Transcripts For CSPAN3 Lectures In History Women In The Late-19th Century 20240712

We have gone through that with the africanamerican men who had fought for the union had some ideas for what the union should be, and certainly white southerners had in idea about what america should be. The northerners who won had an idea, the indians and the chinese at west had ideas about what america should be and certainly the northern men who had won the war had ideas about what the country should be. The critical question as to what it was going to be was who was going to have a say in it. We have gone to that as well, but who had a say in what that new nation was going to be was going to have a dramatic affect on what it eventually became. Today i want to talk about women and womens lives in the late 19th century and their role in what was really the reconstruction, the true rebuilding of the north, south, and the west into a new nation in the wake of the civil war. The story of women is more crucial to that story than most people realize. Most people when they think about womens rights in america start here and you probably know about this from high school, the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 when a number of women came together. Women and men as well came together to talk about womens rights and the idea of rights for women came out of the Abolitionist Movement in 1840 when a number of female abolitionists went to london for the first world antislavery convention. While they were there to speak about human rights, the woods those women were not allowed to speak. On the way home, a number of them get talking and say this is is people are supposed to be free and equal, women should have rights as well. Out of that comes the organization of the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. This is the group of people who issued the declaration of sentiments which is based on the declaration of independence, but calls for rights for women and tries to fight back against what they consider the oppression of men. Andall learned about this everybody talks about this being the beginning of womens rights in america. It is, it is a symbolic moment, but after the Seneca Falls Convention, nothing happens. This happens in new york, new york has got a lot of other things going on. They are fighting a battle over property rights, there is a lot of things going on in the east especially in the northeast in the 1840s and 50s and one person looks at the Seneca Falls Convention and says it is almost as if we are talking about martians voting and having rights. It is not on peoples radar screens at a National Level and not a lot changes after the declaration of sentiments. Women andhange for for womens rights comes not out of the declaration of sentiments in 1848, but rather out of the american civil war. We have talked to some in this class about that, womens roles changed during the civil war dramatically. They going to the war both in the north and south believing they are going to be able to maintain the roles they had before the civil war. That breaks down almost immediately. They start with the idea that they will be helping, and very women very quickly, women have to take over a whole new set of roles during the civil war. All, they begin by supporting the troops both in the north and the south. Especially in the north, that quickly becomes taking on a very public roles. Women often had public roles before because of the Abolitionist Movement and because of politics, but during the civil war, the roles of women take on a new dimensions. We have for example, women working in of the new government jobs. When i talked about the creation of american money, somebody actually physically had to take those large plates of paper and cut them into bills. Those were women, those were government girls who did the cutting. If you look at these now and sometimes you see them in museums, if you look at the edges, you can tell when the women were cutting them because by the end of the day they got tired and the edges are not straight. If you collect them, you want the ones with the straight edges. Women are working in the government, working as clerks, in the northern feels they are taking over for the men who have gone to war. They are working in factories in both the north and the south, and they begin to do a number of things they are not that are not usually a part of womens roles. We have women getting involved in nursing which had always been a male concerted a dirty, male profession. You get women involved in nursing and this is when nursing becomes a female rather than a male profession. As men go off to war you get women involved in teaching which had always been a male profession, becomes a pink collar profession because the women are the ones who are there to do the teaching. You have women when they are new sing nursing going into spaces where they had been excluded. You did not used to want your daughters to be in a hospital which is dirty and full of men in various stages of undress who are messy. They are dying or they are bleeding, these are spaces women begin to enter. You also have women buying bonds that i talked about. For the first time in American History, women literally own a piece of the american government. They are buying bonds on which the government and the military depends. And of course they are sending their sons and husbands off to fight this war. Heavily ininvested the u. S. Government. They are part of the u. S. Government, they have supported it with their money, they have supported it with their lives, they have supported it with their sons on a with their efforts, and some of them quite literally put their lives on the line for the u. S. Government. We had civil war spies and we have even a few women fighting as civil war soldiers. There is a great story about that, a woman who is discovered many years later when she applies for a pension and is able to prove that she fought during the civil war. There are not many of them, but they are a great story. You have women in the north coming out of this war believing that they should have a say in that government. They gave everything for that government. They feel like they should have a say in what happens. Certainly, more of a say than that white southerners Andrew