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Women During The Late 1800s

Decent Essays

Women in the Late 1800s
In the early 1800s, women were second-class citizens. Women were expected to restrict their area of interest to the home and the family. Women were not encouraged to have a real education or pursue a professional career. Also, women were considered unequal to their husbands and all males legally and socially. The day-to day lives of men and women were quite clearly divided during the late 1800s. Woman in the late 1800s were treated inhumane because of society, class, and their rights.
The first reason women were treated inhumane was because women were expected to perform specific duties and fill certain roles based on society. Woman were much more restricted in their movements than men. Most of women’s work was …show more content…

This college was the first college that was open to women as well as men creating the first opportunity for women in America to gain an advanced education. However, others would say, despite the fact that women were not legal citizens at the time, many women did their best to maintain maximum education. Women would often run their own small businesses from home by trading homemade cloth or food for cash or other goods. There are accounts of women taking up jobs outside the home as well, especially with the onset of industrialization. Still, the majority of women, especially those of the lower working classes, had to resign themselves to a very restricted life overshadowed by the men of their community.
Women were broken up into three different classes: Women of the upper-working class, women of the lower-working class, and the underclass women. The worst of all of the women were the underclass women. These women maintained a very different lifestyle than the others. Their clothes often consisted of dirty and torn skirts and blouses. Messy hair. They had no education and respected jobs. These underprivileged women mostly relied on relief organization. Some even resorted to prostitution to make a living for themselves when there was no other alternative. The most respected of the classes for American women to fall under was the upper-working class. These women were immediately

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