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Chronology of Woman Suffrage Movement EventsBy Mary Ruthsdotter

Grades: 1–2, 3–5, 6–8, 9–12

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1776–1807: New Jersey grants women the vote in its state constitution. 1838: Kentucky widows with children in school are granted "school suffrage," the right to vote in school board elections.July 13, 1848: Lucretia Mott, Martha C. Wright, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Mary Ann McClintock are invited to tea at the home of Jane Hunt in Waterloo, New York. They decide to call a two-day meeting of women at the Wesleyan Methodist chapel in Seneca Falls to discuss women's rights.July 19 and 20, 1848: Three hundred people attend the first convention held to discuss women's rights, in Seneca Falls, New York. 68 women and 32 men sign the "Declaration of Sentiments," including the first formal demand made in the United States for women's right to vote: "...it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise."August 2, 1848: Amy Post, Sarah D. Fish, Sarah C. Owen and Mary H. Hallowell convene a women's rights convention in Rochester, New York. Abigail Bush chairs the public meeting, a first for American women.1850: Isabella Van Wegener adopted the name Sojourner Truth in 1843 and became an itinerant preacher. In 1850 she began speaking out widely for women's rights.April 19–20, 1850: In Salem, Ohio, women take complete control of their women's rights convention, refusing men any form of participation apart from attendance.October 23–24, 1850: First National Woman's Rights Convention, planned by Lucy Stone, Lucretia Mott and Abby Kelley, is held in Worcester, Massachusetts. It draws 1,000 people, and women's movement leaders gain national attention. Annual national conferences are held through 1860 (except 1857).March 1851: Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton first meet, on a street corner in Seneca Falls, New York.May 28–29, 1851: Sojourner Truth's spontaneous "Ain't I a Woman?" speech electrifies the woman's rights convention in Akron, Ohio.October 15–16, 1851: Second National Woman's Rights Convention held in Worcester, Massachusetts.February 1853: The Una premiers in Providence, Rhode Island, edited by Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis. With a masthead declaring it to be "A Paper Devoted to the Elevation of Woman," it is acknowledged as the first feminist newspaper of the woman's rights movement.October 6–8, 1853: Fourth National Woman's Rights Convention is held in Cleveland, Ohio.October 18, 1854: Fifth national Woman's Rights Convention is held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.October 17–18, 1855: Sixth National Woman's Rights Convention is held in Cincinnati, Ohio.November 15-26, 1856: Seventh National Woman's Rights Convention is held in New York City.1861: Women in Kansas are granted the vote in school board elections.February 1861: National Woman's Rights Convention is held in Albany, New York.1866: Suffragists present petitions bearing 10,000 signatures directly to Congress for an amendment prohibiting disenfranchisement on the basis of sex.

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May 1, 1866: Eleventh National Woman's Rights Convention. The American Equal Rights Association is formed at the end of the convention, with Lucretia Mott as president, the members pledged to achieve suffrage for both women and Negroes.October 10, 1866: Elizabeth Cady Stanton declares herself a candidate for Congress from the 8th Congressional District of New York. She receives 24 of 22,026 votes cast in November.1867: Kansas puts a woman suffrage amendment proposal on the ballot, the first time the question goes to a direct vote. It loses.1867–1913: Referenda on woman suffrage are held in numerous states.1868: The Fourteenth Amendment is ratified, including the word "male" for the first time in the Constitution.1868: The first measure providing for a woman suffrage amendment is introduced into Congress.January 8, 1868: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Parker Pillsbury publish the first edition ofThe Revolution, which becomes one of the most important radical periodicals of the women's movement, although it circulates for less than three years. Its motto: "Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less!"November 19, 1868: In Vineland, New Jersey, 172 women cast ballots in a separate box during the presidential election, inspiring similar demonstrations elsewhere in following years.December 1868: The federal women's suffrage amendment is first introduced in Congress, by Senator S.C. Pomeroy of Kansas.May 1869: The National Woman Suffrage Association is founded by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton to achieve the vote through a Congressional amendment, while also addressing other women's rights issues.March 1869: The federal women's suffrage amendment is introduced as a Joint Resolution to both Houses of Congress by Rep. George W. Julian of Indiana.November 18, 1869: The American Woman Suffrage Association is formed by Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell and other more conservative activists to work exclusively for woman suffrage, focused on amending individual state constitutions.January 8, 1870: The Woman's Journal debuts, edited by Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and Mary Livermore. In 1900 it is adopted as the official paper of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, the merged suffrage organizations.1870: Women in Wyoming become the first to vote following the granting of territorial status.January 11, 1871: Victoria Woodhull addresses the House Judiciary Committee, arguing women's right to vote under the 14th Amendment.1871: The Anti-Suffrage Party is founded by wives of prominent men, including many Civil War generals.May 10, 1872: Victoria Woodhull becomes a Presidential candidate on her own ticket, naming Frederick Douglass (who declined) as her running mate.November 1872: For casting a ballot with 15 other women, Susan B. Anthony is arrested in New York.June 17, 1873: Susan B. Anthony is tried for voting illegally, is convicted, and fined $100, which she refuses to ever pay.1875: Michigan and Minnesota give women the "school vote."1876: Susan B. Anthony and Matilda Joslyn Gage disrupt the official Centennial program at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, presenting a "Declaration of Rights for Women" to Vice President Ferry.1878: Senator A.A. Sargent (California) introduces a woman suffrage amendment, the wording of which remains unchanged until it is finally passed by Congress in 1920.1882: Both houses of Congress appoint Select Committees on Woman Suffrage, and both report the measure favorably.January 25, 1887: The first vote on woman suffrage is taken in the Senate, where it is defeated 34 to 16, with 25 members absent.1887: Kansas grants women municipal suffrage.1890: American Federation of Labor declares support for a woman suffrage amendment.