Johnson was pardoning at such an extraordinary rate ring the summer of 1865 so that by the fall of 1865 all but about 1500 of the former confederates have received residential pardons. They look at that and say wait a minute, how come these guys who picked up guns and tried to destroy the u. S. Government have a say and we dont . You are going to see a similar pattern after world war ii when you get the womens the second wave of womens activism out of world war ii out of a similar set of circumstances. So what happens is coming out of the war, women expect they are going to have a say in this new constructed government and that of course, is not what happens. What happens is coming out of the war, the focus is on africanamerican male suffrage. Especially women suffragists look at this and they are willing to let that happen, but they also expected that they are going to be included as well. You hear more from me about julia ward who put it this way, she said when we are writing that 14th amendment, women should be included. If we are talking about citizenship and having a say in American Society, women belong in that. They should have rights under that amendment. And of course, when congress is discussing the 14th amendment at great length, congress some congressmen actually do introduce the idea that women should be included in the 14th amendment and that women should be considered fullservice and citizens. And they are laughed at, the idea that women should have rights and be able to participate in society is a nonstarter in 1868. This two suffragists, especially those who have worked so hard for the war, just really stung. Said that civil war came to an end leaving the slave not only emancipated but endowed with citizenship. The women of the north had greatly helped open the door which admitted him to freedom and its safeguard, the ballot. Was this door to be shut in their face . In 1868, when the door was shut in their face, two really dramatic things happened. Two Suffrage Associations formed in america. Most of you know that these organizations joined in 1890 and most people who look at the advance of womens suffrage across the country really look at that 1890 merger as being crucial. And yet, these things come out of the 14th amendment. They come out of the idea that if africanamerican men and should be included in american citizenship, so should women. So should white women is the people that if these women are primarily concerned with. Women should have a say in American Society. First the National Womens Suffrage Association forms and these are women like Elizabeth Cady stanton and susan b. Anthony who were very active in the Abolitionist Movement and they tend to be more radical. They want a wide number of reforms for american women, they are going to level the Playing Field between men and women with property ownership, divorce laws, the different economic inequalities between the sexes. They are seen as radicals. You get tos later, the organization of the american womens Suffrage Association and that is a much more moderate group. It is interesting for my purposes today because it is formed primarily by lucy stone and Julia Ward Howe. They demanded only the vote with the idea that one should get the vote once you get the vote, you have a say in government and can change the laws if you do not like the laws. This is always a part where i want to talk about Julia Ward Howe. Howe is the same woman who wrote the battle hymn of the republic in 1862, i have talked about her before, she begins to take on a much more public role during the civil war especially through her writing. She is a brilliant thinker, her diaries are at harvard. She becomes involved in the American Woman Suffrage Association because she really wants the vote. She is a much more moderate character than say Elizabeth Cady she wants the vote for this reason, her husband is abusive. Every time she wants to leave him, he says great, go, you will never see your kids again. Era, childrens are the property of their fathers. If women divorce their husbands, they can be kept from their kids. She stays married and try to continue to have access to the kids. The great part of this story is he is really awful to her, i read through her diaries, he is really awful to her and keeps trying to get her to destroy the diaries. He keeps telling her she is stupid and nobody is going to listen to her, and that he is really the shining light in the couple because he is a very famous reformer. I always try to make a point to talk about her in this situation because i want you all to leave this room and for the rest of your lives to remember that Julia Ward Howe is an incredibly important figure, writer, youre going to hear more about her in a minute, and she is married to some jerk nobody remembers. That is my part for her. What happens after the organization of these two suffrage groups to try and push for women to have a say in American Society . This is the era right after the legislators are trying to create a world in which equal rights really is the only underpinning of the american government. This is a period when people are talking about everybody having equal rights, everybody should have a say in American Society and they are trying to expand that with the 14th amendment which theoretically includes everybody except indians not taxed. That is an important caveat, important exception. Out west, unlike where seneca falls took place, out west in the organization of those territories that i talked about that come in the west so quickly, the idea of womens suffrage takes off. Territory, wyoming they give women the vote when they put together their constitution. There are very few women in wyoming territory, i promise you. But it gives women the vote with the idea that in these new western territories, women should have the right to have a say in the construction of that society. It takes off. The next year, in 1870, utah gives women the vote. It is about 1000 women in wyoming, there are about 17,000 in utah. They give women the vote in utah in 1870 because there is a referendum coming up on whether or not polygamy should be included in the state laws. The expectation of the legislators who include the women is that women will vote against polygamy. That by opening up the vote, you were