Key ladies in the early women’s rights movement Amelia Bloomer A young woman inspired by the Seneca Falls convention. She published a newspaper, The Lily. She advocated for equality of women in all things; including the right to wear pants!

19. Key ladies in the early women’s rights movement Susan B. Anthony Anthony would help lead the charge to win a single, critical right for women: the right to vote!