Women Flashcards
How the changing economy affected women’s lives in the Gilded Age
Growth of manufacturing industry, increase in unmarried women going to work - 13% in 1870, 17% in 1900 went to
work
Invention of typewriter and telephone provided job opportunities for women
By 1900 - 949,000 women worked as teachers, secretaries, librarians and telephone operators
Mostly benefited white women, Hispanic, European and African American women got low-paid factory jobs as white women moved into their new jobs
Effects on the ideal of home and family
Middle-class women had easier lives due to innovations such as fridges, washing machines and commercial laundries.
Birth rate fell - 1850: 5.42 children, 1900: 3.56 children
More free time available - able to support their children’s education
Changes in women’s education
By 1900 half of all high school graduates were female
The late 19th Century saw an expansion in opportunities for women in higher education
Over half of female graduates delayed marriage to look for a career
30% of AAs graduated high school in 1914 compared to 10% in 1870
Rise in divorce rate by 1900
Employment demographic changes
Between 1880 and 1900 - 2.6m women employed to 8.6m women employed
By 1920 50% of all clerical workers were women; in 1880 only 4% had been women
Companies sought to hire women who ahd taken trade-school courses in typing and shorthand
Jane Addams and Hull House
Established Hull House in Chicago in 1889
Social centre to support newly arrived immigrant families - men helped to find jobs and day nurseries provided for working women
English classes
50 settlement houses established across the USA by 1895
Women’s Christian Temperance Union, WCTU
Middle-class organisation
Promote women’s suffrage and to combat the evils of drinking, 1874
1880 - 27,000 members
1920 - 800,000 members
Frances Willard (2nd President)
End of the 19th Century 7,000+ branches in the USA
National Consumers’ League
Established in 1899 by a group of women associated with Hull House
Wanted fair working conditions for women and children
Safety, reasonable working hours and fair pay
Awarded a white label to companies who agreed, consumers urged to boycott companies without the white label
Florence Kelley
National Association of Coloured Women
Established in 1896 by educated black women
Wanted female suffrage and campaigned to stop lynching, to end discrimination and to improve educational opportunities
By 1918 it had a membership of 300,000
Ida B. Wells was a key figure
Contribution of women to the 18th Amendment (prohibition)
Middle-class women’s groups such as the WCTU
1893 formation of the Anti-Saloon League (ASL)
Lobbying tactics - by 1913 nine states had enacted prohibition laws
1917 - twenty-six states
Amendment passed by Congress in 1917 and ratified by 1919
Nativism also a factor - people against German beer
Weak opposition - not united or organised enough
Change in women’s attitudes to prohibition
Growth of organised crime
More money spent by men on alcohol than before
Violence prevalent
Women’s Organisation for National Prohibition Reform founded in 1929.
1931 - 1.5m members
Similar methods to those used by the WCTU (lobbying etc.)
Prohibition ended by the end of 1933 (21st Amendment)
What did the temperance and repeal campaigns achieve for women and what issues did it illustrate?
