1. ―We hold these truths …
American Women’s Voices
of Protest
1848 - 1920

2. Women’s Social Position
• No right to vote
• No right to her wages or property if
married
• Barred from most professions:
medicine, law, business, the ministry
Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States. New
York: Perennial, 1980. Chapter 6.

3. Women’s Social Position
• Barred from most colleges (Oberlin
College the exception)
• Unequal wages--1/4-1/2 less than men
• Legally a married woman’s identity was
subsumed into her husband’s—she was
―femme couvert‖ in the eyes of the law
Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States.
New York: Perennial, 1980. Chapter 6.

4. Middle-Class Women’s
Intimate Lives
Dominant Ideologies of Womanhood
• The Angel in the House (Victorian Ideology)
• Cult of True Womanhood (U. S. Ideology)
• Ideology of The Two Spheres
Female, domestic sphere
Male, public sphere
―Separate but equal‖--not equal for women
Nancy Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood. New Haven: Yale
UP, 1977. Chapter 2; Conclusion.

5. Cult of True Womanhood or
Cult of Domesticity
• Woman ―naturally‖ suited only to maternity
and domestic duties
• Woman idealized as:
Pious Passionless
Sexually Pure Submissive
Obedient Docile
Humble / physically delicate / dependent
Patient
Long-suffering / Self-Sacrificing
Nancy Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood. New Haven: Yale UP,
1977. Chapter 2; Conclusion.

6. Women’s Resistance
• Working-Class women strike for labor
rights (1830s, 40s, 50s) in Lowell,
Waltham, and Chicopee, MA.
• Female Labor Reform Association:
fought against position as ―slaves to a
system of labor‖
• Women led textile workers’ strikes in
1840s, 50s, & 60s
Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States.
New York: Perennial, 1980. Chapter 6.

7. Women’s Resistance
• Middle-class women enter primary
school education (single women only)
• Emma Willard opens first school for girls
in Troy, NY, 1821
• Women fight for admission to medical
schools (Harvard refuses)
Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States.
New York: Perennial, 1980. Chapter 6.

8. Women’s Resistance
• Abolitionist women in the American Anti-
Slavery Society begin to fight for
women’s rights:
Angelina and Sarah Grimke
Lucy Stone
Susan B. Anthony
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
• National American Woman Suffrage
Association (1890) Carrie Chapman Catt

9. Seneca Falls Convention
• Seneca Falls, NY, 19-20 July, 1848
• First National Convention for Women’s
Rights in U. S.
• Passed 12 resolutions to address the
inequality of women
• One resolution—the franchise—was
the most controversial
Amy Kesselman, et al. Women: Images and
Realities. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006. 548.

10. Susan B. Anthony
Elizabeth Cady Stanton

11. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
• Declaration of Sentiments author
• Presented it at the first Women’s Rights
Convention in Seneca Falls, NY
―We hold these truths to be self-evident:
that all men and women are created
equal‖
(Amy Kesselman, et al. Women: Images and Realities 548)

12. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Stanton with two of
her eight children
Espoused ―Voluntary
Motherhood‖--that is,
the right to choose
when to have sexual
relations, and the right
to refuse sexual relations
to one’s husband
Wrote The Woman’s
Bible—a feminist translation
and interpretation of Scripture

13. Lucretia and James Mott

14. Fredrick Douglas
"In this denial of the right to
participate in government, not
merely the degradation of
woman and the perpetuation
of a great injustice happens,
but the maiming and
repudiation of one-half of the
moral and intellectual power
of the government of the
world.‖
Seneca Falls Convention,
1848

15. Sojourner Truth
Abolitionist and Women’s Rights
Activist
c. 1797-1883

17. • Born enslaved c. 1797 in NY
• ―Owned‖ by Dutch family
• Parents were Africans
who kept the language and traditions
of Africa alive in the community
• Sold at auction, aged 9
• Beaten and raped by this owner
until sold again at age 11
• Sold twice more by 1810
1870 photograph

18. • Fell in love with an enslaved
man at 18
• Her lover brutally beaten by his
―owner‖; their love forbidden
• Forced by her ―owner‖ to marry
another enslaved man by whom
she had several children
• Escaped from slavery with her
daughter in 1826; NY emancipates
slaves, 1827
• In 1843 changed her name to
Sojourner Truth and worked for the
abolition of slavery
• Speaks at abolitionist and women’s
rights gatherings
1870s tintype photo

19. ―Ain’t I a Woman‖—Ohio Women’s
Rights Convention, 1851

20. Dominant Gender Ideologies
& Female Slavery
Truth ―deconstructs‖ these ideologies in ―Ain’t I a
Woman‖ (shows internal contradictions)
• Cult of True Womanhood
• Ideology of the Mammy
• Ideology of the Jezebel
Deborah Gray White, Ar’nt I a Woman: Female Slaves in the Plantation
South. Chapter one.

