Women’s suffrage

1. Women’s suffrage By: Jake, Matt, and Ruth

2. background INFO • In the early 19th century, women faced limited options. Society demanded that they only focus on their home and family after marriage. This soon became known as the cult of domesticity. • By 1850, about one in five white women had worked for wages a few years before they were married. One in ten single white women worked outside the home, earning about half the pay men received to do the same job. • Women could neither vote, nor sit on juries, even if they were taxpayers. Typically when a woman married, her property and any money she earned became her husband’s. In many instances, married women lacked guardianship rights over their children. • Despite such restrictions, women actively participated in reform movements of the 19th century—many women were inspired by the message of the Second Great Awakening.

3. IMPORTANT LEADERS • Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Stanton was a well-known abolitionist in the women’s civil rights movement. Stanton experienced first sexual discrimination when young white men that she academically passed graduated at the same time and went to the same college she did. Elizabeth later married Henry Stanton and on their honeymoon, she and Lucretia Mott met and were angered that they were excluded from attending a Anti-Slavery Convention. In 1848, Mott and Stanton organized a meeting in Seneca Falls, New York to promote women’s rights. • Lucretia Mott: Mott and Stanton quickly became friends at the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention. Because they were women, neither were allowed onto the floor of the convention; they were forced to sit and listen from a curtained gallery. • Susan B. Anthony: Before joining the Women’s Suffrage movement, Anthony was an activist during the temperance movement. However, because she was a woman she was not allowed to speak at rallies. This, and her acquaintance with Stanton led her to join the Suffrage Movement. She traveled and lectured across the country for the right to vote. She also campaigned for the right for women to own their own property, retain their earnings, and advocated for women’s rights.

4. ACCOMPLISHMENTS • Sarah and Angelina Grimké: These two sisters spoke eloquently for abolition. In 1836 Angelina published An Appeal to Christian Women of the South, in which she urged women to “overthrow this horrible system of oppression and cruelty”. Sarah ran a school for women with her sister Angelina, complained in Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Woman (1838), a woman who knew “chemistry enough to keep the pot boiling, and geography enough to know the location of the different rooms in her house,” was considered learned enough. • Emma Willard: Opened one of the nation’s first academically rigorous schools for girls in Troy, New York. The Troy Female Seminary became the model for a new type of women’s school. • Seneca Falls Convention: In 1848 Stanton and Mott decided to organize a women’s rights convention. The two composed an agenda and a detailed statement of grievances, which were carefully modeled after the Declaration of Independence. Nearly 300 men and women gathered at the Wesleyan Methodist Church for the convention. The participants approved all parts of the declaration unanimously except for one—the right to vote. However, it still passed by a narrow majority.

5. CONNECTION TO JACKSONIAN DEMOCRACY • Both share the goal of giving more power to "The Common Man". As seen in Jacksonian Democracy, President Jackson listened to what the people wanted most, and so he reduced the amount of prerequisites for voting only for white men. In the chart, it explains how men were able to vote in America with lesser requirements as time progressed (didn't have to own property and/or pay taxes). This can be related to the goal(s) of the women's suffrage movement because ultimately, they wanted to show that they had the same rights as the common man. Both the theories of Jackson and women were very similar because both wanted to give power to the common man. Women viewed themselves as part of the common man.

6. MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS • 1) Which of the following is TRUE about the women's suffrage movement? Choose the BEST answer. • a. Women felt that they were not respected by their husbands • b. Women became irritated by the fact that they were not allowed to participate in anything • c. A battle occurred between women and the government, causing them to break out and revolt • d. Women's rights were being violated, and they felt the need to justify this matter through meetings, and reforms.

7. MUTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS • 2) Women’s suffrage is: • a) the right to own land • b) the right to vote • c) the right to marry • d) All of the above

8. MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS • 3) The development of two “separate spheres” for women and men encourage all of the following EXCEPT: • a) Acceptance of a woman as the intellectual equal of a man • b) Idealization of the “lady” • c) Designation of the home as the appropriate place for a woman • d) Emphasis on child care as a prime duty of a woman