14. Progressive women
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In the absence of a vote, women sought change through progressive social movements, efforts that stretched the traditional roles of women, and dragged them ever-more into politics. Women sought reform on temperance, child labor, lynching, public schools, and so much more. Women's efforts were central to and the backbone of the progressive.
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Coming soon!
Draw your own conclusions
Library of Congress
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Who was the better advocate for black rights?
In this inquiry students will look at documents by three prominent founders of the NAACP: Booker T. Washington, WEB Dubois, and Ida B. Wells-Barnet. Each had their own perspectives and approach to civil rights. 
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Library of Congress
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Why did Katie Casey want to go to a ballgame?
Did you know that "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" is a song about women's rights? In this inquiry, students learn from the primary material and historians why baseball was at the forefront of the suffrage movement in 1908. You can find the original song here and below.
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Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, Wikimedia Commons
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How should we define female friendships in the 19th century?
In this inquiry, students explore Boston Friendships and the relationships of queer women in the 19th century. How do we define these friendships that were clearly partnerships, if not romantic in a time before people used terms like LGBTQIA?
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Lowell Mills Girls, Library of Congress
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Were the "Lowell Mills" good for women?
In this inquiry, students explore primary sources from 1830-1850, the height of the Lowell Mills and arguments made at the time regarding the labor of women and whether these mills were good for them. Students will examine letters, timetables, and other relevent materials.
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Lesson Plans from Other Organizations
- The National Women's History Museum has lesson plans on women's history.
- The Guilder Lehrman Institute for American History has lesson plans on women's history.
- The NY Historical Society has articles and classroom activities for teaching women's history.
- Unladylike 2020, in partnership with PBS, has primary sources to explore with students and outstanding videos on women from the Progressive era.
- The Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media has produced recommendations for teaching women's history with primary sources and provided a collection of sources for world history. Check them out!
- The Stanford History Education Group has a number of lesson plans about women in US History.
Period Specific Lesson Plans from Other Organizations
- Unladylike: Learn about the pioneering industrial engineer and psychologist, Lillian Moller Gilbreth, in this digital short from Unladylike2020. Using video, vocabulary and discussion questions, students learn about how her innovations improved American’s lives in both factories and the home.
- Unladylike: Learn about Susan La Flesche Picotte, the first American Indian physician and the first to found a private hospital on an American Indian reservation, in this video from the Unladylike2020 series. Susan La Flesche Picotte grew up on the Omaha Reservation in Nebraska against the backdrop of the Dawes Act of 1887 which sought to force indigenous tribes onto reservations and foster their assimilation into white society. Neither of her parents spoke English, but they encouraged her pursuit of an Anglo-American education. Picotte graduated from Women’s Medical College in 1889 and returned to the Omaha reservation to spend her career making house calls on foot, horse, and horse-drawn buggy across its 1,350 square miles. Also a fierce community leader, Picotte worked tirelessly to help her tribe combat the theft of American Indian land and public health crises including the spread of tuberculosis and alcoholism. Support materials include discussion questions, research project ideas, and primary source analysis.
- Unladylike: Learn about Annie Smith Peck, one of the first women in America to become a college professor and who took up mountain climbing in her forties, in this video from Unladylike2020. Peck gained international fame in 1895 when she first climbed the Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps -- not for her daring ascent, but because she undertook the climb wearing pants rather than a cumbersome skirt. Fifteen years later, at age 58, Peck was the first mountaineer ever to conquer Mount Huascarán in Peru, one of the highest peaks in the Western Hemisphere. Support materials include discussion questions, vocabulary, and teaching tips for extending learning through research projects.
- Voices of Democracy: There is a chasm in history classes between the Civil War and World War I in which it is difficult to engage students. If the Progressive Era is taught strictly through the historical facts—of unions, poor working conditions, Theodore Roosevelt’s reforms, and so on—students may have a difficult time envisioning the era’s importance to American history. This speech by Mary Harris ‘Mother’ Jones helps draw students into the Progressive Era in two ways. First, Jones’s vivid and cantankerous personality certainly draws students’ attention. She represents an important female voice during an era before women had the right to vote. Secondly, Jones’s speech provides an illustrative entry point to help students understand the working conditions that triggered the Progressive Movement, the intensity of the disputes between workers and their employers, and the formation of labor unions in the United States.
- National Womens History Museum: This lesson sees to explore the multifaceted and nuanced ways in which Helen Keller is remembered. By starting with an entry level text, students will be exposed to the way in which Keller is taught to elementary and middle school students. From there, students will seek to rewrite the story on Helen Keller using primary sources via a jigsaw activity to generate meaning. Students will consider the role of historical memory and consider the ways in which some of the ideas and beliefs of historical actors are ignored by history.