going to move Society Forward and of course women will vote against polygamy. Women go to the polls in wyoming in utah and the vote in favor of polygamy. That stops the spread of womens suffrage across the west dead for years and years. The idea that somehow expanding the vote is going to create a hits real trouble when it hits utah and women vote in a way that most of the people who gave them the vote thought that they would not. Ideais going to change the of womens suffrage spreading statebystate especially through the west in the early 1870s. Still, if you look at that date, 1870 have hope because in congress is going to be debating a new constitutional amendment to protect africanamerican voting in the south and that is the 15th amendment. You know about the 15th amendment, the one that protects voting. Women lobby hard to be included in the 15th amendment. Thencongress passes and the states ratify that amendment in 1870, women are not included. Included,are not suffragists are furious. They do something very smart, they decide that what they are going to do is not to try and lobby any longer for womens suffrage specifically. What they are going to do is they are going to argue that they are citizens under the 14th amendment because of course they have either been born in america or naturalized in america. Women decide in the president ial election, the tight president ial election of 1872, women decided they are going to test their rights to vote under the 14th amendment. Across the country in 1872, suffragists try to vote. They try to register to vote, what that means is they will go to a registrar and have their names enrolled and be able to cast a ballot or not. In 1872 across the country they try and do that and some of them succeed. Others do not. There is a really Important Court case i want you to remember and that is it starts in missouri. As your member, missouri is a mess of a state because it was so evenly divided between confederates and unionists and they have got the 1865 constitution that prohibits democrats from voting, being lawyers, being doctors, all those things. So who gets to vote and how the government is going to work in missouri is really a crucial spot in the country. In 1872, a woman named Virginia Minor tries to register to vote under the idea that she should be able to vote under the 14th amendment. She goes to the registrar and the guy at the register is a guy named hopper sat happerset. He refuses to let her register, and the case minor versus happer set is going to be decided by the Supreme Court in 1875. I will tell you about that in a minute. In one you have heard about this year, in the year of 1872 is that susan b. Anthony does register to vote. She registers to vote in new york and she actually casts a ballot in that election. After she casts a ballot, she is arrested for the crime of voting. That is an interesting concept to get your head around, the crime of the voting. The argument about it being a crime to vote interestingly enough, they get her under the enforcement act that were put in place to protect africanamerican voting in the south. The crime of voting, the argument behind that is that if people who should not have a right to have a say in American Society vote, they are diluting the votes of those who do have a right to vote. Inthe time she is arrested 1872, susan b. Anthony is a very wellknown figure. This is a very public case and she is very public about it. After she is arrested and then let out on bail, there is a story behind that, after that happens she goes around her region of new york giving a number of speeches about the fact she has been arrested for the crime of voting. Trial, the trial adds fuel to the fire because in the trial, what happens is susan b. Anthony is the only woman in the courtroom. She is not allowed to testify on her own behalf because she is a woman, and after her lawyer and the prosecuting attorney present their cases, the judge simply reads the decision he had already written before the trial and in a wonderful moment, she watches this happen and she gets up and answers him and she will not shut up. He says you need to sit down, you need to stop, she says no, im not going to. She thousand exactly what she things of them. It has become such a powerful cause that she is giving the speeches about what happened that it becomes sort of a flashpoint where people look at the question of who should have a say in American Society. One of the things that anthony says as she speaks across new york is this, she is so mad at what happened, she says this government is not a republic. Odious aristocracy, a hateful oligarchy of sex. This often is mispunctuated when you see it in other places. Pay attention to how this is actually punctuated, she says, and oligarchy of wealth where the rich govern the poor. And oligarchy of learning where the educated govern the accurate , or even an oligarchy of race where the sachsen rules the african might be adored. She is actually ok with the idea of rich people governing the poor, educated people governing the uneducated, even white people governing black people, but this oligarchy of sex carries dissension, discord, and rebellion into every home in the nation. This should sound really familiar because this is 1872 when many people, especially in the north, are turning against the idea of laborers having a say in American Society. What you are saying is once again, the switch from the idea that everybody should have a say in American Society to the idea that is developing in 1870s and some in the 1880s that in fact, they be not everybody should have a say in American Society. After the 1870s is where do you draw the boundaries and how do but draw the boundaries . Womens role in this is going to be crucial to drawing the boundaries. So what happens . 1875 im sorry, the Supreme Court hands down a decision. When you read that for this week , read my version of it because it is a very long, kind of boring decision until the very end of it. They go through everything they can think of that women have done in American History and they say the question at hand is are women citizens . They say they did this and this end of this, and yes of course they are citizens. But then there is a kicker at the end of it. The kicker at the end is they say, of course women are but citizenship does not necessarily convey the right to vote. This is a really big deal because with this decision, the Supreme Court unhinge his citizenship and voting. Remember, this is reconstruction. 