LAP Twelve:
Woman’s History
Early Attitudes Toward Women
Since early times women have been uniquely viewed as a creative source of
human life. Historically, however, they have been considered not only intellectually
inferior to men but also a major source of temptation and evil. In Greek
mythology, for example, it was a woman, Pandora, who opened the forbidden box
and brought plagues and unhappiness to mankind. Early Roman law described women
as children, forever inferior to men.
Early Christian theology perpetuated these views. St. Jerome, a 4th-century
Latin father of the Christian church, said: "Woman is the gate of the
devil, the path of wickedness, the sting of the serpent, in a word a perilous
object." Thomas Aquinas, the 13th-century Christian theologian, said that
woman was "created to be man's helpmeet, but her unique role is in
conception . . . since for other purposes men would be better assisted by other
men."
The attitude toward women in the East was at first more favorable. In
ancient India, for example, women were not deprived of property rights or
individual freedoms by marriage. But Hinduism, which evolved in India after
about 500 BC, required obedience of women toward men. Women had to walk behind
their husbands. Women could not own property, and widows could not remarry. In
both East and West, male children were preferred over female children.
Nevertheless, when they were allowed personal and intellectual freedom,
women made significant achievements. During the Middle Ages nuns played a key
role in the religious life of Europe. Aristocratic women enjoyed power and
prestige. Whole eras were influenced by women rulers for instance, Queen
Elizabeth of England in the 16th century, Catherine the Great of Russia in the
18th century, and Queen Victoria of England in the 19th century.
The Weaker Sex?
Women were long considered naturally weaker than men, squeamish, and unable
to perform work requiring muscular or intellectual development. In most
pre-industrial societies, for example, domestic chores were relegated to women,
leaving "heavier" labor such as hunting and plowing to men. This
ignored the fact that caring for children and doing such tasks as milking cows
and washing clothes also required heavy, sustained labor. But physiological
tests now suggest that women have a greater tolerance for pain, and statistics
reveal that women live longer and are more resistant to many diseases.
Maternity, the natural biological role of women, has traditionally been
regarded as their major social role as well. The resulting stereotype that
"a woman's place is in the home" has largely determined the ways in
which women have expressed themselves. Today, contraception and, in some areas,
legalized abortion have given women greater control over the number of children
they will bear. Although these developments have freed women for roles other
than motherhood, the cultural pressure for women to become wives and mothers
still prevents many talented women from finishing college or pursuing careers.
Traditionally a middle-class girl in Western culture tended to learn from
her mother's example that cooking, cleaning, and caring for children was the
behavior expected of her when she grew up. Tests made in the 1960s showed that
the scholastic achievement of girls was higher in the early grades than in high
school. The major reason given was that the girls' own expectations declined
because neither their families nor their teachers expected them to prepare for
a future other than that of marriage and motherhood. This trend has been
changing in recent decades.
Formal education for girls historically has been secondary to that for boys.
In colonial America girls learned to read and write at dame schools. They could
attend the master's schools for boys when there was room, usually during the
summer when most of the boys were working. By the end of the 19th century,
however, the number of women students had increased greatly. Higher education
particularly was broadened by the rise of women's colleges and the admission of
women to regular colleges and universities. In 1870 an estimated one fifth of
resident college and university students were women. By 1900 the proportion had
increased to more than one third.
Women obtained 19 percent of all undergraduate college degrees around the
beginning of the 20th century. By 1984 the figure had sharply increased to 49
percent. Women also increased their numbers in graduate study. By the mid-1980s
women were earning 49 percent of all master's degrees and about 33 percent of
all doctoral degrees. In 1985 about 53 percent of all college students were
women, more than one quarter of whom were above age 29.
The Legal Status of Women
The myth of the natural inferiority of women greatly influenced the status
of women in law. Under the common law of England, an unmarried woman could own
property, make a contract, or sue and be sued. But a married woman, defined as
being one with her husband, gave up her name, and virtually all her property came
under her husband's control.
