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The Women's Movement in American History: Changing Public/Private Relations

Explore the changing dynamics of public/private relations in the women's movement in American history, including the waves of activism, relation to other movements, decreasing fertility rates, increasing literacy, and the expansion of rights talk. Delve into the major strands that fed into the first wave, such as women's clubs, the abolition movement, birth control movement, labor movement, and suffrage movement.

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The Women's Movement in American History: Changing Public/Private Relations

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  1. The women’s movement in American historybyKathy E. Ferguson [note: green font = correspondence to specific standards] Central themes: 1. changing public/private relations 2. relation of individual activists to social movements

  2. Overview of causes (which are also effects): Look for contradictions in women’s life conditions, which generate tensions and opportunities Changing public/private relation: • What kind of work do women do? • Where do they do it?

  3. “Waves” of the women’s movement: individuals and groups • First wave: 1940s-1920 • Second wave: 1960s-1980s • Third wave – 1990s-present

  4. Relation to other movements: • Abolition movement (first wave) • civil rights movement (second wave) • global human rights movements (third wave)

  5. Fertility rates decreasing: • In 1800: • typical American woman had 7 – 8 live births during her lifetime (higher for blacks and immigrants); • average life expectancy was about 40 years (lower for blacks and immigrants) • In 2000: • typical American woman had slightly more than 2 live births during her lifetime (higher for blacks and immigrants) • average life expectancy was about 75 years (lower for blacks and immigrants).[1] [1]Michael Haines, “Fertility and Mortality in the United States,” E.H. Net 10/2/04 http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/haines.demography, accessed 6/8/11.

  6. Literacy increasing • American women had highest literacy rates of all women in the world in early 19th century • By 1900 – 4 out of 5 U.S. colleges accepted women • 2010 – one half to two third of bachelor’s degrees conferred upon women, across racial and class lines

  7. Power • 1. power over: the ability to make people do what they would not otherwise do • 2. power with: the ability to enable people to do what they could not otherwise do

  8. Expansion of “rights talk” (democratic values) • “Contagious” – “all men are created equal” • When do people rebel: rising expectations • Grounds for authority - legitimacy

  9. Major strands feeding into the first wave: • Women’s clubs • Abolition movement • Birth control movement • Labor movement • Suffrage movement

  10. Women’s clubs • segregated literary and civic clubs • early roles: “universities for middle aged women” - self-improvement for women denied higher education • later roles: community development and political reform • projects included workplace safety, public libraries, kindergartens, playgrounds; suffrage, anti-lynching campaign

  11. General Federation of Women’s Clubs (founded 1890) • Jane Cunningham Croly • Ella Dietz Klymer • Julie Ward Howe • Lizze Crozier French • May Mann Jennings

  12. National Association of Colored Women (founded 1896) • Ida B. Wells-Barnett • Harriet Tubman • Frances E.W. Harper • Mary Church Terrell • Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin

  13. Abolition • Anti-slavery societies: women learned how to do politics • Grounding in Quaker, Unitarian or Universalist religions: spiritual equality of all souls • Learned to use skills on behalf of racial politics that they were then forbidden from using for sex/gender politic • Uneasy alliance: pressures to disconnect racial justice from gender justice to appease the south.[1] • [1] “African American Women and the Suffrage Movement,” Teaching Tolerance, n.d. http://www.tolerance.org/activity/african-american-women-and-suffrage-move, accessed 6/8/11.

  14. Abolition • Frederick Douglass • Angelica and Sarah Grimke • Sojourner Truth • Ida B. Wells-Barnett • Harriet Tubman

  15. Ida B. Wells-Barnett1862-1931

  16. Ida B. Wells-Barnett • Born in Mississippi • Parents were slaves • Journalist, editor and orator • 1884 – she refused to give up her seat on a train for white passengers; won her case in local circuit court, was overturned in Tennessee Supreme Ct. • Documented lynching

  17. Birth control movement • Abstinence model • Comstock laws – prohibited sending information about birth control or “obscenity” through the mails, 1873-1936. • 1917 – Birth Control League; became Planned Parenthood in 1942.

