Women's rights plan Flashcards
Gilded age improvements
- 1865 - 29 passed acts protecting married women’s rights to own property and by 1887 2/3 of the states had given married women control of their earnings
- 1900 - 1/2 of high school graduates female, delaying marriages to prolong profession careers like teaching and gained higher education - women in domestic service 1/2 1870-1900 - 1890s office and secretaries, invention of the typewriter changed everything, 950,000 US women worked as teachers, libraries and telephone operators
- As US industrialised, better paid industries in food and textiles. In urban areas where textiles were important, Atlanta and parts of Massachusetts, 1/3 of the workforce - more equality in western states, structure more fluid - wyoming first to offer vote in 1869 in hope of attracting immigrants
- Trade unions - by mid 1880s - 100 female trade unions w women like May Harris Jones organised miners’ wives to oppose strike breaking
- Birth rate amongst white women fell from 5.4 to 3.6 1850-1990 and divorce rate doubled 1880-1990 - 1/21 marriages to 1/12 - better educated and more financially assertive
Development 1900-17
Trends developing in 1865-1900 continued
- Number of women working in teaching or clerical occupations increased from 950,000 to 3.4M 1900-20
- % of women working rose by 60% 1870-1920
- Birth control campaigner Margaret Sanger was prosecuted under the Cornstock Laws in 1916 for distributing contraceptive info through the post
Progressive era progress
Characterised by a series of reforms to clean up political corruption, make the baking system more effecient, improve working conditions, temperance and give women the vote
- 1899 National Consumer’s league - Frances Kelley to campaign for health reforms, housing and working conditions - 8 hour day, higher pay for female workers and better facilities for mothers and children
- National association of coloured women (founded 1896) campaigned to reputation of black women and against lynching and segregation - 1918 - 300k members
- 1918 20 states right to vote in state elections, 1920 congress ratified 19th amendment
- first female senator 1916
- 1900 - could own property and write wills
WW1 progress
- 3M new women workers employed in food, textiles and war industries - Farmarettes, armed forces - Marinettes and Yeomarinettes, Hello Girls - telephone operators of US army Signal Corps, Red Cross, Salvation army sent women to Europe to help the service men - 11M nurses or office workers and even making guns and ammunitition
Restrictions thrown up to keep women out of large state production industries broken down, learned many new skills and took over production lines - generally better paid, replaced men in drivers, postmen, management in small businesses
Roles changed, broke separate spheres, more responsibiility on the outside of the house, raised public profile and helped the army who did not have enough resource - women’s activists raised money and supplies for soldier’s strength. 1M became independent and travelled overseas.
Liberation enjoyed in 1920s attributed to ww1 rather than the vote - job opportunity and economic freedom some extent continued after both wars because of economic expansion and cultural change
New Deal
- NRA (National Recovery Administration) created 1933 - reduced working hours, banned child labour and established a legal right of all workers to belong to a trade union - benefitted women - previously difficult - rose from 265K to 800K !!!!
- India Reorganisation Act 1938 gave Native American women formal political rights and provided them with training as domestic workers and seamstresses alongside native art and craft promotion !!!!!!
- Fair Labour Standards Act 1938 helped female employees by limiting working hours and setting minimum wage - didn’t apply to many areas of employment like retail
- Federal ban on birth control lifted 1938 !
- FDR appointed 1st female appeal court judge and first female ambassador - in total, employed more women in senior government positions than any other US administration - grown !!!!!!
New Feminism 1964-92 successes - social
- Feminist groups highly effective at a local level - running rape crisis centres, self defence classes, providing contraception at health centres for women - 1970 Women’s Strike for Equality - 50th anniversary for women gaining vote brought thousands on the street of NY, united moderate and radical feminists and attracted media coverage on TV and newspapers
- 1969 married women got credit in their own name as opposed to husbands
- By end of 1972 feminist magazine ‘Ms’ circulated 200K - didnt wanna disclose marital status y already knoww
- 1986 - 56% considered themselves feminists - support rose from 37% in 1970 to 72% by 1985
- Feminist movement more sensitive to ethnic minority and discrimination they suffered like the jobs they got or the pay - NOW conference 1977 to focus on this
Pg51
Birth control - pg54
Roe v Wade - pg55
Black power movement - pg58-61
pg5 and 39 - 1920-33
pg27 - 36 1941-5
1945-64 - pg40
1992 - pg57
Gilded age limitations
- separate spheres still prominent - white men work and politics, women mothers and housewives still dominant and accepted
- 1887 - 1/3 us states not given married women control of their own earnings and educated white women gained no real access to better paid professions like law and medicine, paid less regardless
- female employment increased only in junior low paid roles - managers male - expectation that single women would lose job when married, faced sexual harassment, forced into prostitution
- racism and lack of education ethnic minority women did not benefit, trapped in unskilled low paid work and slum tenements
- trade unions unsympathethic by 1900, 2% union members female, ‘laissez faire’ philosophy - workers had no legal protection and working conditions were harsh in terms of health and safety and no legal protection
