The Fairer Sex

The Fairer Sex? The International Women’s Movement

Caroline Allison Reading Memorial High School August 2008 Grade 10 U.S. Expansion and Connections to the World in Antebellum America Abstract

This unit is designed for an integrated US and World History class that covers the nineteenth century in an international perspective. This unit could also be utilized in either a US or World History class by choosing one or two activities from each day. The lesson is divided into 3 days, but may take an additional day depending on the length of each class period. The lessons are designed for a tenth grade classroom of various student levels and assumes that the students have already studied the US Revolution, the French Revolution, the early

Republic and Jacksonian America, and the Revolutions of 1830 and 1848. For one of the lessons, a computer lab is needed, but can easily be transformed into a 2 day homework assignment if one is not available for class use.

The topic of these lessons is the international women’s movement; its beginnings, its presence in the

United States, its triumphs and its ultimate failures. The significances of this unit are many and are reflected in its essential questions as well as its objectives. Most women in the early women’s rights movement were not striving for women’s rights; rather, they were asking for the right to speak in public about issues such as labor and slavery. After being rejected from these worthy causes because they were women, they started to question the very position that their sex assigned them to. The importance of this movement does not first begin, as most think, with the right to vote, but in the willingness of women to stand up for their right to stand up for others. Key Questions

 What were the ideas about women’s place, power, and influence in the nineteenth century?

 What changes in society, both inclusive and exclusive of women, affected women’s desire for additional rights?

 Who were the key figures in the international women’s movement and what were their motivations?

 What goals did the international women’s movement seek to obtain? Which succeeded and why? Lesson One

Essential Questions:

 What were the ideas about women’s place, power, and influence in the nineteenth century?

 How was the international women’s rights movement formed?

 What advances in society, both inclusive and exclusive of women, affected women’s desire for additional rights?

Learning Objectives:

 Students will be able to visualize and describe the idealized ‘spheres’ into which women were placed in the nineteenth century and whether or not those spheres were accurate.

 Students will be able to describe the historical context in which the women’s right movement formed, including its causes.

Activities:

 Present the students with the three primary sources and questions included in this worksheet. Have the students look at each source and answer the questions, going over the questions with them before going onto the next source. This activity seeks to have the students examine how women were represented in the nineteenth century.

 PowerPoint: Next, lead the students through a PowerPoint of the early women’s rights movement that asks them to draw upon connections to earlier curriculum.

 Homework: Have the students represent the “Sphere of Men” with this worksheet. Ask for student volunteers the next day to explain them to the class. Lesson Two

 What changes in society, both inclusive and exclusive of women, affected women’s desire for additional rights?

 Who were the key figures in the international women’s movement and what were their motivations?

 Students will be able research the motivations and goals of a key figure of the women’s rights movement by utilizing internet sources and creating a bio cube.

Activities:

 In computer lab: Students are assigned one of the movers and shakers of the women’s rights movement and provided with an assignment sheet and a BioCube planning sheet. Students then create a BioCube utilizing the internet sites provided and the Read Write Think BioCube website.

 Students then present their Cubes to the class; since there will inevitably be more than one student assigned to a figure, they can present in twos or threes. While the students are presenting, ask them what international connections their figures represent or connections to other reform movements. Lesson Three

 What goals did the women’s movement seek to obtain? Which succeeded and why?

 Students will be able to outline the goals of the women’s rights movement by predicting the demands in the Seneca Falls Declaration.

 Students will be able to discuss the goals in the Seneca Falls Declaration and reasons why those goals succeeded or failed.

Activities:  Use the brainstorm worksheet as an activator for the lesson. You may want to write a resolution on the board as a model for the students to follow.

 Next, assign each of the students to one of the actual resolutions that were voted on in the Convention. Assign 2 students to each of the resolutions and have them draw a cartoon, poster, or any other visual representation of that resolution. Use this worksheet as a guide.

 Post the visual representations on the board and have the students explain them to the class.

 Ask the students to discuss which ones that they have predicted or not and why. Also be sure to point out that the right to vote was the only resolution that did not pass unanimously. Why? Discuss which of the resolutions were immediately or eventually successful, and which were not. What does this say about the movement? Bibliography

Anderson, Bonnie S. "The First International Women’s Movement." In Carl Guarneri, American Compared: American History in an International Perspective, Vol 1: to 1877, 2nd Edition (Houghton Mifflin, 2005). A comprehensive article detailing the early women’s movement from its inception in the early nineteenth century to its retreat at the onset of the Civil War.

McClymer, John, ed. “Masculine Superiority Fever": Making Sense of "Spheres." Accessed 12 April 2008. Available from http://www.assumption.edu/whw/workshop/untitled1.html. An excellent website with primary sources from the early 19th century written into a narrative form that is easy to comprehend. All of the primary sources from the worksheet for day one were found on this website.

