Women During The American Revolution: Republican Motherhood

However, the revolution didn’t encourage both sexes to reevaluate the women’s right. It very little changed happen women still had the same basic rights like before. However, Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, became an early supporter of women's rights when she prompted her husband to "REMEMBER THE LADIES" when starting up a new government. Even though Adams passed a new law that protects some women from bad husband this new law did not protect the single women. Also, women need and wanted to have the same right as men. Women have the same capacity and the same intellectual as men, there is no difference. The only difference between women and men that men have access to education and have more power than women before the American Revolution, this changed after women started to realize that they could have the same rights as men. Furthermore, American women deserve to have the same right. If the republic were to succeed, women must be educated in quality so they could teach their children how

For one, since women were seen as the property of men and as dependent beings, working was not something they would usually do. Thus, working in mills was already something different. However, working in the textile mills were tough. They worked in harsh conditions, in which they worked long hours and had low pay. According to Vera Shlackman, “all the learning I now have gained without instruction, having obtained alone and that too I have labored twelve hours a day”(59), this shows how long they worked for in the mills each day, twelve hours a day. This also shows how despite the fact the mills state that “women working in Lowell’s mills, moreover, could avail themselves of certain education services”(Schug et al. 147), they kept the mill girl’s education at a certain level, in which Vera Shlakman had to resort in teaching herself. To add on, the mill girls had low pay. According to Mark C. Schug, Jean Caldwell, and Tawni Hunt, “the weekly wage for young women in Lowell’s mills was $2.50, of which $1.25 was deducted to pay for room and board. This amounted to pay of less than four cents per hour”(147), showing how low their pay was and how little choices they had, to the point they stayed in these mills. This brings us to the second change. According to the text, these working women were starting to lead industrial strikes. “They walked off their jobs in the the textile

During the American Revolution, not only did men have to face the struggles of war time atmosphere, but women had to as well. The country during the war was divided into three different groups of people; the loyalists, the patriots and the remaining people who did not care. Catherine Van Cortlandt, a loyalist had to endure different struggles then the patriot women Eliza Pinckney and Abigail Adams. However, parts of their stories are similar when it came to their family struggles.

The role of women played in any given war is quite often severely underestimated. This sentiment especially goes for the American Revolutionary War, where women actually played an absolutely essential role in our victory against the British. Not only where there different types of women who had helped, but there were many different ways each of them helped--particularly as nurses to help save lives and tend to injured soldiers. Without women helping in the war, we would have most certainly lost (National History Education Clearinghouse).

There was also the idea "Republican Motherhood", as a way that women in the revolutionary era, while still staying in their accepted domestic sphere, could influence public affairs. Proponents of Republican Motherhood believed that boys should be schooled to become good citizens, thoughtful voters, and virtuous shapers of

During the early period of the early 19th century, women came to the mills of their own accord, for various reasons: to help a brother pay for college, for the educational opportunities offered in Lowell, or to earn a supplementary income for themselves. While their wages were only half of what men were paid, they became free from the controlling dozens of fathers and husbands which at first seemed to be a positive experience. As a result, while factory life would soon come to be experienced as oppressive, it enabled these women to challenge assumptions of female inferiority. The young working girls endured hard work hours, low wages, and spoor living conditions. For example, their working conditions of long hours on average of at least twelve to thirteen hours per day were rigid conditions for these young women. The low wages and harsh living conditions can take a psychological toll on the women. As told in her own story, “Amelia”, a working girl who used a pen name described her opinion of factory life. She said “receives therefrom a Regulation paper, containing the rules by which she must be governed while in their employ: and lo! Here is the beginning of mischief: for in addition to the tyrannous and oppressive rules which meet her astonished eyes she finds herself compelled to remain for the space of twelve months…in fact, constituting herself a slave, a

Women’s history in the United States has always been represented as a struggle for rights. Wealth and status were tied to either their fathers or husbands. In the early 1900s, women were afforded the traditional roles of society. The majority of women worked in the home. If they were of the 18% young or poor women, they also worked in factories as laborers, manufacturing items for the booming industrial revolution (U.S. Department of Labor, 1980). During this time period the workplace was not in compliance with current safety standards. There was no minimum wage yet, work conditions were horrible and they worked long hours, “In 1900, the average workweek in manufacturing was 53 hours,” (Fisk, 2003). Women took “pink

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.

The American Revolution, which happened during the last half of the eighteenth century, reshaped many aspects of life in America. The desire of the Founding Fathers to make America a republic played a very significant part in changing the role of women after the Revolution. The role of women as wives became more important as an emphasis on virtue was established; women were encouraged to find virtuous husbands and utilize their seductive nature to keep men virtuous. The roles of women as mothers also became more important in the republic, as patriarchy loosened and mothers were depended on to educate their children in the republican way. And finally, the role of women in politics was theoretically reduced due to the increasing demands of

The author uses quotes from a variety of people, all of which corroborate the idea the working conditions women faced in Lowell changed from being a positive model of a work environment in a factory setting to a dismal work environment in less than 10 years. (check the time range). Since the quotes were from a wide demographic of individuals, they are fairly reliable because they represent more than one view about Lowell. Klein also discussed the Lowell Offering as a source of information and its impact on the perception of the manufacturer to describe the standard of living in Lowell. The women working in the factory contributed stories to the Lowell Offering. At first, their writing showed that they were interested in bettering themselves by being willing to write for a

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 her next chapter, Kerber examines the newfound need for the educating of women. Women were not allowed freedom or a political opinion, but they could not be completely pushed aside. For years women had been taught that education made them undesirable to men and educated women were scorned. Kerber argues that a new need for

True womanhood is a term that suggests that due to women’s nature, the tasks that best suited them were in relation to the home and raising children. These women who were considered to belong in the cult of true womanhood. Their main and only concerns had to deal with being domestic goddesses if you will. The concept of "Republican Motherhood" impacted society by paving the way for a greater role for women in public life. The role of Republican Motherhood paved the way for the emergence of the public woman. Their influence on their children through the teachings of civic duties and virtue changed the element of American politics. Republican Motherhood was a very important step for women towards the public sphere. However, one of the biggest

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.

The Lowell family’s textile mills were set up to attract the unmarried daughters of farm families, hoping that they would work a few years before getting married. These young women were called “Lowell Mill Girls.” A typical working day in the mills started with a factory bell ringing at about four in the morning to wake up employees. After this, employees