During the early history of the United States, a man virtually owned his
wife and children as he did his material possessions. If a poor man chose to
send his children to the poorhouse, the mother was legally defenseless to object.
Some communities, however, modified the common law to allow women to act as
lawyers in the courts, to sue for property, and to own property in their own
names if their husbands agreed.
Equity law, which developed in England, emphasized the principle of equal
rights rather than tradition. Equity law had a liberalizing effect upon the
legal rights of women in the United States. For instance, a woman could sue her
husband. Mississippi in 1839, followed by New York in 1848 and Massachusetts in
1854, passed laws allowing married women to own property separate from their
husbands. In divorce law, however, generally the divorced husband kept legal
control of both children and property.
In the 19th century, women began working outside their homes in large numbers,
notably in textile mills and garment shops. In poorly ventilated, crowded rooms
women (and children) worked for as long as 12 hours a day. Great Britain passed
a ten-hour-day law for women and children in 1847, but in the United States it
was not until the 1910s that the states began to pass legislation limiting
working hours and improving working conditions of women and children.
Eventually, however, some of these labor laws were seen as restricting the
rights of working women. For instance, laws prohibiting women from working more
than an eight-hour day or from working at night effectively prevented women
from holding many jobs, particularly supervisory positions, that might require
overtime work. Laws in some states prohibited women from lifting weights above
a certain amount varying from as little as 15 pounds (7 kilograms) again
barring women from many jobs.
During the 1960s several federal laws improving the economic status of women
were passed. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 required equal wages for men and women
doing equal work. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination
against women by any company with 25 or more employees. A Presidential
Executive Order in 1967 prohibited bias against women in hiring by federal
government contractors.
But discrimination in other fields persisted. Many retail stores would not
issue independent credit cards to married women. Divorced or single women often
found it difficult to obtain credit to purchase a house or a car. Laws
concerned with welfare, crime, prostitution, and abortion also displayed a bias
against women. In possible violation of a woman's right to privacy, for
example, a mother receiving government welfare payments was subject to frequent
investigations in order to verify her welfare claim. Sex discrimination in the
definition of crimes existed in some areas of the United States. A woman who
shot and killed her husband would be accused of homicide, but the shooting of a
wife by her husband could be termed a "passion shooting." Only in 1968,
for another example, did the Pennsylvania courts void a state law which
required that any woman convicted of a felony be sentenced to the maximum
punishment prescribed by law. Often women prostitutes were prosecuted although
their male customers were allowed to go free. In most states abortion was legal
only if the mother's life was judged to be physically endangered. In 1973,
however, the United States Supreme Court ruled that states could not restrict a
woman's right to an abortion in her first three months of pregnancy.
Until well into the 20th century, women in Western European countries lived
under many of the same legal disabilities as women in the United States. For
example, until 1935, married women in England did not have the full right to
own property and to enter into contracts on a par with unmarried women. Only
after 1920 was legislation passed to provide working women with employment
opportunities and pay equal to men. Not until the early 1960s was a law passed
that equalized pay scales for men and women in the British civil service.
Women at Work
In colonial America, women who earned their own living usually became
seamstresses or kept boardinghouses. But some women worked in professions and
jobs available mostly to men. There were women doctors, lawyers, preachers,
teachers, writers, and singers. By the early 19th century, however, acceptable
occupations for working women were limited to factory labor or domestic work.
Women were excluded from the professions, except for writing and teaching.
The medical profession is an example of changed attitudes in the 19th and
20th centuries about what was regarded as suitable work for women. Prior to the
1800s there were almost no medical schools, and virtually any enterprising
person could practice medicine. Indeed, obstetrics was the domain of women.
