Background Essay: Women in the Gilded Age

HANDOUT A Background Essay: Women in the Gilded Age

Directions: Read the background essay and answer the review questions.

The vast social changes caused by unemployment experienced by immigrant men industrialization, immigration, and urbanization meant that many of their wives also had to work fundamentally altered life in the United States. in factories or as domestic servants in homes. In turn, those changes provoked responses in Alternatively, they took on piecemeal work on which women increased their political, economic, garments and other products inside the home. and civic participation in American public life. However, African-American women usually were Moreover, women led various reform movements restricted to working as servants or in agriculture. to ameliorate the harsh conditions that resulted Single, middle-class women increasingly worked from rapid social and economic change. as secretaries, store clerks, teachers, and nurses. The expectations of the Victorian Era of the A very small percentage of married, middle-class mid-to-late nineteenth century held that men women worked outside the home. Even fewer and women functioned in equally important women worked in the professions of law and but “separate spheres.” Men entered public medicine. life in business and politics, which had many A socially acceptable means of women entering temptations for corruption and vice. Women public life was to engage in social reform. Most cultivated virtuous homes for their husbands of these reformers were white, middle-class, as homemakers and educators of their children. educated Protestants who wanted to promote an However, in the late nineteenth century, improved moral climate in society and politics. increasing numbers of women began to enter the For example, in 1879 Frances Willard assumed the workforce especially as marriage rates and fertility presidency of the Women’s Christian Temperance rates began a long-term decline. In addition, Union (WCTU). The WCTU’s primary mission was women took advantage of increasing educational closing saloons and ending the consumption of opportunities in colleges. alcohol because of the ill-effects of drunkenness By 1900, more than five million women on families, including wasted wages and domestic (and approximately eight million a decade violence. The WCTU supported women’s suffrage later) worked outside the home due to both as a means of achieving the prohibition of alcohol the problems and opportunities caused by an and other reforms. industrializing economy. Many young, single In 1889, Jane Addams founded the Hull- women – especially of the working-class – worked House in Chicago to provide immigrants with in dangerous factories earning low wages and desperately-needed services in poor, ethnic working between ten and twelve hours every neighborhoods of the city. Other women took day of the week before they married and left the the lead in establishing similar successful workforce. The rampant low wages and frequent settlement houses in dozens of other cities. These

The Gilded Age and Progressive Era Unit 2, Lesson 4: Women in the Gilded Age © Bill of Rights I1nstitute Handout A, page 2

community centers helped immigrants adapt to the blaze. The Triangle Waist Company tragedy American society by teaching them English and was one of the most shocking of the events that civics, with the goal of “Americanizing” them. focused national attention on unsafe working Florence Kelley formed the National conditions. New York and other states passed laws Consumers’ League in 1898 to pressure stores to to improve public safety for workers. pay female clerks better. The League also worked The various reforming civic groups and unions for protective legislation regulating the hours established by powerful women during the Gilded and conditions for women and children. Women Age reflected the organizational strength of were shut out of male-dominated unions such as women fighting for social and economic reform. the American Federation of Labor (AFL), partially While they struggled for those reforms, they because AFL leadership accepted the traditional developed a keen sense of the political inequality belief that employed women were taking the jobs faced by women excluded from the ballot box. of men who were the main source of income for Women re-invigorated the women’s suffrage families. Lilian Wald and other women created movement through the same organizational the Women’s Trade Union League to help women strategies they had implemented in the reform organize their own labor unions to bargain for movements of the late nineteenth century. better working conditions and increased wages. In 1848, a group of reformers had met at In 1909, women who worked in the garment Seneca Falls, New York, and issued a Declaration industry formed a movement called the “uprising of Sentiments modeled after the Declaration of the twenty thousand” and went on strike of Independence. The Seneca Falls document, to protest poor wages, grueling hours, and signed by 100 delegates including thirty-two dangerous working conditions. Met with violence men, listed the ways women had been deprived and arrest, the striking women, led by Rose of equal rights, including “the inalienable right Schneiderman, formed their own union, the to the elective franchise.” The women’s suffrage International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union movement split, however, in 1869 when the (ILGWU) to support the strike. By early 1910, the National Woman Suffrage Association led by ILGWU won the strike with higher wages and a Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony limit of 52 hours of work per week. However, the sought to win women’s suffrage through an next year tragedy stuck when 146 workers, most amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The rival of them young immigrant women, were killed American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA), in a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, a led by Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell, pursued garment manufacturer in New York City. Within a strategy of achieving women’s suffrage at half an hour, just before quitting time on March the state level. Thus, the principled debate 25, 1911, a fire that started on the eighth floor was between those who wanted to amend the had engulfed the building’s top three floors. The Constitution and those who desired most closely fire exits and stairwells were inadequate, the to follow the principle of federalism. doors were kept locked, and the safety procedures In 1890, the movement united and formed were virtually nonexistent. Dozens of employees the National American Woman Suffrage jumped out of windows to their deaths as the Association (NAWSA). The suffragettes argued flames advanced, and many others were killed by for the right to vote on the grounds that women

The Gilded Age and Progressive Era Unit 2, Lesson 4: Women in the Gilded Age © Bill of Rights I1nstitute Handout A, page 3

were the intellectual equal to men and capable Paul and others went on a hunger strike and were of exercising an independent vote. Second, force-fed in prison. women argued that they were more virtuous In 1916, both Republicans and Democrats had and would help improve the moral character of a plan supporting women’s suffrage due to the politics through reform. Third, they made Social efforts of thousands of women who showed up Darwinist arguments, asserting that if “inferior” at the respective party conventions. Women’s black and immigrant men could vote, so should patriotic contribution to the war effort at home, white, middle-class women. The NAWSA achieved in factories, and near the front lines during notable successes in the more individualistic World War I furthered the cause of suffrage. western states of Washington, California, Kansas, Still, President Wilson was lukewarm. Although Oregon, and Arizona as they joined Wyoming, a president’s signature is not necessary for a Colorado, Utah, and Idaho in approving women’s constitutional amendment, Wilson’s support suffrage in state and local elections. would add the prestige of the office to the cause Despite the successes, in 1913, radical and help secure passage. Beginning in January suffragette Alice Paul broke with the NAWSA 1917, suffragettes marched before the White to form the Congressional Union (which later House for six months to lobby the president. All became the National Women’s Party). Paul of these efforts bore fruit when the House and disagreed with the state-by-state strategy and Senate passed the amendment by the required wanted a constitutional amendment. On March two-thirds vote, and thirty-six states ratified it by 3, 1913, the day before president-elect Woodrow August, 1920. Wilson’s inauguration, five thousand women The women reformers of the Gilded Age bravely marched down Pennsylvania Avenue and Progressive Era spearheaded a number of while being jeered and pelted with objects by a movements that profoundly reshaped women’s hostile crowd. The demonstration was aimed at participation in American society and civic life. As pressuring incoming President Woodrow Wilson a result, they would pave the way for other women to support women’s suffrage. After suffering the to engage in politics, social reform, and the indignity of insults for marching for equality, struggle for women’s equality during the course of hundreds were arrested and imprisoned. Alice the twentieth century.

REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. What social and economic changes were occurring in the lives of women during the Gilded Age? 2. What were the different experiences of women in the workforce? 3. Compare and contrast the goals of the different social movements women joined. 4. How did the goals and strategies of the women’s suffrage movement change over time? 5. Why were women successful in achieving a constitutional amendment for women’s suffrage?