1. The Women’s Rights Movement

2. Focus Question:
What steps were taken to advance the rights of women in the mid-1800s?

3. Roots of the Women’s Rights Movement
Women lacked basic rights in the early 1800s
Could not own property
Could not vote
Could not go to school

4. Gender Roles Crucial Role for Mothers
Men expected to work outside the home
Republican Motherhood
Wives expected the manage the household
Responsible for raising children
Responsible for raising
“republican” sons
Crucial Role for Mothers

5. Cult of Domesticity Developed from Republican Motherhood
Genders had their proper places
Men are rough, strong, savage, suited for the world of work
Women are calm, nurturing, refined, suited for the home.
The woman’s place was in the home
A woman could only be fulfilled if she was a wife and mother

6. Challenges Large numbers of working-class women Second Great Awakening
“Lowell girls”
Rising economic independence of women
Second Great Awakening
Religious reform movement
Women took leadership roles
Gave energy for other reforms

7. Reforms came slowly Schools slowly opened for women
Few coeducational
Growth of women’s health
Development of Women and
Children’s Hospitals
The “Bloomer”

8. Women’s Rights Movement
Sparked by a slight
Women took a leading role in reform movements, especially abolition
Many attended an international conference on abolition in London
Refused entry to the main floor
Infuriated leader female reformers

9. Seneca Falls Convention
Women’s Rights Convention held in 1848
Promoted a series of women’s issues
Property rights
Health
Education
Promoted Women’s Suffrage
Shocked the nation

10. Declaration of Sentiments
Patterned after the Declaration of Independence
Promoted a call for voting
rights for women
Developed by Elizabeth Cady
Stanton
Sparked a 72-year quest to
gain women the vote