Video

Ida Wells

Flapper Story

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Unit  2 Vocabulary Terms

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Unit 3 Vocabulary Terms

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 Vocabulary Terms 1920s and 1930s

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Vocabulary Terms 1950s and early 60s

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Vocabulary 1960s and Beyond

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Women through World War I

Rise of the New Woman

Jane Addams as example of the new Woman of the late 19th century

• mix of Victorian virtues with social activism
• enhanced view of self, gender and mission
• middle or upper class, town, college educated

Reshaping of Household

By 1900 middle class home lost productive function

More stringent standards o housekeeping

Home emptier with men at work and children at school

Women seen as responsible for home management

Expanding role for women

Women’s sphere enlarged visibly

• in the home and outside it
• involved in single sex associations-such as church groups, women’s clubs, temperance organizations, welfare projects, literary discussion circles
• idea to purify public life and uplift it

Shrinking Families

Fertility rate dropped to 3.56 children per woman in 1900

Characteristic of white middle class

Companionite family became ideal especially as educational levels rose

Statistics for native born white women

Three children and live past 50

Survive departure of last child from home

Less drudgery, more time, more energy

Women in 1900

1900-1910 married women could expect to spend five years less caring for children than women 100 years earlier

1900-1910 married women could expect to live 10 years longer than women 100 years earlier

How declining birthrate achieved

Most widespread methods of birth control were abstinence and decreasing frequency of sexual relations

Contraception and abortion were condemned by women of all persuasions since both "encouraged the sexual exploitation of women"

Female autonomy as a byproduct

Women gain control over men by these methods

Avoid pregnancy and increase power at home

Middle class wife of 1900 more autonomous than any of her predecessors

Female Sexuality in Transition

Idea that women less sexual than men persisted in medical and popular literature

Debate on subject in medical profession and marriage manuals

Female sexuality an assumption by the end of 19th century

Mosher Survey 1890s

Pioneer survey by Clelia Mosher a woman physician

Given 45 middle class married women over 30 year period

Mosher Survey 1890s

Women not typical

2 of 3 college educated

Respondents viewed own sexuality as identical to men

High regard for marital sex

Mosher Survey

Other findings

• voiced a desire for moderation
• 1/3 said sexual intercourse not a necessity for either sex
• 1/2 said they had intercourse more than they wished
• Average said relations occurred once and week and preference was once a month

Prostitution

By product of urbanization

Likely to be poor, young

Surveys of Prostitutes

Why did women become prostitutes?

1870s survey by Massachusetts Labor Bureau

• low pay and economic need

Surveys of Prostitutes

1889 government survey of 4000 prostitutes in eastern and Midwest cities

• most recruited from "industrious classes"
• 1/3 entered trade directly from home

20th century surveys emphasized urban evils as the cause

Middle-class Reformers and Prostitutes

Saw her as victim of city and male predators

1911 undercover study said factories were recruiting place for red light districts

"Aggressive recruiters" cited by other surveys

Some cited economics as reason

Prostitutes

Reasons for choice: economics and background

• could make 5 times the income of typical unskilled factory member
• many cited broken, troubled family background

Progressives campaign against them

• successfully closed down red light

Idea of "Voluntary Motherhood"

Theme of late 19th century was for women to exert control over their own sexual lives

Control over sexual relations was a goal of self-ownership

Rise of the Divorce rate

Signs of raised expectations in marriage

1890s divorce rate was 3 times rate of population increase

1880 1 divorce per 21 marriages

1900 1 divorce per 12 marriages

1916 1 divorce per 9 marriages

Rise of expectations

Most divorce demands came from women

• 2/3 of divorces granted to women

Rise of expectations of companionite family

Smaller proportion of women married

Decline in Number of Eligible Men

Scarcity of eligible men in East and cities

• In 20-29 year old group there were 93 men to 100 women
• Impact fell on women with highest status and educational levels

Thus, staying single an improved option

• Examples of Addams, Willard, Lillian Wald, M. Carey Thomas, Anna Howard Shaw

Educated Homemakers

By 1900 middle class home transformed

New food products such as baked goods and canned goods could be bought

Clothing purchased such as suits, shirts, shoes, dresses

Middle-Class Home Transformed

Technological improvements as running water, furnaces

Gas stoves

Ice delivery

Electric power

Technology Divided Class and Region

Rural women lacked running water

Laundry done over stoves with vats

Heat provided by wood or coal left soot

Produced most clothing

Urban slums had no gas or electric, garbage collection running water or central heating

Elevation of the Homemaker

Professionalize the homemaker’s work

High schools began to teach home economics

College courses in child psychology, domestic science

Advice books and popular magazines led by 1889 Ladies Home Journal

Professional status supported by

Ladies Home Journal readers who did housework

Colleges who offered courses

Suffragists endorse enhancing women’s status

Doctors said it would reduce infant mortality

Child Centerpiece of Society

Child was "discovered" as being centerpiece of society

Birthrate low

• middle class child more attention

"Competent" mother needed "insight" not only "instinct"

Campaign for Educated Motherhood

Formation of mother’s clubs 1890s

National Congress of Mothers 1897

1910 Mother’s Clubs had 50,000+ members

1920 150,000 members

1924 the National Congress of Mothers became the PTA

Visions of cooperative housekeeping

Cambridge Collective 1869

• Melusina Fay Peirce started a producers cooperative
• cooking, baking, sewing, laundry
• lasted 2 years since husbands were assessed fees for services
• one historian labeled it, "material feminism"