Beginning in the 19th century, the required educational preparation,
particularly for the practice of medicine, increased. This tended to prevent
many young women, who married early and bore many children, from entering
professional careers. Although home nursing was considered a proper female
occupation, nursing in hospitals was done almost exclusively by men. Specific
discrimination against women also began to appear. For example, the American
Medical Association, founded in 1846, barred women from membership. Barred also
from attending "men's" medical colleges, women enrolled in their own
for instance, the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania, which was established
in 1850. By the 1910s, however, women were attending many leading medical
schools, and in 1915 the American Medical Association began to admit women
members.
In 1890, women constituted about 5 percent of the total doctors in the
United States. During the 1980s the proportion was about 17 percent. At the
same time the percentage of women doctors was about 19 percent in West Germany
and 20 percent in France. In Israel, however, about 32 percent of the total
number of doctors and dentists were women.
Women also had not greatly improved their status in other professions. In
1930 about 2 percent of all American lawyers and judges were women in 1989,
about 22 percent. In 1930 there were almost no women engineers in the United
States. In 1989 the proportion of women engineers was only 7.5 percent.
In contrast, the teaching profession was a large field of employment for
women. In the late 1980s more than twice as many women as men taught in
elementary and high schools. In higher education, however, women held only
about one third of the teaching positions, concentrated in such fields as
education, social service, home economics, nursing, and library science. A
small proportion of women college and university teachers were in the physical
sciences, engineering, agriculture, and law.
The great majority of women who work are still employed in clerical
positions, factory work, retail sales, and service jobs. Secretaries,
bookkeepers, and typists account for a large portion of women clerical workers.
Women in factories often work as machine operators, assemblers, and inspectors.
Many women in service jobs work as waitresses, cooks, hospital attendants,
cleaning women, and hairdressers.
During wartime women have served in the armed forces. In the United States
during World War II almost 300,000 women served in the Army and Navy,
performing such noncombatant jobs as secretaries, typists, and nurses. Many
European women fought in the underground resistance movements during World War
II. In Israel women are drafted into the armed forces along with men and receive
combat training.
Women constituted more than 45 percent of employed persons in the United
States in 1989, but they had only a small share of the decision-making jobs.
Although the number of women working as managers, officials, and other
administrators has been increasing, in 1989 they were outnumbered about 1.5 to
1 by men. Despite the Equal Pay Act of 1963, women in 1970 were paid about 45
percent less than men for the same jobs; in 1988, about 32 percent less.
Professional women did not get the important assignments and promotions given
to their male colleagues. Many cases before the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission in 1970 were registered by women charging sex discrimination in
jobs.
Working women often faced discrimination on the mistaken belief that,
because they were married or would most likely get married, they would not be
permanent workers. But married women generally continued on their jobs for many
years and were not a transient, temporary, or undependable work force. From
1960 to the early 1970s the influx of married women workers accounted for
almost half of the increase in the total labor force, and working wives were
staying on their jobs longer before starting families. The number of elderly
working also increased markedly.
Since 1960 more and more women with children have been in the work force.
This change is especially dramatic for married women with children under age 6:
12 percent worked in 1950, 45 percent in 1980, and 57 percent in 1987. Just
over half the mothers with children under age 3 were in the labor force in
1987. Black women with children are more likely to work than are white or
Hispanic women who have children. Over half of all black families with children
are maintained by the mother only, compared with 18 percent of white families
with children.
Despite their increased presence in the work force, most women still have
primary responsibility for housework and family care. In the late 1970s men
with an employed wife spent only about 1.4 hours a week more on household tasks
than those whose wife was a full-time homemaker.
A crucial issue for many women is maternity leave, or time off from their
jobs after giving birth. By federal law a full-time worker is entitled to time
off and a job when she returns, but few states by the early 1990s required that
the leave be paid. Many countries, including Mexico, India, Germany, Brazil,
and Australia require companies to grant 12-week maternity leaves at full pay.
Women in Politics
American women have had the right to vote since 1920, but their political
roles have been minimal. Not until 1984 did a major party choose a woman
Geraldine Ferraro of New York to run for vice-president.
