Cheap Amusements By Kathy Peiss Essay

Women’s role began and eventually changed radically during the social reform movements of the antebellum period, they themselves took on a role completely the opposite of what their

Women’s roles have changed greatly throughout history. As the advancement of culture, laws, and ideas altered ways of life, women’s lives also evolved in numerous aspects of society. Women’s roles changed greatly between 1815 and 1860. During this time, family dynamics changed as the mothers that were placed at the center of the household were given greater freedoms. In addition, women had more opportunity to take on jobs in the workplace. Women also fought for reform movements that altered their ways of life in the community. During the reform era of the United States, factors such as religion, education, and reforms greatly changed women’s roles in the family, workplace, and society.

The Second Industrial Revolution had a major impact on women's lives. After being controlled fro so long women were experiencing what it was like to live an independent life. In the late nineteenth century women were participating in a variety of experiences, such as social disabilities confronted by all women, new employment patterns, and working class poverty and prostitution. These experiences will show how women were perceived in the Second Industrial Revolution.

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic is an autobiography written by Alison Bechdel. The graphic novel takes its readers through Alison Bechdel’s childhood using engaging diction and detailed drawings. One of the big themes of Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic is the discovery of one’s sexual orientation. Over the course of her life, Alison Bechdel eventually comes to the realization that she is a lesbian. Ultimately, Alison Bechdel uses this novel to recount her experience of events that helped to shape her personal identity, which resulted in a transformation of the way she sees herself. In the end, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic is a wonderful narrative that shows its readers the complexity of personal identity, and how things like love, the values of

At the start of the decade, society and the way people lived changed drastically. Women specifically were viewed in a different way. Before the 1920s, women were portrayed as the “typical housewife”. Women were supposed to stay home, cook, clean, and raise the children. During the 1920s, women were changing the culture and the stereotype of a “typical housewife”. Women began to go

These women worked on the Southern plantations all day without relief. They not only worked in the fields, but also in the house with their masters. Though people thought slavery was a sin, as Mrs. A did, women could not challenge slavery politically because there was a great lack of decorum in women getting involved with politics, thus African American women continued to work for free (Doc. C). Even though this was a setback, women in the workforce pushed forward and strived to become equal. As women continued to chase their equality in the workforce, they petitioned the Massachusetts legislature to try and equal themselves with men (Doc. I). Although women started off slow, working for low wages, they continued to challenge for their equality in the workforce.

(Schaller 592) From the poor work conditions, the immigration levels continued to grow thus feeding the endless cycle. With the new flow of immigrants, meant the rise of a younger generation who would cut ties with the older traditions.  Some young working women turned against parental rules, and control. The gained their independence by keeping money for themselves to spend on clothes and go out and socialize, in ways that previous generations hadn’t. They also rejected the normal things such as arranged marriages, embracing more American ways of love. (Schaller 631) Middle class women began to embrace this style and it became known as the “New Woman.” They slowly began to move away from what was then the ideal woman, and become more athletically involved in things such as: hiking, camping, bicycling, tennis, and many other sports. (Schaller 634) Soon after they broke away from their stereotypical housewife facade, they began to raise their voices on controversial issues other than women’s rights.  Jane Addams was inspired by her stay at Toynbee

Woman along with the children were affected while working during the industrial revolution. During 1834 and 1836 Harriet Martineau, a British feminist and abolitionist, visited America and enthusiastically embraced the social implications of the Industrial Revolution, (DTA, 223). Martineau compared the lifestyle of women to slaves and said the United States contradicted the principles of the Declaration of Independence. She did believe though with some progress that it could become New England’s new industrial order. One of the Mill factories Martineau visited, Waltham Mill, was a prime example of the scheduled lifestyle of women mill workers. Women Mill workers of all ages worked at Waltham Mill, which I compared to a boarding school because of their strict schedules. The ladies had a time to wake up, to be at work, to eat, and to go to school. A lot of women did not mind the harsh conditions they lived and worked in because they fought for their equality of rights for a long time now.

In the book, Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York, Piess takes the reader on the journey of trials and tribulations in working-class women’s lives in the turn of the century. Going in depth of the unfair familial roles and societal female disparities, all the way to what women liked to wear and do for leisure, Piess allows the reader to step into a time machine and gives them a first-class look into what a woman’s daily life was like in late 1800’s and early 1900’s. By using ‘expert’ sources and ‘investigators’, Piess succeeds in her goal by honing in on a specific time and topic which allowed the reader to feel as if they were reading an in-depth

The women of the 1920’s were first introduced to society as a generation that spent most of their time cleaning, cooking, and nurturing their children. However, as the “Roaring 20s” came to impact the

In the mid to late 1700's, the women of the United States of America had practically no rights. When they were married, the men represented the family, and the woman could not do anything without consulting the men. Women were expected to be housewives, to raise their children, and thinking of a job in a factory was a dream that was never thought impossible. But, as years passed, women such as Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, and Elizabeth Blackwell began to question why they were at home all day raising the children, and why they did not have jobs like the men. This happened between the years of 1776 and 1876, when the lives and status of Northern middle-class woman was changed forever. Women began to

In Cheap Amusements, Kathy Peiss studies the customs, values, public styles, and ritualized interactions expressed in leisure time of the working-class women living in New York. The social experiences of these young women gives different clues to the ways in which these women constructed and gave meaning to their lives between the years of 1880-1920.

Paid work for women moved from principally customary female-situated employments to all the more non-conventional and already male-arranged vocations. Ladies ' support in the workforce prompted them to start careers in the field dominated by male in the 20th century. Career yearnings were affected by elements, such as sexual orientation, financial status, race, occupation and instruction level, and parental desires. This paper exhibits how women developed, changed and the challenges they faced in the 20th century in America in the workforce and the advancement of ladies ' careers, improvement and profession goals during the 20th century in United States. Also, gender issues affecting women will be discussed in details during this period and how women played their role in fighting for their rights.

The author of A Pair of Silk Stockings explores female roles based on what other people believe due to stereotypes. In this short story Mrs. Sommers finds $15 which is a sizable about of money to her in New York. She and her family are on the poorer side of New York. At first Mrs. Sommers has no clue on what she should do the money she had just come to. She is thinking about her children and that they could use new skirls because she had seen a beautiful new pattern in a market window, or caps for her boys and sailor-caps for her girls (Chopin 1). She thought of them due to the fact that that is what mothers and wives do in the 1800’s, they but their children and husband before thinking of themselves. She thought back to the time when she wasn’t

New York; a utopian and materialistic world in which society people “dreaded scandal more than disease” In the novel“ The Age Innocence” by Edith Wharton lived in a time period in which “New Woman” were coming to existence. Woman in the 1920’s were willing and able to do things that were restricted or not allowed by social values. For instance one of theses things would be working outside of home. The majority of woman still did not work for pay, but the amount of women working during the specific decade increased. Before women were segregated and put aside when it came to jobs such as staying home and being a housewife as generations past. On the contrary men had many freedom when it came to jobs, men worked in factories, farmers,manual