Showed that women could have real political power and influence
Divisions within the movement (for or against prohibition) held back women
Protection of the home clearly continued to be the issue that concerned most Americans
Women’s suffrage organisations
American Woman Suffrage Association - 1869, Lucy Stone
National Women’s Suffrage Association - 1869, Susan Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton
Both split from American Equal Rights Association over the 15th Amendment
Merged in 1890 to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), divisions still caused weakness in the movement
Impact on the First World War on women
3m more women working than in 1865
More women working in heavy industries and transport
30,000 women worked directly in the armed forces
Government extended opportunities for clerical work
Many women still continued in traditional work
Wages rose but they were still unequal to men and had to give up their jobs once the war was over
Was WWI a turning point for women (YES arguments)
3m more women employed than in 1865
More women heavy indusrty
1918 - 5 states gave women the vote, including New York
19th Amendment passed by Congress in 1920
Industrial expansion gave increased opportunities
11,000 women served in the navy
Was WWI a turning point for women (NO arguments)
Most work was still in traditional roles
Short-term only (many women left their new roles after the war)
Wages were not equal between men and women
Little attempt to provide childcare support
Didn’t change the role of married women much
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Key leader of the NWSA
Worked with Susan B Anthony to create a reform programme to improve women’s rights and advocate for female suffrage
Campaigned for the Divorce Law and the rights to property for women
Alice Paul
Radical leader and co-founder of the Congressional Union for Women’s Suffrage, later the National Women’s Party
Campaigned for the vote, influenced by the UK suffragist movement
Later advocated for equality internationally
Lucy Stone
Founder of the AWSA
Key founder of the National Women’s rights convention
Against slavery
Susan B Anthony
Quaker Opposed to slavery Founded NWSA Led NAWSA in 1890 Arrested for attempting to vote in 1872
Was the 19th Amendment a turning point for women (YES arguments)
Some groups could now concentrated on specific social reforms such as legislation to regulate working hours
African American women such as Mary Talbert used the vote as a springboard to get involved with politics, campaigning for an end to lynching
Feminist groups used it to start campaigns for the ERA
Triumph for middle-class women who had campaigned for the vote
Was the 19th Amendment a turning point for women (NO arguments)
Some states already had the vote (Wyoming 1869, Utah 1870)
19th Amendment did not give immigrant women the vote
Surveys showed that married women voted in the same way as their husbands
Working class women were not interested in the vote, to busy struggling to get by
By 1918, 20 states had already given women the vote
African American women could not vote as they faced racial discrimination
Was the 1920s a time for change for women (YES arguments)
Economic - more women in work & better educated women
Social - educational improvement, relaxing of traditional attitudes (flapper girls), more liberal fashion (shorter skirts), contraception more widespread
Political - women’s workers’ rights legislation passed, women’s committees, women became more active in politics
Was the 1920s a time for change for women (NO arguments)
Economic - still discrimination, 28% of female workforce in textiles or domestic industry, unmarried women in work, still expected to run the home, entrenched traditional attitudes
Social - more conservative areas (e.g. the South) restricted women, poorer women couldn’t afford the new fashion, limited birth control, men unwilling to use condoms
Single, young women in the 1920s
Flappers Sexually liberated More independence Going out more 25% of all women worked, likely to be this group
Married women in the 1920s
Birth control was good - sexual liberation Coeducational universities More uniformity Reinforced traditional role of marriage Advertisements targeted married women Still limited by their gender
Minority women
Hardships for rural and working class women
Wages paid to their husbands in agriculture
Racist attitudes
Set up own unions
Struggled for leadership
Summer schools for women workers
Eleanor Roosevelt
Fought for equal rights Feminist New Deal - lobbied for relief programmes to include provisions for women, states required to hire a full-time woman to work on the woman's programme Frances Perkins - Sec. for Labour Met with AAs to advance their rights
Women and the depression
Increased resentment towards women taking “men’s jobs”
Women accused of working for “pin money”
1936 Gallup poll - 82% of people said that women should not work
End of the 1930s number of married women in work had increased from 11.7% to 15.6%
Male trade unionists failed to include female workers
26 states introduced laws prohibiting married women from working
Women and the New Deal
Focus on white males
Social Security Act aid (Aid to Dependent Children) sometimes only paid to white families, hurting AA women but helped other women
Working discrimination against women from minorities
1930 - 10m women paid worked
1940 - 13m+
Social Security amendments of 1939 excluded widowed, divorced and unmarried women with children
WWII was a huge benefit to women (YES arguments)
Creation of women’s groups in the army
Lack of teachers - withdrawal of prohibitions on the employment of married women
Pentagon employed 35,000 new clerical workers
Child care centres set up
Wished to retain jobs after the war
More economic independence
WWII was a huge benefit to women (NO arguments)
Short-term - 2m women fired from heavy industry in 1946 and 800,000 women lost their jobs in the first 2 months after the war ended
Most women worked in clerical and supply areas or as nurses
Army prohibited the enlistment of women with children, persecuted lesbians and segregated AA women
Women only hired in light industry, heavy work left for men
Blue collar jobs still reluctant to hire women
Significance of the ‘baby boom’
Rapid increase in birth rate after 1945
Federal government loans for mortgages led to the expansion of the suburbs
Levittown - homes for 80,000 families
Car sales grew - indication of USA’s wealth
Suburban housewife ideal created
Economic problems women faced in the 1960s
1960 - 23m women in the workforce, up from 18m in 1940 yet still most were not in work
Only 30% of married women had a paid job in 1960
Women earned 57% of what men earned
Feminists identified the issue of unpaid work, e.g. childcare - “double shift” if they worked and looked after the children
Feminists campaigned for an Equal Rights Act that would outlaw sexual discrimination in terms of hiring and pay
Female identity in the 1960s
Radical feminists argued that women’s identity had been defined by men
Betty Friedan’s ‘The Feminine Mystique’ (1963) - women’s lives focused on their husbands and children.
