Tuesday, April 5, 2016

What are the various aspects and accomplishments of the women's movement in the first half of the nineteenth-century?

I'll focus on women's movements in the United States and Great Britain, which were particularly active at the time. Frankly, not much progress occurred for women in the first half of the nineteenth-century. This was the period in which women were just beginning to organize. The primary concern in the nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries was suffrage, or the right to vote. In Britain, the suffrage campaign did not actually begin until 1866. In the United States, the most significant event to occur for the women's movement was the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848. The event was organized by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The two women met in 1840 in London at the World Anti-Slavery Convention.
It is important that a number of suffragists developed their awareness of white women's disenfranchisement through their anti-slavery activism. Abolitionists who became feminists and suffragists include Lucy Stone and Angelina Grimke. Grimke was born into a family of wealthy planters in South Carolina and left home due to moral objections over how her family obtained its wealth and status. By speaking on behalf of slaves at abolitionist conferences in the U.S. and Great Britain, suffragists developed the ability to speak on their own conditions. Due to the limitations in women's education at the time, women had to teach themselves speech. Lucy Stone, for example, practiced speeches in the woods nearby Oberlin College, where she was enrolled but not allowed to take part in speech courses. Thus, we can say that one accomplishment of the movement was teaching women how to use their voices to speak on their own behalf and that of others.
At Seneca Falls, women created an official document detailing their grievances, entitled "Declaration of Sentiments and Grievances." This document detailed injustices committed against women (mainly white women) and "called upon women to petition and organize for their rights." The convention passed twelve resolutions, calling for the specific rights that women wanted. On the second day of the convention, men who were allies to the suffragist cause, such as Frederick Douglass, were invited to participate.
The convention also set a precedent for organizing more conventions. Just two weeks later, an even larger convention was held in Rochester, New York. Conventions for women's suffrage were soon held annually until women were granted right to vote in 1920. In Britain, some women won the right to vote in 1918, though the right was only granted to women over 30 who owned property. Women were also permitted to seek seats in the House of Commons. In 1928, the Equal Franchise Act lowered the voting age to 21, granting women voting rights that were equal to those enjoyed by men.
https://time.com/5134820/british-suffragettes-centenary-women-rights-inequality/

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/seneca-falls-convention-begins

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