- Stanford History Education Group: Some historians have characterized Progressive reformers as generous and helpful. Others describe the reformers as condescending elitists who tried to force immigrants to accept Christianity and American identities. In this structured academic controversy, students read documents written by reformers and by an immigrant to investigate American attitudes during the Progressive Era.
- National History Day: Dorothea Lynde Dix (1802-1887) was born in Hampden, Maine, to a poor family. At age 12 she went to live with her grandmother in Boston. When she was only 14, Dix founded a school in Worcester, Massachusetts. After a 20-year career as a teacher and writer, in 1841 Dix visited a jail in East Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was appalled by the conditions. Many of the prisoners were mentally ill, and they were treated terribly by being ill-fed and abused. Dix took it upon herself to report these condition to the Massachusetts Legislature in 1843, documenting the poor conditions faced by hundreds of mentally ill men and women. Her action led to the successful passage of a bill to reform the way the state treated prisoners and people with mental illness. Dix canvassed the country working for prison reform and improved conditions for the mentally ill. Eventually her crusade became international. She even lobbied the pope in person about conditions in Italy. During the Civil War Dix served without pay as superintendent of nurses for the Union Army in the U.S. Sanitary Commission. She died on July 17, 1887, in a Trenton, New Jersey, hospital that she had founded.
- National History Day: Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) was born to slave parents in Holly Springs, Mississippi, on July 16, 1862, two months before President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. As a young girl, Wells watched her parents work as political activists during Reconstruction. In 1878, tragedy struck as Wells lost both of her parents and a younger brother in a yellow fever epidemic. To support her younger siblings, Wells became a teacher, eventually moving to Memphis, Tennessee. In 1884, Wells found herself in the middle of a heated lawsuit. After purchasing a first-class train ticket, Wells was ordered to move to a segregated car. She refused to give up her seat and was forcibly removed from the train. Wells filed suit against the railroad and won. This victory was short lived, however, as the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the lower court ruling in 1887. In 1892, Wells became editor and co-owner of The Memphis Free Speech and Headlight. Here, she used her skills as a journalist to champion the causes for African American and women’s rights. Among her most known works were those on behalf of anti-lynching legislation. Until her death in 1931, Ida B. Wells dedicated her life to what she referred to as a “crusade for justice.”
- Unladylike: Examine the life and legacy of the health, labor, and immigrant rights reformer Grace Abbott in this resource from Unladylike2020. Born into a progressive family of abolitionists and suffragettes in Nebraska, Abbott made it her life’s work to help those in need—focusing on fighting for the rights of children, recent immigrants, and new mothers and their babies. Support materials include a digital short, vocabulary and discussion questions.
- PBS and DPLA: This collection uses primary sources to explore settlement houses during the Progressive Era. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.
- Unladylike: Learn about Martha “Mattie” Hughes Cannon, an accomplished physician, suffragist, and the first woman state senator in the United States, elected in 1896 in the state of Utah. This digital short from Unladylike2020 features the story of an immigrant child from Wales, UK, who moved with her family at age 2 to Utah, became a physician, opened her own medical practice, married into a plural marriage, fled the country in exile, returned and then ran for state office—and won—when most women in the United States did not have the right to vote. In this resource, students explore the life and times of Hughes Cannon using video, discussion questions, and analysis of primary sources and informational texts to learn more about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and how women’s roles evolved throughout its history.
- Unladylike: Williamina Fleming was a trailblazing astronomer and discoverer of hundreds of stars who paved the way for women in science. Learn about her contributions to the fields of astronomy and astrophysics with this digital short from Unladylike 2020. Support materials include discussion questions, vocabulary, and a quote analysis activity for students.
- Unladylike: Learn about the life and scientific achievements of botanist, explorer and environmentalist Ynés Mexía, in this digital short from Unladylike2020. Using video, discussion questions, classroom activities, and teaching tips, students learn about the historical period in which Mexía lived and her impact on science and the environmental movement.
- Unladylike: In this video from Unladylike2020, learn how Rose Schneiderman, an immigrant whose family settled in the tenements of New York City’s Lower East Side, became one of the most important labor leaders in American history. A socialist and feminist, she fought to end dangerous working conditions for garment workers, and worked to help New York State grant women the right to vote in 1917. Utilizing video, discussion questions, vocabulary, and teaching tips, students learn about Schneiderman’s role in creating a better life for workers in the United States. Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.
