Women's Equality: Changing Attitudes and Beliefs

NCSS.D2.His.1.9-12. Evaluate how historical events and developments were shaped by unique circumstances of time and place as well as broader historical contexts.

NCSS.D2.His.2.9-12. Analyze change and continuity in historical eras.

NCSS.D2.His.3.9-12. Use questions generated about individuals and groups to assess how the significance of their actions changes over time and is shaped by the historical context.

NCSS.D2.His.12.9-12. Use questions generated about multiple historical sources to pursue further inquiry and investigate additional sources.

NCSS.D2.His.14.9-12. Analyze multiple and complex causes and effects of events in the past.

NCSS.D2.His.15.9-12. Distinguish between long-term causes and triggering events in developing a historical argument.

NCSS.D2.His.16.9-12. Integrate evidence from multiple relevant historical sources and interpretations into a reasoned argument about the past.

• Review the lesson plan. Locate and bookmark suggested materials and other useful websites. Download and print out documents you will use and duplicate copies as necessary for student viewing.
• Download the worksheet, Nineteenth-Century Attitudes Toward Women: Inferences and Evidence, available here as a PDF. Print out and make an appropriate number of copies of any handouts you plan to use in class.
• For general background information on the Women's Movement, consult the following resources:
  • A Short History of the Movement from National Women's History Project, a link from the EDSITEment resource Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000
  • The timeline One Hundred Years Toward Suffrage: An Overview—particularly the section on the years 1851-1899—available through the EDSITEment resource American Memory as part of the collection Votes for Women Suffrage Pictures, 1850-1920, which also contains images related to the Women's Suffrage Movement.
  • A complete First-hand report on the Women's Rights Convention of 1848 and other information from the National Park Service's in-depth feature on the Women's Rights National Historical Park, available via a link from the EDSITEment resource Links to the Past.
• As the quotation at the top of this lesson suggests, the Foremothers of women's equality were not always treated kindly in the press. The attitudes expressed reflected entrenched assumptions about women and exploited the threat that women's equality represented to some men. The brief section entitled "The Backlash Begins," on the webpage A Short History of the Movement, describes the immediate reaction of the mainstream press (this resource is available through the National Women's History Project, a link from the EDSITEment resource Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000).
• The variety of documents student groups can analyze in this lesson allows the teacher flexibility in making appropriate assignments. One group may do better with text, another with cartoons. Depending on the number of groups and the available time, students can analyze more than one document.
• Consider making overhead transparencies of the documents in Activity 2, which will be shared with the class in Activity 3, enabling students to point to specific phrases in the poems or parts of the cartoons.
• For further reading, consult the Recommended Reading List provided here as a PDF.

Activity 1. Foremothers: Open to Ridicule

Share with students the cartoon Halloo! Turks in Gotham (a commentary on the fashion reform movement for women, which advocated more comfortable clothing and of which bloomers had become a notorious symbol), from the Marchand Archive of the Area 3 History and Cultures Project, a link from the EDSITEment resource History Matters. In a whole-class setting, using the Cartoon Analysis Worksheet offered by the EDSITEment resource National Archives Educator Resources as a guide, model the process of analyzing the cartoon.

Archive's notes for this cartoon were, as follows:

"Halloo! Turks in Gotham," from "Bloomerism in Practice." "Mrs. Turkey, having attended Mrs. Oakes-Smith's lecture on the Emancipation Dress, resolves at once to give a start to the New Fashion and in order to do it with more Effect, she wants Mr. Turkey to join her in this bold Attempt." Elizabeth Oakes-Smith was a feminist and abolitionist. The husband wears bloomers; the sex roles are reversed. Mrs. Turkey has a pair of daggers, and Mr. Turkey only a fork, spoon and cooking pot. The cross is gone from the steeple, a fit sign of the "fact" that the reformers want to abolish Christian customs and substitute the abominations of the East.

What assumptions/attitudes about women does "Halloo! Turks in Gotham" express? What fears of some men does this cartoon exploit?

Activity 2. Analyze This: Students View Documents Independently

Divide the class into groups and assign to each group one or more of the following archival documents. Assign the documents to the groups according to your knowledge of their work styles so that each group will take about the same amount of time to finish the assignment below. It's fine for some documents to be analyzed by more than one group. Note to students the variety of media among the documents.