Read, Write, Think! “Bio-Cube.” Accessed 12 August 2008. Available from http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/bio_cube/. An excellent website with a variety of materials to assist students with reading material and sources. This section is one that students can use directly to construct a BioCube which the website then formats automatically.

Smithsonian Institute. "The Seneca Falls Convention." Accessed 12 August 2008. Available from http://www.npg.si.edu/col/seneca/senfalls1.htm. Good overview of the background and reaction to the Seneca Falls Convention.

Spartacus Educational. “Spartacus Schoolnet.” Accessed 12 August 2008. Available from http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/. An excellent site for both teachers and students to use for research. Reading level is appropriate for high school students and the site has quotations and short excerpts from primary sources for each historical figure it profiles.

Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. “Seneca Falls Declaration and Resolution.” Seneca Falls, 1848. Found at http://www.iath.virginia.edu/utc/abolitn/abwmat.html. Stanton is the primary author of this set of resolutions first read at the Seneca Falls convention in 1848. This is an essential document for the understanding of the goals of the women’s rights movement in the US. Mrs. Allison International Women’s Rights Movement Introductory Documents

Name: ______Date: ______

“The Sphere of Woman” illustration from Godey's Lady's Book, March 1850 Found at: http://www.assumption.edu/whw/workshop/untitled1.html

1. What is a sphere, according to this illustration?

2. Name 5 objects in the illustration that represent a woman’s responsibilities in 1850.

3. What is included in this illustration that may be inaccurate?

4. What objects/places/people should be included in the illustration to make it more accurate? List at least four. “We have watched women making hay, raking and binding grain, reaping, plowing, harrowing, milking cows, churning, hoeing, digging, weeding, planting, wrestling with washtubs and big kettles, driving market carts, carrying loads like hotel porters, whitewashing, scrubbing, scouring -- doing all sorts of drudgery, against which public opinion had not one word to say, and "thinks I to myself, thinks I," if anyone should propose that these women should take any part in making or executing the laws that regulate the reward and relations of labor, what a lecture he would get from public opinion, about feminine delicacy, female weakness, domestic duties, and all that sort of thing! Women should be very delicate, very depending, very helpless, when men want to be loved; but she must grow very strong, very self-reliant, very efficient when he wants to be served...” - Jane Swisshelm, “A Letter to Country Girls,” 1853 Found at: http://www.assumption.edu/whw/workshop/untitled1.html

5. What 2 roles does Jane Swisshelm state that women have to occupy?

6. Would Swisshelm agree or disagree with the illustration ‘The Sphere of Women’? Why/why not?

7. What power/control did women have in the middle of the nineteenth century? Try to list at least 3.

Read the poem below.

"Puss In The Corner" All day long in the corner she sits; All day long in the corner she knits; But while her dexterous needles play Her eyes so liquid and large and gray, Mark me and watch me around the house, For she's "Puss in the Corner," and I'm the mouse.

My puss hasn't got any taloned claws, And white as milk are her pretty paws; And none of the feline cruelty lies Lurking within her deep gray eyes; Yet she holds me and keeps me about the house, For she's "Puss in the Corner," and I'm the mouse.

I have heard that a very long time ago, When the world was young, and the world was slow, A lusty lion in a net was caught, And the Monarch of Beasts was like to rot, Till the woven threads of his prison-house Were gnawed away by a little mouse. This antique tale is reversed for me. I'm the mouse in a net, and I can't get free; For crosswise around my poor heart twines The net of Love in a thousand lines; And "Puss in the Corner" sits and smiles, And fastens the knots with a thousand wiles.

But I know the way to break the chains -- A single course to me remains: When once the marriage vows are said, When "Puss in the Corner" and I are wed, We'll see who rules over all the house, And which is the cat and which the mouse!

- "Puss In The Corner” Harper's Weekly, October 27, 1860 Found at http://www.assumption.edu/whw/workshop/untitled1.html

8. Who holds the power in the poem? Why?

9. When does that author say that the power structure will reverse? Why do you think that will happen? Name:______

Homework: Using the box below, try to draw an illustration or make a collage titled “The Sphere of Men” in 1850. Stick figures and cut outs from newspapers/magazines are acceptable!

“The Sphere of Men” “The Sphere of Men” Name: ______Date:______Movers and Shakers!

Directions: Follow the steps below to create a BioCube on one of the women of early women’s rights movement!

Step one: Choose one of the women below to research.

