Women Move Towards Equality

Document 1 - Abigail Adams, educated wife and advisor of John Adams, writing to him at the time of  
                        The Declaration of Independence.

     “I long to hear that you have declared an independency−−and by the way in the New Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would Remember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if
they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice, or Representation…. Deprived of a voice in legislation, obligated to submit to those laws which are imposed upon us, is it not sufficient to make us indifferent to the public welfare?”


1. What concern did Abigail express to her husband?




2. What were the social and political conditions of women at this time?








Document 2 - In 1848 at the Seneca Falls, New York, a group of people (including Lucretia Mott, 
                       Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Frederick Douglass) met and issued a manifesto about the 
                       status of women.

          ….We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed….

         ….The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her.

To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

       He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise.
   
       He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice.
    
       He has withheld from her rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded    
       men - both natives and foreigners.

Having deprived her of this first right as a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides….

         ….Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half the people of this country,
their social and religious degradation, - in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of these United States….

− Declaration of Sentiments (1848)



What was the model for this manifesto? Why?






What was the role and status of women in politics and society during this time?






Document 3 - In 1856, an official report by the Judiciary Committee of the New York Legislature was 
                       issued about the status of “Women’s Rights.”

         The committee is composed of married and single men. The bachelors on the
committee, with becoming diffidence, have left the subject pretty much to the married
gentlemen. They have considered it with the aid of the light they have before them and the experience married life has given them. Thus aided, they are enabled to state that the ladies always have the best place and choicest tidbit at the table. They have the best seat in the cars, carriages, and sleighs; the warmest place in the winter, and the coolest place in the summer. They have their choice on which side of the bed they will lie, front or back. A lady’s dress costs three times as much as that of a gentleman; and, at the present time, with the prevailing fashion, one lady occupies three times as much space in the world as a gentleman… if there is any inequality or oppression in the case, gentlemen are the sufferers.



What was the tone of this official report?





How did these men view the social status of women at the time the report was issued?





Document 4 - Abolitionist Orestes Brownson explained his opposition to women’s suffrage in this 1869 article.

         The conclusive objection to the political enfranchisement of women is, that is would
weaken and finally break up and destroy the Christian family.…

         Extend now to women suffrage and eligibility; give them the political right to vote and
to be voted for; render it feasible for them to enter the arena of political strife, to become
canvassers in elections and candidates for office, and what remains of family union will soon be dissolved. The wife may espouse one political party, and the husband another, and it may well happen that the husband and wife may be rival candidates for the same office, and one or the other doomed to the mortification of defeat. Will the husband like to see his wife enter the lists against him, and triumph over him? Will the wife, fired with political ambition for place or power, be pleased to see her own husband enter the lists against her, and succeed at her expense? Will political rivalry and the passions it never fails to engender increase the mutual affection of husband and wife for each other, and promote domestic union and peace, or will it not carry into the bosom of the family all the strife, discord, anger, and division of the political canvas?

         Woman was created to be a wife and a mother; that is her destiny… Her proper sphere is home, and her proper function is the care of the household, to manage a family, to take care of children, and attend to their early training.

         We do not believe women, unless we acknowledge individual exceptions, are fit to have
their own head. The most degraded of the savage tribes are those in which women rule, and
descent is reckoned from the mother instead of the father. Revelation asserts, and universal
experience proves that the man is the head of the woman, and that the woman is for the man, not the man for the woman; and his greatest error, as well as the primal curse of society is that he abdicates his headship, and allows himself to be governed, we might also say, deprived of his reason, by woman.




Does the writer think that men and women are equal? How can you tell?






What reasons does Brownson give for opposing women’s suffrage?






Document 5 - In 1910, Senator Robert Owen of Oklahoma made a speech to the American Academy of 
Political and Social Science supporting federal suffrage for women. (He refers to the 4 states
which have granted state voting rights to women)

         “Women compose one-half of the human race. In the last forty years, women in gradually increasing numbers have been compelled to leave the home and enter the factory and workshop. Over seven million women are so employed, and the remainder of the sex are employed largely in domestic services. A full half of the work of the world is done by women. A careful study of the matter has demonstrated the vital fact that these working women receive a smaller wage for equal work than men do, and that the smaller wage and harder conditions imposed on the woman worker are due to the lack of the ballot.


         Many women have a very hard time, and if the ballot would help them, even a little, I
should like to see them have it….Equal pay for equal work is the first great reason for justifying this change of governmental policy.

         The man is usually better informed with regard to the state government, but women are
better informed about house government, and she can learn state government with as much
facility as he can learn how to instruct children, properly feed and clothe the household, care for the sick, play on the piano, or make a house beautiful….

         The testimony is universal: [In states where suffrage had been previously granted]

         First, it has not made women mannish; they still love their homes and children just the
same as ever, and are better able to protect themselves and their children because of the ballot.

         Second, they have not become office seekers, not pothouse politicians. They have not
become swaggerers and insolent on the streets. They still teach good manners to men, as they always have done. It [suffrage] has made women broader and greatly increased the
understanding of the community at large of the problems of good government; of proper sanitation, of pure food, or clean water, and all such matters in which intelligent women would
naturally take an interest.

         It has not absolutely regenerated society, but it has improved it.”





What does Owen say about the economic and social status of women?





What ideas about the nature of women does Owen base his argument upon?