Women

Question 1

How the changing economy affected women’s lives in the Gilded Age

Answer 1

Growth of manufacturing industry, increase in unmarried women going to work - 13% in 1870, 17% in 1900 went to
work
Invention of typewriter and telephone provided job opportunities for women
By 1900 - 949,000 women worked as teachers, secretaries, librarians and telephone operators
Mostly benefited white women, Hispanic, European and African American women got low-paid factory jobs as white women moved into their new jobs

Question 2

Effects on the ideal of home and family

Answer 2

Middle-class women had easier lives due to innovations such as fridges, washing machines and commercial laundries.
Birth rate fell - 1850: 5.42 children, 1900: 3.56 children
More free time available - able to support their children’s education

Question 3

Changes in women’s education

Answer 3

By 1900 half of all high school graduates were female
The late 19th Century saw an expansion in opportunities for women in higher education
Over half of female graduates delayed marriage to look for a career
30% of AAs graduated high school in 1914 compared to 10% in 1870
Rise in divorce rate by 1900

Question 4

Employment demographic changes

Answer 4

Between 1880 and 1900 - 2.6m women employed to 8.6m women employed
By 1920 50% of all clerical workers were women; in 1880 only 4% had been women
Companies sought to hire women who ahd taken trade-school courses in typing and shorthand

Question 5

Jane Addams and Hull House

Answer 5

Established Hull House in Chicago in 1889
Social centre to support newly arrived immigrant families - men helped to find jobs and day nurseries provided for working women
English classes
50 settlement houses established across the USA by 1895

Question 6

Women’s Christian Temperance Union, WCTU

Answer 6

Middle-class organisation
Promote women’s suffrage and to combat the evils of drinking, 1874
1880 - 27,000 members
1920 - 800,000 members
Frances Willard (2nd President)
End of the 19th Century 7,000+ branches in the USA

Question 7

National Consumers’ League

Answer 7

Established in 1899 by a group of women associated with Hull House
Wanted fair working conditions for women and children
Safety, reasonable working hours and fair pay
Awarded a white label to companies who agreed, consumers urged to boycott companies without the white label
Florence Kelley

Question 8

National Association of Coloured Women

Answer 8

Established in 1896 by educated black women
Wanted female suffrage and campaigned to stop lynching, to end discrimination and to improve educational opportunities
By 1918 it had a membership of 300,000
Ida B. Wells was a key figure

Question 9

Contribution of women to the 18th Amendment (prohibition)

Answer 9

Middle-class women’s groups such as the WCTU
1893 formation of the Anti-Saloon League (ASL)
Lobbying tactics - by 1913 nine states had enacted prohibition laws
1917 - twenty-six states
Amendment passed by Congress in 1917 and ratified by 1919
Nativism also a factor - people against German beer
Weak opposition - not united or organised enough

Question 10

Change in women’s attitudes to prohibition

Answer 10

Growth of organised crime
More money spent by men on alcohol than before
Violence prevalent
Women’s Organisation for National Prohibition Reform founded in 1929.
1931 - 1.5m members
Similar methods to those used by the WCTU (lobbying etc.)
Prohibition ended by the end of 1933 (21st Amendment)

Question 11

What did the temperance and repeal campaigns achieve for women and what issues did it illustrate?

Answer 11

Showed that women could have real political power and influence
Divisions within the movement (for or against prohibition) held back women
Protection of the home clearly continued to be the issue that concerned most Americans

Question 12

Women’s suffrage organisations

Answer 12

American Woman Suffrage Association - 1869, Lucy Stone
National Women’s Suffrage Association - 1869, Susan Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton
Both split from American Equal Rights Association over the 15th Amendment
Merged in 1890 to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), divisions still caused weakness in the movement

Question 13

Impact on the First World War on women

Answer 13

3m more women working than in 1865
More women working in heavy industries and transport
30,000 women worked directly in the armed forces
Government extended opportunities for clerical work
Many women still continued in traditional work
Wages rose but they were still unequal to men and had to give up their jobs once the war was over

Question 14

Was WWI a turning point for women (YES arguments)

Answer 14

3m more women employed than in 1865
More women heavy indusrty
1918 - 5 states gave women the vote, including New York
19th Amendment passed by Congress in 1920
Industrial expansion gave increased opportunities
11,000 women served in the navy

Question 15

Was WWI a turning point for women (NO arguments)

