Author: Jenny

Study Guide for The Woman in American History, by Gerda Lerner, 1971, by J.

Gerda Lerner says that we are in a world where nothing happens but for the action of men and women, yet we are told that in the past, men acted and women were only acted on (Why History Matters, 1997, p. 132).  We are told that the actions of half the human race were negligible.  Furthermore, we are supposed to believe that the history of the activities of a small group in this country—upper class white males—is our only history, too (Why History Matters, 1997, p. 132).  It’s not!  Women are and have been a force in history, including American history!

A classic quote from Susan B. Anthony in 1853 is on p. 44 of Lerner’s The Woman in American History; it’s about training teachers, a profession which men were reticent to bequeath upon women.  “The lady may speak,” they finally said at a conference:  (The 13th chapter, “The Winning of Woman Suffrage,” also covers Susan B. Anthony, pp. 159-160.)

“None of you quite comprehend the cause of the disrespect of which you complain.

“Do you not see that so long as society says woman is incompetent to be a lawyer, minister, or doctor, but has ample ability to be a teacher, every man of you who chooses this profession tacitly acknowledges that he has no more brains than a woman?  And this, too, is the reason that teaching is a less lucrative profession as here men must compete with the cheap labor of woman…[to] exalt your profession, exalt those who labor with you…increase the salary of the women engaged in the noble work of educating our future President, Senators and Congressmen.”

CHAPTER 1: THE COLONIAL WOMAN

The book tells about women soldiers.  It also reports that in the colonies, there was a shortage of labor, so women did pretty well, being able to find work, and found value along with men in a communal effort, because there was so much to be done.  The frontier was similar.  Women had to interact with sometimes hostile Indians, and face challenging circumstances; they secured greater personal freedom than women did later in American history.  Hannah Dustin, along with another woman and a boy, killed 10 Indian captors and freed herself (p. 23)  

Anne Hutchinson was the first person in the New World to challenge the dogma of women’s subordination to men, p. 21.  An herbalist and midwife, she was forced out of the colony for her religious activities; 35 families followed her.

Mary Dyer, as a Quaker, believed in equality for males and females.  She and Anne helped the development of religious tolerance in the Colonies.

CHAPTER 2: DISSENTERS AND COMMUNITY BUILDERS

Quilting bees and other social occasions led to the formations of community institutions, such as churches.  During the Revolutionary War, women sacrificed to help the soldiers; they took over men’s jobs and raised money for the care of the soldiers.  Some dressed as men and fought (p. 25).  Mercy Otis Warren helped set up the Committees of Correspondence and wrote (p. 26).  But talented women like Mercy, Abigail Adams, and Eliza Pinckney were the exception to the rule; it took until after the War until ordinary women were able to aspire to the privileges of the few. (p. 26)

CHAPTER 3: LADIES AND “SCRIBBLING WOMEN”

After the Revolutionary War, technology expanded and more women could be “ladies,” reading popular magazines and subscribing to the idea that “a woman’s place is in the home,” losing freedoms and accomplishments that they’d had before.  Industrialization and other changes crystallized women’s sense of being discriminated against, laying the groundwork for the battle for women’s rights and suffrage.  

The ladies’ education, p. 32, encouraged women to write for the magazines, and the first novel published in the U. S. by a woman was in 1781 (pp. 33-38), and there were many women writers, who tried to widen women’s interests and improve their tastes.

CHAPTER 4: WOMEN LEAVE THE HOME TO WORK

Educating of women; Mary Willard, first provider of high school for girls, pp. 40-42.

Frances Wright, p. 42

Teacher training, Susan B. Anthony, p. 44.

Mary Lyon; colleges, pp. 44-45.

Women in the professions, medicine, law & business, arts & science.

Margaret Fuller, p. 48-49.

Women in industry, pp. 49-53.

CHAPTER 5: THE WEST AND THE SOUTH

The Western frontier was much like the original colonies, especially because there were so few women to men.  It was like life 100 years earlier.  

The South developed straight from the East.  In the plantation culture, domesticity was firmly enshrined.  The mistress had supervisory work and entertainment to do.  “Her case differs from that of the slave, as to the principle, just so far as this; that the indulgence is large and universal, instead of petty and capricious,” wrote British writer Harriet Martineau, p. 59.

Slavery was a labor system, but “terror and fear were essential ingredients for the success of such a system.” pp.59-62

The free black woman had few marketable skills except sewing and nursing; washing or service occupations were her choices.

Education for black kids was a problem—Catherine Ferguson, Sarah Douglas, pp. 63-64.

*Families and mother’s power, pp. 64-65.  Harriet Tubman, pp. 66-67.  Sojourner Truth, *p. 67  “The black woman is the forgotten heroine of our history.” p. 70.

CHAPTER 6: WOMEN ORGANIZE FOR REFORM AND WELFARE

Quilt-making bees were sometimes accompanied with book discussions, and raised money for organizations like churches and for “fallen women.”  However, men usually still controlled them. Yet Quaker women pioneered in organizing orphan asylums, free schools for the poor or black kids, and prison aid societies.  Other denominations did not lag far behind.  Dorothea Dix, pp. 72-75.  Antislavery groups, Lucretia Mott, pp. 75-77. The Grimke sisters, pp.77-79.

CHAPTER 7: WOMEN ASK FOR THEIR RIGHTS

Lots of causes were championed during the Jacksonian era.  People married creatively, one woman even keeping her own name pp.80-81. Women planned for asking for more freedoms.  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, pp. 82-83.  Seneca Falls Convention, 1848, p. 83. Great male thinkers spoke out on women’s behalf, pp. 84-85.  Frances Wright, Frances Kemble, p. 86.Susan B. Anthony & Elizabeth Cady Stanton, pp. 88-90.

