The Women's Movement

THE WOMEN’S MOVEMENT

Origins

Abolitionism

and Women

Seneca Falls

Convention
1848

Discussion Questions

While the industrial revolution created new opportunities for factory work among young farm women, middle-class women were restricted to the home and child care. They also joined religious revivals and became guardians of family and religious morality. From this elevated position, many women became ardent reformers who sought to rid society of the evils of industrialism. Women formed societies to attack prostitution and to improve the care in hospitals, jails, and other social institutions. They also took advantage of the spread of public education to make careers. Women eventually held a majority of teaching positions.

As women became active and successful in reform movements, many turned to the cause of abolition, a cause that further expanded women’s public activities. A few women abolitionists, such as the Grimké sisters, came to equate traditional female roles with slavery. Others attacked slavery for its degradation of slave women and families. As female reformers sought greater rights for African Americans, they also claimed rights for white women.

Most women were not so radical as to equate marriage with slavery but chose instead to focus on women’s legal position. In 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, leading female abolitionists, called the first United States convention to address women’s rights in Seneca Falls, New York. They based their program on the republican principles of the Declaration of Independence, asserting women’s full equality with men.

After Seneca Falls, national women’s rights meetings were annual events. Susan B. Anthony joined Stanton in the 1850s, creating political lobbying campaigns for women’s rights, especially suffrage. Their major legislative accomplishment was the revision of states’ property laws, allowing married women to keep their own property and working women to keep their own wages.

Explore one or more of the following websites and share what you have learned about the women’s movement, then and now.

Living the Legacy: The Women's Rights Movement, 1848 - 1998
http://www.legacy98.org/
Sponsored by the women’s history movement, this site explores the history of the women’s movement, gives a detailed timeline, and addresses today’s issues relating to women.

Seneca Falls Convention: Background and Details
http://americanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa040101a.htm
A description of the convention with hyperlinks to biographies of Stanton and Mott and primary sources from the movement.

The Quest for Equality
http://www2.worldbook.com/features/features.asp?feature=whm&page=html/home.html&direct=yes
Explores various topics including the rise of the women’s movement, the modern women’s movement, and women pioneers and trailblazers.