Jeanette Rankin of Montana, elected in 1917, was the first woman member of
the United States House of Representatives. In 1968 Shirley Chisholm of New
York was the first black woman elected to the House of Representatives
Chisholm). Hattie Caraway of Arkansas first appointed in 1932 was, in 1933, the
first woman elected to the United States Senate. Senator Margaret Chase Smith
served Maine for 24 years (1949-73). Others were Maurine Neuberger of Oregon,
Nancy Landon Kassebaum of Kansas, Paula Hawkins of Florida, and Barbara
Mikulski of Maryland.
Wives of former governors became the first women governors Miriam A.
Ferguson of Texas (1925-27 and 1933-35) and Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming
(1925-27) Ross, Nellie Tayloe). In 1974 Ella T. Grasso of Connecticut won a
governorship on her own merits.
In 1971 Patience Sewell Latting was elected mayor of Oklahoma City, at that
time the largest city in the nation with a woman mayor. By 1979 two major
cities were headed by women: Chicago, by Jane Byrne, and San Francisco, by
Dianne Feinstein. Sharon Pratt Dixon was elected mayor of Washington, D.C., in
1990.
Frances Perkins was the first woman Cabinet member as secretary of labor
under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Oveta Culp Hobby was secretary of
health, education, and welfare in the Dwight D. Eisenhower Cabinet. Carla A.
Hills was secretary of housing and urban development in Gerald R. Ford's
Cabinet. Jimmy Carter chose two women for his original Cabinet Juanita M. Kreps
as secretary of commerce and Patricia Roberts Harris as secretary of housing
and urban development. Harris was the first African American woman in a
presidential Cabinet. When the separate Department of Education was created,
Carter named Shirley Mount Hufstedler to head it. Ronald Reagan's Cabinet
included Margaret Heckler, secretary of health and human services, and
Elizabeth Dole, secretary of transportation. Under George Bush, Dole became
secretary of labor; she was succeeded by Representative Lynn Martin. Bush chose
Antonia Novello, a Hispanic, for surgeon general in 1990.
Reagan set a precedent with his appointment in 1981 of Sandra Day O'Connor
as the first woman on the United States Supreme Court. The next year Bertha
Wilson was named to the Canadian Supreme Court. In 1984 Jeanne Sauve became
Canada's first female governor-general.
In international affairs, Eleanor Roosevelt was appointed to the United
Nations in 1945 and served as chairman of its Commission on Human Rights.
Eugenie Anderson was sent to Denmark in 1949 as the first woman ambassador from
the United States. Jeane Kirkpatrick was named ambassador to the United Nations
in 1981.
Three women held their countries' highest elective offices by 1970. Sirimavo
Bandaranaike was prime minister of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) from 1960 to 1965 and
from 1970 to 1977. Indira Gandhi was prime minister of India from 1966 to 1977
and from 1980 until her assassination in 1984. Golda Meir was prime minister of
Israel from 1969 to 1974. The first woman head of state in the Americas was
Juan Peron's widow, Isabel, president of Argentina in 1974-76. Elisabeth
Domitien was premier of the Central African Republic in 1975-76. Margaret
Thatcher, who first became prime minister of Great Britain in 1979, was the
only person in the 20th century to be reelected to that office for a third
consecutive term. Also in 1979, Simone Weil of France became the first
president of the European Parliament.
In the early 1980s Vigdis Finnbogadottir was elected president of Iceland;
Gro Harlem Brundtland, prime minister of Norway; and Milka Planinc, premier of
Yugoslavia. In 1986 Corazon Aquino became president of the Philippines. From
1988 to 1990 Benazir Bhutto was prime minister of Pakistan the first woman to
head a Muslim nation.
