Suffrage, temperance, institutionalized medicine, industrialization, professionalization — these are some of the movements in which women’s changing role in American society were catalyzed. How so? Where do you see this reflected in your readings?
Suffrage, temperance, institutionalized medicine, industrialization, professionalization — these are some of the movements in which women’s changing role in American society were catalyzed. How so? Where do you see this reflected in your readings?
Professionalism is one issue that is prominant in the readings from Dickinson and the other readings in class today because they were able to either had trainging for a job outside of the home or were making a meager living from their writings. Institutionalized medicine made it possible for people who were sick to get some help but it was not at the level that it is today. If you got sick depending on what you had it was still a death sentence. Women wanted equal rights so they were more vocal about what they wanted. As women fought more for the issues they cared about a change was happening in how they lived. People were acknowleding that women had a brain in their heads rather than just having to look pretty. The women who were in the readings would not have been able to do the things they did if the issues had not been pushed by other women. The people in the united states were more concerned about people and rights after the civil war. Women fighting for the movements post civil war was something that would not of happened without these issues becoming issues.
I think it was inevitable for women’s roles to change in society as America grew, for how easy is it to hold one variable constant while everything around it is changing? Priorities began to be rearranged as things such as religion and freedom changed, and thus women were able to have new jobs to fulfill.
In Stoddard’s “Lemorne vs Huell,” there is this picture of a young woman enslaved to help her old Aunt recover and yet able to have nearly clandestine encounters with the dreaded opponent from her Aunt’s court case. Through Margaret’s thoughts we can feel her boredom and frustration with the way things are and her desire for something new. Margaret even disobeyed her Aunt’s orders at one point and went to the fields rather than church, simply because she had felt the power of being “free and alone.” What woman who had felt her whole life the grips of suppression could read that and not be moved to desire the same?
In Davis’ “Life in the Iron Mills,” there is another example of a story that could have compelled women to take a new role in society. The story was depressing from reading the way Deborah and Hugh lived, and towards the end it seemed as if there was no hope. In the jail cell, though, a Quaker woman appeared, and gave a glimmer of light at the end of Deb’s sad life. That woman promised to take care of Hugh’s body and come back for Deborah in three years. And she did. I don’t know if the story would have affected women back then the way it affected me, but it definitely made me excited to take part in helping people, to go out and save the day for that dying person lying in sorrow (maybe not quite to that extreme, but just to make a difference in lives).
Until the outpouring of literature from women who considered writing to be a profession began, the term “woman” was generally provoked the image of what Daisy Buchanan of The Great Gatsby would deem a “beautiful little fool.” Denied the ability to vote, have a true occupation, and essentially control their own marital situations, writing became the means through which women could express their opinions and sentiments. Consequently, the post-Civil War era brought a surge of women writers such as Elizabeth Drew Stoddard who embraced writing as a profession and thus catalyzed the transformation of American society’s perception of women from mere “beautiful little fools” to fully functional participants in an evolving culture.
In her well-known short story “Lemorne versus Huell,” Elizabeth Drew Stoddard emphasizes the powerless nature of women in American society by portraying Margaret Huell as a mere object that is essentially used by her aunt to barter for the favorable outcome of a lawsuit. Toward the end of Stoddard’s work, Margaret’s Aunt Eliza takes on the disposition of a street vendor selling cheap toys when she directly poses the question, “Do you want her?” as a means of engaging in conversation with Margaret’s suitor (1188). After receiving an affirmative response, Aunt Eliza proceeds to state that Margaret “has, and is- nothing” (1188). In these instances, the casual way with which Margaret’s Aunt Eliza classifies her as a mere object whose future can be literally bought and sold highlights the exceedingly hopeless nature of the woman’s role in 19th century American society.