1875, and in 1876 you are going to have a tax on a black voting across the south of that returns the Southern States to the control of white democrats. Voting isf women intimately connected to the question of who should have a say in American Society. Who is a good member of society should have a right to participate in the construction of that new nation and the government to the rules that nation . Is thele, if this philosophical argument about who should have a say in American Society, women are not sitting home eating bonbons waiting for this to play out. With the loss of so many men and during the civil war and the dramatic change in the economy the rise ofed about industry, the women in factories, the changing agriculture, the push west, the rise of cities. Womens roles changed dramatically in the 19th century at the very moment when you have men women men moving to the cities and dying in huge numbers as well as coming back to their homes from the war, crippled. Either in body or in mind. Those things open up an entire opportunity for women both in the north end of the south. Africanamerican women and white women as well as immigrant women. Ive talked before about ammonia lewis but she is a great example for how the late 19 century opens a lot of doors, she is a woman who i mentioned before shows up in the chicago exposition of 1893. Mostia lewis is one of our famous american sculptors, she was educated at Oberlin College at the time. She is africanamerican and indian and especially after the civil war became a symbol of human rights. The idea that this extraordinarily talented woman happened to come in and africanamerican and indian skin too many people seemed unimportant compared to her talent, not to everybody, but because she is so visible, because she is so popular, she becomes a symbol of what women can do, what all women can do. She gets a lot of her training in rome because the prejudices are not our as strong as they are in america. She gets a lot more opportunity and training there, becomes very famous in room. She is three, when i say a wellknown sculptor, as you know when you when in aderholt agricultures or farmer in this period made a dollar a day ballpark, not a lot of money. Good living 300 500 a year. In 1873, she had two commissioners commissions, those two commissions were worth 50,000 each. In 1877, she was the sculptor Ulysses S Grant chose to make his best and he was very pleased with what she had done. In is very well known opening up the door to women in the arts. One of the things she does is sculpts this is certain sculptor from 1858. Neoclassical look on americans, especially american women, especially american women of color. This is very famous, but perhaps even more famous is this statue of 1867 called forever free. Seeis doing a lot, you can her main character standing has chains on, the chains are broken, but they are not off which is interesting. For our purposes today, one of the things that is more interesting is that the man in this sculpture is unclothed, but ae woman is closed which is real reversal of the idea of africanamerican women as being somehow objects that are not bounded. She is taking, part in society in a way that lothesthout close, c is doing less of. She is she can carry herself forward in modern society even though he is bigger and more powerful and even though she is at his feet, there is a lot going on in that statue. You are looking at this and thinking ive never heard of the she is only one of woman in the late 19th century who dramatically changed American Culture after the civil war. She is a sculptor, but heres a woman i than 100,000. Edith wharton, but the reason she is important and the reason i bring her up is because i have talked a lot about the north so far today. Southern women are in an especially pinched spot, if you will. Hear from a region of the country that has lost the civil war and is devastated. Asnomic and psychologically well. And the men, especially the white man returning home, are often unable to assume positions in society again. Whohave a bunch of women are financially dependent, they have to find some way to make money, and they know they are living through a dramatic time in america, and they are talented and educated. Coming out of the civil war you have a huge number of female writers. North and south, but primarily in the south. What they write is things that now dont make it across our radar screen. But she is famous as a romance novelist. Women especially worked out a lot of the tensions between the north and the south through romance novels. Explorations you could do with romance novels of boundaries, gender, economics, race. A whole lot of these things, and they are really, really interesting. You could see the ideas that got picked that up when reread the virginia, which is a lot of its about the west mostly, but he is definitely trying into the incredible popularity of post civil war romance novel. But this lady may be more familiar to you. Caught isa may are luisa may arcott. Soldvel little women 35 copies in its first year. She pioneered the way for northern female writers. She did not like writing these books but they had become enormously popular. One of the reasons they become popular is because her little women of 1868 it explores a bunch of new roles for women. How many of you have read that book . There are for girls and little them is aonly one of traditional stayathome precivil war girl, that is best. Beth. She dies of some unspecified illness. That is kind of a homebody, she does not like to leave the house. The other sisters are all modern women, if you will. Governess who works for a living. To goa writer and wants out and write the Great American novel. Amy is a sculptor. All three of them are fairly successful in those professions, but crucially, all three of them end up settling down, getting married, and having children. That will be important for the way the women reintegrate into this new society. So you have southern writers, northern writers by the way, louisa may alcott, we found out storiese real potboiler , which she denigrates in little women. Should she wrote a short story about women hiding themselves. Interesting stuff. The people are not just reading about women, they are watching them. His is Anna Dickenson she is so wellknown as a speaker, she is the first American Woman to address congress, 1864. Very, very wellknown, very highly paid, eloquent speaker. She speaks across the country at lectures or she introduces topics and tells people about something they otherwise did not know about. So now they not only taking part in the arts, showing there were, they are actually, physically in public informing people. They are taking a public roles after the civil war in a way that they did before the civil war. So they are really visible. They are using that visibility to influence american life. I told you she would come back to haunt us again. Focused on her position as a mother, which is driving her support for the suffrage. Her position as a mother, to say that women are different than men, that women can do Society Better than men. What sets her office that not only does she live through the civil war and watched the incredible carnage of the civil war remember she is in washington and watching the circling fires around washington seeing one of for first friends killed. War, the francoprussian she decided enough was enough and that women had to take over world society. She said in her reminisce, after the francoprussian war i was visited the feeling of a cruel and unnecessary character. It seemed to me a return of barbarism. The issue isnt one that might easily have been settled with lead shed. Bloodshed. Why dont the mothers of mankind wasteere to prevent the of vacuum and life, of which they alone know and bear the cost . Issues andes is she appeal to women had throughout the world. To womenrites throughout the world, but its women she has contact with in other countries. She says, we need to stop war. She makes this declaration that , we will not have Great Questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us with carnage for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, women of one country, will be tender of those to another country to allow our sons to be trained. That womenthe idea can take on even Something Like war and stop war if they are willing to exercise their roles as women and women in politics and its women in politics. This, the idea of joining women meeting, becomes mothers days. Where mothers, plural, come together to stop war. If you google mothers day, it 19 started by anna jarvis in oh eight. Thats wrong. She starts it because she remembered her mother going to these mothers days. This was her attempt to turn it mother thator her the idea of mothers day comes straight out of the polls civil with the idea that women, as mothers, could clean up world politics. Isnt that cool . We get mothers day. But this idea of women taking a role, and taking a role because they are different starts really to take off in the 1870s. So in the 1860s, right up to 1870, he gets the idea that women should have rights as all humans should have rights. Thishe gets the growth of idea that women should have rights because they are different. Because women have a perspective that they are going to be able to do things like stop war and stop a dangerous aspects of industrialization. In 1874 we get the creation of the womens christian temperance union. Instantly they became politically involved. They organized under any within meyer, they become politically active because they are trying drinking andsive promote temperance. Y cities have theoretically saloons are being regulated, but they are really not an air intimately involved in the political system. Begins to do things like poor liquor into the sewers. Its not a sewer, it will be a later picture because sewers dont take off until the 1880s. But they are actively trying to clean up the cities by getting rid about the hall. The wctu becomes incredibly powerful. I will talk about the convention of idaho in 1889, and when the guys are trying to organize the constitution, they are still basically figuring out who is supposed to sit in what seat. The first people to the door of the w ctu. Saying we cannot have alcohol. They are there before anybody else shows up. Thats the first thing that goes up under the agenda because the wctu is very powerful and popular. Women are not only taking roles and in demise delays. Because women have entered nursing, and because we have the rise of middle managers who have extra money and leisure time, you have concepts coming that leaders need education. What i want to talk about is the rise of Womens Colleges because they will be crucial for the late 19th century. Seminaries,have had and have had education before this time, people point to the organization of Smith College in 1875 as a landmark of the education. That will organize the radcliffe of the 279. From from professors his colleges. What they are doing is setting up women and recognizing that rim and women have brains. Like women will be injured by the applications of the brains and they will be spectacle people who cannot do a hard days work. Time that Womens Colleges are aggressive about teaching women, women many of the curriculum that men have, women also have to take physical education classes. They have to walk, they have to have the womanly grace is. Graces. Some have courses and setting table, having tea and knowing where different dishes go so that women will not be educated out of their sphere. They can be good wives and mothers even though they can read greek. If anybody is interested in this, one of the things that comes out of the rise of the College Movement that that i think its fascinating is there is a whole series of novels and novelist set come from the 1870s that write novels about Womens Colleges. She get a series called the betty wales series where its set in a Womens College. Some of you may have read that. Its set in the 20th century. There is this famous fred astaire movie but it misses the point of it being a Womens College. There is a series of women who take on this idea and women read it avidly. See this in the books and jill and her husband professor baer start a Womens College. There is a wonderful seeing in which the women eventually become a coed college. They