3A. Women in the USA

Question 1

What was the 19th Amendment, when was it passed and what did it entail?

Answer 1

The 19th Amendment, ratified on the 18th August 1920, gave women the vote under the same state rules as men.

Question 2

What did the 1920 League of Women Voters seek to achieve? How was voting for women limited?

Answer 2

The 1920 League of Women Voters created voter registration drives to encourage women to vote.

However, many poorer women did not vote, especially black women in the deep South, or they voted the way their husband told them to. It was mainly towards educated white women that the vote made a significant change.

Question 3

When was the Womens Bureau of Labour established, and to achieve what?

Answer 3

The Womens’ Bureau of Labour was established in 1920 to improve women’s working conditions and campaign for the wider employment of women.
Women suffered from prejudice in the workplace similar to black Americans - paid less, often ‘last hired, first fired’ etc.

Question 4

How did the number of working women increase between 1910 and 1940?

Answer 4

Between 1910 and 1940, the number of working women increased from 7.6 million (8.3% of the total population) to 13 million (9.8%).

Question 5

What were ‘Flappers’?

Answer 5

‘Flappers’ were women in the 1920s who dressed and behaved in manners more fitting to male gender expectations such as:

• Cutting their hair short
• Working (being employed)
• Wearing short dresses and silk stockings (more progressive clothing?)
• Smoking / drinking in public
• Attending male-dominated sports events without a male escort
• Visiting jazz clubs / speakeasies

Question 6

How did the New Deal impact women in comparison to men?

Answer 6

Although some services such as the Aid For Families with Dependent Children within the New Deal did seek to provide some benefit for the poorest families, the majority of unemployment policies favoured (white) men.

Question 7

How many men were employed in the Civilian Conservation Corps (1933-42), who did they target and what did their work consist of?

Answer 7

About 2.5 million men were employed by the Civilian Conservation Corps.

This programme targeted young men aged 17-23.
Their work consisted of replanting forests and digging reservoirs - they often lived onsite in army-run camps.

Question 8

How did Eleanor Roosevelt forward a similar policy to the Civilian Conservation Corps, and when was the first camp established?

Answer 8

Eleanor Roosevelt forwarded the creation of Camp Tera in 1933, funded largely by private donations, for unemployed women to work in forestry*.

On 30th April 1934, Eleanor Roosevelt held the White House conference for unemployed women; after this the camps were federally funded

By 1936, there were 36 camps taking about 5,000 women a year.

* Note that camps primarily focused on domestic work when implemented

Question 9

What were the limitations of the Eleanor’s camps?

Answer 9

They only took women for 2-3 months at a time, and provided neither work nor wages - they trained women in budget managment.

Question 10

How severe was racial and gender inequality during the New Deal?

Answer 10

For every $1 a white man earned:

• A white woman earned 63 cents,
• A black woman earned just 23 cents

Question 11

What was the role of the Housewives Leagues?

Answer 11

The Housewives Leagues, established by Fannie Peck in Detroit in 1930 and spreading across NE America, worked to encourage women to shop in black-run stores and to organise help for those in need, helping people on a small scale.

Question 12

What was the importance of childcare for mobilising mothers / married women to work in WW2?

Answer 12

• 1940 Selective Training and Service Act - prepared to draft men into the military and to train women to fill their places.

BUT

• Only 16% of married women worked in 1940 because of childcare problems
• 1941 Lanham Act extended childcare provision allowing married women to work - 130,000 children in day care by 1944
• Subsequently, the percentage of married women in the workforce rose from 16% to 23%

Question 13

How did the Women’s Land Army increase work in agriculture?

Answer 13

• The Women’s Land Army (formed in WW1) reformed to provide farm workers for the countryside.
• It held workshops, meetings, and even had its own publication, The Women’s Land Army Newsletter
• Though exact numbers are difficult due to illegal migrant labour and the number of women who simply took over their husband’s farm, the Labor Bureau gave a rough estimate of 3 million women working in agriculture

Question 14

How did black women gain increased skills during WW2, and what challenges faced them?

Answer 14

• Worker shortages meant black women could train for professions which they previously were barred from
• The number of black women on nursing courses increased from 1,100 in 1923 to 2,600 in 1945.

Question 15

What challenges did black women face during WW2?

Answer 15

• In some places, employers refused to employ black women on prejudices that they had sexually transmitted diseases
• In one Detroit rubber plant, white women refused to share WC facilities with black women.

Question 16

How did employment change for women after WW2?

Answer 16

• Once the war ended, many women were not reemployed by factories that changed from making war goods to other goods.
• About half of married women who worked during the war left work when it ended, either through choice, social pressure, or because federally-funded day cares closed in 1946.

Question 17

How was it easier for women to be employed after WW2?

Answer 17

• Not all men returned to their old jobs even if they did survive the war (GI bills guaranteed an education to returning soldiers)
• Restrictions on working women lifted during the war were rarely reinstated

War changed the attitudes of men towards working women

• In 1936, 82% of men said that married women should not work
• In 1942, this was only 13% (though it did raise to 38% by 1978)

Many women had acquired skills during the war and so wanted to keep on working.

Question 18

How rapidly did suburbs grow in the 1950s?

Answer 18

In 1960, 19 million more people lived in the suburbs than in 1950

Question 19

What changes did suburban living make, 1941-60?