Stoddard’s “Lemorne versus Huell” does, however, offer hope at its close. Perhaps when Margaret “[wakes] with a start” upon realizing that her “scoundrel” husband has married her for solely economic purposes, Stoddard is metaphorically implying that women are becoming aware of their lowly role in society and are working to rise up against social standard and laws that hold them down (1190). In short, it was through writing literature as a profession that women separated themselves from the “beautiful little fool” stereotype and truly found their voices and place in American society.
I believe that the opening of factories and competitive jobs helped to jump start woman’s rights movements. I say this because before there was a lot more time for both the husband and wife to be together when the husband worked on the farm or mill in their back yard. With the creation of factories and cities people began to commute further to work and saw less of their spouses. Women then saw alcohol and poor working conditions take a negative affect on their spouses and wanted to change things. The husbands agreed with most of the beliefs the women wanted to fight against which gave women a voice in the society and allowed them to band together. With women banding together the women then pressed for changes that would benefit their lives and give them more rights and made them more of equals.
I am responding to the prior posting to the prompt question, Taylor stated, “In her well-known short story “Lemorne versus Huell,” Elizabeth Drew Stoddard emphasizes the powerless nature of women in American society by portraying Margaret Huell as a mere object that is essentially used by her aunt to barter for the favorable outcome of a lawsuit.” I very much agree with this statement. The idea of a powerless woman, objectification and boredom with the everyday womanly life was brought to the forefront, and the question holds how could it not?
It may seem to some that these women enjoyed being a doting house wife, however to the “thinkers” that envision that I think the human characterstics are being removed. The strivefor knowledge and questioning, even minorities were pushing for rights of course these women are going to want something more. Religion is being altered and questioned and reinstated, so why not the ability of women to hold stature in the community life and thoughts. I believe many of these writers were composing pieces about the struggle of wifery, the endless task and considered “imprisonment”, to prove their point to produce rhetoric that could appeal to the audience even if used facetiously.
Suffrage, temperance, institutionalized medicine, industrialization, professionalization, of course all of these will come about, in fact they all go together. With one emerges the other. So in our readings these concepts are going to emerge and make themselves alive.
Just from what we learned in class women are moving from just living at home and taking care of the house and moving to jobs such as nurses (and in the near future secretaries). Quite simply women are getting more involved and open in the culture. I think that society is expanding faster than men can take up all the spaces so women have to fill in jobs that men may not want to do. You can see this trend in the readings in one way by noticing that women aren’t using sir names anymore. Women are able to publish as themselves and receive acknowledgement for their work in their lifetime. The culture is finally accepting women as writers while knowing they are women (with sir names men didn’t know they were reading women’s writings.
Suffrage, temperance, institutionalized medicine, industrialization, professionalization — these are some of the movements in which women’s changing role in American society were catalyzed. How so? Where do you see this reflected in your readings?
I think that all of these obviously changed women’s role like said already and this was done by some women possibly those who were known mainly as a house wife decided that wasnt the life they wanted anymore. There is more to life for them to take advantage of and they werent doing that by being in the house all day. As time went on, there was more opening up for women anyway. Just like John said with the factories, those were places that women could get a job at and be doing something else with their day. I know I would want something more for my self even if it was to work in the factories. Certain women are cut out to be the house wives but some just want to go places and spend time actually with other people. Women also wanted to have more power. The typical house wife does the daily cleaning of the house and watching the kids all day while the husband is at work and there is no power in that. By being able to work or become higher in a job status, a female can gain power and therefore feel even with her husband. This is the time where women spoke up for what they wanted and deserved. They earned their rights.
“Success is counted sweetest
by those who ne’er succeed.”
Poem 112 Emily Dickinson
I think best describes the situation faced by women then and now. Women have been fighting for societal equality to men for a very long time, and still have not achieved this equality (as women still get paid less, are discriminated against etc…).
Now to correlate this to the poem. In regard to social equality between the sexes-yet to be achieved. However, looking at the women in the literature we have been reading it is clear that progress is being made, yet success is never achieved. Still the women (then and now) relish[ed] in the progressions and savored the lifting oppression.