Friedan wanted better education and involvement in work for women to forge a new identity
Kennedy and Johnson
Feminist lobbying - Presidential Commission on the Status of Women
1963 Equal Pay Act
Democratic Congressman, Howard Smith proposed an amendment to the 1964 Civil Rights Act to outlaw sexual administration as well as racial discrimination
Government refused to enforce the aspect (Title VII) of the act which protected women
Wage gap wider in 1969 than it had been in 1963
National Organisation for Women (NOW) formed in response to lack of government action
Why feminism grew in the 1960s
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) began excluding white members - looked for other issues
Women played a key role in the civil rights movement and were inspired to become politically active
The New Left was male-dominated
National Organisation for Women (NOW)
Founded in 1966 by Betty Friedan
Aimed to “bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society…in a truly equal partnership with men”
Developed out of the Kennedy Commission
Legal victories - Johnson’s Executive Order making sexual discrimination illegal, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission now willing to enforce Title 50 VIII, LBJ promised to appoint women to 50 top government posts and asked NOW to advise him on the appointments
Weeks Vs. Southern Bell (1967) - won case that showed she’d been discriminated against when a promotion had been given out. Set a precedent
Radical feminists in the 1960s
Originally members of NOW but felt they were not radical enough, e.g. Lesbian rights
Female separatism advocated by some
Protest against the Miss World pageant in 1968 - crowning a sheep Miss World
Impact of Roe Vs. Wade
Decision faced criticism on the basis of both ethics and legality
1976 Hyde Amendment - banned federal funding for abortion
Mobilised Evangelical Christians and the Catholic Church who had previously not been involved in politics
Pro-life organisations, e.g. National Right to Life Committee, sprung up
Political impact of Roe Vs. Wade
Success of Ronald Reagan and Bush Snr - both strongly opposed to abortion
47% of women voted for Reagan in 1981
Reagan and Bush appointed anti-abortion Justices
Roe never overturned but its effects seriously mitigated due to the strength of religious and other pro-life movements
Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s
Anti-feminist backlash
ERA campaign began in the 1920s
Narrowly defeated in the Senate in 1947
Passed in 1972 - quickly made progress for ratification but slowed so that it never became an amendment
Organised opposition from the ‘New Right’ - Phyllis Schlafly
Opposition from radical feminists who felt it may undermine things such as maternity pay
Women in politics, 1969-1992
1968 - only 20 female candidates for Congress
1972 - Shirley Chisholm became the first black woman to campaign for presidential nomination
1990 - 78 female candidates for Congress (2 Senators)
1992 - significant increase in the numbers of women, 19/100 US cities had female mayors + 47 Representatives were women
1993 - only 7 female senators
Rural women in the Gilded Age
Populist Party such as Elizabeth Lease
Women’s National Indian Association for NA Rights - 1883
Women in work in the Gilded Age (figures)
1840 - 10% of women held jobs
1870 - 15% of women held jobs
1924 - 24% of women held jobs
2% of trade unionists were women in 1914
Margaret Sanger
Birth control clinic
New York
1917
Invented the term ‘birth control’
