By looking at women activists during the Progressive Era we can discern both the problems of the period and the different roles that began to emerge for women. Reform, combined with a wider job market and changing lifestyles, gave rise to a new women’s movement. Up-and-coming big businesses created new job opportunities for women; women were now able to become saleswomen and clerks, as well as factory workers. However, women still found that society was fully male-dominated and that these men still held a Victorian-era view towards the role of women. For example, in most states, women were not allowed to vote and could not sign contracts without the consent of their husbands. Women tried to address these social problems, yet they were continually faced with the sexist view of women being intellectually and emotionally inferior to men.
Jane Addams founded Chicago’s Hull House in an effort to to help immigrant women adjust to American life while preserving their own cultures. Many women had the opportunity to work at Hull House. Similar communities like Hull House, ran mostly by women, soon emerged all over the United States. Because these communities were urban and contained many immigrants, these women came to the realization that these communities dealt with much more complex problems that required more assistance than in ‘normal’ communities. These women became social reformers and supported legislation; i.e. they wanted to end child labor, improve working conditions, and enforce more support for immigrants. Hull House became a place where radicals ideas were discussed amongst its inhabitants, making Hull House one of the most intellectual centers during the Progressive Era.
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Many women of the Progressive Era began to reexamine society’s customs and attitudes towards women. Women believed that the family structure, for example, suppressed a woman’s freedom and independence. Margaret Sanger was an early advocate of women’s rights to limit the number of children she wanted to have. Sanger was a strong believer that women “are determined to decide for themselves whether they shall become mothers, under what conditions, and when”. Sanger worked as a nurse in the Lower East Side of New York and witnessed the pain of mishandled abortions and the sufferings of unwanted pregnancies. This led Sanger to open up a birth-control clinic in New York in 1916. This however led to her arrest, but Sanger was able to appeal in 1918. Sanger continued her fight, and in 1921 she helped organized the American Birth Control League (ABCL), which would later become the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Prohibition prohibited the sale, manufacture and transportation of alcohol. This amendment would not have passed without the persistence of the women involved in the temperance movement, which began in the 19th century. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was an organization that heavily favored Prohibition. Women had been involved in mainly social clubs and charities, but the temperance movement allowed them to participate in national politics. Women tended to favor prohibition because their husbands were the main source of financial support for the family. Husbands who remained alcoholics were more likely to remain unemployed. Additionally, alcoholic husbands become abusive towards their wives.
This summarization of women in the Progressive Era provides only a glimpse at how women attempted to reform society while also changing ideas about the role of women of the time.
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