• Cartoons:
  • Bartholomew, Charles Lewis. "Cartoon Showing President Grover Cleveland, Carrying Book 'What I Know About Women's Clubs,' Being Chased with an Umbrella by Susan B. Anthony, as Uncle Sam Laughs in Background." Between 1892 and 1896 on America's Library, a link from the EDSITEment resource American Memory
  • Cartoon of Anthony on Famous American Trials, a link from the EDSITEment-reviewed website Internet Public Library
• Poster: Which Do You Prefer? The Home or the Street? on the Marchand Archive of the Area 3 History and Cultures Project, a link from the EDSITEment resource History Matters
• Magazine Humor: Homely Girls, Frank Leslie's Budget of Fun, January 1866 on the EDSITEment-reviewed website U.S. Women's History Workshop
• Newspaper Article: Newspaper Account of the Proceedings of the 1850 Convention from the New York Herald, Friday, October 25, 1850 (covers morning session only) on the EDSITEment resource U.S. Women's History Workshop
• Poems:
  • Poem: Who's to Be President? on the EDSITEment-reviewed website U.S. Women's History Workshop
  • Poem: Woman's Mission, by Ebenezer Elliot. The North Star, October 3, 1850 on the EDSITEment resource U.S. Women's History Workshop (written to defend the rights of women, this poem was also published in Frederick Douglass's newspaper, The North Star)
  • Poem: Woman's Power, by Frank J. Walters. Godey's Lady's Book, February 1850 on the EDSITEment-reviewed website Women's History Workshop

Groups should conduct a general analysis of their documents using the Cartoon Analysis Worksheet, the Written Document Analysis Worksheet, or the Poster Analysis Worksheet, all offered by the EDSITEment resource National Archives Educator Resources. Then students should use the handout "Nineteenth Century Attitudes Toward Women: Inferences and Evidence," on pages 1-2 of the PDF (see Preparing to Teach This Lesson, above, for download instructions), to focus on some specific attitudes toward women. Remind students to think about the assumptions about women these various documents express. What fears of (some) men do they exploit?

Activity 3. Assumptions and Fears

Reconvene in a whole-class setting. Have student groups share their documents and the conclusions they derived from them about attitudes toward women. Did students notice any other attitudes/assumptions about women not included on the worksheet? Make a list of these attitudes.

Activity 4. Attitudes Today

What attitudes about women are expressed in the media of today? Using the list of assumptions and attitudes completed in Activity 3 as a starting point, students could create a form or forms for analyzing any or all of the following to gauge attitudes about women today:

• situation comedies on network television
• newspaper cartoons
• television, print, or online advertisements
• articles in women's and/or girls' magazines
• public opinion in the local community

Each form would be a matrix listing, in the leftmost column, the specific attitude(s) for which a student should be looking while allowing spaces to the right for noting sources and evidence. Working individually or in groups and focusing on one particular medium, students should cite specific examples they believe either perpetuate or debunk the stereotypes, assumptions, and attitudes on their list. Reconvene the class to share results orally or in written summaries and analyses of the data collected. What attitudes toward women did student research detect? Are the same attitudes expressed by all media? Do particular media express particular attitudes? Which, if any, attitudes from the past persist?

• Have students research the role of men in the Women's Rights Movement, using the following documents, among others:
  • How it feels to be the husband of a suffragette, by him from the EDSITEment-reviewed website American Memory
  • Sources listed under Male Voices on Women's Rights—the third section on the page—available on the EDSITEment resource U.S. Women's History Workshop
  • Brother Jonathan's Wife on the EDSITEment resource U.S. Women's History Workshop
  • Diary for October 26, 1850 on the EDSITEment resource U.S. Women's History Workshop
  • Woman's Rights Convention and People of Color on the EDSITEment resource U.S. Women's History Workshop
  • Sermon: of the public function of woman on the EDSITEment resource U.S. Women's History Workshop
  • Women and the Alphabet on the EDSITEment resource U.S. Women's History Workshop
• Students can research Sojourner Truth's speech to the 1850 Women's Rights Convention as described in The Plain Truth, Plainly Told, an online activity from the EDSITEment resource U.S. Women's History Workshop.
• The Women's Rights Movement was quite active during the 1960s. Students interested in studying that period and/or comparing it to the formative movement referenced in these lessons can start by exploring the Women's Studies Resources Home Page from the Duke Special Collections Library, from which the EDSITEment resource African-American Women is an extension.
• According to the essay Living the Legacy: The Women's Rights Movement 1848 - 1998, available via a link from the EDSITEment-reviewed website Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000:

  "[Did you know that] 25 years ago married women were not issued credit cards in their own name? That most women could not get a bank loan without a male co-signer? That women working full time earned fifty-nine cents to every dollar earned by men?