sit on a staircase and discuss the uses of womens education. As if anybodys interested, thats there. While women are learning these things, and these can be middleclass women whose families have the time to send them to school, what is really crucial about these things as they are going to create a body ,f educated intelligent connective women. They form social networks in these colleges, the same way i say to you that your networks will matter. Some women coming through these colleges are going to have trends. It will have friends they take classes with incident late talking about social issues with. And these networks are going to have a huge effect on the rest of American Society, both in terms of what they do, but also in the way they think about what they do. And one of the people who is crucial in this is this woman here. Its worth mentioning that by 1870 so many women are getting involved in education. By 1870, the majority of people graduating from high school in america are women. That women that early women are the majority. Only about 2 of americans go to college that year. Women are 21 of the group. That is not just a few people. Jane adams is from illinois. Her father had worked with abraham lincoln. She was always famous in her life because of her eyes. There were blue. You were supposed to think into thoseeyes sink into eyes. Pretty much anybody who saw jane adams commented on her eyes. Addams commented on her eyes. And went to arope small Womens College and was horrified by what she saw. She toured the district in london and she felt that the people she saw their were hardly even people. She likened them to animals. She said, this is not right. This is the modern world, because of course, it was the modern world to her. It was no way in a modern world that people should live like this. But exactly what one could do about it was not clear. Eventually does what one would expect. She turns to her social network starwoman named alan gaetz , and the two of them talk about how women could have an effect on the terrible conditions created by the urbanization and the industrialization of america, rather than europe. I have shown you pictures here. Five points is the region of new york, the area of new york that is famous in gangs of new york. Its the most dangerous part of new york. Of fiveanother image points. So the question is, what can sheltered middleclass, usually white, not always, but white women do to ameliorate these conditions when they cannot vote , they are not involved in the economy . What can they do to stop america from going down this road that is very rich, very poor and everything is falling apart . The answer is that women see the world differently. They see the world organically. The idea that the way women can the this split is to return idea of an organic society to america. Is the way they can do it literally by living in these areas. And addams starr buys what becomes known as hall house. Its in a poor district in chicago. They open it and they live there. They dont say this is nasty and we will not live there, actually live there and they begin to open services for the immigrants. Its an immigrant community with immigrants around them. They begin to provide babysitting, they begin to talk to people about why their lives are the way they are. They try to clean debris out of the city, out of the trash, the streets and the garbage especially because a notice the garbage is carrying flies and the areas with the worst garbage have the most sickness among babies. They take an unwed mothers and try to provide social services. Crucially, because of those social networks, watson middleclass women, lots of educated middleclass women come through here and later on the henry street settlement started in new york by lillian wald, and i will talk about that in a minute. They come to heart health hall house and they start to listen to the immigrants and the poor people about why they are like,what their lives are and they value the immigrants and their experiences. They start to focus on the old war tradition cold war old worldions old traditions. They try to think the daughters of these immigrant womens to value their mothers experiences. When they are trying to figure out why the cities are the way they are, these educated women go out and collect statistics. Factories and find out what people are paid. They find no what the work is like. The compile charts. And this is the beginning of social work. That the an accident university of chicago was a place what went to study social work because this is where the idea came from. For historians, these documents that women collected are invaluable. And they are invaluable in the early 20th century when the Supreme Court takes into conditions of life to make Supreme Court decisions. Briefis, wayne writes the that puts together a whole bunch of information about conditions he actuallyry, cribs the material from his sisterinlaw was a settlement house worker. These are called settlement houses. The settlement house workers like those at the henry street settlement began to try to recreate an organic society and do it in a modern way, by gathering statistics and ideas. Thisilliam wall brings to table, nursing skills. Jane adams really brings political skills and social skills. Brings nursing skills and wants improve Public Health. She is whos behind getting nurses into school and improving Public Health across the country in general. I told you i would show you another picture of jane speaking to a number of children and trying to improve the lives of women. This is in new york and she is from chicago. I like this image because this is what the settlement house workers are trying new address. Women and children primarily. You cannot improve their lives without improving society as a whole. But they dont stop here. This woman is actually the daughter of a very famous industrialist congressman from pennsylvania. A guy named pig iron kelly, who was very important during the civil war. I always liked pig iron because he was not necessarily the brightest krantz in the box, but what he was really good at was listening to what everybody else said. What thented to know people thought and were in a hurry, you could just read take iron. He sonata sizes what everybody says. In the Republican