- Unladylike: Tye Leung Schulze became the first Chinese American woman to work for the federal government and the first Chinese American woman to vote in a U.S. election, in 1912. Learn how this inspiring woman resisted domestic servitude and an arranged child marriage to provide translation services and solace to Asian immigrant victims of human trafficking in San Francisco in this video short from Unladylike2020. Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.
- Unladylike: Learn about Mary Church Terrell, daughter of former slaves and one of the first African American women to earn both a Bachelor and a Master’s degree, who became a national leader for civil rights and women’s suffrage, in this video from Unladylike2020. Terrell was one of the earliest anti-lynching advocates and joined the suffrage movement, focusing her life’s work on racial uplift—the belief that blacks would end racial discrimination and advance themselves through education, work, and community activism. She helped found the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Support materials include discussion questions and teaching tips for research projects. Primary source analysis activities emphasize how the content connects to racial justice issues that continue today, including a close reading of the Emmett Till Antilynching Bill of 2020. Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.
- Unladylike: Learn about Maggie Lena Walker, the first African American woman to found a bank in the United States in this digital short from Unladylike2020. Utilizing a video, discussion questions and vocabulary, students will learn how Walker helped to improve the lives of African Americans and women at the turn of the 20th century by providing financial empowerment, social services, and civil rights leadership. Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.
Female Relationships in the 19th century
Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Susan B. Anthony
In the 19th century, women spoke and wrote to each other much differently than they do today. Letters were more intimate in many ways and expressed love openly– this does not mean they were “in-love”-- or does it? Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a heterosexual woman in a lasting marriage. This is a letter she wrote to her fellow suffrage leader, Susan B. Anthony:
Dear Susan,
I wish that I were as free as you and I would stump the state in a twinkling. But I am not, and what is more, I passed through a terrible scourging when last at my father’s. I cannot tell you how deep the iron entered my soul. I never felt more keenly the degradation of my sex. To think that all in me which my father would have felt a proper pride had I been a man, is deeply mortifying to him because I am a woman.
That thought has stung me to a fierce decision—to speak as soon as I can do myself credit. But the pressure on me just now is too great. Henry sides with my friends, who oppose me in all that is dearest to my heart. They are not willing that I should write even on the woman question. But I will both write and speak. I wish you to consider this letter strictly confidential.
Sometimes, Susan, I struggle in deep waters…
As ever your friend, sincere and steadfast.
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. Letter to Susan B. Anthony. Peterboro. September 10, 1855. Retrieved from “Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Their Words,” http://www.rochester.edu/sba/suffrage-history/susan-b-anthony-and-elizabeth-cady-stanton-their-words/.
Dear Susan,
I wish that I were as free as you and I would stump the state in a twinkling. But I am not, and what is more, I passed through a terrible scourging when last at my father’s. I cannot tell you how deep the iron entered my soul. I never felt more keenly the degradation of my sex. To think that all in me which my father would have felt a proper pride had I been a man, is deeply mortifying to him because I am a woman.
That thought has stung me to a fierce decision—to speak as soon as I can do myself credit. But the pressure on me just now is too great. Henry sides with my friends, who oppose me in all that is dearest to my heart. They are not willing that I should write even on the woman question. But I will both write and speak. I wish you to consider this letter strictly confidential.
Sometimes, Susan, I struggle in deep waters…
As ever your friend, sincere and steadfast.
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. Letter to Susan B. Anthony. Peterboro. September 10, 1855. Retrieved from “Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Their Words,” http://www.rochester.edu/sba/suffrage-history/susan-b-anthony-and-elizabeth-cady-stanton-their-words/.
Katharine Lee Bates- If you Could COme
Katharine Lee Bates, the honored poet of the anthem, "America the Beautiful," wrote the above poem after the death of her lover, colleague, and partner of twenty-five years: Katharine Coman. In her grief over the loss of her friend, Bates wrote one of the most anguished memorials to the love and comradeship between two women that has ever been written; it was published in a limited edition as Yellow Clover: A Book of Remembrance. It is obvious from the yearning desire that glows throughout the poems in Yellow Clover, however, that the two women were more than just friends.
IF YOU COULD COME
My love, my love, if you could come once more
From your high place,
I would not question you for heavenly lore,
But, silent, take the comfort of your face.
I would not ask you if those golden spheres
In love rejoice,
If only our stained star hath sin and tears,
But fill my famished hearing with your voice.
One touch of you were worth a thousand creeds.
My wound is numb
Through toil-pressed day, but all night long it bleeds
In aching dreams, and still you cannot come.
