Reshaping America in the Early 1800s

Lesson 6 Women Work for Change

Reshaping America in the Early 1800s

Lesson 6 Women Work for Change
Key Terms

matrilineal
Sojourner Truth
womens movement
Lucretia Mott
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Seneca Falls Convention
Amelia Bloomer
suffrage
Married Womens Property Act

Women Fight for Reforms

A spirit of reform permeated American life in the early and middle
1800s. Women took active roles in the abolition movement and other
reform movements. Soon, some of these reformers began to work to
gain equality for women as well. Their efforts would lay the groundwork
for womens struggle for equal rights over the next hundred years.

Women Fight for Reforms

Women's Rights Are Limited

Women typically couldnt hold property, hold office, or vote
Discouraged from speaking at public gatherings
Divorce- men typically got custody of children
Women Take Advantage of New Opportunities
Many women joined reform groups with new churches
Advanced Education through public school movement
Sojourner Truth- former slave from New York who gave abolition
lectures
Women Enter the Workplace
Because of the market revolution (industrialization)- many
women are now working outside the home
Gave some economic independence
Although typically lower wages than men
Few womens unions formed

Women Fight for Reforms

Analyze Charts Given the restrictions listed in this chart, how much freedom did
women have in the early 1800s?

Women Fight for Reforms

Women's clothes of the 1800s, which limited movement, seemed to symbolize the
restrictions placed on women's lives.

Women Seek Expanded Rights

Although many women became leading reformers, and many others
entered the workforce, there had still been virtually no progress in
womens rights. Real progress began only when two historical trends
coincided in the 1830s. First, many urban middle-class northern women
began to hire servants to do their housework, allowing these middleclass women more time to think about the society in which they wanted
to raise their children. Second, some abolitionist women began to notice
some similarities between slavery and the restrictions placed on their
own lives.

Women Seek Expanded Rights

The Origins of the Womens Rights Movement

Roots tend to coincide with the abolition movement
Womens movement- movement working for greater rights and
opportunities for women
Margret Fuller- Transcendentalist
Grimke Sisters- God made men and women equal, therefore they
should be treated equally
Disagreement Within the Women's Movement
Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton- active reforms
supporting temperance and abolition

Women Seek Expanded Rights

During the 1800s, middle-class women were seen as domestic caretakers and
moral guardians of the home. Analyze Primary Sources What does this illustration
suggest about womens work and status?

Women Seek Expanded Rights

Analyze Information Based on this infographic, how did educational opportunities

for women change during the 1800s and early 1900s?

The Seneca Falls Convention

In 1848, Mott and Stanton helped organize the nations first Womens
Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York. Often called the Seneca
Falls Convention, the meeting attracted hundreds of men and women.
One of the most illustrious participants was Frederick Douglass. The
delegates to the convention adopted a Declaration of Sentiments,
modeled after the language of the Declaration of Independence. The
Declaration of Sentiments was ridiculed, and the convention resulted in
few concrete improvements in womens rights. It did, however, mark the
beginning of the womens movement in the United States.

The Seneca Falls Convention

Inspiring Women
Amelia Bloomer- attended Seneca Falls and would become a
leading voice for womens rights in the future
Susan B. Anthony- lead the charge on the right to vote
Women Gain Some Rights
1848- NY passed the Married Womens Property Actguaranteeing many property rights for women
Amended to make broader 12 years later

The Seneca Falls Convention

This cartoon depicts the Seneca Falls Convention in New York in 1848. Interpret
Does this cartoon depict the event in a humorous or serious way? Explain the
behavior of the spectators in the galleries.

Quiz: Women Fight for Reforms

Limitations on women's rights, such as not owning property, holding
public office, or the right to vote, were generally a result of
A.
B.
C.
D.

the shift to matrilineal practices.

the adherence to religious traditions.
the following of traditional economic principles.
the legal traditions that dominated the United States.

Quiz: Women Seek Expanded Rights

Which other movement in the early 1800s influenced the women's rights
movement?
A.
B.
C.
D.

the temperance movement

the prison reform movement
the abolition movement
the public school movement

Quiz: The Seneca Falls Convention

The two most influential organizers of the Seneca Falls Convention were
A.
B.
C.
D.

Susan B. Anthony and Margaret Fuller.

Sarah Grimk and her sister Angelina Grimk Weld.
Catharine Beecher and Sojourner Truth.
Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.