21. Woman Suffrage Movement
1848 - 1920
72 Year Struggle to Win the
Vote

22. National Women’s Association
• Next Generation of Suffrage Activists:
Alice Paul (Wrote the Equal Rights
Amendment—still not ratified)
Lucy Burns
Inez Mulholland
• More militant ―New Women‖; advocated
direct, public actions and
demonstrations

23. Alice Paul

24. Lucy Burns

25. Dora Lewis

26. Mass Demonstration in U. S.
Capital
Counter-Inaugural Demonstration in Washington, DC—March 3, 1913

27. Women March on Capital Building, Washington, DC

28. Elizabeth Freeman sets out for Washington on Feb. 17

29. Women Demand Full Enfranchisement

30. News Story on Parade Line-Up

31. Suffragists March on Pennsylvania Ave. with Capital in Background

32. Police Watch Crowds Gather

33. Inez Mulholland leads the ―Iron-Jawed Angels‖

34. Grand Marshall and other organizers gather

35. Ida B. Wells-Barnett--refused to march at the end of the parade

36. Mary Church Terrell agreed to march at the end of the parade

37. Violent Crowd Storms the Parade and Breaks it Up

38. Hostile Mob Surrounds Ambulance

39. Women’s Newspaper Claims Victory Despite Violence

40. Iron-Jawed Angels
President Wilson Inaugurated 1913; U. S. enters W W I 1917
Woman Suffrage activists continue picketing the White House
―Mr. Wilson, when are you going to give us democracy at
home?‖
Dozens of women arrested, striped naked, beaten, man-
handled, illegally detained without counsel, physically
restrained and force-fed. ―Night of Terror‖—November 15,
1917, in Occoquan Prison Workhouse, Occoquan, Virginia.
Iron-Jawed Angels: March 3, 1913 Iron-Jawed Angels--force-feeding--1917g

41. ―Will the Circle Be Unbroken‖
Americn Hymn (1907)
Chorus:
Will that circle be unbroken
Bye and bye, Lord, bye and bye?
There’s a better home awaiting
In the sky, Lord, in the sky
Written by Ada Habershon
First recorded by renowned Carter Family
Widely sung during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement

42. Works Cited
• Slides 2 & 3: Howard Zinn, A People’s
History of the United States. New
York: Perennial, 1980. Chapter 6.
• Slide 4 & 5: Nancy Cott, The Bonds of
Womanhood. New Haven: Yale UP,
1977. Chapter 2; Conclusion.
• Slides 6 & 7: Howard Zinn, A People’s
History of the United States. New York:
Perennial, 1980. Chapter 6.

43. • Slides 9, 10 & 12: Amy Kesselman, et al.
Women: Images and Realities. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 2006. 548.
• Slide 11, Image
http://susanbanthonyhouse.org/index.php
• Slide 13, Image
http://www1.assumption.edu/whw/old/Swiss
helm_Bloomers.html
• Slide 14 Images
http://womenshistory.about.com/od/suffrage
pre1848/p/lucretia_mott.htm

44. • Slide 15 Image:
http://www.frederickdouglass.org/dougla
ss_bio.html Text: McMillen, Sally
Gregory, Seneca Falls and the Origins
of the Women’s Rights Movement. New
York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
93-94.
• Slides 17 – 20 Images
http://www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/trut-
soj.htm Text: The Narrative of
Sojourner Truth. Boston, 1850. n.p.
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/tr
uth/1850/1850.html#9

45. • Slide 21: Deborah Gray White, Ar’nt I a
Woman: Female Slaves in the
Plantation South. Chapter one.
• Slides 24-6, Images
http://www.alicepaul.org/
• Slides 27-40, Images
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/
aw01e/aw01e.html
• Music: Etta James, ―At Last.‖ Etta
James: The Chess Box. Disc 1. Chess
Records, 2000.