July 23, 1890: Wyoming is admitted to the Union, becoming the first state since New Jersey (1776–1807) to grant women full enfranchisement in its state constitution. Women had been granted voting rights in the Wyoming Territory since 1869.1890: The American Woman Suffrage Association and the National Woman Suffrage Association merge, becoming the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), pledged to state-by-state campaigns for suffrage.1890: The South Dakota campaign for woman suffrage loses.1893: Colorado adopts a constitutional amendment after defeat in 1877.1894: 600,000 signatures are presented to the New York State Constitutional Convention in an effort to bring a woman suffrage amendment to the voters. The campaign fails.1896: Utah joins the Union, granting women full suffrage.1896: Idaho adopts a state constitutional amendment enfranchising women.October 31, 1909: The Woman Suffrage Party is founded.1910: Washington State adopts a state constitutional amendment enfranchising women after defeats in 1889 and 1898. It had twice had woman suffrage by enactment of the territorial legislature and lost it by court decisions.1903: In a highly symbolic move, the National American Woman Suffrage Association Annual Convention, held in New Orleans, featured southern women prominently, and voted to accept a states' rights structure along with permitting southern state organizations to exclude black women from their associations.1910: The first suffrage parade is held in New York City, organized by the Women's Political Union.July 25, 1911: The first-ever open-air suffrage meeting was conducted in Philadelphia by Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, part of a long and popular series.November 1911: The most elaborate campaign ever mounted for suffrage succeeds in California by only 3,587 votes, an average of one vote in every precinct in the state. This followed a defeat in 1896.1911: 3,000 suffrage supporters march in the second New York City parade, with an estimated 70,000 onlookers.1911: National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage is founded, issuing an official journal, the Woman's Protest.1912: 20,000 suffrage supporters join a New York City parade, with a half-million onlookers.1912: Oregon adopts a constitutional amendment after defeats in 1884, 1900, 1906, 1908, and 1910.1912: Kansas adopts a constitutional amendment after defeats in 1867 and 1893.1912: Arizona adopts a constitutional amendment submitted as a result of referendum petitions.January 2, 1913: The National Woman's Party is founded by Alice Paul and Lucy Burns as an auxiliary of the National American Woman Suffrage Association for the exclusive purpose of securing passage of a federal amendment. Their efforts revive the moribund issue. First office at 1420 F Street, Washington, DC; incorporated on Sept. 20, 1918.March 3, 1913: The day preceding President Wilson's inauguration, 8,000 suffragists parade in Washington, DC, organized by Alice Paul. They are mobbed by abusive crowds along the way.May 10, 1913: The largest suffrage parade to date marches down Fifth Avenue, New York City. 10,000 people, including perhaps 500 men, paraded past 150–500,000 onlookers.October 18, 1913: Militant Emeline Pankhurst arrives from England to undertake a speaking tour.December 1913: At their annual convention, the NAWSA leadership expels the militants (Alice Paul, et al.).1913: The Territory of Alaska adopts woman suffrage. It is the first bill approved by the Governor.1913: Illinois is the first state to grant women presidential suffrage by legislative enactment.1913: Southern States Woman Suffrage Conference is formed.1914: Montana adopts a constitutional amendment on its first submission.1914: Nevada adopts a constitutional amendment on its first submission.September 1914: A bequest from Mrs. Frank Leslie, publisher of Leslie's Weekly, puts $1,000,000 at the disposal of Carrie Chapman Catt for "the furtherance of the cause of woman suffrage."1915: A transcontinental tour by suffragists, including Mabel Vernon and Sara Bard Field, gathers over a half-million signatures on petitions to Congress.1915: 40,000 march in a New York City suffrage parade, the largest parade ever held in that city.


