WOMEN IN PUBLIC LIFE

1. WOMEN IN PUBLIC LIFE 17.2

2. Besides eating bon-bons… • Before the Civil War, women married, stayed home, looked after their families • Late 19th c – only middle- and upper- class women could afford to stay home • Poor women had no choice but to work for wagesWomen Lead Reform • Women split over 14th and 15th Amendment. • Susan B Anthony, “sooner cut off my right hand than ask for the ballot for the black Man and not for women”

3. What jobs were available? • Farm jobs – women did both household jobs and such farm work as necessary: • Raising livestock • Plowing • Planting • harvesting

4. Women in Industry • Once better paying options became available, women looked for work away from the farms • Jobs in cities and town • Labor unions shunned them • By 1900, 1 in 5 women had jobs; 25% of them worked in factories

5. Garment Industry • Most women worked in this trade • Least skilled jobs • About ½ pay of men • Women assumed to be single, not supporting families

6. What the other half did.. • Offices, stores, classrooms • Jobs requiring HS education • By 1890, more women than men w/HS diploma – WHY? • Business schools trained others: • Bookkeepers, typists, stenographers

7. DOMESTIC WORKERS • w/o education or industrial skills: domestic work • 2 million AA-women freed from slavery but driven by poverty to work • Farm and domestic work • Migrated to cities: cooks, laundresses, scrubwomen, maids • 70% of women employed in 1870 were servants • Unmarried immigrants: domestic work • Married women: piecework, took in boarders

8. WOMEN LEAD REFORM • What conditions needed correcting? • Dangerous working conditions • Safety of workers (firetraps for workplaces) • Low wages • Long hours • After Triangle Shirtwaist Co. Fire, middle- and upper-class women joined reform movements • Women’s clubs now discussed temperance, child labor instead of books & art

9. Women and Higher Education • As number of women in colleges grew, so did women’s involvement in reform movements • Vassar 1865 • Smith & Wellesly – 1875 • Columbia, Harvard, Brown – would not accept women but set up separate colleges for them • By late 19th c, marriage is not the only option • ½ of college women never married (late 19th c)

10. Reform Efforts • Workplace health and safety • Could not vote or run for office but tried to improve conditions at work and home • Workplace reform • Housing reform • Educational improvement • Food and drug laws

11. NACW • National Association of Colored Women – 1896 • Merged 2 earlier groups • Mission: moral education of the race • Managed: • kindergartens • Reading rooms • nurseries

12. Split over 14th and 15th A • Seneca Falls Convention 1848 • Women split over suffrage issue • Susan B. Anthony: “sooner cut off my right hand than ask for the ballot for the black man and not for women.” • 1869, Anthony and Cady Stanton found NWSA - National Women Suffrage Association • 1890 merge w/others to become NAWSA (Amer)

13. Anti-Woman Suffrage • Liquor industry • Textile industry • Men – who feared changing role of women in society

15. Three-Part Strategy • Convince state legislatures to give women the right to vote • Test 14th A in courts: state sdenying male citizens the right to vote lose representatives – aren’t women citizens? • National constitutional amendment

16. Strategy on States • 1869: Wyoming • 1890s: Utah, Colorado, Idaho • After 1896, other states refused to go along

17. Strategy on court cases • 1871-72- Susan B. Anthony and others test this theory 150 times in 10 states and in DC • SC says “yes” to citizenship, but the right to vote does not automatically follow!

18. Constitutional Amendment Strategy? • Cady Stanton got the amendment introduced in CA, but it was killed • Over 41 years, it was introduced and shot down • Only modest success by century’s end