1. The Women’s Movement
Chapter 8 Section 4

2. Women Work for a Change Women’s rights limited Private influence
Lack of basic legal and economic rights
Could not hold property, hold office, or vote, forbidden to speak in public
No formal education
Divorce: husband gained custody of children
Certain cultures women held a great deal of power (matrilineal)

3. Reform Efforts
Reform of American society driven by 2nd Great Awakening
Catharine Beecher, Emma Willard, Elizabeth Blackwell, Ann Preston public school movement
Dorothea Dix treatment of prisoners, treatment of mentally ill
Angelina and Sarah Grimké Abolitionists
Sojourner Truth former slave from NY
Powerful speeches and arguments

4. Sojourner Truth

5. Women enter the Workplace
Industrialization allow women to get out of home
Economic independence
Social independence
1830, women’s labor unions form

6. Political and Economic Status of Women in early 1800s
Women could not vote
Women could not hold public office
Women could not serve on juries
Few women received any level of higher education
Women could not work in most trades or professions
When they did work, women were paid less than men doing the same jobs, and their fathers or husbands often took what money they did earn
Married women lost legal control of any money or property they owned before marriage to their husbands
Married women could not testify against their husbands in court, sue for divorce, or gain custody of their children

7. Women Fight for Rights Virtually no progress for women’s rights
Middle class women hire poor women to do housework
Think about the society in which children are raised
Women began to see their own social restrictions comparable to slavery
Lack of power held by slave = lack of power held by women
Women’s Movement
A movement working for greater rights and opportunities for women
Grimkés argue that God made men and women equal
Moral grounds to defend slaves and women

8. Disagreement Full equality small minority of women
Debate over whether women should be allowed to join men’s business meetings (abolition)
Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton believed women should be allowed to join
Mott and Stanton active reformers
Temperance and abolition
Mott American Antislavery Society and Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society
Stanton married to Henry Stanton (leading abolitionist) both interest in women’s rights

9. Seneca Falls Seneca Falls Convention Amelia Bloomer Susan B. Anthony
Mott and Stanton organize 1st Women’s Rights Convention in NY
“Declaration of Sentiments”
Marked beginning of women’s movement
Amelia Bloomer
Leading voice for women’s rights
The Lily
Susan B. Anthony
Right to vote (suffrage)

10. Women Gain Rights Married Women’s Property Act Wage earners Reformers
Guaranteeing many property rights to women
Wage earners
Reformers
Property rights
Right to vote