MASARYK UNIVERSITY BRNO FACULTY OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE The New American Woman and the Emergence of a Social Conscience in the Progressive Era DIPLOMA WORK BRNO 2011 Supervisor: Written by: Michael George, M.A. Bc. Iva Plháková I declare that I worked on this thesis on my own and that I used only the sources listed in bibliography Prohlašuji, že jsem diplomovou práci zpracovala samostatně a použila jen prameny uvedené v seznamu literatury …………………………………….. Acknowledgements: I would like to thank my supervisor Michael George, M.A. for his valuable advice and help. Abstract: The diploma work investigates the contribution of new women to social reforms and social work at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century in the United States. The thesis focuses on social and material changes as well as the changes of values that were achieved and initiated by new women. The first chapter covers the issues of child labor and working conditions of women. Then, the thesis includes reforms that helped to improve living standards and health of Americans and the last section of the thesis is devoted to morals, education and values. Anotace: Diplomová práce mapuje přínos amerických žen v oblasti sociálních reforem a sociální práce na přelomu devatenáctého a dvacátého století. Práce je blíže zaměřena na sociální, duchovní a materiální změny, které byly dosaženy díky ženám z vyšších společenských tříd ve prospěch nejen chudých přistěhovalců, ale i celých spojených států. Hlavním tématem první kapitoly je zlepšení pracovních podmínek žen a dětí. Druhá kapitola obsahuje reformy z oblasti zdraví a bydlení a poslední část práce je věnována morálce, vzdělání a hodnotám. Key words: New Woman, Progressive Era, social reforms, working conditions, living conditions, immigrants Klíčová slova: nová žena, období progresivismu, sociální reformy, pracovní podmínky, životní podmínky, přistěhovalci The New American Woman and the Emergence of a Social Conscience in the Progressive Era CONTENTS 1 THE PROGRESSIVE ERA AND BIRTH OF THE NEW WOMAN …………….7 2 IMPROVING WORKING CONDITIONS………………………………………12 2.1 Middle- and Working-Class Sisterhood……………………………………….13 2.2 The Spark that Initiated Protective Laws……………………………………...16 2.3 Shorter Hours and Better Wage…………………………………………….….17 2.4 Florence Kelley and Mother Jones Fight against Child Labor………………...18 3 IMPROVING LIVING STANDARDS………………………………………......23 3.1 Clean Home and Clean Street Equals Clean Society………………………….25 3.2 Jane Addams and Garbage Collection………………………………………...28 3.3 Lillian Wald and Visiting Nurses……………………………………………..30 3.4 Julia Lathrop and the Children’s Bureau Keep Children Alive……………….31 3.5 Mothers´ Pension and the Beginning of the Social State…………….……….35 3.6 Mabel Hyde Kittredge Beats Malnutrition……………………………………39 4 VALUES AND MORALS……………………………………………………….42 4.1 Margaret Sanger, Sexual Education and Planned Parenthood……….………..42 4.2 Red-light Districts and Fallen Women………………………………………...48 4.2.1 White Slavery………………………………………………………………….49 4.2.2 Street Investigation……………………………………………………………50 4.2.3 Ways out of the Vicious Circle………………………………………….…….53 4.3 Carry Nation and Mary H. Hunt Insist: ―Saloons Must Go‖………………….56 4.4 Shaping Young Minds………………………………...………………………59 4.5 Preventing Boredom and the Playground Movement…………………………66 5 CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………69 6 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………….……………………….71 6.1 Books……………………………………………………………………………71 6.2 E-books………………………………………………………………………….73 6.3 Newspaper Articles Online…………………………...…………………………79 6.4 Online sources…………………………………………………………………..81 7 APPENDIX……………………………………………………………………….87 7.1 Portrait of the New Woman……………………………………….……………87 7.2 Caricature of the New Woman…………………………………………………88 7.3 Triangle Fire Tragedy…………………………………………………………..89 7.4 The Employment of Children in 1920………………………………………….91 7.5 Florence Kelley and the National Consumers League………………………....92 7.6 Child Labor Photographs by Lewis Hine………………………………………93 7.7 Life in Slums Captured by Jacob Riis………………………………………….95 7.8 Jane Addams and the Hull House…………………………………………..….97 7.9 Lillian Wald and Visiting Nurses………………………………………………98 7.10 Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Advertisement………………………..99 7.11 Socio-biological Pre-dispositions for Prostitutions………………………..….101 7.12 Carry Nation and her Hatchet………...