1915: Woman suffrage measures are defeated in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts.August 1916: 36 National American Woman Suffrage Association state chapters endorse NAWSA President Carrie Chapman Catt's "Winning Plan," a unified campaign to get the amendment through Congress and ratified by their respective legislatures.December 2, 1916: Suffragists fly over President Wilson's yacht and drop suffrage amendment petitions.1917: North Dakota secures presidential suffrage by legislative enactment, after defeat of a constitutional amendment in 1914.1917: Nebraska secures presidential suffrage by legislative enactment after defeats of a constitutional amendment in 1882 and 1914.1917: Rhode Island secures presidential suffrage by legislative enactment after defeat of a constitutional amendment in 1887.1917: New York adopts a constitutional amendment after defeat in 1915.1917: Arkansas secures primary suffrage by legislative enactment.January 10, 1917: National Woman's Party pickets appear in front of the White House holding aloft two banners: "Mr. President, What Will You Do For Woman Suffrage?" and "How Long Must Women Wait For Liberty?" Sentinels remain stationed there permanently regardless of weather or violent public response, with hourly changes of shift.April 2, 1917: Jeannette Rankin of Montana is formally seated in the U.S. House of Representatives, the first woman elected to Congress.June 22, 1917: Arrests of the National Woman's Party pickets begin on charges of obstructing traffic. Subsequent pickets, tried and found guilty, refuse to pay the $25 fines and are sentenced for up to six months in jail. Their inhumane treatment in jail creates a cadre of martyrs for the suffrage cause.November 27–28, 1917: In response to public outcry and jailers' inability to stop the National Woman's Party pickets' hunger strikes, the government unconditionally releases the pickets.1918: Michigan adopts a constitutional amendment after defeats in 1874, 1912, and 1913. Secures presidential suffrage by legislative enactment in 1917.1918: Texas secures primary suffrage by legislative enactment.1918: South Dakota adopts a constitutional amendment after six prior campaigns for suffrage had been defeated.1918: Oklahoma adopts a constitutional amendment after defeat in 1910.January 9, 1918: President Wilson first states his public support of the federal woman suffrage amendment.January 10, 1918: The House votes 274 to 136, precisely two-thirds in favor of a suffrage amendment.September 30, 1918: President Wilson finally addresses the Senate personally, arguing for woman suffrage at the war's end.1919: Indiana secures presidential suffrage by legislative enactment in 1917. Rendered doubtful by a court decision, the law was re-enacted with but six dissenting votes.1919: Maine secures presidential suffrage by legislative enactment after defeat of a constitutional amendment in 1917.1919: Missouri secures presidential suffrage by legislative enactment after defeat of a constitutional amendment in 1916.1919: Iowa secures presidential suffrage by legislative enactment after defeat of a constitutional amendment in 1916.1919: Minnesota secures presidential suffrage by legislative enactment.1919: Ohio secures presidential suffrage by legislative enactment after defeat of referendum on the law in 1917 and of a constitutional amendment in 1912 and 1914.1919: Wisconsin secures presidential suffrage by legislative enactment after defeat of a constitutional amendment in 1912.1919: Tennessee secures presidential suffrage by legislative enactment.January 6, 1919: In an urn directly in line with the White House front door, the National Woman's Party builds a perpetual "watchfire for freedom" in which they burn the words of every hypocritical speech President Wilson gives about democracy.


March 24, 1919: Carrie Chapman Catt proposes the formation of a league of women voters to "finish the fight." The occasion was the 50th Anniversary Jubilee Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, in St. Louis.Spring 1919: The most prominent National Woman's Party suffrage prisoners (including Havemeyer, Rogers, Milholland, Winsor, Vernon) tour the country on a train called the "Prison Special." At each stop they speak about the need for suffrage and their prison experiences; between stops they threw suffrage literature out the windows for farming communities.May 21, 1919: The House of Representatives passes the federal woman suffrage amendment, 304 to 89, a margin of 42 votes over the required two-thirds majority. Opponents block action in the Senate for another two weeks, delaying ratification as most legislatures have adjourned for the year.June 4, 1919: The Senate passes the 19th Amendment with just two votes to spare, 56 to 25. Drafted by Susan B. Anthony and first introduced in 1878 with the same wording, it is now sent to the states for ratification.1920: Kentucky secures presidential suffrage by legislative enactment.February 14, 1920: The League of Women Voters is founded as "a mighty experiment" at the Victory Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in Chicago, Illinois. By now, 33 states have ratified the suffrage amendment, but final victory is still three states away.August 18, 1920: Tennessee becomes the 36th state to ratify the Amendment. A young state legislator casts the deciding vote after being admonished to do so by his mother.August 26, 1920: The 19th Amendment is quietly signed into law by Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby, granting women the right to vote.Carrie Chapman Catt summarized the effort involved in securing passage of the 19th Amendment:"To get the word 'male' in effect out of the Constitution cost the women of the country fifty-two years of pauseless campaign... During that time they were forced to conduct fifty-six campaigns of referenda to male voters; 480 campaigns to get Legislatures to submit suffrage amendments to voters; 47 campaigns to get State constitutional conventions to write woman suffrage into state constitutions; 277 campaigns to get State party conventions to include woman suffrage planks in party platforms, and 19 campaigns with 19 successive Congresses." Courtesy of the National Women's History Project.For more information about this organization, please contact the National Women's History Project, 7738 Bell Road, Windsor, CA 95492. (707) 838-6000.


