1. Women’s Issues
of the
Progressive Era

2. Women’s Suffrage

3. National American Women Suffrage Association (NAWSA)
Suffrage for Women
Leaders: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan Anthony, Lucretia Mott, Carrie Chapman Catt, Alice Paul, Lucy Burns
National American Women Suffrage Association (NAWSA)
First president = Stanton, then Anthony, next was Catt
Stanton seated, Anthony standing
Catt

4. Congressional Union formed by Alice Paul and Lucy Burns to lobby Congress to add an amendment to the Constitution.
Alice Paul at desk and Lucy Burns in chair

5. The National Women’s Party (NWP) formed from this organization.

7. Western states had votes early
Wyoming (1869),
Utah (1870),
Colorado (1893),
Idaho (1896)

8. Jeanette Rankin a Republican
(Montana), first woman to be
elected to Congress

9. Arguments against
Liquor industry feared
women voters would
support Prohibition
White southerners feared women voting
would lead to African Americans voting
Men saw women as threat to their
dominance in politics

10. Arguments for
Women voters would help to ensure purer and more
honest politics
White women voters would offset votes of immigrants
and racial minorities and protect traditional values
against “alien” assaults in large cities

11. Women voters would be simply extending
their roles as traditional wives and
mothers, by voting on issues dealing with
domestics

13. Many of the women who picketed the White House
were thrown into jail for protesting.

15. The 19th Amendment granted women the Constitutional right to vote in August 1920 – 72 years after the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848.

16. RULES OF CONDUCT FOR TEACHERS (From a school bulletin – 1915):
You will not marry during the term of your contract.
You are not to keep company with men.
You must be home between the hours of 8 P.M. and 6 A.M. unless attending a school function.
4. You may not loiter downtown in ice cream stores.
5. You may not travel beyond the city limits unless you have the permission
of the chairman of the board.
6. You may not ride in a carriage or automobile with any man unless he is your father or brother.
7. You may not smoke cigarettes.
You may not dress in bright colors.
You may under no circumstances dye your hair.
You must wear at least two petticoats.
Your dresses must not be shorter than two inches above the ankle.
To keep the schoolroom neat and clean, you must: sweep the floor at least
once daily; scrub the floor at least once a week with hot, soapy water;
clean the blackboards at least once a day and start the fire at 7 A.M.
so the room will be warm by 8 A.M.

17. In addition to suffrage women would work for better working conditions, and temperance
I. Women’s contributions to progressive reforms:
A. Temperance movement to prohibition movement =
passage of 18th Amendment in 1919
* Carrie Nation
* Frances Willard– Woman’s Christian Temperance Union
(1 million members, organized in 1874) was allied with
the Anti-Saloon League (1893)

18. Prohibition
* Anti-Saloon League (1890s) and Women’s Christian Temperance Union = leading progressive organization advocating prohibition of liquor

19. 1st State to adopt
Prohibition =
Oklahoma (1907)
Prohibitionists = drys
Anti-Prohibitionists =
wets

20. 1919 18th Amendment passed because
Efforts of the ASL and WCTU
Fervor of WWI lending patriotism to
the cause Progressive belief in social
reform… reduce the effects of alcohol
on families and businesses
Cumulative impact of state prohibition
laws

21. II. Settlement Houses –
Jane Addams, Hull House

22. III. Women’s Club Movement
A. originally to educate women to
improve themselves
B. led to thinking of themselves

23. IV. Women’s Trade Union League and National Consumers
A. Agitated to keep children out of mills and sweat
shops
B. Pensions for mother with dependent children
C. Safe food products
D. Florence Kelley, first chief factory
inspector of Illinois

24. V. Federal Agencies A. Children’s Bureau (1912)
B. Women’s Bureau (1920)
Mary Anderson
Julia Lathrop

25. VI. Women’s issues
A. Muller V Oregon (1908)
* Stated women were the
weaker sex, therefore
they needed to be
protected in the
workplace. This
opened the door to
workplace discrimination for
women.

26. VI. Women’s issues
A. Muller V Oregon (1908)
* “That woman's physical structure and the performance of maternal functions place her at a disadvantage in the struggle for subsistence is obvious. This is especially true when the burdens of motherhood are upon her. Even when they are not, by abundant testimony of the medical fraternity continuance for a long time on her feet at work, repeating this from day to day, tends to injurious effects upon the body, and as healthy mothers are essential to vigorous offspring, the physical well-being of woman becomes an object of public interest and care in order to preserve the strength and vigor of the race." 208 U.S. at 412

28. The Comstock Law of 1873 prohibited the making, selling, distribution, or importation of contraceptives, as well as any transmission of birth control information through the
mails.
* Margaret Sanger coined the term “birth control” in 1914.
Sanger would organize the American Birth Control
League to promote birth control.

29. C. Sheppard-Towner Maternity Act 1921
Federally funded instruction in maternal
and infant healthcare

30. VII. Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire (1911)
A. led to massive strike by women in needles trade
B. NY passed stronger laws regulating hours and
conditions of sweatshop toil
C. Other states followed
D. By states had laws for workers
compensation

31. The End!