Major Historical Event in the US History - Essay Example

? The following will trace the woman's movement from 1865 to the present. Significant events and individuals in US history will provide the focus of this analysis, along with the social and political context which represents the background for the woman's movement. It will be argued that the woman's movement can be said to have progressed in this period from gaining legal equality with the right to vote, and with the establishment of laws preventing discrimination, however, it will also be argued that after legal equality was achieved, the shift in the movement was directed at achieving greater social equality. Thus, the agenda of 'legal equality' and then 'social equality' will be the general themes that brings together or provides a cohesion for the woman's movement in US history from 1865 to the present. The period of 1865 to 1876 can be said to be pivotal to the woman's movement in U.S. history. The introduction of the fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the U.S. is largely thought to be a step backward. That is, as far as the goal of bringing the franchise to women and other groups not yet recognized to have a legal right to vote. In U.S. history, the right to vote for women was an agenda that went back as far as the early to mid seventeenth century, and historians trace the first legal challenge in the U.S. as occurring at that time in the state of Maryland. A one-time governor named Leonard Calvert, appointed a woman named Margaret Brent as his personal executor. Brent was an attorney which was exceptional in the seventeenth century, and found herself in 1648 petitioning the government of Maryland for the right to vote as well as the right to carry out her duties as executor. She was a property holder, and a successful attorney at the time. By 1868 when the Fourteenth Amendment was introduced, there had already been a significant woman's suffrage movement, and indeed, legal challenges for the right to vote [Mays 58-9]. The following is an analysis of the ‘woman's movement’ as it traverses U.S. history from 1865 to the present. This analysis will argue that through the span of the movement which covers over 150 years or begins with 1865, was initially a movement that sought legal equality. The second wave covering the latter half of the twentieth century, is marked by achieving social equality. Unit one as associated with post 1865 is the beginning of the period known as reconstruction, and what follows in the aftermath of the Civil War (1860-1865) is a fairly reactionary political mandate. Arguably, the period following the Civil War can be characterized as a period where a great number of concessions were made to the interests of Southerners who had been defeated in the war that was centered around the issue of slavery. During the period in question or the era of Reconstruction after the Civil War, the notorious “Jim Crow” legislation throughout the South had introduced a pattern of which distinct traces can still be seen in the southern states. The new laws stated that no one could vote unless a poll tax had been paid and in some places, unless the voter could pass a literacy test, too. Blacks were not allowed to use the same railway cars, schools or residential areas as whites. These laws contradicted the Fourteenth Amendment but the Supreme Court seems to have turned a blind eye to what these state laws meant in relation to the laws of the central government. By this time, northerners seem to have allowed themselves to feel less responsible for post-War developments in the South. Blacks would feel abandoned by the north while facing southern hatred expressed both officially and violently. As Gillett explained, even white reformers seemed more concerned by what ought to be done with Blacks, as opposed to for Blacks and with many content to state that the slaves had been freed by the northern Civil War effort and that they now must work towards their own betterment [Gillett 368]. Segregation continued in a system which managed the Black population by keeping them separate from whites. As more recent studies suggest, segregation had the effect of making two societies which were directed differently by governments. Racial separation was never completely done but the different populations were divided and “ruled”. Rabinowitz (1991)explained that the post-bellum southern system relied upon keeping the Blacks down. However, it also encouraged the idea of “equal” though separate peoples. This unquestionably had an impact on any potential extension of the franchise or the right to vote for women. The fourteenth Amendment can be said to be a step backward rather than a step forward, and moreover, it created a split in suffrage movement between those who wanted to situate woman's rights as a general issue of civil rights, and those who felt that the movement should be focused solely on the right to vote for women. In Section Two of the Fourteenth Amendment, it was specified for the very first time in the history of the Constitution that only “men” had the right to vote in the U.S.[Mead 37]. It can be said that many of the hopes and aspirations of the suffragettes to that date, were unquestionably challenged with the actual textual specification of men only in the Constitution. Before examining how the suffragettes re-mobilized toward the goal of obtaining the right to vote, some of the background immediate to the Fourteenth Amendment of 1868 will be provided in brief. In July of 1848, the Seneca Falls Convention on the rights of women is considered to be an important watershed event in the history of woman's rights in the U.S.. To understand the split that would occur in the period of reconstruction, is to understand some of the core ideas and agendas that came out of that seminal convention. Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) wrote a work titled: ‘A Declaration of Sentiments’ that was regarded as one of the most important presentations at the 1848 convention. Among many of the axioms for woman's rights that are outlined in the work, the right to vote or the franchise stands as one of the first and most significant [Mead 33]. In a later work on the ‘History of the suffragettes’, Elizabeth Cady Stanton traced the beginnings of the suffragette movement to a convention that was held in England in 1840. It should be stated that the history in question was also produced by Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, and Ida Husted Harper. Overall, the work comprises six different volumes published between 1881 and 1922 -- and, twenty years after Stanton’s death. Her association or affiliation was early on in the project, and her influence on the woman's movement in general is in some ways inestimable [Mead 38]. The following is an excerpt from The History of Woman Suffrage: 1848 – 1861, where she discusses the origins of the suffrage movement to the Abolitionist convention of 1840 in London England: ”the ranks of the Abolitionists were composed of the most eloquent orators, the ablest logicians, men and women of the purest moral character and best minds in the nation” [?Cady Stanton, Brownell Anthony, Gage, Husted Harper 52] . At the outset and through the period covered by Unit One, the woman's movement was beginning to separate from its roots as intimately connected to the Abolitionist movement. It should be re-stated that this is a period where there is a split between women who felt it more practical to focus solely on their gender and not the wider issue of civil rights, and those who thought or maintained that woman's rights were inseparable from civil rights or indeed, human rights in general. In Unit Two, the woman's movement came into its own because of the success of the suffragettes. The franchise for the right to vote, was extended to American women in 1920. While much later than many countries, and by no means even the top five countries to extend the right to vote for women, the US did achieve what Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony had initiated in the period represented by Unit One. Following the problems brought about in 1868, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton once again collaborated on a significant social activist movement. Along with Parker Pillsbury, Stanton and Anthony founded the National Woman Suffrage Association. The primary mandate of the association or the NWSA was the right to vote issue, they did also get involved and also advocate on a wide range of other social issues. It can be said that some of the holdover from the Abolitionist influence and even the Quaker roots of the woman's movement were retained as embodied in the work of the NWSA. One of the other forms that the activism took, was an attempt in 1872 to vote in State elections [Mead 22]. Susan B. Anthony was famously jailed at the time for trying to vote along with women in a wide variety of states. In the period following, the NWSA took this up as a cause. The agenda of lobbying states to allow women the right to vote allowed for a merger of an organization that had already been lobbying along these lines and beyond, namely, the American Woman Suffrage Association. When both organizations agreed that they would be more powerful as one than two competing, they formed a new organization or an alliance in 1890 that incorporates both names of the suffrage associations, and they were known as the National American Woman Suffrage Association or the NAWSA [Mead 111]. Through that period Wyoming first introduced voting for women in the state elections in 1890, and that was followed by Colorado (1893), Utah (1896), Idaho (1896), and in Washington by 1910: “While the State association could show no definite accomplishment, its work had been largely educational and a considerable public sentiment in favor of woman suffrage had been created.” [Harper 116]. As stressed in volume vi of The History of Woman Suffrage, one of the important causal influences on the US falling in line with most of the rest of the developed world on the issue of extending the vote to women, the changes that took place at the state level gradually had an important influence on the Federal adoption or the eventual Federal introduction of a constitutional amendment that would give women the right to vote. While the gradual adoption of states was an important influence, there were other important factors contributing to the pivotal 1920 political change. The NAWSA formed an alliance with the Congressional Union to obtain a constitutional change to allow voting. They organized rallies, petitions, endorsed the political candidates that supported their cause, and generally, lobbied politicians including President Wilson. In 1917, the National Women's Party which was headed by Lucy Burns and Alice Paul [Mead 251], chained themselves to the fence at the White-house where they were arrested and jailed. The protest managed to capture the interest of the US. Nonetheless, while the House of Representatives endorsed the constitutional amendments, the Senate initially opposed them, and by August 1920, three-quarters of all of the states were behind the proposed changes, and the suffrage movement finally succeeded [Mead 1]. Unit III or 1920 to 1945 brought about a number of changes to the woman's movement in the US. As mentioned in the introduction, the roots of suffrage or the woman's movement in the US were primarily focused on acquiring 'legal status'. Once obtained, the woman's movement began working on social equality and other causes relevant to the status of women. Part of the historical context for this, was the increase of women in the workplace. In both World Wars, women were drawn into the factory system to support the war cause. The effect of this was that women became a more acceptable fixture in the workplace, and this change in attitude meant that more women were continuing on with work outside of the home after the war ended. The Depression, however, changed or reversed a lot of this progress with women in the workplace. In 1929, the stock market crashed which was followed by a period known as the Great Depression. This was marked by high rates of unemployment, and as a consequence, women were being blamed for taking up work positions that ought to go to men [Jackson 147]. It can be said to be a period of regression as far as advancing the social status of women. However, this changed with the Second World War. While