Elizabeth Blackwell Harriet Taylor Sarah Grimke Margaret Fuller Lucretia Mott Emma Goldman Elizabeth Cady Stanton Anne Knight Fanny Wright Harriet Martineau Ernestine Rose

Step Two: Unless the name is hyperlinked, go to Spartacus Schoolnet and make sure that “Search www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk” is checked. Do not do a general Google search.

Step Three: Read the woman’s biography and record key information using the BioCube planning sheet. Be sure to note a date and document title for the quote you choose if the information is available.

Step Four: Create the BioCube using the website from Read, Write, Think.

Step Five: Present your Cube to the class! Seneca Falls Brainstorm Name: ______History 10 Date: ______

The year is 1848. Your name is Elizabeth Cady Stanton. You remember well the year 1840 while on your honeymoon in London you attended the first World Anti-slavery Convention, a meeting at which your husband, but not you, was able to take the podium. In fact, you and your friend Lucretia Mott were not allowed to take your seats in the general assembly, but were ordered to sit in the balcony. Eight years later, you have three young sons and no more rights or privileges than you had at that meeting. You are visiting your friend Lucretia at her sister’s home in Seneca Falls, NY along with 2 other women who hold the same ideals. All of the other women are Quakers, but you feel very welcome in their ‘Society of Friends’. You and the other women have decided to hold a convention regarding women’s rights during your short visit- in only five days!! The group has chosen you to draft the resolutions that the convention will vote on. What should you demand? Brainstorm the three most important things that you think that the women’s movement should set as its goals.

Resolved: ______

Resolved: ______Resolutions of the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848

Resolved, That such laws as conflict, in any way, with the true and substantial happiness of woman, are contrary to the great precept of Nature and of no validity, for this is "superior in obligation to any other."

Resolved, That all laws which prevent woman from occupying such a station in society as her conscience shall dictate, or which place her in a position inferior to that of man, are contrary to the great precept of Nature, and therefore of no force or authority.

Resolved, That woman is man's equal—was intended to be so by the Creator, and the highest good of the race demands that she should be recognized as such.

Resolved, That the women of this country ought to be enlightened in regard to the laws under which they live, that they may no longer publish their degradation by declaring themselves satisfied with their present position, nor their ignorance, by asserting that they have all the rights they want.

Resolved, That inasmuch as man, while claiming for himself intellectual superiority, does accord to woman moral superiority, it is pre-eminently his duty to encourage her to speak and teach as she has opportunity, in all religious assemblies.

Resolved, That the same amount of virtue, delicacy, and refinement of behavior that is required of woman in the social state, should also be required of man, and the same transgressions should be visited with equal severity on both man and woman.

Resolved, That the objection of indelicacy and impropriety, which is so often brought against woman when she addresses a public audience, comes with a very ill-grace from those who encourage, by their attendance, her appearance on the stage, in the concert, or in feats of the circus.

Resolved, That woman has too long rested satisfied in the circumscribed limits which corrupt customs and a perverted application of the Scriptures have marked out for her, and that it is time she should move in the enlarged sphere which her great Creator has assigned her.

Resolved, That it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise.

Resolved, That the equality of human rights results necessarily from the fact of the identity of the race in capabilities and responsibilities.

Resolved, therefore, That, being invested by the Creator with the same capabilities, and the same consciousness of responsibility for their exercise, it is demonstrably the right and duty of woman, equally with man, to promote every righteous cause by every righteous means; and especially in regard to the great subjects of morals and religion, it is self-evidently her right to participate with her brother in teaching them, both in private and in public, by writing and by speaking, by any instrumentalities proper to be used, and in any assemblies proper to be held; and this

73 being a self-evident truth growing out of the divinely implanted principles of human nature, any custom or authority adverse to it, whether modern or wearing the hoary sanction of antiquity, is to be regarded as a self- evident falsehood, and at war with mankind. At the last session Lucretia Mott offered and spoke to the following resolution:

Resolved, That the speedy success of our cause depends upon the zealous and untiring efforts of both men and women, for the overthrow of the monopoly of the pulpit, and for the securing to woman an equal participation with men in the various trades, professions, and commerce.

Found at: http://www.iath.virginia.edu/utc/abolitn/abwmat.html Seneca Falls Resolutions Name: ______History 10 Date: ______

Directions: Make a visual representation of a Seneca Falls resolution. You may do this in the form of a cartoon, a poster or any other way that you can think of to represent the resolution so that others can understand it. Follow the rubric below for specific instructions.

Category Exceeds Meets Below Not done expectations Expectations Expectations

The resolution is accurately represented visually with a cartoon, symbols, figures, etc. A substantial effort has been made to be neat, creative and appropriate to the topic. The representation is appropriately colored and has a title. All poster space has been utilized. The resolution itself has been re-written in 21st century language below the visual representation.