  "Help-wanted ads in newspapers were segregated into 'Help wanted—women' and 'Help wanted—men.' Pages and pages of jobs were announced for which women could not even apply."

  — Bonnie Eisenberg and Mary Ruthsdotter, National Women's History Project

  Students can interview women with first-hand knowledge of these and similar inequities.

• Students can look at recent controversies regarding Title IX, which in its most basic statement says, "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subject to discrimination under any educational programs or activity receiving federal financial assistance." (From the preamble to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.) Title IX is variously praised as the vehicle that has fostered the progress of women's athletics in the U.S. (most notably demonstrated by the performance of American female athletes at recent Olympic Games) and condemned as reverse discrimination and the death knell to many collegiate athletic programs. Using the resources of the EDSITEment-reviewed Oyez Project: A Supreme Court Multimedia Database, students can explore the historical and legal contexts of the debate over Title IX. A search of the archived cases for "Civil Rights: Sex Discrimination: Other" yields the following instances in which the Supreme Court has tackled the issue of Title IX:
  • Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education (1999)
  • NCAA v. Smith (1999)
  • Gebser v. Lago Vista Ind. School Dist. (1998)
  • Grove City College v. Bell (1984)

• Try some of the suggestions from Collection Connections on the EDSITEment reviewed website American Memory.
• Marriage laws were an important issue for the early suffragists. American marriage law was based on the English concept of coverture, in which a woman's legal status became subordinate to her husband. Interested students can explore the concept of coverture and the following documents:
  • Broadside/Abolishing the Unjust Marriage Law (Image), available on the EDSITEment-reviewed website American Memory
  • Declaration of Sentiments and the Declaration of Independence Side by Side includes Elizabeth Cady Stanton's remarks about the marriage laws.

Selected EDSITEment Websites

• African-American Women: On-line Archival Collections
  • Women's Studies Resources Home Page
• American Memory
  • Broadside/Abolishing the Unjust Marriage Law 
  • Collection Connections: Votes for Women—US History
  • Election Day Cartoon
  • How it feels to be the husband of a suffragette, by him
  • One Hundred Years toward Suffrage: An Overview
  • Bartholomew, Charles Lewis. "Cartoon Showing President Grover Cleveland, Carrying Book 'What I Know About Women's Clubs,' Being Chased with an Umbrella by Susan B. Anthony, as Uncle Sam Laughs in Background." Between 1892 and 1896
• National Archives Educator Resources
  • Cartoon Analysis Worksheet
  • Poster Analysis Worksheet
  • Written Document Analysis Worksheet
• History Matters
  • Area 3 History and Cultures Project
  • Marchand Archive
  • Halloo! Turks in Gotham
  • Declaration of Sentiments and the Declaration of Independence Side by Side
• Internet Public Library
  • Famous American Trials
  • Cartoon of Anthony
• Links to the Past
  • The Declaration of Sentiments (1848)
  • First-hand report on the Women's Rights Convention of 1848
• Oyez Project: U.S. Supreme Court Multimedia Database
  • Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education (1999)
  • NCAA v. Smith (1999)
  • Gebser v. Lago Vista Ind. School Dist. (1998)
  • Grove City College v. Bell (1984)

• U.S. Women's History Workshop
  • Homely Girls, Frank Leslie's Budget of Fun, January 1866
  • Male Voices on Women's Rights -- NOTE: Use the slider to move down the page until you find the links to articles for Male Voices.
  • Brother Jonathan's Wife
  • Diary for October 26, 1850
  • "Woman's Rights Convention And People Of Color."
  • Sermon: of the public function of woman
  • Women and the Alphabet
  • The New York Herald, Friday, October 25, 1850, p. 1
  • Newspaper Account of the Proceedings of the 1850 Convention from the Boston Daily Mail, Evening Edition, Friday, October 25, 1850 (morning session only)
  • Newspaper Account of the Proceedings of the 1850 Convention from the New York Herald, Friday, October 25, 1850
  • The Plain Truth, Plainly Told
  • Poem: Who's to Be President?
  • Poem: "Woman's Mission," by Ebenezer Elliot, The North Star, October 3, 1850
  • Poem: "Woman's Power," by Frank J. Walters. Godey's Lady's Book, February 1850
• Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000
  • National Women's History Project
  • Living the Legacy: The Women's Rights Movement, 1848-1998