Party and industrialization. Then he has this daughter. Own that issues of her she wants to address in American Society. She had seen the terrible conditions, especially of garment workers, and she wanted to take that on. How do women take on industrialization . They take on politics, social issues. By the late 19th century women can take on industrialization as consumers. And florence kelley, and this , began to advance the idea that women could ameliorate the extraordinary back conditions of conditions. Sweatshops, terrible pay, terrible conditions by refusing to buy products that are made in sweatshops. And they organize, eventually in 1891, then that should the National Consumer leak. They say we will not buy clothing or goods made under unsafe or unhealthy working conditions. And we demand, as consumers, as mothers feeding our children, safe food and drink. We need to have the government guarantee these things to us. By virtue of the fact that we are consumers, not by virtue of the fact that every person should have a right to these things, but that we are mothers and we deserve to have good things ourselves and must protect the other mothers who are out there producing these things. Well, if this is women taking on industrial society, i have really only talked about the east, north and the south. But there is also the west, and the west will play a really Important Role for how womens roles play out in the late 19th century. This is not a woman on a horse, this is a stereotypical image of a cowboy coming out of the civil war and talking about with the movement of the planes from 1866 , onwards. By the 1870s the image of the cowboys has a certain role for women. This role has gotten picked up and went ever since. Women are either good stayathome, solid wives. Or they are criminals prostitutes. In this western image coming out of the civil war. The has to do with the political cowboy. The american either its very good or very bad and becomes crucial to the way womens role in American Society develops after the war. But if that is the image of cowboy, the reality of women in the west is very different. Women worked very hard in the west. They work in all the ways that they do in the east. They are homesteaders, they are farmers. Imrk in factories sorry, in industries growing in the west. The employment patterns represent them. Laundry, especially in mining areas. They do all the things they can back east, despite the images nuclear wives were prostitutes. But i have to include this picture because its fun. There are prostitutes in the west. And i like this picture especially because of the liquor and the striped stockings. Liquor signifies this is a picture of two prostitutes. Not the only reality of the west for western women. There is women doing everything that they could. That old saying that they had to everything the men did and still take care of the kids at the same time. So the experiences of western image of being stayathome wives are being fallen women. But the reality is they are doing everything. Although i just said that, because of the image of the ideay women do push the and writers about the west push the idea very heavily in the light . 19 in the late 19th century that Good American women that its a sum of america after the civil war. Good american women are housewives. They are in the home taking care of kids. Because she is born in 1867, she lives through this timeframe and she is probably our most influential western writer. I say that and youre thinking, she is a western writer . Her books have been in print since the 1930s. Shes from a number of places. He writes out of south dakota she wrote them in part because shes so thoroughly hated the new deal, but she developed, in these books, a very specific image of a western woman an American Woman. That is somebody who follows a good man, who stays at home in the home, takes care of the kids , and is rewarded for that good behavior. Whats fascinating to me about that is thats not the life she lived. The 1 one point point the family lived above a saloon. In fact, she makes most of her own money. That is not what she develops. Idea of women taking care of their homes and being rewarded takes off in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The reason i make a big deal about this looking back to the what im suggesting is that by the 1880s she gets the idea that women are different and they should have a say in American Society. Not because everybody should have equal rights, and a discussion, but rather because they are wives and mothers. Yesterday was reading the convention notes and i found that she could not resist giving it to her. Giving it to you. About womens suffrage mr. King says im in favor of allowing all of the citizens. They just had a blanket discussion about chinese and indians cannot vote, cannot hold office and cannot sit on juries. No discussion. It says and i firmly believe , or inmajority of this any state of the union, are justified upon these as the right of man. Are thousands, tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands of women, 10,000 times Better Qualified than one half of the men to vote in these United States. What im setting appear as the idea that the very moment that americans are trying to figure out who should have a say in American Society. Out, as you remember, africanamericans with the idea that African Americans are corrupting the vote he could they want handouts from the government. They are cutting out laborers because of the idea that organized labor also wants a handout from the government. They are not even so sure about the robber barons because they are concerned that the are switching the congress and legislators to unfairly benefit them. There is a lot of people, like susan b. Anthony said, that may be should not have a say. That may be race should be taken into consideration. Maybe class should be taken into consideration. Maybe education should be taken into consideration. But women are good wives and mothers. Rightre going to vote the ways so long as they are wives and mothers. In 1890, the year after that, and im just giving you the line , the National Womens suffrage and american womens Suffrage Association merged to become the national American Woman suffrage in 1890. What they do is focus on getting