What Were Women's Rights After 1790?
- The women's rights movement started in 1790 and 1792, with the publication of two articles concerning the rights, or lack thereof, of women. Women's rights at this time consisted of rural traditions and home life. Women were expected to help maintain the homestead, raise the children and not much else. Women were expected to be subordinate to men. In 1848, abolitionists gathered for a convention in Seneca Falls, New York, and demanded equal rights for women.
- Leading up to and during the Civil War era, women were still mostly confined to the home. They did edge into other professions, working as midwives and prescribing medicine, even on the field of battle when the need arose. After the war, the 14th and 15th amendments were passed, guaranteeing the protection of the Constitution for all male citizens and giving black men the right to vote. Susan B. Anthony fought against these and, in 1869, the national Woman Suffrage Association was founded.
- The years that followed the Civil War era (roughly 1870 to 1900) saw a large jump in the rights of women, as women's suffrage organizations split into different camps: Radicals, who wanted rights for women and a constitutional amendment, and not-so-radicals, who wanted support for black rights without women's rights. Women of this time were allowed to vote in school board elections, sit on juries and even vote for state election in some states. The Supreme Court case Minor vs. Happersett (1875) confirmed that the 14th Amendment did not apply to women. New leaders began to emerge at the turn of the century.
- New leaders emerged and continued to push for women's rights. At this time, women were actively working more jobs, from secretaries to assistants, but not gaining many new rights. In 1910, many states followed the examples of Utah and Idaho and granted women the right to vote. Things changed for good during and after World War I. The National American Woman Suffrage Association argued that the work women did during the Great War proved that women were just as equal and deserving of rights as men. The 19th Amendment was proposed and finally ratified into law after Tennessee adopted it on August 26, 1920.
