America’s history started with European settlers colonizing in America. The events that followed shaped American civilization. Settlers brought disease to America. Racism led to violence, inequality, and slavery. The fight for government control turned into wars. Taxation, unfair labor conditions, voting privileges, and property rights led to civil rights movements, riots, and rebellions. This was also the era when women were invisible. They were keepers of the home where they were confined as wives and mothers. They cooked, cleaned, did laundry, and took care of the children. Non-white women were expected to work in the fields with the male slaves. Women were viewed as being meek and inferior and were expected to be obedient and servient to their husbands. They were uneducated, they couldn’t read or write and they had no voting rights or property rights.
By the mid-1700s, the roles of women started to change. As the American Revolutionary War progressed, women were brought out into public affairs and their invisibility started dissipating. The roles women played during and after these events changed American culture. Women were working outside of the home, they were joining movements to gain equal rights for women, and they were becoming educated. Women started protesting against high taxes and they joined the movements to end slavery. The women in American history helped shape America into what it is today by opening the doors to gender equality and equal rights for women.
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Some women participated in the American Revolution while others helped support the war. Women brought food and water to the soldiers, they spun and made clothing, some disguised themselves as men to fight in the war, and others acted as secret spies. In the video, ‘Heroes and Villains-Women of the Revolution’, a storyteller playing Lydia Darragh tells Lydia’s story of being a secret spy for the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. Lydia was an Irish Quaker. Quakers did not support the warfare, but because her eldest son was serving in the 2nd Pennsylvania Regiment in the Continental Army, she secretly supported the patriot cause. During this time, she allowed General Howe to use her parlor for meetings in exchange for being able to keep her home. During the meetings, she would listen and write down everything she heard and later had it transcribed. She would sew the transcribed messages into cloth covered buttons that were worn on her son’s coat and later delivered to George Washington. George Washington received Lydia’s messages which allowed him and his troops to prepare for the British’s plan to attack.
Women were engaged in different trades such as shop keeping, baking, and printing which allowed them to work outside of the home. Zinn argues that this created “outside fears and tensions in the dominate male world….”. Women also became active against the British tea tax which made the price of tea extremely high. They began organizing groups such as the Daughters of Liberty in their efforts to boycott British goods, urging other women not to buy from the British and to make their own clothing.
By the 19th century, women had changed America before the Civil War. Abigail Adams wrote a letter to her husband, John Adams asking him not to forget the ladies when declaring independence and establishing the new Code of Laws. In her letter, she was somewhat sarcastic, and threatened a rebellion without holding accountability to any laws which women have no voice or representation. Women began striking against low labor wages and long hours. Middle-class women took over primary school teaching and literacy among women doubled between 1781-1840. This allowed them to write for magazines and newspapers. Women began forming movements against double standards in sexual behavior and prostitution victims, they joined antislavery and religious movements. By the 1840s a clear feminist crusade emerged and women were becoming experienced organizers, agitators, and speakers.
More girls and women were becoming educated. Emma Willard founded the Troy Female Seminary, the first recognized institution for the education of girls. Elizabeth Blackwell got her medical degree in 1849 after struggling to be admitted to Geneva College. Lucy Stone, an American Anti-Slavery lecturer who refused to give up her name after marriage began lecturing women’s rights in 1847. Amelia Bloomer, a postmistress developed the bloomer, the corsets, and petticoats to replace traditional dresses. Angelina Grimke, a southern white woman was the first women to address a Massachusetts legislature committee on antislavery petitions. She became a fierce speaker and organizer against slavery. Her sister Sarah Grimke wrote a series of articles, ‘Letters on the Condition of Women and the Equality of the Sexes’. Frances Wright founded the Utopian community and fought for the emancipation of slaves, birth control and sexual freedom. Harriet Beecher Stowe, an American abolitionist wrote ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’, introducing African Americans as people and humanized slaves to the degree that she was banned from the south. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and others laid the plans to the first ever Women’s Rights Convention held at Seneca Falls, New York.
All of these women took a stance, spoke up for what they believed in, and fought for the freedom and rights that were unfairly being denied to women. They fought to end slavery, fought for education, fair labor wages, and equal rights for women. Their actions allowed women to continue working outside of the home. Women began to have a say when it came to their bodies. Young girls were becoming educated, and their efforts helped in the quest to end slavery. Their protests, their movements, and their fights opened the doors for women in their era and for all women of the future. If it weren’t for these women of American history, women would not have the freedom and rights they have and America would not be what it is today.
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