In comparison men (for the most part) take for granted their unjustified elevated societal status. They have tasted success and fail to recognize and appreciate it.
While this exert doesn’t give example to the advancement of woman’s strive for societal equality, I do think it gives an accurate depiction of the reality of the process.
I was also looking that this line in Emily Dickinson’s Poem 112 before I stumbled across this entry. I think it is very important that we note this specific line because at this time, there was nothing that women could succeed at. Even though Dickinson was very well educated and a very intelligent person, she could do nothing with it. Her only other choice to doing something having to do with her religion would be to settle down with a family, which she never did. Although she had all this knowledge (and it is extremely obvious in her poetry) she could never do a single thing with it. Instead, this talent had to go to waste, since she herself never had the opportunity to see the effect of her poetry in the years to come when it was published after her death.
As women began to go into the work force, they changed many of the roles that they occupied. One of the one that really stands out to me is in the medical field. We went from having a single doctor check all patients and take care of them by himself, to a system where there were many nurses helped assist the doctor. This allowed many women to get jobs for themselves and gain their own income. The system was probably converted over to a more nurse based one because it is possible to treat many more patients with fewer doctors if the smaller duties are given to other people. Imagine a modern hospital with only doctors and no nurses. It would be very chaotic and the treatment would probably be poor due to the patient to doctor ratio. Along with this, I believe that women writers also played a fairly large role in allowing these women to gain the positions in the health field. Around the same time, women writers were starting to write about women, and showing them as being much more than just the housewife everyone expected. For example, it is stated in the Norton Anthology that Rebecca Harding Davis discussed the conflicts of motherhood and career aspirations in her story “The Wife’s Story” which shows that women are starting to openly talk about having careers in literature. With talk of women working in literary works, it probably opened the door to discussion in social circles, and eventually became much more accepted, especially among those who had access to the literature, and were able to read much more of these works.
I have to agree with Sienna in saying that Dickenson was a waste of her talents. She could have been doing something so much more productive than what she did. Her writing was important and did so much but I think it could have been so much better. Women were starting to have a stronger stance in society and working jobs like teaching. I don’t think that she really helped the cause for women at all. She could have easily been a famous author and spoke out about woman’s rights and what she believes and what she wanted out of life.
Apparently women were playing much more important role in society and it was just a start.
First of all, women education were becoming very prevalent in the nation. Education oppotunity was no longer rich people’s privilege, and women can only get education at home. There are more and more schools accepted women, some are women colleges. Most women writers in this period recieved good education. For example, Elizabeth Drew Stoddard received her formal education at the Wheaton Female Seminary at Norton, Massachusetts. Emily Dickinson attended Amherst Academy from 1840 through 1846, and then boarded for less than a year at the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley.
Secondly, more and more women went outside to work instead of sitting at home doing housework. So women tended to be more indenpent, it reflected in some women writer’s works. For example, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper taught school in Ohio and Pennsylvania. And she helped fugitive slaves escape. Moreover, she published poems in antislavery periodicals and newspapers. This indicates women in this period were not only writing about sentiment poems but had their own opinion in many aspects of the society. They were more self-identify and more independent.
Two elements strongly contribute to these kinds of social changes: Feelings of oppression are the most commonly discussed, but another that is frequently feelings of uselessness. Consider that institutionalized medicine meant that many women were not dying in childbirth, at least not at the rates they had been, and at the same time institutionalized education and industrialism were drawing children out of the home to pursue their work and study. This leaves women with both longer lifespans and larger quantities of free time. Industrialism also affected the need for women to enter the workforce, as jobs that may have traditionally gone to men either no longer required them or were unable to be filled by them due to their occupation with factory work. Leaving a group of people with room to discover and develop their talents, and then denying them the ability to use those talents to have an effect upon society, is sure to cause feelings of unease, which will eventually give rise to serious considerations about equality and rights.