Women got involved as nurses in the Civil War, helping to establish nursing as a woman’s vocation.  They also established office work, government service, and retail trade as women’s work. Northern women went south as teachers for freedmen, and Southern women taught in new public schools.  Associated with this vocation were women going to schools, colleges, higher education, and coed schools.  Urbanization and technology freed women from home tasks, so they could spend more time outside the home doing things like securing parks and libraries.   Middle class women organized to fight temperance, child labor, and provide welfare; they exerted pressure on governments, both local and federal.  

CHAPTER 8: WOMEN IN THE CIVIL WAR

Women got involved with supplying the armies, caring for the wounded.  Dorothea Dix, p. 96.  Mary Bickerdyke (“Mother”), p. 97.  Clara Barton, p. 98, started the Red Cross.

The armies had followers, soldiers’ wives, washerwomen, cooks and nurses, as well as female spies, p. 99..  Also, some women dressed as men and fought alongside the men—about 400 of them did so.  Harriet Tubman, p. 101.  On the home front, women stepped into the places left by fighting men.  Finally, the war brought new experiences for women, who would never be quite the same again when it was over.

CHAPTER 9: THE EDUCATED WOMAN IN A PERIOD OF TRANSITION

The Freedmen’s Bureau gave relief to many freed slaves during and after the war; it was created in 1865.  Many women became teachers.  Josephine Griffing, pp. 107-108.  “The Negro’s, not the woman’s hour.”—women had to work really hard for emancipation.

There were women’s colleges founded; women worked at them, and when to nursing and medicine colleges.  Emergence of women in various fields: In 1850, the first woman was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, p. 112.  Women in the ministry, p. 112. Women in law, p. 112-114.  Emily Dickinson, pp. 115-117. Other writers, p.117.

CHAPTER 10: WOMEN ORGANIZE FOR COMMUNITY BETTERMENT

General Foundation of Women’s Clubs was founded in 1890; women used them for social, self-improvement, and keeping in touch in farm country. Ida Wells Barnett, pp. 119-120.  Clubs were very important for African American women.  Maria McLeod Bethune, pp. 120-122.  Mary Church Terrell, pp. 122-123.  It was clear that women had to get involved politically to secure their rights.  The temperance movement became a training ground for women.  In their dependency on men, they were sore afraid of their husbands becoming alcoholics.  Frances Willard, pp. 123-124, encouraged women to be concerned about their suffrage.  The settlement house movement tried to minister to the poor.  Jane Addams, living in her Hull-House on Halsted in a poor neighborhood of Chicago, was a great leader in this effort.  They were concerned with every aspect of the suffering because of poverty.  Florence Kelley, pp. 128-129.  Child care was a big concern during this time as well.  Sophie Loeb, p. 130; the improvements in society that women worked for helped all citizens.

CHAPTER 11: WOMEN IN THE ERA OF REFORM

In 1870, women were 15% of the workforce in the U. S; in 1900, 20%. Agnes Nestor, p. 132.  Women in labor unions, p.133-137.  “Mother Jones,” pp. 133-134.  National Women’s Trade Union League, pp. 134-136.  Woman’s suffrage was seen as a means at this time, not an end.  Some Western states adopted women’s suffrage, but there was opposition, even from women, in 20 states.

CHAPTER 12: THREE PIONEERS OF WOMEN’S EMANCIPATION

With suffrage, women did not get that much improvement.  The Depression caused them to exit the job market, so as to provide work for the men, but WWII saw women re-enter the job market.  The fifties were conservative years, but birth control, transportation, and urbanization freed women up.  Higher levels of education and more divorce liberty also changed society.  “Yet social values, mores, and institutions lag far behind the material and economic progress made.”  Gerda Lerner wrote this in 1971. 

Each of the three women covered in this chapter transcended the strict limits of Victorian propriety in their personal lives.  Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 147-149.  Charlotte Perkins Gilman, pp.149-153.  Margaret Sanger, pp. 153-158.

CHAPTER 13: THE WINNING OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE

In 1890, the National American Woman Suffrage Association was formed, and united the two branches of the suffrage movement.  There was new leadership as the older leaders died.  Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, pp. 160-161.  Carrie Chapman Catt, pp. 162-163.  Alice Paul, pp. 165-167. Ratification in 1920.

CHAPTER 14: THE TWENTIETH-CENTURY WOMAN

The vote for women actually did not succeed in winning them political power; they tended to vote along party lines like men.  Women in government: In 1967, women occupied only 2% of the seats of Congress; in other years there had been as many as 20 women in Congress…pp. 172-173. “…the measure of the advance made by women in our society is not so much their progress as wives as their progress as persons.”p. 174.

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, pp. 174-175.  Dress changes, sports, including dance, literature, culture, mass media, pp. 178-181.  NOW, pp. 184-5.

EPILOGUE

Women live a lot longer these days than they did when the nation was new.  At the time Gerda Lerner wrote the book, there were still a lot of housewives, who were charged with consumption decisions.  In this nation, childcare is still not provided for by government, unlike other countries.  Women are not in some top occupations, and Americans’ health is not as good as that of other nations.  “The rich contribution made by women to American development and growth, to the opportunities and freedoms we prize as the ‘American way of life,’ is worth treasuring and defending.  The challenges of the future are great enough to absorb the talents, creativity, and energies of all Americans—women and men.” p. 190.