Santorum’s new cause: opposing the disabledBy Dana Milbank,November 26, 2012

President-unelect Rick Santorum made his triumphant return to the Capitol on Monday afternoon and took up a brave new cause: He is opposing disabled people.Specifically, Santorum, joined by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), declared his wish that the Senate reject the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities — a human rights treaty negotiated during George W. Bush’s administration and ratified by 126 nations, including China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, Syria and Saudi Arabia.The former presidential candidate pronounced his “grave concerns” about the treaty, which forbids discrimination against people with AIDS, who are blind, who use wheelchairs and the like. “This is a direct assault on us,” he declared at a news conference.Lee, a tea party favorite, said he, too, has “grave concerns” about the document’s threat to American sovereignty. “I will do everything I can to block its ratification, and I have secured the signatures of 36 Republican senators, all of whom have joined with me saying that we will oppose any ratification of any treaty during this lame-duck session.”Lame or not, Santorum and Lee recognized that it looks bad to be disadvantaging the disabled in their quest for fair treatment. The former senator from Pennsylvania praised Lee for having “the courage to stand up on an issue that doesn’t look to be particularly popular to be opposed.”Courageous? Or just contentious? The treaty requires virtually nothing of the United States. It essentially directs the other signatories to update their laws so that they more closely match theAmericans with Disabilities Act. Even Lee thought it necessary to preface his opposition with the qualifier that “our concerns with this convention have nothing to do with any lack of concern for the rights of persons with disabilities.”Their concerns, rather, came from the dark world of U.N. conspiracy theories. The opponents argue that the treaty, like most everything the United Nations does, undermines American sovereignty — in this case via a plot to keep Americans from home-schooling their children and making other decisions about their well-being.

The treaty does no such thing; if it had such sinister aims, it surely wouldn’t have the support of disabilities and veterans groups, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Republican senators such as John McCain (Ariz.) and John Barrasso (Wyo.), and conservative legal minds such as Boyden Gray and Dick Thornburgh.


But the opposition is significant, because it shows the ravages of the Senate’s own disability: If members can’t even agree to move forward on an innocuous treaty to protect the disabled, how are they to agree on something as charged as the “fiscal cliff”? And although the number of senators who actually oppose the treaty — such as Lee, Pat Toomey (Pa.) and Jim DeMint (S.C.) — is probably quite small, Lee’s boast of 36 signatures means he has persuaded enough of his colleagues to block action, at least temporarily. (Treaties require a two-thirds vote in the Senate to pass.)Santorum made an emotional appeal, even bringing his daughter Bella, who has a severe birth defect, to the Senate hearing room for the event. “There’s no benefit to the United States from passing it,” he said, as Bella wriggled in her mother’s arms. “But what it does is open up a Pandora’s box for the most vulnerable among us: children with disabilities.”Yet the opponents couldn’t agree on how this box would be opened. “Do I believe that states will pass laws or have to pass laws in conformity with the U.N. edict?” Santorum asked himself. “Do we have to amend IDEA?” the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. “I don’t have any fear anytime soon that IDEA will be amended. But I do have concerns that people will go to courts and they will use this standard in this convention.”This was contradicted by the next man at the microphone, home-schooling advocate Mike Farris, who pointed out that the document has a provision stating that “you can’t go to court automatically. You must have implementing legislation first” — the very thing Santorum says he does not expect to happen.


DECEMBER 3, 2012 4:00 A.M.

U.N. Treaty on the Rights of the Disabled Voting no doesn’t mean we lack compassion.By Betsy Woodruff

Brace yourselves, everyone, because here’s something that might be surprising: Elected

officials who vote against the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities don’t necessarily hate disabled people. Strange but true! In fact, a number of leaders in Washington vehemently oppose the treaty, and for good reason: Senate ratification wouldn’t accomplish anything substantial for Americans. It wouldn’t significantly improve the living conditions of disabled people overseas, and it could potentially undermine American sovereignty.