In 1990 Mary Robinson was elected president of Ireland and Violeta Chamorro,
of Nicaragua. Australia's first female premier was Carmen Lawrence of Western
Australia (1990), and Canada's was Rita Johnston of British Columbia (1991). In
1991 Khaleda Zia became the prime minister of Bangladesh and Socialist Edith
Cresson was named France's first female premier. Poland's first female prime
minister, Hanna Suchocka, was elected in 1992.
Feminist Philosophies
At the end of the 18th century, individual liberty was being hotly debated.
In 1789, during the French Revolution, Olympe de Gouges published a
'Declaration of the Rights of Woman' to protest the revolutionists' failure to
mention women in their 'Declaration of the Rights of Man'. In 'A Vindication of
the Rights of Women' (1792) Mary Wollstonecraft called for enlightenment of the
female mind.
Margaret Fuller, one of the earliest female reporters, wrote 'Woman in the
Nineteenth Century' in 1845. She argued that individuals had unlimited
capacities and that when people's roles were defined according to their sex,
human development was severely limited.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a leading theoretician of the women's rights
movement. Her 'Woman's Bible', published in parts in 1895 and 1898, attacked
what she called the male bias of the Bible. Contrary to most of her religious
female colleagues, she believed further that organized religion would have to
be abolished before true emancipation for women could be achieved.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman characterized the home as inefficient compared with
the mass-production techniques of the modern factory. She contended, in books
like 'Women and Economics' (1898), that women should share the tasks of
homemaking, with the women best suited to cook, to clean, and to care for young
children doing each respective task.
Politically, many feminists believed that a cooperative society based on
socialist economic principles would respect the rights of women. The Socialist
Labor party, in 1892, was one of the first national political parties in the
United States to include woman suffrage as a plank in its platform.
During the early 20th century the term new woman came to be used in the
popular press. More young women than ever were going to school, working both in
blue- and white-collar jobs, and living by themselves in city apartments. Some
social critics feared that feminism, which they interpreted to mean the end of
the home and family, was triumphing. Actually, the customary habits of American
women were changing little. Although young people dated more than their parents
did and used the automobile to escape parental supervision, most young women
still married and became the traditional housewives and mothers.
Women in Reform Movements
Women in the United States during the 19th century organized and
participated in a great variety of reform movements to improve education, to
initiate prison reform, to ban alcoholic drinks, and, during the pre-Civil War
period, to free the slaves.
At a time when it was not considered respectable for women to speak before
mixed audiences of men and women, the abolitionist sisters Sarah and Angelina
Grimke of South Carolina boldly spoke out against slavery at public meetings.
Some male abolitionists including William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and
Frederick Douglass supported the right of women to speak and participate
equally with men in antislavery activities. In one instance, women delegates to
the World's Anti-Slavery Convention held in London in 1840 were denied their
places. Garrison thereupon refused his own seat and joined the women in the
balcony as a spectator.
Some women saw parallels between the position of women and that of the
slaves. In their view, both were expected to be passive, cooperative, and
obedient to their master-husbands. Women such as Stanton, Lucy Stone, Lucretia
Mott, Harriet Tubman, and Sojourner Truth were feminists and abolitionists,
believing in both the rights of women and the rights of blacks.
Many women supported the temperance movement in the belief that drunken
husbands pulled their families into poverty. In 1872 the Prohibition party
became the first national political party to recognize the right of suffrage
for women in its platform. Frances Willard helped found the Woman's Christian
Temperance Union.
During the mid-1800s Dorothea Dix was a leader in the movements for prison
reform and for providing mental-hospital care for the needy. The
settlement-house movement was inspired by Jane Addams, who founded Hull House
in Chicago in 1889, and by Lillian Wald, who founded the Henry Street
Settlement House in New York City in 1895. Both women helped immigrants adjust
to city life.
Women were also active in movements for agrarian and labor reforms and for
birth control. Mary Elizabeth Lease, a leading Populist spokeswoman in the
1880s and 1890s in Kansas, immortalized the cry, "What the farmers need to
do is raise less corn and more hell." Margaret Robins led the National
Women's Trade Union League in the early 1900s. In the 1910s Margaret Sanger
crusaded to have birth-control information available for all women.