the suffrage. They focus on getting the vote. And this alienated the number of the people part of the National Womens Suffrage Association and they make susan b. Anthony the honorary president. She is an elderly woman at this point. She sales for europe for a shortly thereafter. It is clear the moment has passed the moment will be on the suffrage. Ideas suffrage and women have any say in American Society. I andize not only the idea that everyone should rather some but people belong in American Society because of the way the think or who they are. I have talked about the rise of lynching after 1889. Certain African American not participate in society. I have talked about the government using the troops in homestead and pullman against strikers. Women are part of that. Women who want the suffrage insist they should have the suffrage because they are good wives and mothers. They will clean up of American Society and they wont as the government for special favors, they are on the right team. This is a powerful argument. The first woman elected to congress in montana in 1917 is not the first to sit in congress. You will hear about the first woman to saying congress and a free weeks in a few weeks. This work, the idea people should get the boat because they are wives and mothers. That when women get the vote, when they push this idea, they do it deliberately. So after 1890, after the mississippi constitution i talked about it restricting the vote based on education or poll taxes in the south. The whole range of new cost to show conventions. In the north, there are a number of new cost to shoes that take the vote away from africanamerican men, from poor men, from immigrants at the very moment women are getting the vote. Women get the vote in part because they argue it will purify American Society. They are not like the people try to use the government for the use it forthey will Good American families. I love these images because women not only wear white when they are arguing for suffrage, but they also push their babies. Look at this image of them dressed in white, pushing their babies. Because they deserve to have equal rights, but because women must participate in American Society. Inno longer raise American Society based on the idea that every human being should have a say in American Society. It is now the idea of American Society in which certain people should have a say in American Society. Because they are defending the idea of a nuclear family, of a government that is not beholden to any special interest, that it will advance the idea we talked from lincoln onto the late. 9th century a middleclass idea. That the government should not likesponding to everybody, the africanamericans are those manyized laborers that newspapers and thinkers accused of trying to pervert American Society. A group ofespond to people who claim not to want special treatment. Who claim not to want help from the government and paradoxically because they dont want anything from a government the are the very ones who should control it. The ones iey become can control it, they will control it for their own interest. At this moment is the rise of an articulated look at how women should participate in american what we crystallized in the late 19th century, the ideal of an american middle class. Are there any questions . Thursdayk it up on with a long day, dorothy richardson. Watch lectures in history every weekend on American History tv. We take you inside College Classrooms to warn you about topics ranging from the American Revolution to 9 11. Saturday at 8 00 p. M. Midnight eastern on cspan3. You are watching American History tv, art eyewitness accounts, lectures and College Classrooms and visits to museums and historic places. All weekend, every weekend on cspan three. Youre watching American History tv, exploring our nations past every weekend on cspan three. This week we are looking back to this date in history. Then september 24, 1967, president dwight d. Eisenhower flew from rhode island to theington, d. C. To address nation about nine africanamerican students attempting to integrate a in little rock, arkansas. Under the leadership of extremists, these orderly mobs have deliberately carrying out orders on a federal court. Local authorities have not eliminated that violent opposition. And under the law, i issued a proclamation calling upon the mob to disperse. This morning, the mob again gathered in front of the Central High School of little rock. Obviously for the purpose of preventing the carrying out of the courts orders relating to the admission of negro children to the school. Follow us on social media at cspan history for clips and posts. I believe we should be stronger than we now are. I believe we should have a stronger military force. I believe we should increase our strength all over the world. I dont confuse words with strength. When the president of the United States is doing something that is right, something for the purpose defending the security of this country against surprise attacks, he can never express regrets or apologize. 60 years ago americans watch the first ever televised president ial debate to the massachusetts senator john f. Kennedy and Vice President richard nixon. Sunday morning at 9 00 a. M. Eastern we will look at the event with the university of virginias Miller Center with a live discussion on how the debates came to be. The issues, the candidates and how the debates set the tone for future president ial campaigns. Live atidential debates 9 00 eastern on American History tv on cspan3. Sarah bell talks about the relationship between the Chautauqua Movement and women suffrage in the 19th century. Evolved fromhow it avoiding speakers in the earlier days to regularly including prosuffrage talks and spread to kansas in new york. The dwight d. Eisenhower library and museum hosted this event and provided the video. I would like to welcome our speaker so that we can learn more about the Chautauqua Movement. I will let her tell you about herself. Thank you for being here with us today. Ms. Bell thank you for having me. I was talking to dawn and samantha a couple of days ago and saying that i would have preferred and loved to have been there in person, and really looking forward to the day when i can visit and see the newly renovated museum