John Kerry, one of the treaty’s main proponents in the Senate, has argued the opposite — that it won’t change U.S. law and could make life easier for disabled Americans traveling overseas. And the treaty’s supporters also emphasize that it has bipartisan support, from Senators John Barrasso and John McCain, among others. But it’s drawn criticism from prominent congressional conservatives, including Senators Mike Lee, Jim DeMint, Rand Paul, and Pat Toomey. Rick Santorum has also spoken out against the treaty, which prompted Dana Milbank to write for the Washington Post that his newest cause must be “opposing disabled people” — a statement so patently ridiculous that it’s not worth dignifying with a response.


The treaty is intended to protect the rights of the disabled, but the United States already has the strongest legal defenses for them of any country in the world. The White House argues that if we ratify the treaty, other countries might be more likely to do so as well, which might improve the international protection of persons with disabilities. And that might make it more convenient for disabled Americans to travel in those countries.

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“This is their argument, and it’s such a ridiculous argument,” says Steven Groves of the Heritage Foundation. “The premises are completely unsupportable, The notion that it might improve travel conditions for Americans traveling abroad is a complete non sequitur, and it has nothing to do with the treaty at all.” In other words, the treaty does little to nothing for Americans.

Its defenders suggest that other nations will respect our excellent treatment of the disabled more if we sign the treaty, but that claim is largely unsubstantiated. “I’m unwilling to indulge the unsupported assumption that that is true,” Senator Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah, tells NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE. “Simply because people have stated it over and over and over again doesn’t make it true, especially when no one has been able to articulate, at least not to me, any sound basis for reaching that conclusion. I just don’t believe it.”

Groves is on the same page. “There is no American living here in the U.S. whose life will change one iota because the United States joins this treaty,” he tells NRO. “So why the heck are we going to join it?”

That’s a fair question, especially given the treaty’s serious downsides.

Many conservatives oppose its ratification because of language in Article 4 that refers to economic, social, and cultural rights. The treaty says that each signatory should “take measures to the maximum of its available resources . . . with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of these rights.” Our government, based on the Constitution, defines rights in terms of what the government cannot do to its citizens, not in terms of what it owes them. But the U.N. language emphasizes what the signatories owe to their citizens, what they must do in order to protect these newly enumerated “rights.” In the past, we rejected a treaty that referred to “economic, social, and cultural rights,” while Soviet-bloc countries were quick to embrace such language.


And we haven’t even started on how self-abasing it would be for the U.S. to comply with the treaty. Every four years, we would be required to put together an interagency report on our disability-rights record (a project that would cost millions), and also to send a delegation (usually of at least 20 people) to Geneva to appear before a panel of international disability-rights experts. Panels of this sort often vilify our country’s human-rights record, according to Groves. “I’ve attended these sessions,” he says. “They’re absolutely insulting.” He continues: “We have to go to Geneva for what I call our quadrennial spanking, spending millions in assets and sweat and labor to throw ourselves in front of this committee just to get smacked around and told we’re doing a terrible, terrible job.”

Senator Lee feels the same way. “We don’t think that it’s appropriate for the United States to be answering to a U.N. convention based in Geneva, Switzerland, when we are the leader of the world on this issue, as we are on so many other issues,” he tells NRO.

So how much compassion members of Congress feel for disabled people should have zero bearing on whether or not they support the treaty. “There are a lot of people, myself included, who are instinctively very squeamish about such an agreement,” Lee says. And those people are right to be. It’s perfectly sensible to oppose the treaty for its ineffectiveness and for its insidious prioritization of positive rights — rights that place ever-growing responsibilities on the government and the taxpayers who fund the government.

The Senate must have better things to do with its time than debate the merits of this proposal. Groves puts it bluntly: “My question is, Why are we bothering?”

— Betsy Woodruff is a William F. Buckley Fellow at the National Review Institute.


WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE CLASS IN THE 19TH CENTURY

The nineteenth century for Europe and America has been called the "century of the middle

class." Growth in both power and prestige of the middle class was perhaps the most important single

development in social and economic history. Prior to the nineteenth century, there was a recognizable

middle class, but it was not large. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, new wealth was

created, and concomitantly the middle class became the harbingers of morals, the work ethic, and

numerous other characteristics that have become part of our fabric of society.

Who were the middle class? It was not a homogeneous unit in terms of occupation or income,

but usually one received a salary rather than hourly wages. What today we would call a white collar

worker. Included in this group called the middle class were ministers, lawyers, teachers, doctors,

bureaucrats, business tycoons, traders, and shop keepers.

The middle class were devoted to the ideal of family and home. During this time the home

displaced the church as a refuge and spiritual haven. Home became a status symbol and emotional

bulwark against the rude commercial world. The father was the master of the household. Middle class

family rituals helped to sustain this hierarchy, with the father at the head of the table during meals. A

popular adage of the day was "children were to be seen not heard." The wife was to be subject to her

husband as well, and often treated as a superior servant not as an equal. Alfred Lord Tennyson's


immortal words convey the wife's task to keep the household functioning smoothly and harmoniously:

"Man for the field, woman for the hearth, man for the sword and for the needle she; man with the head

and woman with the heart, man to command and woman to obey; all else confusion."

