Women Civil Rights Flashcards
(211 cards)
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