Fighting for the Vote
The first women's rights convention took place in Seneca Falls, N.Y., in
July 1848. The declaration that emerged was modeled after the Declaration of
Independence. Written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, it claimed that "all men
and women are created equal" and that "the history of mankind is a
history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward
woman." Following a long list of grievances were resolutions for equitable
laws, equal educational and job opportunities, and the right to vote.
With the Union victory in the Civil War, women abolitionists hoped their
hard work would result in suffrage for women as well as for blacks. But the
14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, adopted in 1868 and 1870
respectively, granted citizenship and suffrage to blacks but not to women.
Disagreement over the next steps to take led to a split in the women's
rights movement in 1869. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, a
temperance and antislavery advocate, formed the National Woman Suffrage Association
(NWSA) in New York. Lucy Stone organized the American Woman Suffrage
Association (AWSA) in Boston. The NWSA agitated for a woman-suffrage amendment
to the Federal Constitution, while the AWSA worked for suffrage amendments to
each state constitution. Eventually, in 1890, the two groups united as the
National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Lucy Stone became
chairman of the executive committee and Elizabeth Cady Stanton served as the
first president. Susan B. Anthony, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Dr. Anna Howard
Shaw served as later presidents.
The struggle to win the vote was slow
and frustrating. Wyoming Territory in 1869, Utah Territory in 1870, and the
states of Colorado in 1893 and Idaho in 1896 granted women the vote but the
Eastern states resisted. A woman-suffrage amendment to the Federal
Constitution, presented to every Congress since 1878, repeatedly failed to
pass.
Vocabulary:
1. Suffrage
2. Franchise
3. National
Organization for Women
4. Seneca Fall
Convention
5. Hull House
6. National American
Woman Suffrage Association
7. Nineteenth
Amendment
8. Equal Right
Amendment
9. Feminist
10. The Equal Pay Act
of 1963
11. The Civil Right
Act of 1964
Famous Women in
United States History
Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888)
Author who produced the first literature for the mass market of juvenile girls
in the 19th century. Her most popular, Little Women, was just one of 270
works that she published.
Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
The 19th century women’s movement’s most powerful organizer. Together with
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony fought for women’s right to vote. She
was also very involved in the fight against slavery and the temperance campaign
to limit the use of alcohol.
Clara Barton (1821–1912)
Clara Barton got involved with tending the needy when she treated injured Union
soldiers on the battlefield during the
Civil War. She later was the founder and first president of the American Red
Cross.
Mary McCloud Bethune Leading black educator, who was appointed to head
the office of the National Council of Negro Women
Elizabeth Blackwell (1821–1910)
First American woman awarded a medical degree by a college. Attended Geneva
College in New York after she was rejected by all the major medical schools in
the nation because of her sex. Elizabeth Blackwell later founded a women’s
medical college to train other women physicians.
Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973 )
With her novels about
American and Asian culture, she became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize
for Literature.
Carrie
Chapman Catt (1859-1947)
Drafted
by the National American Woman Suffrage Association in December of 1915 because
of her obvious leadership and organizational skills, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt
came to be called "the general" for her campaign strategy and air of
authority in directing the campaign.
Shirley
Chisholm (1924-)
American
politician, she was the first black-American woman to be elected to the U.S.
Congress. She ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972, but lost
to George McGovern.
Alice
Coachman (1923
-) Denied access to public training facilities because of segregation policies,
she ran barefoot on the back roads of Georgia and devised all sorts of
makeshift setups to jump over - from strings and ropes to sticks and tied rags.
Her parents thought she should direct herself to a more ladylike path, but
Alice was determined to succeed as an athlete.
Amelia Earhart (1897–1937)
The first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, she opened the skies to other
women. In 1937 while attempting to become the first person to fly around the
world, Earhart’s plane disappeared over the Pacific Ocean.
Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910)
Only American woman to found a lasting American-based religion, the Church of
Christ, Scientist. She worked successfully to solidify and increase the
popularity of The Christian Scientist movement.
Ella Fitzgerald (1918–1996)
Considered one of the greatest jazz singers of all time, Ella Fitzgerald was
the winner of 12 Grammy Awards and was awarded the Presidential Medal of
Freedom.
LaDonna Harris (1931-)
Harris is the President and Founder of Americans for Indian Opportunity, a
national multitribal organization devoted to developing the economic
opportunities and resources of Indians. Raised by her grandparents with traditional
Comanche values, Harris has been politically active all her life. She has
crusaded for the rights of children and women and for the elimination of
poverty and discrimination.
Grace
Hopper (1906–1992)
A computing trailblazer, Grace Hopper invented one of the first easy-to-use
computer languages, which was a big advance in the field of computer
programming.
Dolores Huerta (1930–)
A spokesperson for the rights of workers, Dolores Huerta helped create the
National Farm Workers Association. Among other issues, she has fought for the
right to a minimum wage, unemployment insurance, paid holidays, and retirement
benefits for farm workers.
Shirley Jackson (1946-)
Jackson is the former head of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
where she reaffirmed the agency's commitment to public health and safety. She
is the first female African American to receive a doctorate from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Jackson's outstanding leadership in
education, science, and public policy demonstrates the capability of women to
be leaders in the field of science and technology.
Mary “Mother” Harris Jones (1837 to 1930)
Mother
Jones was a union organizer who took over running a miner’s union after her
husband George Jones died in the yellow fever epidemic of 1867.
Jackie
Joyner-Kersee: (1962–)
She dominated the Olympic sport of heptathlon, a series of six demanding
events. Joyner-Kersee won the Olympic gold medal for the United States in 1988
and1992, and set the world record. She was also the first American woman to win
Olympic gold in the long jump.
Helen Keller (1880–1968)
A childhood disease left her deaf, mute, and blind. Helen Keller became an
expert author and lecturer, educating nationally on behalf of others with
similar disabilities.
Maya Lin (1960-)
As the designer of two of America's most powerful monuments — The Civil Rights
Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, and The Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C.,
Lin has distinguished herself as the most acclaimed site-specific architect of
contemporary America. Because of her concern for environmental issues, she uses
recycled, living, or natural materials and focuses on sustainable and
site-sensitive design solutions.
Lucretia
Coffin Mott (1793-1880)
She
and Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the Women's Rights Convention in Seneca
Falls, New York. After the passage of the second Fugitive Slave Law in 1850,
the Motts made their home a station of the Underground Railroad, an
organization that helped blacks escape to freedom.
Carry
A. Nation (1846
- 1911) She joined the Women's Christian Temperance Union to help in the fight
against alcohol. By 1900 she had made a name for herself as an aggressive
supporter of prohibition, famous for using rocks, hammers and hatchets to
destroy saloons and their liquor.
Ellen
Ochoa
(1958-)
As an astronaut and researcher of advanced optical information systems, Ochoa
flew her first shuttle mission in 1993 as a Mission Specialist with the Discovery
crew, conducting atmospheric and solar studies in order to better understand
the effect of solar activity on the Earth's climate and environment. The first
Hispanic woman to be named an astronaut, she has logged over 500 hours in
space.
Sandra
Day O’Connor (1930–)
As the first woman appointed to the position of U.S. Supreme Court justice, she
carved a place for women at all levels of the legal profession.
Rosa Parks (1913–)
When she refused to give up her seat to a white person on a crowded bus, Rosa
Parks set in motion the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a cornerstone of the civil
rights movement. She has since been a strong advocate for human rights issues.
Francis
Perkins (1882-1965)
American
social reformer, who became the first female member of the cabinet when United
States President Franklin D. Roosevelt named her secretary of labor in 1933.