Home became the center of virtue and the proper life for women. The wife was not to do

outside work. Historians are not certain why this happened. For centuries the wife aided her husband in

his business. Many times the rearing of children was left to nurses and governesses. Now men began

doing business only with other men. With the wife not contributing economically to the family

finances, there was a definite lessening of her status within society. Middle class women were

encouraged to be only dabblers in education and to pursue cultural endeavors of drawing, painting,

singing or playing the piano. Finishing schools will eventually be established to foster these "talents."

Women were to be married by twenty-one, and expected to begin having children immediately.

Marriage was viewed almost as the sole vocation open to middle class women. These Victorian women

(from 1837 to the end of the century, Queen Victoria ruled Great Britain, giving her name to this

period of history) were given the epitaph "angel of the house" for their supposed innate spirituality.

Not only were the women held responsible for the moral education of their children, but a wife was 2

supposed to elevate her husband's morality by being his spiritual advisor. A wife was expected to woo

her husband to the benefits of home and family, and away from his natural instincts. As Sara Ellis,

whose guide was widely read stated: "wife's principal duty was to raise the tone of her husband's mind

and to lead his thoughts to repose on those subjects which convey a feeling of identity with a higher

state of existence beyond this present life." Now the word "lady" no longer was reserved just for

aristocratic ladies, but applied to middle class women in general. "Lord" was still used for aristocratic

men only, however.

Throughout the century and into the next one, the double standard prevailed regarding marriage

and divorce laws. When a couple became engaged in England, her property was now his. Married

women were barred from making contracts, appearing as witnesses in court, and initiating lawsuits. A


wife's legal personality was subsumed under her husband's. Criminal acts of the wife were the

responsibility of her husband's except for most offenses like murder. This system of coverture is

outlined well by the noted jurist William Blackstone in his Commentaries on the Laws of England: "If

husband and wife were one body before God, they were one person in the law and that person was

represented by the husband." In most other European countries and America this femme coverture as it

was called, was the law too.

Reform of the marriage laws was a popular discussion subject for women of the middle class. In 1857

the Matrimonial Causes Act in England set up secular divorce courts. Prior to that, each divorce in

England required a separate act of Parliament.

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Here too the double standard prevailed. A husband

needed only to show evidence of his wife's adultery to obtain a divorce, her property and custody of

their children. A wife had to show evidence of other marital failings besides adultery to get a divorce

like cruelty, incest, rape or desertion. Because of the lengthy legality of the provisions, the divorce rate

remained low throughout the nineteenth century - only about 2%. It was not until the last few decades

of the twentieth century that the restrictions on women getting a divorce were lifted.

Magazines and books directed toward women in the nineteenth century began to praise

motherhood, domesticity, religion and charity as the proper work of women. Lady's Home Journal and

Godey's Ladybook were two of these journals. In England Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household

Management became a best-seller, second only in sales to the King James Bible. Preparation of simple

meals to grand dinner parties, directions for various chores in the house, and many other household

wisdom tips were incorporated into this publication. In France a similar book was popular, The Lady's

Rustic Household by Cora-Elizabeth Millet-Robinet.

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Since Henry VIII's manipulated his religion to gain a divorce from his wife Catherine of Aragon, divorce

was an option for the Church of England (English were no longer Catholic), but only infrequently used.3

Women's frailty was the subject of much printed material. Middle class European and

American women were seen as feeble creatures who became invalids for a few days each month.

Menstruation was seen by doctors and women alike as a disability. As late as 1878 the British Medical

Journal ran a six-months' correspondence on whether hams could be turned rancid by the touch of a

menstruating woman. The dichotomy existed where some women were considered too frail to walk

alone in the street, while other women were working underground in coal mines.

Sexual mores were perhaps the most startling. Up to the nineteenth century, women were

usually perceived as over-sexed and the cause of men's moral shortcomings. Now middle class wives

were seen as the better half in a marriage because they were pure, innocent, childlike and asexual. In

keeping with this "childlike" posture, the legal age of consent for women was changed in England from

twelve to sixteen. Since the ancient Romans and early Christians, twelve was the age for legal

consummation of marriages. For the Victorians, the wife's sexuality was to be denied, and she must not

respond to her husband's sexual advances with equal passion. The English physician Lord William

Acton in his many medical texts and sex manuals that became extremely popular, further elucidated

this asexuality by stating: "There can be no doubt that sexual feeling in the female is in the majority of

cases in abeyance; and even if roused which in many instances it never can be, it is very moderate

compared with that of the male." As suggested by private diaries, if the wife was passionate she would

find it hard not to feel guilty about pleasure she was presumed too pure to feel. While the middle class

enjoyed sexual relations within marriage far more than was formerly thought, Victorian suppression of

sexual matters became legendary. Euphemisms were used to explain delicate subjects: Bosom and bust

for breast, limb for leg, second joint of the chicken for thigh, maternal nutriment for breast feeding,

and an unhappy condition for pregnancy. Writing to one of her daughters to prepare her for her first

childbirth experience, Queen Victoria said: "childbirth was a complete violence to all one's feelings of


propriety - which God knows receives a shock enough in marriage alone."