  18. Birth control • Margaret Sanger • William Sanger • Emma Goldman

  19. Labor - changing private/public relations • 1824 – first strike of 102 women workers, Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in support of brother weavers • 1825 – first women’s union – United Tailoresses of N.Y.C. • 1845 – Female Labor Reform Association, Lowell, Massachusetts, female cotton mill workers • 1881 – 3000 black women laundry workers strike, Atlanta, Georgia • 1909 – “Uprising of the 20,000,” female garment workers strike, New York city • 1909 –creation of NAACP, supported strikers at Triangle Shirt Waist Factory, helped keep out strike breakers • 1912 -Triangle Shirt Waist Co. fire • 1941 – 7 million women enter the paid work force, 2 million in heavy industry • 1969 – 550 black women hospital workers strike, Charleston, South Carolina. • [1] “Women's Labor History Timeline: 1765 - Present Day,” New York Teacher, March 3, 2009http://www.nysut.org/newyorkteacher_12304.htm, accessed 6/8/11.

  20. Labor • Pullman strikes -Jennie Curtis • Women’s Trade Union League • Eleanor Roosevelt • Mary McDowell • Mary Kenney O’Sullivan • Socialism and Anarchism • Emma Goldman – anarchism (“Traffic in Women,” p 179) • Rose Pesota (International Ladies Garment Workers Union, anarchism) • Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (Industrial Workers of the World, Communist Party) • Mother Jones (IWW, United Mine Workers, Socialist Party) • Maida Springer (ILGWU, NAACP, Urban League

  21. Emma Goldman(1869-1940)

  22. Emma Goldman • Born in Kovno, Lithuania • Parents were Russian Jews • Immigrated to U.S. in 1885 • Anarchist writer, orator, organizer: • Labor • Birth control • Free speech • Anti war • Political prisoners • Traffic in women (p. 179)

  23. Suffrage (authority and power; rights; citizenship) • Anti-slavery convention, London, 1840 • Seneca Falls Convention, 1848 – Declaration of Sentiments (p. 1-2) • National Women Suffrage Association and American Women Suffrage Association formed, 1868 • Merged into National American Women Suffrage Association, 1890 – seek state by state amendments, legal strategies • National Women’s Party, 1913 - seek federal amendment, civil disobedience • World War I – 1914-1918 • 19th Amendment • Passed by Congress – 1919 • Ratified by states - 1920

  24. Suffrage • Elizabeth Cady Stanton • Susan B. Anthony • Alice Paul • Lucretia Mott • Lucy Stone • Edna Purtell

  25. Elizabeth Cady Stanton1815-1902

  26. Elizabeth Cady Stanton • Born in Johnstown, New York • Father was an attorney • Educated in Johnstown Academy and Troy Female Seminary • Writer, orator, and organizer • Wrote Declaration of Sentiments • Abolitionist, religious critic, temperance advocate, birth control, marriage and family law

  27. Other threads: • Temperance movement • Spiritualist movement • Settlement house movement • Sex radicals

  28. Some consequences of the women’s movements • More women in public life • Education • Politics • Paid employment • Entrepreneurs • Religion • Not many more men in private labor

  29. No “resolution” but ongoing negotiations • Continuing contradiction – double day • Individual upward mobility vs. collective change • “Rights talk” still contagious • gay/lesbian/transgender/bisexual • Children • Nature

  30. Women’s liberation connected with men’s and children’s: • “No people are ever elevated above the condition of their females.” • Martin R. Delany, The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States (1852) • “A nation is not defeated until the hearts of its women are on the ground.” • Cheyenne saying

  31. Women’s liberation/human liberation • “Regardless of all political and economic theories, treating of the fundamental differences between various groups within the human race, regardless of class and race distinctions, regardless of all artificial boundary lines between woman's rights and man's rights, I hold that there is a point where these differentiations may meet and grow into one perfect whole….Peace or harmony between the sexes and individuals does not necessarily depend on a superficial equalization of human beings; nor does it call for the elimination of individual traits and peculiarities. The problem that confronts us today, and which the nearest future is to solve, is how to be one's self and yet in oneness with others, to feel deeply with all human beings and still retain one's own characteristic qualities.” • Emma Goldman, The Tragedy of Women’s Emancipatiom

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