Women Civil Rights Flashcards
Impact of Civil War on Women in work
Briefly offered opportunity for married women to work outside home.
Usually agricultural work in rural areas
Many worked as nurses, saw as extension of domestic duties of the home.
Women and Children in Workplace
1900- 4 million children working
1907- 30 states abolished child labour as a result of pressure from women’s groups
Growth of Industry effect on women
Civil war acted as catalyst in industrialisation.
By 1870- 13% unmarried women worked in domestic occupations or factories.
Married women did not change, barred from working outside house by policies of employers or state legislation.
Why were women angry at the 15th Amendment?
1870- campaigners for women’s suffrage angry that this right was not extended to include gender.
What precipitated the change in society for women in work?
Changing economy- development of manufacturing industry, big business and urbanisation.
Changing lifestyle of middle class married women- increasing availability of consumer goods that transformed home life.
Better education prospects
Separate Spheres
men and women, especially of the middle class, should have different roles in society: women as wives, mothers, and homemakers; men as breadwinners and participants in business and politics
% of women in total workforce in 1900?
17% of total workforce
What could unmarried women do in 1890s?
With a high school education they could go into offices of business enterprises, with the invention of typewriter and telephone.
How much could a women earn in clerical jobs?
$7 a week
How many women were working as teachers, secretaries, librarians and telephone operators in 1900 vs 1920?
1900- 949,000
1920- 3.4 million
What was the downside to this work though?
The expectation was at some point these women would marry and leave the workforce
Who replaced women in the factories as they worked white-collar jobs?
Young immigrant women- European, Hispanic, AA.
Used as cheap, unskilled workers, unprotected by legislation.
How many hours did it take immigrant female factory workers to earn $5?
70 hours
Change in home life of middle-class married women
Moved into suburbs bc of city transport systems
Houses had indoor plumbing, central heating, refrigerators, washing machines and commercial laundries.
Liberated the better off married women from daily domestic grind.
Birth rate in 1900 compared to 1850 in native white Americans?
1850- 5.42 children
1900- 3.56
Farming and immigrant families continued to be large
Did women go into work because of less strain in the house from housework and children?
No- less time spent on chores meant more time was available to spend with family and supporting child’s education.
Rise in divorce rate, 1880 and 1900
1880- 1 in 21
1900- 1 in 12
How many women made up high school graduates in 1900?
Half were female
Hull House, Chicago
1889- established by Jane Addams
Social centre to support the settlement of newly arrived immigrant families
Addams and fellow workers came to act as influential pressure group using politicians to address social issues, predominantly problem of slum housing
Temperance
Advocacy of drinking in moderation and avoidance of excess
Temperance for women movement
Women relentlessly demanded reform and showed themselves as a force to be reckoned with.
Saw it as threatening and undermining home and family life
Women’s Crusade
1873- first mass movement of US women demanding prohibition of the sale of alcohol
Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)
1874 by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton- mainly middle-class organisation partly to promote the cause of women’s suffrage but also to combat the evils of excessive drinking.
How many branches of the WCTU were there by the end of the 19th century?
7,000 in 52 states
What did Women’s Crusade and the WCTU do?
Active protest.
Thousands of women in Ohio took to the streets in 1873, they successfully closed the saloons and liquor outlets.
National Consumers’ League (NCL)
Pressure group established in 1899 by group of women associated with Hull House.
Focused attention on securing fair working conditions for women and children.
Pressure exerted by NCL
Pressure for the improvement in wages of female sales clerks
Pressure for protective legislation for women and children + improved work conditions
Pressure on state govt. to provide aid for mothers and improve facilities for kids + adolescents
National Association of Colored Women (NACW)
1896- led by educated black women. Focused on the achievement o the vote for women but also campaigned to stop lynching and discrimination and to improve educational opportunities
Membership of NACW in 1915 and 1918
1915- 50,000
1918- 300,000
What was the impact of black women’s clubs?
More directly concerned with their rights and equality.
Suffered from racial prejudice on top of gender discrimination.
Heightened concern for acquisition of civil rights as well as social issues.
Who spearheaded the campaign for the vote between 1865-1914?
Mainly educated, white middle-class women
Examples of mid-19th century feminists
Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B Anthony, Lucy Stone
When did the campaign for women’s right begin?
1848- when Stanton and Mott founded the Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls
American Women Suffrage Association (AWSA)
Founded 1869 by Lucy Stone.
Pledged to securing vote for AA men whilst adopting moderate approach to achieving vote for women at state level
National Women’s Suffrage Association (NWSA)
Founded 1869 by Stanton and Anthony.
Campaigned more aggressively for a federal constitutional amendment recognising the right of women to vote.
National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA)
1890- merger of AWSA and NWSA
NAWSA membership in 1905 and 1915
Lack of support from the mainstream of women
1905-17,000 members nationally
1915-100,000
Represented only half of number of women who were actively involved with temperance
Congressional Union for Women’s Suffrage
Radical wing of NAWSA which broke away in 1913, led by Alice Paul
Became National Women’s Party in 1917
Replicated methods of British suffragettes- mass demonstrations, e.g. picketed the White House daily
NAWSA activities
1900- Carrie Chapman Catt replaced Anthony as President
Organised moderate campaign of lobbying politicians, distributing leaflets, holding marches and public meetings
Focused on state level
NAWSA success at state level
By 1918, 20 states had given women the right to vote in state election (e.g. California, New York and Texas)
Nineteenth Amendment
The constitutional amendment adopted in 1920 that guarantees women the right to vote.
Problems of NAWSA
Largely a white-middle class organisation
Problems of women’s movement between 1865-1914
Splintered into several areas of social action
Interest of women in political matters was very limited
What did WW1 do for women in work?
