New Roles for Middle-Class Women

ASU HST 200 (Historical Themes) The Growing Pains of Urbanization, 1870-1900 New Roles for Middle-Class Women In line with prevailing social conventions, middle-class women took great satisfaction in providing a happy home environment for their working husbands and school-age children, therefore reinforcing the educational and business ideas they learned in school or at work. The immensely successful publications Ladies' Home Journal and Good Housekeeping started to be distributed about this period. While the bulk of middleclass women assumed the traditional roles of homemaker and housewife, others were pursuing higher education. In the middle of the 1800s, a few women's institutions started to admit students, and coeducation started to be a possibility. Several of the best institutions established allied women's colleges. Two examples are Pembroke College and Harvard University, and Radcliffe College and Harvard University. More crucially, though, this was the period when the first women's colleges opened. Even though enrollment was low at first (class sizes ranged from sixty-one at Vassar to seventy at Wellesley, seventy-one at Smith, and up to eighty-eight at Mount Holyoke), opportunities for a higher education and even a career started to emerge for young women. These colleges, which are still among the most well-known women's institutions, opened between 1865 and 1880. These institutions provided a distinctive, all-female setting where scholars and a community of young women pursuing education came together. Even while the majority of young women with college degrees were still married, their education gave them new chances to work outside the home, most often as professors or instructors or in the settlement houses that Jane Addams and others had established. There were major changes in the roles and possibilities available to middle-class women between 1870 and 1900 as a result of urbanization. Many middle-class women found joy in providing loving homes for their husbands and children, which reinforced the domestic virtues they had learnt. This was a reflection of existing societal standards. The popularity of homemaking advice and guidance journals such as Ladies' Home Journal and Good Housekeeping reflected this emphasis on domesticity. Although most middle-class women accepted their traditional responsibilities as homemakers, an increasing proportion of them pursued higher education. When women's colleges started to enroll students in the middle of the 1800s, coeducation started to become popular. A number of esteemed establishments, such as Harvard University and Pembroke College, and Harvard University and Radcliffe College, founded connected women's colleges. Remarkably, despite their initial modest attendance, the first women's institutions were founded around this time as well. Between 1865 and 1880, colleges like Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, and Mount Holyoke emerged, giving women the chance to pursue higher education and careers. Even though these organizations' original class numbers were quite small, they offered young women a special setting in which to pursue education and intellectual development. These female-only universities provided an environment where academics and students came together to establish a caring community. Even while marriage was still expected of most women with college degrees, their knowledge allowed them to pursue new options outside the house. There were more career alternatives available to educated women than just teaching or instructing. They were able to find jobs in social work and academics, among other disciplines. Reformers such as Jane Addams created settlement homes to provide women more opportunities to work outside the home in fulfilling jobs. Educated women might address social concerns and make substantial contributions to their communities through these settlement homes. Expanding societal expectations and challenging established gender norms were the results of the rise of women's colleges and the growing number of educated women. Some women accepted possibilities for personal and professional satisfaction outside the house, while others continued to prioritize marriage and family life. A major change in American society was brought about by the increasing number of educated women in the workforce and public life. This development paved the way for additional improvements in women's rights and opportunities during the twentieth century. All things considered, the years of urbanization between 1870 and 1900 saw the onset of a shift in middle-class women's responsibilities and prospects. During this period of tremendous social and economic transformation, women in America contributed to the shifting dynamics of the country's society by gaining newfound independence and agency via work and education.