The Ideal Role Of Women In The 19th Century

During the 18th century, women were treated like slaves. They had little authority regarding anything. Women didn’t have the right to vote or the right to own property. Only a spinster or widow woman could own and manage property until they married. Women were owned by the husband just as he owned material possessions. Many women were trapped in loveless marriages and those without families were seen as outcasts. The husband was legally entitled to beat his wife for disobedience. Divorces were rarely granted and women usually ran away from bad marriages. As you read, I will talk about

I have to let the readers know how I stumbled upon this topic to introduce where I get my ideas from. It all started in the archive located on the second floor of the library in a dark corner behind a clear glass doors at the Hunter College. I have been attending Hunter College for four years and never have I stumbled on such an amazing place full of live history. I say live history because all the documents and books that are held in the archive are all preserved originals, which fascinated me. Thinking how people who lived more than century ago wrote and read the same things I’m writing and reading about excited me to my very soul. Archive research though fascinating is not an easy task that can be done in within fifteen minutes like how researches are done these days using convenient technologies at hand.

     While manufacturing spread across the country, women were pulled toward the clanging mechanism of factory production. They toiled six days a week, earning a meager amount for tedious periods of twelve or thirteen hours. Opportunities for women to be economically self-supporting were scarce and consisted mainly of nursing, domestic service, and especially teaching. About 10 percent of white women were working for pay outside their own homes in 1850, and estimates are that about 20 percent of all women had been employed at some time prior to marriage. The vast majority of working women were single. Upon marriage, they left their paying jobs and took up their new work, without wages, as wives and mothers. In the home they were preserved in a “cult of domesticity.” From their platform, married women commanded immense moral power, and they increasingly made

Syed Ali English 126 CD3 Professor Stapleton 23rd December 2014 Roles and Rights of Women The roles and rights of women were considered less important than the average man in the late 1800s. The roles of women has dramatically evolved throughout the years. During the late 1870's women were often thought of as secondary citizens to men.

Women's lives and furthermore role in the public eye has changed radically during 1800s. The significance behind females was adjusted and affected within the nineteenth century in the political, economic, and social domains. Despite the fact that their social roles were not altered much, the progressivism, liberalism, and reforms of the period as well as impacts of Industrialization awarded women a considerably more critical role in the public arena and society as a whole. Within the social realm, their role differentiated in the nineteenth century, yet women were still to be subservient to men regardless.

In the first half of the nineteenth century in British North America, women’s political roles differed from those of men. British North America was a European male-dominate patriarchy society in which women’s roles within society were limited. During the nineteenth century, men were considered superior since they had power and control over everyday aspects of life; however, women slowly began to slightly change the social order of society by contributing and influencing decisions on political issues. Despite this not being seen as the norm, for the most part, men dominated politics. Women were able to contribute to the public life, but due to a European influenced patriarchal society within British North America during the nineteenth century, women had limited influence in political decision-making.

Queen Victoria 's reign saw a great change in industrialisation alongside social change which affected a variety of people and classes.

During the early 1800's women were stuck in the Cult of Domesticity. Women had been issued roles as the moral keepers for societies as well as the nonworking house-wives for families. Also, women were considered unequal to their male companions legally and socially. However, women’s efforts during the 1800’s were effective in challenging traditional intellectual, social, economical, and political attitudes about a women’s place in society.

During the 1800s women became more inferior to earlier times. They shifted their roles from a house wife to becoming a more important part of the family life. In the 19th century, America was going through an important change in development and war. Throughout the 19th century, women had one goal, to fight for equal rights under the law and most importantly the right to vote. Women in each ethnic group had different types of “jobs.”

The tragic narratives constructed by historians such as Cornelia Dayton in her article “Taking the Trade” and Amy Gilman Srebnick in “The Mysterious Death of Mary Rogers” are crucial in analyzing the transformation of women’s reproductive health between the mid 18th century and the mid 19th century. Although Dayton and Srebnick’s narrations of abortions and death are based upon events that transpired nearly 100 years apart, a collective analysis of both sources creates a greater understanding of the societal perception of the woman’s role in colonial North America. Set in the context of a small New England village in the mid 18th century and the emerging metropolis of New York City mid 19th century New York City. One could argue a variety

Women in this era, are recognized as people and citizens. In the 1900’s. women struggled to even have social equality. Women demanded their position in the community and wanted to be acknowledge as significant members in society. However, before women achieved their standing position, this wasn’t the case for women living in the 1900’s.

In the mid to late nineteenth century, America was full of potential. Settlers were cultivating the west, blacks that were once captive were no longer enslaved, and a woman’s role in society was undergoing a transformation. The reality of this all was, blacks were not considered equal status with whites, American Indians were being pushed out west and women were still considered second-class citizens.

At the end of the 18th century and during the 19th century, there were many changes to public ideology that affected the way that women perceived their roles in society. Prior to these changes, women had adopted the beliefs of separate “spheres” separating work into public life and their duties as mothers at home1. Women stayed at home to take care of the children and provide a warm, welcoming home for their husbands to take refuge from public life. Women became aware of their lack of legal and political power after the American Revolutionary War ended as they were denied the right to the same freedoms that granted the right to vote to the white, property-owning male population2. Despite granting women more liberty to run businesses, farms,

Gender roles were sharply defined in the 19th century. Women were expected to stay at home and carry out the domestic duties as well as taking care of the children and educate them and provide a peaceful home for their husband. Women were seen as loving and caring. On the other hand, men were expected to work and earn money for the family. They would fight wars and were seen as strong and powerful. Men had more freedom and rights, such as the right to vote, than women in the 19th century. Society had created two completely separate spheres. In the medical field, men were doctors. There were laws in many states, such as, that prohibited women from becoming doctors. Women, who decided to practice medicine in the 19th century had to struggle with much opposition because it went against prevailing ideas about women’s role in society. Women belonged in the private and domestic sphere. Men belonged to competitive and immoral public sphere of industry and commerce. The women in medicine would face accusations that they were abandoning their sphere and threatening society. Due to these arguments and the fear of economic competition from female practitioner, male medical schools and hospitals denied women access to institutions. However, Elizabeth Blackwell, changed this idea of separate spheres when she decided to take on the medical field and become a doctor. Although Elizabeth Black had a natural aversion to the medical field, her

The societal expectations for women in the 19th century was to search for a husband and to keep their husbands or man happy, no matter how hard it seemed and no matter what it consisted of. Women were supposed to look for a husband but if they tried to hard, people thought they had a worrying sexual appetite.(Gender roles, no p) A women must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern language….she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of voice, her address and expressions (Pride and prejudice, no p) If you were a women that devoted herself to bettering her education then they would insult you