Women of the upper and middle classes were especially preoccupied with the variety and

complexity of dress, which showed their status and position. This has always been true regardless of

the historical era, though. Particularly geared to the fashions for most of the nineteenth century were

long skirts and blouses that emphasized a small waist, ample bosom, and inaccessibility. Constrictive

corsets functioned as brassieres and girdles, causing many medical maladies: curvature of the spine,

dislocation of the ribs, dizziness, and headaches. Even the removal of one or two ribs to keep your

waistline small enough for your husband to fit his hands around you was done. Around 1887 fashions

changed, ridding the women of the bustle, simplifying the shirts, but making the sleeves more

extensive. Movement of the arms was now difficult for women. Reformers like America's Amelia 4

Bloomer were introduced into the fashion world, but changes did not occur until the advent of the

railroad, bus, and bicycle, where less restrictive clothing was necessary.

As marriage was the normal and expected role for middle class women to follow, those that did

not marry were regarded as social failures and treated with pity and contempt. Legal documents called

these women spinsters. Statistics state that the number of unmarried women started increasing in the

nineteenth century, and today it is extremely high. While 20% of men did not marry, society did not

impugn them when they said they could not afford it. It was erroneously thought that women who

remained single did so mainly by choice, not from lack of suitors. This was not true, though.

Economically, poor genteel single girls were in an untenable position as they were prevented

by law and tradition from entering those professions that could have given then an adequate income.

After much agitation about reform, late in the century legislation was passed that allowed for them to

enter the fields of medicine, law and civil service, by attending universities and colleges. Before that a

single middle class woman had basically two choices: writing or being a governess. This is the reason

why so many nineteenth century novels have governesses as their heroines. For the young women,

being a governess was the last resort and a much-feared fate. As the governess was somewhere


between a servant and a lady, she did not belong to either class. The celebrated Bronte sisters of

England illustrate this, especially the famous novel by Charlotte, Jane Eyre, a book that has never been

out of print since it was first published in 1847. Attempts were made to aid these young women by the

formation of an English Governesses Benevolent Institution, a job register and a pension fund.

Founding the first college for women in England, the Queen's College, this organization made possible

this teachers' training school, and it will be a signal for others to follow.

By the mid-nineteenth century thousands of European and American women were writing for a

living. These publications were primarily novels that were read by other women. Most of the writers

upheld traditional values of society, i.e. the angel in the house motif or the cult of domesticity. Some

writers, though, began to assert themselves, like Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot (ie. Marian Evans),

and George Sand (Amandine Lucie Dupin).

2

As indicative of two of these writers, they had to use

men's names to get published. This was also true of the Bronte sisters, first publishing under the last

name of Bell with Ellis for Emily, Currer for Charlotte and Acton for Anne.

Yet what is remarkable, unmarried women were more legally independent than the married

ones. Single women could own property, pay taxes to the state, and vote in the local parish, none of

which married women were allowed to do.

2

Dupin's love affair with the composer and pianist Chopin was made into a recent movie, Impromptu.5

For both married and single women, charity and reform work will become popular, after the

first half of the nineteen century when women were finding their "Angel in the House" role too

confining and narrow. Women now sought to expand their moral influence outside the home. Public

service by volunteering turned these women into an active force for change and improvement. In the


past, women had done charity work through their religious affiliations, but now it was outside the

churches. In England, women established the following clubs, schools, and societies to help those less

fortunate like: "poor youth," "poor young women," "fallen women," "handicapped children and

adults," and "prisoners."

In Catholic countries new nursing and charity organizations were established in great numbers:

Sisters of Mercy, Franciscan Sisters of the Poor, Sisters of St. Charles, and Daughters of Divine

Providence, to name a few. In both Protestant and Catholic countries, women became missionaries,

travelling to Asia, Africa and other places. Most of the charities aided other women and children.

Here are some specific examples of these women, who in many instances became famous for

their endeavors. Henriette Schrader-Breymann, a German woman, became the founder of the

Kindergarten movement, that will be exported to other countries, including America. A Frenchwoman

founded the Creche society, a nursery for infants and preschool for children of working mothers,

serving as the role model for thousands of future ones. Women invented new ways to raise money for

their charities. This was the advent of the thrift shop, charity bazaar, fundraising dinner or dance, and

collection and distribution drives of clothing and other useful items.

