Gilded Age Flashcards
13%
Position in 1865 economic
economically- work was extension of domestic duty hence only 13% of women working, typically unmarried domestic servants, increasingly in factories thought with industrialisation
-married women practically barred from work and education (male-only colleagues)
abolitionlists
Position in 1865 political
abolitionist feminists Mott, Stanton and Anthony, working on reform as early as here, black men however often abandoned the vote in fear it would weaken their movement
vote in some states e’g Kentucky but usually widowed women
vote seen as unnatural distraction from domestic duties. however 4 states had allowed the vote by this point
westward
Position in 1865 cultural
westward expansion drove many female homesteaders into squalid poverty, many dying in childbirth
education controls over the number of admitted and allowed to graduate
amendments
1870
14th (1868) and 15th amendment is passed specifying that all ‘men’ have the right to vote, aggravation to feminists
more militant supreme
est. in 1869
NWSA (suffrage campaign comes into full swing later)
Stanton and Anthony focussed on equal pay and voting rights for white-only females
took more militant approach, voting and being fined for electoral malpractice
AA and state
est. in 1869
AWSA
Lucy Stone, keeps alliance with abolitionists and takes state-level approach campaigning for AA vote for men and women
state matter
1875 Minor v. Happersett
SC ruling that women’s voting rights was a state matter, those states who decided not to enfranchise women, are still constitutionally valid.
so more state-level approach pursued
1890 NWASA
merge but struggle to gain mainstream support particularly in comparison to the support the temperance movement was continuing to garner (only half the amount of support)
Catt takes over as Pres. in 1900 and begins more aggressive lobbying, state by state successes, clear racist undertones in the organisation and radical branch offs e’g Alice Paul suffragette splintering in movement who took Pankhurst approach
although by 1915 had 100,000 this was halve of that in the temperance movement
organisatiosn and who leads them
Temperance
first mass women’s movement WCTU lead by emotive orator who brought the issue of temperance close to the home Willard, soon pressure groups 7,000 branches and 150,000 members
against mainly white MC women, socially acceptable political involvement and reason to have franchise, skills gained undercut passive role. said to use funding from white supremacist organisations
1873 Comstock Laws
when is it overturned too
sale, disruption and information about contraceptive made illegal, poorer women backstreet abortions
1965 SC overturns this law declaring the right to contraception
AA effots
NACW est. 96
black women forming women’s clubs to speak of the prejudice faced as black and female, campaigned for franchise but AA CR was forefront of the campaign. Ida B Wells was key member speaking out about lynching and writing in newspapers ‘The Free Speech’
Hull House
est 89. Jane Addams social centre for newly immigrant families child support
attracted host of mc women wanting to work in social reform by 95 50 settlement houses working to lobby politicians on slum housing and its evils and provides hubs for trade unions to meet too
white label
NCL est 99
est. by Kelley est. outside social sphere to deal with women increasingly in industrial environment
pushing for protective legislation and minimum wage for women esp in sweatshop labour and children
government provided childcare too pushed for (this is a really important connection, link to this Shirely Chisholm childcare bill vetoed in 70s)
awarded NCL White Label for meeting expected safety standards and boycott those companies who don’t
movement outside trad sphere and successfully campaigns against child labour and gives women minimum wage
Position by c1900
economic urbanisation
-no. of unmarried women working trebled since 1870, white mc women finding more lucrative work
1 million now secretaries, 4 x as many women in the workforce than in 1865
-AA and immigrant women taking their abandoned jobs, laissez-faire gov. policy meant subject to squalid conditions 70 hours for $5 confined in sweatshops
-only 2% of 17% working unionised
Position by c1900 Women in trade unions
AFL all out rejected in fear it would encourage their cheap labour, into jobs not fit for them but KOL advocate for women unionised and by 86 have 10,000 female members
Collar laundry union est too showing women setting up own unions, successfully struck for a minimum wage
WTUL formed in 1903 but men continually monopolised the national TU movement