Increased demand for labour and resulted in many married women replacing men who went to fight.
Still paid less than men they replaced.
How many women served in US navy as nurses, clerical workers and telephone operators?
11,000
How many women worked in industry between 1917 and 1918?
1 million
What happened to women in work when men returned home from the war?
Expectation that women were to return to the home when the men returned
Expected and accepted by majority of married women.
However must’ve widened horizons of unmarried women.
Number of working class, married women in workforce increase during the 1920s?
From 22.8 to 28.8%
2 million increase
Union activity in 1920s by women
1929- violent strike in North Carolina led to death of 6 women
Increase membership of women in unions during the 1930s
265,000 to 800,000
How many Americans were opposed to women working in 1936?
82% suggested a Gallup poll
Great Depression effect on women in work?
Significant- opportunities for women quickly receded.
Those in work expected to give them up to make way for men.
How many married women were working in 1930?
12%
New Deal for Women
New Deal was string of policies intended to stimulate the economy and support those who were vulnerable.
Policies biased towards male breadwinner and did little to raise self-esteem and aspiration of women.
When women benefitted, not a result of legislation or govt action, but action intended to address wider social and economic issues.
Social Security Act
1935- helped to alleviate family stress by introducing welfare benefits for poor families. Benefitted married women, not designed specifically for them.
Aid to Dependent Children
1935- helped women with young families who were unable to work and where no male head. Largely given to white women. Humiliating process.
The Fair Labour Standards Act
1938- set new minimum wage levels. Women still earned less than men in the same job.
E.g. female teacher earned 20% less than male counterpart in 1939.
Jeannette Rankin of Montana
First women to take a seat in House of Representatives in 1917
Problems of 19th Amendment
Majority of married women voted as their husbands did and showed little interest in the idea that the vote empowered them.
Poor, working-class women had little time for political interest due to their daily life
AA women unable to take advantage due to racial discrimination.
How many women entered office by 1939?
9
Nellie Taylor Ross became first female director of the mint
Florence Allen became first woman judge on US Circuit of Appeals
Eleanor Roosevelt as a role model
Successful combined role of wife and mother
Actively supported women’s rights, civil rights for AA and political support for the ND policies of her husband.
Joined League of Women Voters and Women’s Trade Union League before becoming First Lady
Active in Democrat Party- staunch support of anti-lynching, even when President was lukewarm
Did the right to vote really empower women after 1919?
Minority of educated middle-class women, it represented a triumph.
Failed to make further substantial change because they were divided as to how the vote could best be used to improve conditions for women and increase opportunities to them.
When did the campaign for an Equal Rights Amendment start?
1923
Woman’s Bureau
Established in the Department of Labour in 1920.
Very limited in what it achieved, since focus was on striving to improve working conditions and unfair treatment at work.
Met resistance from employers and male labour unions.
Shepard-Towner Act
1921-made funds available for maternity and infant health education.
Funding terminated in 1929
Limited in that the medical profession resisted the provision of medical care free of charge
Flappers
Young women of the 1920s that behaved and dressed in a radical fashion
Did the flappers represent a social revolution?
No- small group of upper- or middle-class women who wanted to rebel, only unifying aspect.
The Comstock Laws
1873- made the sale, advertisement and distribution of contraceptives illegal.
Now ‘under the counter’ and expensive, poor families couldn’t access
When did Margaret Sanger start campaigning about birth control?
1912 with newspaper articles giving contraceptive advice to women in defiance of the Comstock laws
When was Sanger’s first birth control clinic opened and where?
Brooklyn, New York in 1916.
American Birth Control League (ABCL)
1921- purpose was to educate through the distribution of written materials, conferences and lectures.
When was Sanger’s first legal birth control clinic opened and with the help of who?
1923, with financial backing from John D Rockefeller
How many members did the ABCL have by 1924?
27,500 but only 10 branches in 8 states
When were the Comstock Laws effectively ended?
1938- however, state legislatures enforced their own laws on contraception
Eighteenth Amendment
a 1917 amendment to the United States Constitution that made it illegal to sell alcoholic drinks
What does prohibition and its ratification show about female pressure groups?
Fundamental divisions that existed in women’s groups
Indicative of strength and influence of the female voice when focussed on issues identifiable with their traditional ‘sphere’
In determining the influence of women in the enactment of prohibition legislation, it is important to take into consideration…
The significance of women’s organisations and their leadership
The power of home protection as a justification for action by women
Impact of alliances made with other groups with similar goals
Social, political and economic context
Women’s Christian Temperance Union contribution to 18th amendment
Dominated the campaign from 1874, with powerful leadership Frances Willard.
Argument for promoting temperance firmly rooted in the protection of the home.
Anti-Saloon League
1893- became main organisation lobbying for Prohibition.
Non-partisan organisation
Aligned itself with the WCTU after Willards’ death
By 1913 successful combo of lobbying tactics and joint campaigns had resulted in prohibition laws in 9 states
How many states had prohibition laws by 1917?
26
Other reasons 18th amendment was passed?
Nativism
Outbreak of WW1 = increased hostility towards German immigrant origin, many major breweries were owned by Germans.
The ‘wets’ (opposition to prohibition) failed to unite and organise themselves. Included brewery owners failing to make saloons more salubrious
What does the anti-prohibition campaign reveal about the women movement?
The event that women were deeply and bitterly divided in how to achieve their priorities and how effectively the same arguments and methods could be used to achieve opposing goals
Molly Pitcher Club
Formed in 1922 by M. Louise Gross.
Formed in an effort to organise a female protest movement against the introduction of prohibition.
Impact of Molly Pitcher Club
Limited.
Remained a localised response in NY
Arguments based on claim that prohibition limited personal freedom, did not have same powerful appeal as the threat to home and family life