Hannah More, (1745-1833,) was instrumental in the establishment of Sunday schools in

England to improve the religious education of the poor, which included teaching them to read. Major

reforms were instituted for women prisoners with the work of Elizabeth Fry 1780-1845. Overly

crowded conditions, no bedding, no adequate cloth or disposal systems, led Elizabeth to improve the

lot of women at Newgate Prison in London. No only improving these harsh conditions, she set up a

way for them to learn a trade while in prison. These prisoners were given part of the profits from the

garments they made and sold upon their release. Fry founded the British Society of Ladies for

Promoting the Reformation of Female Prisoners, and her ideas spread abroad. So impressed were the

authorities, that Elizabeth Fry became the first woman called to testify before a British Parliamentary

Committee.


With the exception of Queen Victoria, Florence Nightingale was the most famous woman of

her century. Legendary for her nursing work at the front lines during the Crimean War, she later made

nursing the real profession it is today with a set of prerequisite qualifications and ethical standards.

Before her reforms, hospitals were where only the poor went to, and then only leaving in a coffin.6

Since the Reformation in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the advent of

university-trained professional physicians who systemically ousted the midwives and other women

from health care, nursing had a bad reputation. Depicted as drunks and fallen women, respectful

women did not take up such work. In France, a different scenario was present. The Sisters of Charity

was a distinct nursing order that served those hospitalized. Florence Nightingale, after returning to

England from the war, spent half a century furthering the revamping of hospital care and the English

nursing profession. Her family was not supportive of her efforts, and wanted Florence to take care of

only her own family's needs. Hateful of this "lady bountiful" role, it nevertheless took many years for

Florence to persevere in her endeavors. In her essay published in 1852 entitled Cassandra, she

lamented society's obstacles to middle class women developing skills to support themselves. She also

detailed her thoughts that she had to act as a man to achieve her life's ambitions. Florence was not

alone in this idea. Exceptional women throughout history have tended to identify with like-minded

men, rather than other women. Women did not support unusual or exceptional women, unless they

acted within traditional roles.

As the only daughter of an upper class Anglo-Irish family, Frances Power Cobbe, 1822-1904,

worked to eliminate the constant problem of husbands beating their wives. In an 1878 article entitled

"Wife-Torture in England," Frances documented the horrors working class wives especially were

subjected to. Observing that wife-beating was exacerbated by alcohol, prostitution, and appalling

living conditions, she clearly recognized that the fundamental cause of wife abuse was the

conventional attitudes towards females. Beating one's wife or wives was acceptable and legal

throughout recorded history until the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Europe and America.


As a result of Cobbe's endeavors, Parliament amended the Matrimonial Causes Act, giving wives the

opportunity to separate from their husbands for aggravated assault, the first law of its kind.

Catherine Booth, (1829-1890) co-founded with her husband William, the Salvation Army, the

English organization that expanded world-wide, and is still going strong today. The Salvation Army

was not only an organized and official church, but a refuge for the hungry and homeless. Catherine

became a powerful public speaker and feminist after years of silence, and these characteristics were

used to further the Christian doctrines of the church. Their formula of feeding the hungry and then

preaching to them, ensured the Salvation Army's success. In a 1882 survey of London, on one

weeknight there were almost 17,000 worshipping with the Salvation Army, compared to only 11,000

in the ordinary churches. Catherine along with other reforming women, led the charge against poor

working conditions for women, especially those that made matches. Proving that most other European 7

countries did not use the toxic yellow phosphorus, but harmless red phosphorus. Eventually William

Booth would intone: "The best men in my army are the women."

Women's philanthropical work was harshly criticized by some middle class people during the

nineteenth century. Mrs. Sarah Ellis, a major writer for women and the cult of domesticity, remarked

that charity began at home and should stay there. The famous English writer Charles Dickens and the

French writers Balzac and Flaubert depicted female hypocrites, women who did philanthropic work

because it tended to put them in the right circles as well as an excuse for leaving the home. Scholars of

women's history today criticize these last mentioned writers as wrong in their beliefs that these women

were not sincere. They say charity work took real courage and devotion, and cannot be categorized as

either fashionable or frivolous.

Women were a powerful force to help others. Perhaps the best summation of women's charity

work can be surmised by the obituary of Madame Emile Delesalle, printed in a nineteenth century

Catholic paper in France:

"the poor were the object of her affectionate interest, especially the


shameful poor, the fallen people. She sought them out and helped them with perfect

discretion which doubled the value of her benevolent interest. To those whom she

could approach without fear of bruising their dignity, she brought, along with alms

to assure their existence, consolation of the most serious sort - she raised their

courage and their hopes. To others each Sunday, she opened all the doors of her

home, above all when her children were still young. In making them distribute

these alms with her, she hoped to initiate them early into practices of charity."


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