The Abolition Movement Essay

First, let’s talk about what caused the women’s rights movement and how it not only paved the way for the abolitionist movement but, how powerful the campaigns were when combined. In the nineteenth century, the women’s main role was to be a house wife. Women were often stuck at home doing chores and taking care of the children. They were not allowed to vote, hold a title in public office, work, own property, or even get an education (Women 's Rights. (n.d.), 2016). The women of the nineteenth century wanted to change those rules so they fought for equality. There were many women who were brave enough to stand up for their rights and publicly speak about their thoughts and civil liberties towards equality between men and women. In

Throughout the history of the United States there have been many reform movements that have molded the culture we live in today. The rights that we as Americans enjoy today can be credited to the people who fought for more rights and a better way of life. Two reform movements that have changed America for the better are the Abolitionist Movement and the Civil Rights Movement. Around the 1820’s the feeling of legal slavery was changing in the United States.

Over 5000 volunteer nurses’ north and south served in military hospitals during the Civil War. Nurses were of all sorts and came from all over. Women wanted to be involved in this national struggle in any way they could. They did not want to stay home and play their traditional domestic roles that social convention and minimal career opportunities had confined the majority of their sex to. Many women thought of nursing as an extension of their home duties, almost like taking care of “their boys.” They recall the Civil War as a time when their work as nurses made a difference. It gave them an opportunity to prove they had the ability and courage to help.

Slavery in the United States first started in 1619, when African slaves were transported to Jamestown, a settlement in the colony in Virginia. These slaves were brought to the United States primarily to help with the making of crops, especially tobacco. The practice of slavery remained present throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in other colonies of the United States, which helped build and strengthen the American economy as a whole. In 1793, the cotton gin was invented, which triggered the immense importance of the practice of slavery towards the success of the economy in the southern parts of the United States. On the other hand, the northern parts of the United States experienced a

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.

Sarah and Angelina Grimke were the first Southern women to become influential abolitionist, which spoke on the end of slavery; as well as social and political equality for freedmen and women as well. The Grimke sisters stretched the boundary of women’s public role, by giving speeches to audiences with men and women, and by speaking in front of a state legislature about African American rights. Sarah and Angelina broke many of the social and political boundaries subjected on women.

Edmund S. Morgan’s famous novel American Slavery, American Freedom was published by Norton in 1975, and since then has been a compelling scholarship in which he portrays how the first stages of America began to develop and prosper. Within his researched narrative, Morgan displays the question of how society with the influence of the leaders of the American Revolution, could have grown so devoted to human freedom while at the same time conformed to a system of labor that fully revoked human dignity and liberty. Using colonial Virginia, Morgan endeavors how American perceptions of independence gave way to the upswing of slavery. At such a time of underdevelopment and exiguity, cultivation and production of commodities were at a high demand. Resources were of monumental importance not just in Virginia, but all over North America, for they helped immensely in maintaining and enriching individuals and families lives. In different ways, people in colonies like Virginia’s took advantage of these commodities to ultimately establish or reestablish their societies.

Abolishment of Slavery Slavery was caused by economic factors of the English settlers in the late 17th century. Colonists continually tried to allure laborers to the colony. The head right system was to give the indentured servant, a method of becoming independent after a number of years of service. Slavery was caused by economic reasons. Colonists chiefly relied on Indentured Servitude, in order to facilitate their need for labor. The decreasing population combined with a need for a labor force, led colonists to believe that African slaves were the most efficient way to acquire a labor force that would satisfy their needs. Slaves were people who were taken from their homeland in Africa and brought to America, to serve as servants on

Like with Lowell, girls from New England flocked to mills and factories in search of a better life and new opportunities. (“At the Clang”). Although some may claim that factory life was a negative experience and hurt the mill girls, it is clear that the Industrial Revolution impacted the lives of American workers in a positive way, for they gained more independence, stood up for their rights, and,

Abolitionist Movement, reform movement during the 18th and 19th centuries. Often called the antislavery movement, it sought to end the enslavement of Africans and people of African descent in Europe, the Americans, and Africa itself. It also aimed to end the Atlantic slave trade carried out in the Atlantic Ocean between Africa, Europe, and the Americans. Black resistance was the most important factor. Since the 1500s Africans and persons of African descent had attempted to free themselves from slavery by force. Which let to revolts that are called Antislavery Organizations. The abolitionist movement includes things like colonization, antislavery newspaper, and there is some famous abolitionist.

Slavery, especially in America, has been an age old topic of riveting discussions. Specialist and other researchers have been digging around for countless years looking for answers to the many questions that such an activity provided. They have looked into the economics of slavery, slave demography, slave culture, slave treatment, and slave-owner ideology (p. ix). Despite slavery being a global issue, the main focus is always on American slavery. Peter Kolchin effectively illustrates in his book, American Slavery how slavery evolved alongside of historical controversy, the slave-owner relationship, how slavery changed over time, and how America compared to other slave nations around the world.

“I shall not stay here… Up before day, at the clang of a bell and out the mill by the bell - just as though we were so many living machines” (Hopkinson 37). Many girls, between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five, worked at textile mills during the Industrial Revolution for eleven to twelve hours a day, with little time to catch their breath and fresh air. The Industrial Revolution started in Europe in the eighteenth century and spread to America during the nineteenth century. Eli Whitney’s invention of interchangeable parts and mass production helped lead the American Industrial Revolution, which started after the War of 1812 and peaked during the 1870’s. During this time period, many factories, mills, and factory cities were constructed, one of which was Lowell, Massachusetts, and employed women because their salaries were lower and therefore cost less. The conditions of the mills and boarding houses that the girls lived in were unpleasant and crowded, and they could easily become ill. Eventually, after the height of the Industrial Revolution, women fought for their rights and better conditions in their workplaces. The Industrial Revolution changed women’s roles in society, as it made jobs that were filled by girls, put them in challenging settings, and united them to work for change in the workforce.

The mill factories of the early 19th century are quite different from what we know and perceive to be factory work today. One might be surprised initially that a girl would want to go to the mills given the current perception of them, but in this time the mills were quite attractive initially for many women. Mary Paul initially tried to find work as a domestic for a farming family but after that failed, she moved to the mills in Lowell looking for work (Dublin 121). Most women in the early 19th century didn’t have opportunities to earn and income. Lowell was such a unique place at this time as it provided women work for money and a chance to move of their own accord to somewhere new.

In 1688 the first American movement was the one to abolish slavery when the German and Quakers decent in Pennsylvania. The Quakers establishment had no immediate action for the Quaker Petition against slavery. The first American abolition society was the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully by the Quakers that had strong religious objections of slavery. In 1756 John Woolman gave up his business to campaign against slavery along with other Quakers. Thomas Paine was the first to write an article about the United States abolition of slavery and it was titled “African Slavery in America”.

The women generally liked being away from the drudgery of farm life. Earning their own money and living on their own was very liberating, despite the harsh conditions of the factories. The crowded, all-female environments of textile and garment factories created a feeling of community among women. (17) At the largest textile mill in New England, Lowell, MA, the women even started their own publication,The Lowell Offering, with their poetry and essays. Read an excerpt. Urban factory work was a major occupation of native-born migrants from the countryside as well as immigrants. Sixty-four percent of Boston’s female industrial workforce was immigrant in 1860. Women workers performed the same unskilled jobs in urban mills as in