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Woman position, woman suffrage, truth auto music
1. ―We hold these truths …
American Women’s Voices
of Protest
1848 - 1920
2. Women’s Social Position
• No right to vote
• No right to her wages or property if
married
• Barred from most professions: medicine,
law, business, the ministry
Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States. New
York: Perennial, 1980. Chapter 6.
3. Women’s Social Position
• Barred from most colleges (Oberlin
College the exception)
• Unequal wages--1/4-1/2 less than men
• Legally a married woman’s identity was
subsumed into her husband’s—she was
―femme couvert‖ in the eyes of the law
Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States.
New York: Perennial, 1980. Chapter 6.
4. Middle-Class Women’s
Intimate Lives
Dominant Ideologies of Womanhood
• The Angel in the House (Victorian Ideology)
• Cult of True Womanhood (U. S. Ideology)
• Ideology of The Two Spheres
Female, domestic sphere
Male, public sphere
―Separate but equal‖--not equal for women
Nancy Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood. New Haven: Yale
UP, 1977. Chapter 2; Conclusion.
5. Cult of True Womanhood or
Cult of Domesticity
• Woman ―naturally‖ suited only to maternity
and domestic duties
• Woman idealized as:
Pious Passionless
Sexually Pure Submissive
Obedient Docile
Humble / physically delicate / dependent
Patient
Long-suffering / Self-Sacrificing
Nancy Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood. New Haven: Yale UP,
1977. Chapter 2; Conclusion.
6. Women’s Resistance
• Working-Class women strike for labor
rights (1830s, 40s, 50s) in Lowell,
Waltham, and Chicopee, MA.
• Female Labor Reform Association:
fought against position as ―slaves to a
system of labor‖
• Women led textile workers’ strikes in
1840s, 50s, & 60s
Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States.
New York: Perennial, 1980. Chapter 6.
7. Women’s Resistance
• Middle-class women enter primary
school education (single women only)
• Emma Willard opens first school for girls
in Troy, NY, 1821
• Women fight for admission to medical
schools (Harvard refuses)
Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States.
New York: Perennial, 1980. Chapter 6.
8. Women’s Resistance
• Abolitionist women in the American Anti-
Slavery Society begin to fight for
women’s rights:
Angelina and Sarah Grimke
Lucy Stone
Susan B. Anthony
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
• National American Woman Suffrage
Association (1890) Carrie Chapman Catt
9. Seneca Falls Convention
• Seneca Falls, NY, 19-20 July, 1848
• First National Convention for Women’s
Rights in U. S.
• Passed 12 resolutions to address the
inequality of women
• One resolution—the franchise—was
the most controversial
Amy Kesselman, et al. Women: Images and
Realities. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006. 548.
11. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
• Declaration of Sentiments author
• Presented it at the first Women’s Rights
Convention in Seneca Falls, NY
―We hold these truths to be self-evident:
that all men and women are created
equal‖
(Amy Kesselman, et al. Women: Images and Realities 548)
12. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Stanton with two of
her eight children
Espoused ―Voluntary
Motherhood‖--that is,
the right to choose
when to have sexual
relations, and the right
to refuse sexual relations
to one’s husband
Wrote The Woman’s
Bible—a feminist translation
and interpretation of Scripture
14. Fredrick Douglas
"In this denial of the right to
participate in government, not
merely the degradation of
woman and the perpetuation
of a great injustice happens,
but the maiming and
repudiation of one-half of the
moral and intellectual power
of the government of the
world.‖
Seneca Falls Convention,
1848
17. • Born enslaved c. 1797 in NY
• ―Owned‖ by Dutch family
• Parents were Africans
who kept the language and traditions
of Africa alive in the community
• Sold at auction, aged 9
• Beaten and raped by this owner
until sold again at age 11
• Sold twice more by 1810
1870 photograph
18. • Fell in love with an enslaved
man at 18
• Her lover brutally beaten by his
―owner‖; their love forbidden
• Forced by her ―owner‖ to marry
another enslaved man by whom
she had several children
• Escaped from slavery with her
daughter in 1826; NY emancipates
slaves, 1827
• In 1843 changed her name to
Sojourner Truth and worked for the
abolition of slavery
• Speaks at abolitionist and women’s
rights gatherings
1870s tintype photo
19. ―Ain’t I a Woman‖—Ohio Women’s
Rights Convention, 1851
20. Dominant Gender Ideologies
& Female Slavery
Truth ―deconstructs‖ these ideologies in ―Ain’t I a
Woman‖ (shows internal contradictions)
• Cult of True Womanhood
• Ideology of the Mammy
• Ideology of the Jezebel
Deborah Gray White, Ar’nt I a Woman: Female Slaves in the Plantation
South. Chapter one.
22. National Women’s Association
• Next Generation of Suffrage Activists:
Alice Paul (Wrote the Equal Rights
Amendment—still not ratified)
Lucy Burns
Inez Mulholland
• More militant ―New Women‖; advocated
direct, public actions and
demonstrations
40. Iron-Jawed Angels
President Wilson Inaugurated 1913; U. S. enters W W I 1917
Woman Suffrage activists continue picketing the White House
―Mr. Wilson, when are you going to give us democracy at
home?‖
Dozens of women arrested, striped naked, beaten, man-
handled, illegally detained without counsel, physically
restrained and force-fed. ―Night of Terror‖—November 15,
1917, in Occoquan Prison Workhouse, Occoquan, Virginia.
Iron-Jawed Angels: March 3, 1913 Iron-Jawed Angels--force-feeding--1917g
41. ―Will the Circle Be Unbroken‖
Americn Hymn (1907)
Chorus:
Will that circle be unbroken
Bye and bye, Lord, bye and bye?
There’s a better home awaiting
In the sky, Lord, in the sky
Written by Ada Habershon
First recorded by renowned Carter Family
Widely sung during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement
42. Works Cited
• Slides 2 & 3: Howard Zinn, A People’s
History of the United States. New
York: Perennial, 1980. Chapter 6.
• Slide 4 & 5: Nancy Cott, The Bonds of
Womanhood. New Haven: Yale UP,
1977. Chapter 2; Conclusion.
• Slides 6 & 7: Howard Zinn, A People’s
History of the United States. New York:
Perennial, 1980. Chapter 6.
