Women’s Rights In the years following the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, women's rights activists had achieved some important goals Property rights for married women and greater access to higher education were some of their gains Several women's colleges had been founded in the mid-1800s In addition, many new state universities allowed both men and women to attend classes. Some educators opposed higher education for women, however Despite such views, women began attending college in record numbers in the late 1800s After graduation, women found few jobs Many female graduates entered fields such as library management, social work, and teaching. However, they found it harder to enter male- dominated fields such as law or medicine

Women Join Progressive Movement Many college-educated women who were denied access to such professions often played a major role in progressive reforms. Many middle-class women became active members of local women's social clubs Example = General Federation of Women’s Clubs Middle-class African American women formed their own clubs because they were not allowed to join most clubs formed by white women Women's clubs often helped with community improvements. Local club members raised money and volunteered for projects to improve libraries and schools. They also raised money for scholarships & brought in guest lecturers

Temperance Movement Female progressives were vital to the organization and success of the temperance movement Temperance = Restraint (stopping) in the use of alcohol Temperance reformers had been arguing since the early 1800s that alcohol was to blame for many of society's problems. In the 1870s groups of women renewed the fight against alcohol. They claimed that alcohol abuse disrupted the family and led to crime and poverty. The temperance movement spread to hundreds of small towns as reformers shut down more than 1,000 saloons Some women followed the example of temperance leader Carry Nation, who stormed into saloons with a hatchet, smashing liquor bottles and glasses.

18 th Amendment In 1874, reformers formed the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). This organization united women from various backgrounds in the fight against alcohol abuse Frances Willard served as president of the WCTU from 1879 to 1898 The organization that she led had 10,000 branches that represented every major city, state, and territory in the country The work of the WCTU and other temperance organizations helped lead to the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919 This amendment banned the manufacture, sale, or distribution of alcohol in the United States.

Women’s Suffrage The WCTU also tried to get the vote for women. Suffrage = Right to vote Women’s Suffrage = Women’s right to vote Women’s Suffrage DOESN’T mean women are suffering The suffrage movement had its opponents Political bosses worried that women would use the vote to fight corruption. Businesspeople opposed it because they feared that women would pass child-labor & minimum- wage laws Some said women should be happy as homemakers and mothers and stay out of politics. Even many women's club members accepted this argument. They believed that women should fight for social change but that women should stay out of politics.

NAWSA & NWP Suffragists strongly challenged these views Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony founded the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) in 1890 Goal was to get the vote for women That same year, women gained full suffrage in the state of Wyoming. Colorado, Idaho, & Utah followed in the 1890s. NAWSA faced great challenges as it tried to gain suffrage for women across the country Some women believed that the work of the NAWSA did not go far enough. In 1913 former NAWSA member Alice Paul founded what would become the National Woman's Party (NWP).

19 th Amendment The NWP used parades and public demonstrations to draw attention to its cause. Group used more controversial methods such as civil disobedience, hunger strikes, & pickets Paul and other NWP leaders were jailed several times for such actions Amendment = A correction or addition (to Constitution) The NWP and the NAWSA worked together to back a constitutional amendment to give women the vote. In 1916 both the Democratic and Republican Parties supported giving women the vote. In 1920 the work of the NAWSA and the NWP led to the passage of the 19th Amendment This amendment gave the vote to women in the United States.

Booker T. Washington White reformers in the progressive movement often ignored issues such as racial discrimination and segregation, which grew worse during the late 1800s. Some African American leaders, such as Booker T. Washington, tried to improve the economic conditions of African Americans. Born a slave in 1856, Washington became a respected educator while in his twenties. In 1881 founded Tuskegee Institute in Alabama Its purpose was to provide vocational (job) training for African American schoolteachers and to teach economic self-reliance through manual trades and agricultural education Tuskegee also drew African American teachers such as scientist George Washington Carver. Carver's agricultural research addressed many farming problems in the South

Washington’s view Washington argued that African Americans should not spend their time fighting discrimination and segregation Instead, Washington believed that African Americans should try to improve their own educational and economic well-being In 1895 Washington made his Atlanta Compromise speech He basically said that blacks shouldn’t fight for equality Instead they should worry about educating & training themselves "In all things that are purely social we [whites and African Americans] can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual [shared] progress."

W.E.B. Du Bois Some African American leaders like W. E. B. Du Bois disagreed with Washington Born in Massachusetts in 1868, Du Bois went to Fisk University and later earned a doctoral degree from Harvard He criticized Washington for holding African Americans responsible for correcting racial injustice Du Bois also questioned Washington's ideas about job training and segregation. In 1903 Du Bois published his views in a collection of essays called The Souls of Black Folk He said that his goal was "to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American... without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face." Du Bois drew attention to cases of racial prejudice

Ida B. Wells Like Du Bois, journalist Ida B. Wells (later Wells-Barnett) believed that African Americans should protest unfair treatment Wells was a suffragist and an opponent of violence against African Americans She was outraged when a mob lynched, or violently killed, three of her friends Wells then began writing anti-lynching editorials in her Memphis newspaper, Free Speech These courageous articles drew the country's attention to the lynching of African American men in the South Wells also helped plan an international crusade against lynching and published lynching statistics for a three- year period

NAACP In 1905 Du Bois and other African Americans who shared his views met at Niagara Falls Naming themselves the Niagara Movement, they called for economic and educational equality. Du Bois and his supporters also demanded an end to segregation and discrimination To further the goals of the Niagara Movement, Du Bois and other reformers founded a new organization: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909 The NAACP worked to inform white Americans about racial inequality and attacked racial discrimination through the court system. In Guinn v. United States in 1915, the NAACP won its first important Supreme Court cases. This ruling outlawed the so-called grandfather clause, which had been widely used in southern states to keep African Americans from voting