Esther Peterson (1906-1997)
Peterson worked throughout her life for consumer protection, improved labor
conditions for American workers, and equal opportunity for American women.
Because of her work, working women have a legal right to equal pay and food
labels by law must now list exact amounts of ingredients and the nutritional
content. She served four U.S. Presidents in various capacities, including
Assistant Secretary of Labor, and Vice-Chair of the first Presidential
Commission on the Status of Women. Dr. Sally Ride (1951–)
The first American woman in space was also the youngest American astronaut ever
to orbit Earth.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)
As a champion of human rights, she strove to further women’s causes as well as
the causes of black people, poor people, and the unemployed.
Sacagawea: (1787–1812)
She was the interpreter for Lewis and Clark during the U.S. government’s first
exploration of the Northwest. Sacagawea’s role was to help negotiate safe and
peaceful passages through tribal lands.
Margaret Sanger (1879–1966)
Founder of the birth control movement in the United States, Sanger also started
the organization that became the future Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Muriel F. Siebert (1938–)
Her advanced understanding of banking and finance led Muriel Siebert to the
first seat owned by a woman on the New York Stock Exchange. She created the
Siebert Philanthropic Program, which lets investors help charities in their own
communities.
Lillian Smith (1897-1966)
Honored in 1956 by the women who organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Smith
was one of the nation's strongest European-American voices to expose the
vicious ways that racism destroys the human spirit. She used her stellar
writing talent and class privilege to expose and challenge racism. Smith
co-published the literary magazine South Today to help give voice to
progressive black and white southern writers.
Elizabeth
Cady Stanton (1815-1902)
Believed
to be the driving force behind the 1848 Convention, she was for the next fifty
years a prime leader in the women's rights movement.
Gloria Steinem
(1934-) leading
feminist of the 1960’s, she founded Ms. Magazine, the National Women's
Political Caucus, and the Women's Action Alliance
and
wrote The Glass Ceiling, detailing the problems women face in the
workplace.
Harriet
Tubman (1820–1913)
This abolitionist was born a slave. She eventually became a
"conductor" on the Underground Railroad — a system developed by a
secret group of free blacks and sympathetic whites to help runaway slaves get
to free northern states. Harriet Tubman led more than 300 slaves to freedom.
Oprah Winfrey (1954–)
An actress and the host of a highly successful talk show, Oprah Winfrey has won
several Emmy Awards. She has started her own TV production company and invested
in media projects. She has also been a spokesperson for women's health and
family issues and for the prevention of child abuse.
Victoria Woodhull (1838–1927)
First woman to be nominated and campaign for the U.S. presidency. She was
nominated by the Women's National Equal Rights Party. Woodhull and her sister
were also the first two female stockbrokers on Wall Street.
Babe Didrikson Zaharias (1914–1956)
One of the greatest athletes of all time, Zaharias won track and field gold
medals at the 1932 Olympics, played professional basketball, and was a founding
member of the Ladies Professional Golf Association.
Objectives:
Describe the role of
women throughout American history and why women chose to change that role at
various times.
Identify the scope
of achievement, invention, and development by women in history.
Discuss the areas of
household keeping, immigration, alcoholism, medicine and medical care, work and
career, industry, abolition, and suffrage that women became involved in during
the four centuries of American settlement.
Discuss the impact
of women on society and culture.
Woman’s History Links
National Woman’s History Project
http://www.nwhp.org/tlp/biographies/albright/albright_bio.html
National Woman’s Hall of Fame
National Museum of Woman’s
History
Woman’s Labor History
http://www.afscme.org/otherlnk/whlinks.htm
Woman’s History in America
http://www.wic.org/misc/history.htm
Woman’s history in archives and
collectables
http://www.inventorsmuseum.com/women.htm
Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture
http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/women/
Woman’s History
http://maia.usno.navy.mil/women_history/history.html
Woman’s Military Service
http://www.womensmemorial.org/
Women in Film
http://www.bfi.org.uk/gateway/women/