1. Women’s Rights

2.  Women were by custom, restricted their activities after marriage to the home and family  Homework and childcare were considered the only proper activities for women  Known later as cult of domesticity  By 1850, one in 5 women had worked for wages  By 1850, about 1 in 10 white women worked outside the home  Women earned ½ the pay of men  Women could not vote, nor sit on juries  When a woman married her property became her husband’s  Married women typically lacked guardian ship rights over children

3.  Many women participated in all of the reform movements of the 19 th century  Inspired by optimistic message of the 2 nd Great Awakening  Often locked out of reform meetings by men, and responded by advocating for their own equal rights

4.  Sarah and Angelina Grimke, daughters of SC slaveholder spoke for abolition  Angelina wrote An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South in which she called on women to help overthrow slavery  Women abolitionists collected signatures for petitions to Congress, wrote literature and raised money  Some abolitionists, like William Lloyd Garrison supported women’s efforts; other men did not

5.  Temperance movement, the effort to prohibit the drinking of alcohol, was led by women  In early 19 th century, alcohol used freely  Many Americans recognized drunkenness as a serious problem; Lyman Beecher preached against the use of liquor in 1825  American Temperance Society founded in 1826  By 1833, 6000 temperance societies existed  Held rallies, produced pamphlets and brought about decline in consumption

6.  Until 1820’s American girls had few educational opportunities  Sarah Grimke: wrote that a woman who knew “chemistry enough to keep the pot boiling, and geography enough to know the location of every room in the house” was considered learned enough  1821 Emma Willard opened Troy Female Seminary which became a model for a new rigorous women’s school; someone mocked “they will be educating cows next”  1837 Mary Lyon founded Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in Massachusetts  1837 Oberlin College in Ohio became coeducational

7.  1849 Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to graduate from medical college; opened NY Infirmary for Women and Children  1850s three sick women to one healthy one; women rarely bathed, no exercise and fashion of the day included restrictive corsets which made it hard to breathe  Amelia Bloomer credited with wearing loose fitting pants that tied at ankles; men were outraged

8.  1848 Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott held a women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York  “Declaration of Sentiments” read  300 women and men gathered at Wesleyan Methodist Church for the convention  One resolution became controversial: calling for women to secure the sacred right of the elective franchise

9.  Conditions for slaves worsened as reform movements increased  Isabella Baumfree, a slave for the first thirty years of her life, took the name Sojourner Truth when she decided to travel throughout the country preaching and arguing for abolition  She earned praise for a speech that urged men to grant women their rights:

10.  That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud- puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?