Emily Dickinson is at times a direct example of this and at times a metaphor for this situation. Pushed into solitude by a combination of social pressures, family pressures, and personal issues, she discovered and developed her talent for writing, but during her lifetime was never able to use it to influence the world around her. Though she observed the world around her, and though her thoughts and ideas in her poems run deeper than her deceptively quaint style would indicate, her loves and despairs remained hers and only hers, instead of having the influence that, by all natural rights, they should have had on the people around her. The attractiveness of the person of Emily Dickinson as part of the discussion of women’s rights in this period comes from the symbolism her life possesses for the struggles of the era.
In our reading we have already seen how women, who were urged to not be creative, managed to get their writing published from the home. Authors such as Rebecca Harding Davis sent their manuscripts into magazines and journals so that they could become published without ever having to leave their domestic duties (Norton, 439). However Norton also mentions that some women such as Emily Dickinson did not prescribe to these methods. Though she was a recluse who was shut in her house most of the time, she did not seem to agree with “the cultural ideas of female authorship in her day” (Norton, 440). I think that while Dickinson may have kept her work private for personal reasons, was one of the first female authors to stand out against the standard means of published women.
What strengthened the conviction to not write from the shadows of domestic bliss was industrialization in America. More and more women began to see that they could be more greater than the old stereotype of a quiet, pretty homemaker. Even women like Davis and Stoddard who may have pursued a more muted form of publishing through journal and magazines, believed that women were strong individuals. Stoddard points out how women are constantly objectified in society and Davis tells gritty details about the poor lifestyle of factory workers and shows that mills are not a happy place with beautiful factory girls.
I think changes for women were pushed further by these authors and women who entered the work for during American industrialization. Poor women who perhaps not as educated and could not afford to stay had home at to go to work. The lifestyle there was not glamorous and women were blatantly mistreated and discriminated against. Before long they had enough of this and began to see that documents such as the Declaration of Independence should apply to them too; that they should have the same rights as men. These movements towards suffrage began to have a huge impact on all of society which in turn brought about changes in the literature that women wrote and how they got published.
I agree that Emily Dickinson let her talent go to waste. She was very intelligent, was well-educated, and had a good background with a high-up position in society. It is unfortunate that the only thing she was able to accomplish in her lifetime, despite having all the tools to go forth, was writing poetry. Not that she wasn’t talented at that, but she had the potential and means of doing more, it’s just that society did not approve. I feel like she should have pushed more and spoke out for the rights of minority groups, especially women’s rights.
It was brought up in a previous discussion in class that during World War II women began to work in factories while the men were away at war, but after the war was over the number of working women dropped once again. I think that having the opportunity to work gave women a short taste of what they had been longing for for centuries. This made women stive to do more than just clean the house, cook, and make babies.
I think women have always had a large role in society, it is just a matter of what aspects you are looking at. Take for example the Adams’, it can be seen in the letters between the two that Abigail had a large influence on John’s political life even though the public did not see this. Later, women were writing poetry and publishing it under pseudonyms yet still getting their point across. During the time period we are currently at in the Norton anthology, other strives were being made for women’s rights outside of the literary world. The first women’s rights convention was held it 1848, in 1869 the National Woman Suffrage Association was started, and in 1893 Colorado is the first state to adopt an amendment granting women the right to vote.
As we progress in the text into the late 1800’s, we are reading more literature from women. We read earlier in the Anthology about women in literature and the increasing amount getting published. As America was growing westward, industry was as well. As was seen with the correlation between the increasing number of printers and publishers and the increasing number of published women authors, the growth of America industry took women out of the household. The Suffrage movement brought women’s attention to their rights and changed their role in society to active. During these times, women were realizing what could be offered to them, which motivated them to press outside the boundaries of their homes. In Rebecca Harding Davis’ Life in the Iron-Mills, the character Deborah Wolfe is a worker at the spools, which shows this change of women’s role in society.