APUSH - Spiconardi

Due to the Market Revolution, there were fundamental changes in the defined roles of men & women/husbands & wives Men worked outside the home six days a week Middle class women remained home with the children Children no longer as economically valuable under Market Revolution Why?  Family size drops from 7.04 members in 1800 to 5.42 in 1830 Women have more leisure time and devote that time to religious and reform organizations

Temperance was used as one of the leading reasons for women’s suffrage.

While some middle class women joined reform movements, others clearly defined the role of women as Homemakers Educators of children (Republican motherhood) Cult of Domesticity Cult of Domesticity  A widespread cultural belief that glorified the functions of the homemaker Cult of True Womanhood Piety Purity Submission Domesticity

Woman is to win every thing by peace and love; by making herself so much respected, esteemed and loved, that to yield to her opinions and to gratify her wishes, will be the free-will offering of the heart. But this is to be all accomplished in the domestic and social circle…But the moment woman begins to feel the promptings of ambition, or the thirst for power, her aegis of defence is gone. All the sacred protection of religion, all the generous promptings of chivalry, all the poetry of romantic gallantry, depend upon woman's retaining her place as dependent and defenceless, and making no claims, and maintaining no right but what are the gifts of honour, rectitude and love. ~Catharine Beecher

Many women participated in the anti-slavery movement, but were often marginalized and relegated to secondary roles The Grimke Sisters Angelina & Sarah Grimke objected to conservative criticism of female involvement in abolitionism Sarah writes her Letter on the Condition of Women and the Equality of the Sexes (1837) AngelinaSarah

Lucretia Mott & Elizabeth Cady Stanton After being excluded from an anti-slavery convention in London, Mott and Stanton decide to take an active role in advocated for women’s rights “The general discontent I felt with woman's portion as wife, housekeeper, physician, and spiritual guide, the chaotic conditions into which everything fell without her constant supervision, and the wearied, anxious look of the majority of women, impressed me with a strong feeling that some active measures should be taken to remedy the wrongs of society in general, and of women in particular. My experience at the World Anti- slavery Convention, all I had read of the legal status of women, and the oppression I saw everywhere, together swept across my soul, intensified now by many personal experiences. It seemed as if all the elements had conspired to impel me to some onward step. I could not see what to do or where to begin—my only thought was a public meeting for protest and discussion.” ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Seventy women and thirty men (including Frederick Douglas) attend the Seneca Falls Convention The convention repudiates the natural inferiority of women and the ideology of separate spheres Attendees resolved to “employ agents, circulate tracts, petition State and National legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press” on behalf on women’s rights

…either the theory of our government [government rests on the will of the people] is false, or women have a right to vote.