………………………………………102 7.13 Temperance Movement……………………………………………………….103 7.14 A Teacher with her Pupils…………………………………………………….105 1 THE PROGRESSIVE ERA AND BIRTH OF THE NEW WOMAN ―I wanted all the freedom, all the opportunity, all the equality there was in the world. I wanted to belong to the human race…‖ Rheta Childe Dorr (New Life in the Suffrage Movement) It was nearly a half a century since the first women’s convention in Seneca Falls had demanded the same rights for women as those being enjoyed by men. Meanwhile Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, all of them the first American feminists, could only dream about equal educational opportunities, it was their daughters and grand-daughters that were allowed to obtain a higher education at newly-opened, prestigious female colleges, e.g. Vassar (1865), Wellesley and Smith (1875) and Harvard Annex (1875). However, a lot of male scientists (Darwin, Thorndike, Ellis) still questioned a female intellect and claimed that:‖women [were] capable only of average achievements‖ (Dorr) All male denial and prejudice was encountered by Leta Stetter Hollingworth, a women’s psychologist, whose extensive research, in which she compared male and female brains and their physical and psychological features, concluded: ―If men’s assumed superiority to women rests in their greater inherent variability, physical and mental, then that superiority has not been proved‖ (Dorr).Yet it was woman’s education that became crucial for a ―birth‖ of a new woman. The new woman was a white, native-born, middle-and upper class ―young person – a wholesome, lovable creature‖ who [went] to college, [after graduation she sought employment and eventually became self-supportive]. She [would] do settlement work, she [would not] go to church, she [had] views upon marriage and the birth-rate, and she [uttered] them calmly, while her mother [blushed] with embarrassment...‖ (Schneider 17). The new woman was confident, courageous and in many ways challenged old Victorian stereotypes of womanhood. She cherished a physical freedom and physique. Corsets and heavy skirts were out of question. She dressed comfortably, very popular was ―a white blouse combined with a plain, long, dark skirt or bloomer‖ (Matthews 14). For the picture and caricature of new woman see the appendices 7.1 and 7.2. 7 The new woman was no longer a feeble, delicate, and fainting creature. She keenly built up her stamina and fastened her health outside in nature, swimming pools, skating rinks or tennis courts. ―… [Her] very look, step, and bearing [was] free, [she was] a splendid friend, [her] mind [was] … as attractive as [her] body… [she was] often in every way magnificent, only [she was] not a mother‖ (Matthews 51). Driven by reason new women often chose spinsterhood to marriage. Statistics shows that ―fifty per cent of the female college graduates of the 1880s and the 1890s remained unmarried‖ (Matthews 38). Matthews´ figures correspond with the conjugal condition of 1890 when there was 48.44 % of 20 to 24 year-old Native white women with native parents single, the figure was even higher for the same age group of Native white women with foreign parents 65.37% and 54.6% for those women born outside the U.S. (Compendium of the Eleventh Census 118). For a college woman, marriage equaled the end of her career and self- development because woman’s true vocation was motherhood. The new woman refused to accept the one option future, i.e. marriage, and longed to prove herself and American society that she could earn her own living and lead an independent yet useful life. Emma Goldman, a political anarchist, spoke about marriage thus: ‖ It is a mental and physical slavery … objectionable, hurtful and degrading. It always gives the man the right and power over his wife, not only over her body, but also over her actions, her wishes; in fact, over her whole life… I demand the independence of woman; her right to support herself; to live for herself; to love whomever she pleases, or as many as she pleases. I demand freedom for both sexes, freedom of action, freedom in love and freedom in motherhood‖ (Goldman's First Published Writing on the Subject of Marriage). Such lifestyle and denial of family life was frequently criticized by American conservative society. Theodore Roosevelt, the American Republican president from 1901 to 1909, condemned: ―the man or woman who deliberately avoid[ed] marriage, [had] a heart so cold as to know no passion and a brain so shallow and selfish as to dislike having children…‖(Van Vorst viii). 8 Neither marriage nor the shallow life of upper-class attracted the new woman. ‖Liv[ing], breath[ing], eat[ing], smil[ing], walk[ing] and dress[ing] only according to fashion‖ were unthinkable and an utter waste of time to her (Goldman's First Published Writing on the Subject of Marriage). Yet, the new woman had a difficult task to find a fulfilling meaning of her life. New woman had a rich social life and joined various women’s clubs, where she could apply her knowledge in practical tasks. Furthermore, in female organizations she found love, friendship, mutual understanding and support. The first clubs aimed at women’s self-improvement developed