the War began in 1939, the US did not enter the war until they were invaded by Japan in 1941. Once again, women were in the work force taking up factory positions that would have conventionally gone to men, however, there was a surplus of jobs both because of the need of war-time production, but also because so many men were fighting in the war effort. For instance, in 1900 only 5.6 % of all women worked outside of the home, and by the First World War this percentage rose to 23.6 % and finally, by the time of the Second War there were 6.5 million American women in the workforce [Webb 2]. This factory movement again, caused an improvement in the status of women. And, one of the important contributing factors to this improved status, were actual propaganda films supporting women in the work force. Through the media, women were encouraged to take up work in factories, and this campaign itself did much to enhance the status of women in society. The campaign did much to change the attitudes about the capabilities and capacities of women, and therefore, the Second World War had a significant influence on the social status of women in relation to men [Jackson 47]. Unit IV or 1945 to 1976 can be said to be very much like the period preceding the right to vote or pre-1920 as far as progress goes within the woman's movement in the US. The first parallel, is that it is a period of flourishing within organizations, and the second parallel to the earlier time period, is the relationship the woman's movement had with civil rights in general. The modern or contemporary feminist movement, was born out of the same social fervor that brought about the end of the Jim Crow laws that created racial segregation particularly in the South. Through the 1950's and early 1960's, the American Civil Rights movement gained popular attention through various forms of protest and media attention grabbing activities. Many positive outcomes resulted from the Civil Rights movement, and among the positives for women was the Civil Rights Act of 1964 [Tomaskovic-Devey, Stainback, Taylor, and Zimmer 565]. That act made it illegal to discriminate in the work-place on the basis of gender or race. While this represented an important step toward 'social equality', the improvements or outcomes were far from perfect. There persists to the present day a 'wage gap' between men and women for equal work. For instance, in 1960, women earned only 59 cents for every dollar that a man earned and for equal work, and by 2002 this gap was reduced to 77 cents for every dollar earned by a male [Webb 5]. However, symbolically and as a legal recourse of action, it can be said that while not a perfect measure toward social equality, it is nonetheless an improvement. In the final unit, or, 1976 to the present, the US woman's movement can be said to largely be continuing a lot of the agendas initiated in the previous historical period. However, it can be said that the approach to the issues has somewhat changed. Feminism in the twentieth century is described in the literature as comprising of three waves. The first wave, was the movement toward achieving the right to vote and equality under the law. The second, is described as an empirical approach to problems of equality whereby the focus or agenda is toward proving discrimination or problems such as the wage gap using scientific evidence. The 'third wave' or contemporary feminism, is focused more on the “discourse” of patriarchal society [Genz and Brabon 156]. If it can be said that equality under the law has been achieved, and yet, social equality has not, it follows that there are some important limitations with the approach. The third wave is concerned with the deeper social structures that go into reinforcing the patriarchal hegemony that defines most systems or networks in society. In sum, this paper has examined the history of the woman's movement from 1865 to the present. It has been argued that the first wave was directed toward achieving the vote which they did in 1920 – along with this right at the state and civic levels of government. The second wave sought greater social equality, and the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 can be said to be an important apex of obtaining this legally. The final wave of the woman's movement, is focused more on the social structures and discourses that both create and legitimate patriarchal authority. In spite of achieving many legal successes toward equality, the woman's movement persists in the goal of achieving social equality. Problems such as domestic assault, a wage gap, and a disproportionate number of single mothers living under the poverty line all indicate that improvements remain to be made according to the woman's movement. Works Cited: Genz, Stephanie and Brabon, Benjamin. 2009. Postfeminism: Cultural Texts and Theories. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press. Gillett, William. 1979. Retreat from Reconstruction, 1869-1879. Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press. Harper, Ida Husted. 1922. The History of Woman Suffrage: 1900-1920. Volume VI. National American Woman Suffrage Association. Jackson, Robert Max. 1999. Destined for Equality. The Inevitable Rise of Woman's Status. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Mays, Dorothy. 2004. Women in Early America. Struggle, Survival and Freedom in the New World. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. Mead, Rebecca J. 2004. How the Vote Was Won. New York: New York University Press. Rabinowitz, Howard N. 1991. Segregation and Reconstruction, in Eric Anderson and Alfred A.Moss. (eds) The Facts of Reconstruction. Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press. Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage (Ed.) 1881. A History of Woman Suffrage: 1848-1861. Volume I. New York: Fowler & Wells. Tomaskovic-Devey, D., Stainback, K., Taylor, T., & Zimmer, C. (2006). Documenting Desegregation: Segregation in American Workplaces by Race, Ethnicity, and Sex, 1966-2003. American Sociological Review, 71, 565-589. Webb, J. G. (2010). The Evolution of Woman's Roles within the University and the Workplace. Forum on Public Policy, V2010, 1-17. The Woman's Movement in US History. Read More