Answer 15

Most work was still in traditional roles
Short-term only (many women left their new roles after the war)
Wages were not equal between men and women
Little attempt to provide childcare support
Didn’t change the role of married women much

Question 16

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Answer 16

Key leader of the NWSA
Worked with Susan B Anthony to create a reform programme to improve women’s rights and advocate for female suffrage
Campaigned for the Divorce Law and the rights to property for women

Question 17

Alice Paul

Answer 17

Radical leader and co-founder of the Congressional Union for Women’s Suffrage, later the National Women’s Party
Campaigned for the vote, influenced by the UK suffragist movement
Later advocated for equality internationally

Question 18

Lucy Stone

Answer 18

Founder of the AWSA
Key founder of the National Women’s rights convention
Against slavery

Question 19

Susan B Anthony

Answer 19

Quaker
Opposed to slavery
Founded NWSA
Led NAWSA in 1890
Arrested for attempting to vote in 1872

Question 20

Was the 19th Amendment a turning point for women (YES arguments)

Answer 20

Some groups could now concentrated on specific social reforms such as legislation to regulate working hours
African American women such as Mary Talbert used the vote as a springboard to get involved with politics, campaigning for an end to lynching
Feminist groups used it to start campaigns for the ERA
Triumph for middle-class women who had campaigned for the vote

Question 21

Was the 19th Amendment a turning point for women (NO arguments)

Answer 21

Some states already had the vote (Wyoming 1869, Utah 1870)
19th Amendment did not give immigrant women the vote
Surveys showed that married women voted in the same way as their husbands
Working class women were not interested in the vote, to busy struggling to get by
By 1918, 20 states had already given women the vote
African American women could not vote as they faced racial discrimination

Question 22

Was the 1920s a time for change for women (YES arguments)

Answer 22

Economic - more women in work & better educated women
Social - educational improvement, relaxing of traditional attitudes (flapper girls), more liberal fashion (shorter skirts), contraception more widespread
Political - women’s workers’ rights legislation passed, women’s committees, women became more active in politics

Question 23

Was the 1920s a time for change for women (NO arguments)

Answer 23

Economic - still discrimination, 28% of female workforce in textiles or domestic industry, unmarried women in work, still expected to run the home, entrenched traditional attitudes
Social - more conservative areas (e.g. the South) restricted women, poorer women couldn’t afford the new fashion, limited birth control, men unwilling to use condoms

Question 24

Single, young women in the 1920s

Answer 24

Flappers
Sexually liberated
More independence
Going out more
25% of all women worked, likely to be this group

Question 25

Married women in the 1920s

Answer 25

``` Birth control was good - sexual liberation Coeducational universities More uniformity Reinforced traditional role of marriage Advertisements targeted married women Still limited by their gender ```

Question 26

Minority women

Answer 26

Hardships for rural and working class women Wages paid to their husbands in agriculture Racist attitudes Set up own unions Struggled for leadership Summer schools for women workers

Question 27

Eleanor Roosevelt

Answer 27

``` Fought for equal rights Feminist New Deal - lobbied for relief programmes to include provisions for women, states required to hire a full-time woman to work on the woman's programme Frances Perkins - Sec. for Labour Met with AAs to advance their rights ```

Question 28

Women and the depression

Answer 28

Increased resentment towards women taking "men's jobs" Women accused of working for "pin money" 1936 Gallup poll - 82% of people said that women should not work End of the 1930s number of married women in work had increased from 11.7% to 15.6% Male trade unionists failed to include female workers 26 states introduced laws prohibiting married women from working

Question 29

Women and the New Deal

Answer 29

Focus on white males Social Security Act aid (Aid to Dependent Children) sometimes only paid to white families, hurting AA women but helped other women Working discrimination against women from minorities 1930 - 10m women paid worked 1940 - 13m+ Social Security amendments of 1939 excluded widowed, divorced and unmarried women with children

Question 30

WWII was a huge benefit to women (YES arguments)

Answer 30

Creation of women's groups in the army Lack of teachers - withdrawal of prohibitions on the employment of married women Pentagon employed 35,000 new clerical workers Child care centres set up Wished to retain jobs after the war More economic independence

Question 31

WWII was a huge benefit to women (NO arguments)

Answer 31

Short-term - 2m women fired from heavy industry in 1946 and 800,000 women lost their jobs in the first 2 months after the war ended Most women worked in clerical and supply areas or as nurses Army prohibited the enlistment of women with children, persecuted lesbians and segregated AA women Women only hired in light industry, heavy work left for men Blue collar jobs still reluctant to hire women

