Women’s MovementWomen’s Movement

Women’s Movement in 1800s

Middle class women involved in reform to help poor, deaf, insane and victims of alcoholism

Many became active in abolition movement Lucretia Mott, a Quaker involved in activities

outside the home Traveled in east and mid-west addressing reform

organizations

1848 : The first women's rights convention in the United States is held in Seneca Falls, New York. A "Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions" is signed. Women's rights meetings are held on a regular basis after that.

1851: Sojourner Truth, a former slave, delivers her "Ain't I a Woman?" speech at a women's rights convention in Akron, Ohio

1859: Vulcanization of rubber provides women with reliable condoms for the first time in history. The birth rate in the United States continues its century-long downward spiral. By the late 1900s, women will raise an average of only two to three children, in contrast to the five or six children they raised at the beginning of the century

Mott went to London in 1840 as delegate to antislavery convention

Refused seating because she was a woman Met Elizabeth Cady Stanton in England

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Daughter of a wealthy judge in New York state

Married abolitionist Henry Brewer Stanton Active in abolitionist movement Spearheaded 1848 Seneca Falls

Convention Declaration of Rights & Sentiments and 11

resolutions (right to vote)

Susan B. Anthony

Born in MA as daughter of mill owner, reformer and Quaker

Well educated, encouraged to express herself, became teacher

Became temperance leader in 1848 as a way to help women and children in homes where poverty and violence were prevalent

Collaboration

Anthony met Stanton in 1851 and began a longstanding collaboration

Stanton was initially teacher to Anthony Stanton met family responsibilities (7

children) and did much writing Anthony was powerhouse who spoke and

crusaded

Married Women’s Property Act

Together fought for Married Women’s Property Act in New York which gave married women rights to– Own property– Engage in business– Manage their incomes– Be joint guardians of their children

Together helped drive the movement to persuade Congress to pass 13th Amendment

1866 founded Equal Rights Association Falling out with other abolitionists who

wanted rights for freed slaves to be priority 1878 introduced Women’s Suffrage

amendment

Continued work together concerning voting rights and other reforms

Stanton died in 1902 at age 87 Anthony died in 1906 at age 86

1920 19th Amendment ratified

1912: Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive Party becomes the first national political party to support suffrage for women.

Woodrow Wilson wins the election in 1913. Protests continue despite pressure and

arrests. August 26, 1920: The Nineteenth

Amendment is ratified. 1923: The National Woman's Party proposes

the Equal Rights Amendment to eliminate discrimination on the basis of gender.

Image courtesy of HBO films suffragette history website

March 3, 1913 -- the day before Woodrow Wilson's inauguration, Inez Milholland, draped in flowing white robes leads a parade of an estimated 5,000 suffragists. This image became emblematic of

the fight for women's rights in America. The marchers were attacked verbally and physically but refused to give up.

Image courtesy of HBO films suffragette history website

1917: (left to right) Doris Stevens, Mrs. J.A.H. Hopkins, Eunice Dana Branham, in prison clothes. The women were arrested for protesting in front of

the White House for women’s suffrage.

Image courtesy of HBO films suffragette history website

Tennessee, 1920, Suffrage Ratification: (left to right) Banks Turner, whose vote prevented the tabling of the suffrage resolution,

Catherine Flannagan, Anita Pollitzer, Harry Burn, who gave the last needed vote for ratification; (in foreground): Thomas O. Simpson,

who resisted "almost inhuman pressure of anti-suffrage interests," Betty Gram, Sue White.

Image courtesy of HBO films suffragette history website