Period 6: Women in the Gilded Age

Period 6: Women in the Gilded Age

FOCUS QUESTION: How did women activists challenge their prescribed “place” politically, socially and economically?

BRAINSTORM: List what you know about women’s involvement in society during the Gilded Age. You may list movements, groups, specific individuals, roles etc.

Complete the chart below: Checkmark which group the document addresses. Write in conclusions based on the document.

P? S? / Audience? / Purpose? / Context? / POV? / Conclusions/evidence?
A
B
C
D
E

Document A: Frances Willard, president of Women’s Christian Temperance Union, 1890

…Meanwhile let that mother know who tricks out her little girl in all the colors of the rainbow; puts rings on her fingers if not "bells on her toes"; binds her at an early age into a corset; sets her to wallowing in a long skirt and tilts the vital organs at the invalid-angle by high heeled shoes, that she has deliberately deformed a body that came fresh and fair from God's hand, and manacled a soul that was made in His image.

Document B: Jane Addams, female leader who opened Hull House in Chicago-settlement house staffed by volunteers in working class neighborhood to assist women and their children, Reflections, 1889.

The social organism has broken down through large districts of our great cities. Many of the people living there are very poor, the majority of them with-out leisure or energy for anything but the gain of subsistence. They live for the moment side by side, many of them without knowledge of each other, without fellow- ship, without local tradition or public spirit, without social organization of any kind. Practically nothing is done to remedy this. The people who might do it, who have the social tact and training, the large houses, and the traditions and customs of hospitality, live in other parts of the city. The club houses, libraries, galleries and semi-public conveniences for social life are also blocks away. We find workingmen organized into armies of producers because men of executive ability and business sagacity have found it to their interest thus to organize them. But these working men are not organized socially.This divides the city into rich and poor. To the favored and those who are not.

Document C: Woman’s Holy War, lithograph from 1874, the year the Women’s Christian Temperance Union was founded.

Document D: Timeline of historical events in women’s history, National Women’s History Museum, www.nwhm.org

1870-The Woman’s Journal is founded and edited by Mary Livermore, Lucy Stone, and Henry Blackwell.

1871-Victoria Woodhull addresses the House Judiciary Committee, arguing women’s rights to vote under the fourteenth amendment.
The Anti-Suffrage Party is founded.
1872-Susan B. Anthony casts her ballot for Ulysses S. Grant in the presidential election and is arrested and brought to trial in Rochester, New York. Fifteen other women are arrested for illegally voting. Sojourner Truth appears at a polling booth in Battle Creek, Michigan, demanding a ballot to vote; she is turned away.
Abigail Scott Duniway convinces Oregon lawmakers to pass laws granting a married woman’s rights such as starting and operating her own business, controlling the money she earns, and the right to protect her property if her husband leaves.

1878-A Woman Suffrage Amendment is proposed in the U.S. Congress. When the 19th Amendment passes forty-one years later, it is worded exactly the same as this 1878 Amendment.

1887-The first vote on woman suffrage is taken in the Senate and is defeated.

1888-The National Council of Women in the United States is established to promote the advancement of women in society.

1890-NWSA and AWSA merge and the National American Woman Suffrage Association is formed. Stanton is the first president. The Movement focuses efforts on securing suffrage at the state level.
Wyoming is admitted to the Union with a state constitution granting woman suffrage.
The American Federation of Labor declares support for woman suffrage.
The South Dakota campaign for woman suffrage loses.

Document E: Background to National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, History and Objectives, www.nacwc.org

At the call of Mrs. Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, the National Association of Colored Women's Clubss, Inc. was founded in Washington, D.C. in July 1896 by the merger of the National Federation of Afro-American Women, the Women's Era Clubs of Boston, and the Colored Women's League of Washington, D.C.

As we continue in the mainstream of economic progression, we, the colored women of the United States of America, stand united for service to humanity.

Our Objectives:

1.  To work for the economic, moral, religious and social welfare of women and youth.

2.  To protect the rights of women and youth.

3.  To raise the standard and quality of life in home and family.

4.  To secure and use our influence for the enforcement of civil and political rights for African Americans and all citizens.

5.  To promote the education of women and youth through the work of the departments.

6.  To obtain for African American women the opportunity of reaching the highest levels in all fields of human endeavor.

7.  To promote effective interaction with the male auxiliary.

8.  To promote inter-racial understanding so that justice and good will may prevail among all people.

9.  To hold educational workshops biennially at the Convention.