Answer 19

• Restricted female role to household work
• Greater racial and economic segregation between communities (though some suburbs were intergrated)
• Advertising and media presented suburban life as something to aspire to, leaving only the poor (consisting disproportionately of ethnic minorities) in declining inner cities.

Question 20

According to the 1963 report from the Commission of Enquiry on the Status of Women, what problems did women still face?

Answer 20

• Women accounted for 1/3 workers but were discriminated against in access to training, work and promotion
• Women’s wages were uniformly lower, and minimum-wage regulations often did not apply to areas in which they worked e.g. hotel work and domestic work
• Not enough day care provision to allow married women to work effectively
• Girls not raised to consider careers nor higher education - 1958 Education Act said schools should have job counsellors to work with students, but there were too few (~12,000) and their advice did not consider needs and abilities of girls they counselled.

Question 21

How did Kennedy’s government seek to address gender inequality?

Answer 21

• 1960 - Presidential directive orders wider job opportunities for women in federal government.
• 1961 - Kennedy established a Commission of Enquiry on the Status of Women, publishing its results in 1963.
• 1963 Equal Pay Act passed.
• 1964 Civil Rights Act includes sexual equality as well as racial equality in its provisions.

Question 22

How did Betty Friedan’s book The Feminine Mystique, published in 1963, increase women’s civil rights action?

Answer 22

• Coverage of the constraints of suburban life and the problems of white, educated, married women encouraged women to reconsider their circumstances
• Controversy it prokoved ensured it was widely read and argued about, even on television
• This spurred on some women (educated, white, middle-class) to organise themselves and work more actively for women’s rights.

Question 23

What was the National Organisation for Women (NOW)?

Answer 23

• First and biggest national womens’ movement
• Established on 30 June 1966 with Betty Friedan as one of its founding members
• Aimed to work within the political system to get equality and better enforcement of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1963 Equal Pay Act.
• Aimed to persuade Congress to pass an Equal Rights Act through meetings, petitions and lobbying of politicians for change.
• Worked steadily for change, educating people and campaigning about problems whilst providing support and services for working women.

Question 24

Which demographic of women were most represented within more radical women’s liberation movements?

Answer 24

• White, middle-class, college educated women under 30
• Some had jobs, but often working at a lower level than the men they graduated with
• Many had also worked with black American civil rights movements such as the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) or Students for a Democratic Society (SDC) but often ignored due to sexist movement leaders.

Question 25

How was news from all the women’s liberation groups spread?

Answer 25

In March 1968, the Voice of the Women’s Liberation Movement was established.

• Run by volunteers, it increased from selling 200 copies in 1968 to 2,000 in 1969, but collapsed under the workload.
• However, it was an example for other magazines and news sheets to follow.

Question 26

On which points did both radical and moderate strands of the Women’s Liberation movement agree upon?

Answer 26

• Women were to have equal rights, opportunities and pay
• Women were have the right to use contraception, whether married or not, to choose to have an abortion and with whom to have sex.

Question 27

How did feminist groups work together?

Answer 27

Almost every feminist group from NOW to the National Coaltion of American Nuns participated in a women’s strike on 26th August 1970, the 50th anniversary of women recieving the vote.

Some went on demonstrations with slogans such as ‘Don’t Iron While the Strike Is Hot’

Their demands were:

• Equal opportunity in jobs and education
• Free, community-controlled childcare
• Free abortion on demand

Question 28

What were the effects of the 26th August 1970 women’s strike?

Answer 28

• Strike gave the movement more publicity - NOW membership increased by over 50% (part of an increase from 1,000 in 1967 to 40,000 in 1974)
• Brought the issue of women’s inequality to the public eye

Question 29

How did the women’s liberation movement create opposition?

Answer 29

• Conservatives of all kinds rejected the movement as ‘un-American’ on its abandoment of traditional roles.
• As the swing away from the liberalism of the 1960s began, demands for women’s liberation lost further support.
• Opponents had very different agendas - some supported civil rights action but not calls for free contraception and abortion.
• Others like Phyllis Schlafly objected to demands for an Equal Rights Act and set up a group called STOP ERA to camapign against it in 1972

Question 30

What gains did the women’s liberation movement make?

Answer 30

• In 1967, Johnson extended his executive order calling for affirmative action to improve employment conditions for federal employees discriminated against on the grounds of race, creed or colour to cover sexual discrimination as well.
• From 1970, a few states allowed for abortions in very tightly specified circumstances
• In 1972, the Supreme Court ruled on the Eisenstadt v Baird case allowing access to contraception for unmarried as well as married women
• Abortion was federally legalised on 22 January 1973 by a Supreme Court ruling in the case of Roe v Wade although there were rules about timing and health of the mother - (This has been overturned as of 24 June 2022)

Question 31

What were the limitations of the Women’s Liberation Movement?

Answer 31

22nd March 1972 = Equal Rights Act was finally passed as an amednment to the Constitution by Congress, with a deadline of 10 years for the ratification of the Act.

However, in 1982, 15 states continued to refuse to ratify the ERA (minimum 13), preventing it from becoming law. There still isn’t an Equal Rights Act.

• The USA also did not sign up to the 1979 UN policy of introducing non-discrimination against women in all aspects of life.
• The women’s liberation movement fragmented as working-class and non-white women set up their own campaign groups e.g. the Congress of Labor Union Women, the Mexican American Women’s Organisation and the National Alliance of Black Feminists.