GENDER AND

WOMENS RIGHTS IN
AMERICAN
EDUCATIONAL
HISTORY
Ann Marie Satur

NORMS

Cell phones on silent

Respect others
Engage in discussion
Have fun!

SLOS

Students will be able to

1. Describe what rights, if any, women had in the
colonial, postcolonial, and modern-day US.
2. Discuss the history and development of the
suffragist movement
3. Identify and describe such prominent pioneer
feminists as Ann Hutchinson, Sarah Grimke,
Sojourner Truth, and other leading figures of
the suffrage movement.

BELLWORK

What do you think the world would be like

today if women had no rights?

GENDER AND WOMENS

RIGHTS IN COLONIAL
AMERICA

Blackstone Commentaries
Colonial girls grew up mothers and wives
Colonial women did not accept second-class
position
Anne Hutchinson
Banished from Boston for teaching Gods ways to
colonial males
Children were viewed as economic help
Illiterate colonial women
Community-based schools typically excluded
girls

ANNE HUTCHINSON

Learned theology from her father

In the New World, served God publicly but
quietly
Divine grace required human cooperation vs.
covenant of grace totally depended on God
Depended on God
Governor of Massachusetts attended her
meetings
Spoke freely about ministers
Turned almost all of Boston against their
ministers

GENDER AND WOMENS

RIGHTS DURING AND AFTER
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

Restricted womens rights and opportunities

Women dared to challenge the system, men who
supported them
1745, Susanna Wright first woman to provide notary
services in the colony
Legal counsel, prepared wills, deeds, other legal contracts
1764 James Otis questions whether women were born
as free as men
1175- Thomas Paine published Pennsylvania Magazine
Proposed womens rights

ABIGAIL ADAMS

No formal schooling
Took advantage of her fathers library and
tutorial skills of family neighbors and friends
Abby and her sister, most educated women of
their time
John Adams (Husband)
Intellectual equal
Discussed politics
1776 Continental Congress: all men are
created equal
1777 women were denied their right to vote

GENDER AND WOMENS

RIGHTS DURING THE
ABOLITION MOVEMENT

1790 New Jersey extended voting rights to women

1807 male politician (men, I tell you!)
1821 Emma Hart Willard ->Troy Female Seminary established
in NY
First endowed school for girls in the nation (yay!)
Sarah Margaret Fuller -> writings and ideas challenged mens
claim to superiority
-> possessed one of the most powerful and creative minds in
her generation
->wrote Women in the Nineteenth Century
Sarah Grimke began a speaking career on slave abolition and
womens rights
-> First female Anti-Slave Society Convention held in NY
1839 Mississippi -> Womens Property

CONTINUED

1844 Lowell Female Labor Reform Association (LFLRA)

->demanded a ten-hour work week
-> first permanent labor association for women in US
history
1848 Declaration of Sentiments
1855 Missouri vs. Celia
Quakers extended educational rights to women
Abby Kelley Foster spoke at the Fourth National
Womans Rights Conventions
Civil War breakout lead to a setback in activities

SOJOURNER THE TRUTH

GENDER AND WOMENS

RIGHTS AFTER THE CIVIL WAR

Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony

formed the American Equal Rights Association
(heavily influenced by Margaret Fuller)
Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and Julia Ward
Howe -> American Woman Suffrage Association
(AWSA)
1868- 14th amendment was ratified, extending
constitutional rights and protection to all citizens
1869- first womans suffrage law passed in
Wyoming
1870- 15th amendment final ratification stating,
The right of citizens of the United States to
Vote shall not be denied or abridged by the

CONTINUED

1872 Susan B. Anthony arrested for attempting to

vote in the Presidential Election
->Sojourner Truth demanded a ballot during the
same Election
1873 US Supreme court ruled a state had the right
to exclude a married woman from practicing law.
1875- Minor v. Happersett Supreme Court ruled a
state could prohibit a woman from voting
1895- Elizabeth Cady Stanton (NAWSA) published
Womans Bible. Not such a great idea. Resigned as
President. Never invited to sit on stage at
conventions
1896 Natl Association of Colored Women was

GENDER AND WOMENS RIGHT

IN THE 20TH AND 21ST
CENTURY

Most progressive era in Womens Rights

Educational enhances
1903 organization of middle class and working class
women
-> Mary Drier, Rheta Child Dorr, and Leonora OReilly
(Womens Trade Union League of New York International
Ladies Garment Workers Union)

Let us leave with this quote in mind

Women were created

from the rib of man to be
beside him, not from his
head to top him, nor from
his feet to be trampled by
him, but from under his
arm to be protected by
him, near to his heart to

ACTIVIT
Y