Other Collective Efforts

Collective ideas as cooperative kitchens laundries, and eating facilities

Endorsed by Addams and Ellen Richards

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

• best known collectivist plans

Common themes

Pay women for domestic work

Reorganize spatial design of home and community to suit women’s needs

Divisions between private household space and public space should be revised

Impact of Collective Ideas

Remained visions rather than realities

Idea of professional parent and household executive more popular with women’s groups

Voices on the Left

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

• Affiliated with Socialist Party, Heterodoxy, and Women’s Peace Party
• Book Women and Economics 1898 argued for women’s economic independence

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Denounced the isolated private home

Proposed cooperative housekeeping, cooking, child care

Paid services for domestic work by specialists

Popular through the 1920s

Common theme to pay women for domestic work

Voices on the Left

Emma Goldman emigrated to New York as a teenager from Russia in 1885

Magazine Mother Earth (1906-1918)

Defended free speech and anarchism

Politics would always be dominated by business interests

Against the women’s vote

Emma Goldman

Attacked marriage as a "sex commodity"

Favored affection without marriage

Wanted women to be independent economically and in their soul

Early advocate of birth control and was arrested for lecturing on it in 1916

inspired women such as Sanger and Helen Gurley Flynn

Crystal Eastman

Socialist lawyer and Vassar alumni

Militant wing of the suffrage crusade

Master’s degree in sociology and went to law school

On New York State Commission 1909 to draft workmen’s compensation laws

Crystal Eastman continued

Member of feminist group Heterodoxy

Worked for birth control and free speech

Objected to marriage although married 2 times

Key person in National Women’s Party

Involved in Woman’s Peace Party formed in 1915

Crystal Eastman continued

Represents feminist wave that developed in last 10 years of the suffrage campaign

Represents "modern feminism"

• saw women’s battle as distinct from other reform issues
• embodied paradoxes such as sexual equality and sexual difference and individual freedom and gender solidarity

"Modern Feminism’s" Impact on the Women’s Movement

Suffrage appeared as centrist position

Radical feminist "left" and conservative women reformers on right

World War I socialism and pacifism in disrepute

• suffrage only cause left

Women’s Suffrage

The movement to achieve the vote for women

Problems in the suffrage movement

• Male reformers did not support the idea
• Why they opposed the vote
• Impacted women’s organizations such as the General Federal of Women’s Clubs
• Anna Howard Shaw’s presidency of NAWSA (1904-1915)
• Dictatorial style
• Poor administrator

Traditional Tactics of the Movement

• Petitions
• Non-militant strategy
• No attempt to form alliances with working-class groups

• Focus on the individual states, not Congress

Traditional Arguments Used by the Movement

• Natural rights
• Vote would protect the home
• Vote would counter the votes of undesirable people
• blacks
• recent immigrants

Change in Argument

• Argument to expediency approach
• Women needed the vote to protect the home
• Women needed the vote to become more effective reformers
• Less controversial than natural rights argument

Problem in Using Expediency Arguments

• Based on the traditional image of women
• Based on the idea that women’s had special qualities and characteristics

Two New Problems with the Expediency Strategy

• Arguing women needed the vote to protect the home implied women's place was in the home
• Arguing women needed the vote to vote for reform implied women would vote for reform

Two Generations of Reformers

Old or Traditional

• Variety of ideas about sexuality
• Interested in ending discrimination against women in public sphere

New or Younger

• Variety of ideas about sexuality
• Concerned with psychological liberation as well as practical liberation
• Less organizational activity

Suffrage Achieved

New leadership

• Some lived in England where militant tactics used
• Example of Rheta Childe Dorr, Harriet Stanton Blatch, Alice Paul

Change in attitude--need votes rather than moral argument

Progressive Men Join the Fight

• Progressive men change belief to women’s vote necessary for their programs
• Between 1910-1914, 6 more states gave women the vote
• Illinois, California, Arizona, Kansas, Oregon

Idea that Women should be Neutral Changes

Two key groups endorse women’s suffrage in 1914

• Women’s National Committee of the Socialist Party
• General Federation of Women’s Clubs

New Strategies

• Lobbying Congress
• Standardizing membership lists
• Establishing state headquarters
• Seeking alliances with working-class groups
• Parades
• Rallies

Divisions in the Movement

• NAWSA under leadership of Carrie Chapman Catt 1915
• Congressional Union under leadership of Alice Paul 1913
• Concentrates on lobbying Congress
• NAWSA and Congressional Union work together

Alice Paul founds Women’s Party 1916

• Resorts to militant tactics
• 1917 round the clock picketing of the White House
• They were arrested and jailed
• Press exposed harshness of their treatment

World War I Aids the Cause

• NAWSA membership doubles reaching a peak of 2 million by 1919
• Women suffrage as a "war measure"
• Fight for democracy at home
• Wilson supports women’s suffrage in 1916

The Nineteenth Amendment

• House of Representatives passed a woman suffrage amendment on January 10, 1918
• Senate approved it in June 1919
• Fourteen months later the 36th state approved it on August 26, 1920
• 26 million women enfranchised for election of 1920

"Free and Equal Citizens"

• Charlotte Woodward aged 91, was one of the voters in election 1920
• She was sole survivor of Seneca Falls Convention 1848

Generalizations

The ideal role for women was to be in the home as wives and mothers.

• Single women were able to work
• Single women's labor seen as temporary
• Expectation was that they would stop working when they married
• Pregnant women would not work

Generalizations about Women and Work

What women did for pay outside the home corresponded with what women did unpaid insider the home.

Women's work was tied to belief about special characteristics of women.

• What were these special characteristics
• Leads to demand for "protective legislation"