Question 32

Significance of the 'baby boom'

Answer 32

Rapid increase in birth rate after 1945 Federal government loans for mortgages led to the expansion of the suburbs Levittown - homes for 80,000 families Car sales grew - indication of USA's wealth Suburban housewife ideal created

Question 33

Economic problems women faced in the 1960s

Answer 33

1960 - 23m women in the workforce, up from 18m in 1940 yet still most were not in work Only 30% of married women had a paid job in 1960 Women earned 57% of what men earned Feminists identified the issue of unpaid work, e.g. childcare - "double shift" if they worked and looked after the children Feminists campaigned for an Equal Rights Act that would outlaw sexual discrimination in terms of hiring and pay

Question 34

Female identity in the 1960s

Answer 34

Radical feminists argued that women's identity had been defined by men Betty Friedan's 'The Feminine Mystique' (1963) - women's lives focused on their husbands and children. Friedan wanted better education and involvement in work for women to forge a new identity

Question 35

Kennedy and Johnson

Answer 35

Feminist lobbying - Presidential Commission on the Status of Women 1963 Equal Pay Act Democratic Congressman, Howard Smith proposed an amendment to the 1964 Civil Rights Act to outlaw sexual administration as well as racial discrimination Government refused to enforce the aspect (Title VII) of the act which protected women Wage gap wider in 1969 than it had been in 1963 National Organisation for Women (NOW) formed in response to lack of government action

Question 36

Why feminism grew in the 1960s

Answer 36

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) began excluding white members - looked for other issues Women played a key role in the civil rights movement and were inspired to become politically active The New Left was male-dominated

Question 37

National Organisation for Women (NOW)

Answer 37

Founded in 1966 by Betty Friedan Aimed to "bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society...in a truly equal partnership with men" Developed out of the Kennedy Commission Legal victories - Johnson's Executive Order making sexual discrimination illegal, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission now willing to enforce Title 50 VIII, LBJ promised to appoint women to 50 top government posts and asked NOW to advise him on the appointments Weeks Vs. Southern Bell (1967) - won case that showed she'd been discriminated against when a promotion had been given out. Set a precedent

Question 38

Radical feminists in the 1960s

Answer 38

Originally members of NOW but felt they were not radical enough, e.g. Lesbian rights Female separatism advocated by some Protest against the Miss World pageant in 1968 - crowning a sheep Miss World

Question 39

Impact of Roe Vs. Wade

Answer 39

Decision faced criticism on the basis of both ethics and legality 1976 Hyde Amendment - banned federal funding for abortion Mobilised Evangelical Christians and the Catholic Church who had previously not been involved in politics Pro-life organisations, e.g. National Right to Life Committee, sprung up

Question 40

Political impact of Roe Vs. Wade

Answer 40

Success of Ronald Reagan and Bush Snr - both strongly opposed to abortion 47% of women voted for Reagan in 1981 Reagan and Bush appointed anti-abortion Justices Roe never overturned but its effects seriously mitigated due to the strength of religious and other pro-life movements

Question 41

Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s

Answer 41

Anti-feminist backlash ERA campaign began in the 1920s Narrowly defeated in the Senate in 1947 Passed in 1972 - quickly made progress for ratification but slowed so that it never became an amendment Organised opposition from the 'New Right' - Phyllis Schlafly Opposition from radical feminists who felt it may undermine things such as maternity pay

Question 42

Women in politics, 1969-1992

Answer 42

1968 - only 20 female candidates for Congress 1972 - Shirley Chisholm became the first black woman to campaign for presidential nomination 1990 - 78 female candidates for Congress (2 Senators) 1992 - significant increase in the numbers of women, 19/100 US cities had female mayors + 47 Representatives were women 1993 - only 7 female senators

Question 43

Rural women in the Gilded Age

Answer 43

Populist Party such as Elizabeth Lease | Women's National Indian Association for NA Rights - 1883

Question 44

Women in work in the Gilded Age (figures)

Answer 44

1840 - 10% of women held jobs 1870 - 15% of women held jobs 1924 - 24% of women held jobs 2% of trade unionists were women in 1914

Question 45

Margaret Sanger

Answer 45

Birth control clinic New York 1917 Invented the term 'birth control'