Schwarz, Judith. “‘Yellow Clover’: Katharine Lee Bates and Katharine Coman.” Frontiers: A Journal of
Women Studies 4, no. 1 (1979): 59–67. https://doi.org/10.2307/3346671.
Bathes, Katharine Lee. Yellow clover; a book of remembrance. New York: E.P. Dutton & Company, 1922.
IF YOU COULD COME
My love, my love, if you could come once more
From your high place,
I would not question you for heavenly lore,
But, silent, take the comfort of your face.
I would not ask you if those golden spheres
In love rejoice,
If only our stained star hath sin and tears,
But fill my famished hearing with your voice.
One touch of you were worth a thousand creeds.
My wound is numb
Through toil-pressed day, but all night long it bleeds
In aching dreams, and still you cannot come.
Schwarz, Judith. “‘Yellow Clover’: Katharine Lee Bates and Katharine Coman.” Frontiers: A Journal of
Women Studies 4, no. 1 (1979): 59–67. https://doi.org/10.2307/3346671.
Bathes, Katharine Lee. Yellow clover; a book of remembrance. New York: E.P. Dutton & Company, 1922.
Mathilde Franziska Anneke and Mary Booth
Mathilde Franziska Anneke and Mary were married to men, but from 1860 to 1864 they lived together in Zürich, Switzerland with three of their children. They shared their money and the work of raising the children. There is no evidence that anyone questioned the propriety of their relationship, and Anneke’s daughter later insisted that it was not romantic, but their letters were very intense.
Mary Booth to Mathilde Franziska Anneke, Zürich, 1862
Pardon me, my Dear, for writing you such a miserable little note saying I was unhappy. I am indeed very happy when I think of your sweet love. It glorifies every even[ing] and illuminates the darkest midnights. You are the morning-star of my soul, the beautiful auroral glow of my heart, the saintly lily of my dream, the deep dark rose bud unfolding in my bosom day by day, sweetening my life with your etheriel fragrance – dearest, you are the reality of my dreams, my life, my Love – I have no more sorrow – I have You – My dear and dearest friend – good night
Your Mary
Mary Booth to Mathilde Franziska Anneke, Zürich, December 24, 1862
I have but one little thing,
Scarcely worth the offering,
Yet this little thing I hold,
Never could be bought for gold –
Not for all the pearls and gems
In the world’s bright diadems. –
Though it be of little worth
It is all I have on Earth.
It may not be found, or bought,
Yet I give it all unsought. –
Take – and lay it on the shelf –
For it only is – myself!
Efford, Alison Clark and Viktorija Bilic, editors. Radical Relationships: The Civil War–Era Correspondence of Mathilde Franziska Anneke. Translated by Viktorija Bilic. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2021. P. 155.
Mary Booth to Mathilde Franziska Anneke, Zürich, 1862
Pardon me, my Dear, for writing you such a miserable little note saying I was unhappy. I am indeed very happy when I think of your sweet love. It glorifies every even[ing] and illuminates the darkest midnights. You are the morning-star of my soul, the beautiful auroral glow of my heart, the saintly lily of my dream, the deep dark rose bud unfolding in my bosom day by day, sweetening my life with your etheriel fragrance – dearest, you are the reality of my dreams, my life, my Love – I have no more sorrow – I have You – My dear and dearest friend – good night
Your Mary
Mary Booth to Mathilde Franziska Anneke, Zürich, December 24, 1862
I have but one little thing,
Scarcely worth the offering,
Yet this little thing I hold,
Never could be bought for gold –
Not for all the pearls and gems
In the world’s bright diadems. –
Though it be of little worth
It is all I have on Earth.
It may not be found, or bought,
Yet I give it all unsought. –
Take – and lay it on the shelf –
For it only is – myself!
Efford, Alison Clark and Viktorija Bilic, editors. Radical Relationships: The Civil War–Era Correspondence of Mathilde Franziska Anneke. Translated by Viktorija Bilic. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2021. P. 155.
The Lowell Mills Girls
Song of the Factory Girls
The following song was popular among working girls in the mid 1800s.
O sing me a song of the Factory Girl
So merry and glad and free
The bloom on her cheeks, of health it speaks!
O a happy creature is she!
"Song of the Factory Girls," in Foner, Philip S., ed. The Factory Girls: A Collection of Writings on Life and Struggles in the New England Factories of the 1840's by the Factory Girls Themselves, and the Story, in Their Own Words, of the First Trade Unions of Women Workers in the United States. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1977.
O sing me a song of the Factory Girl
So merry and glad and free
The bloom on her cheeks, of health it speaks!
O a happy creature is she!
"Song of the Factory Girls," in Foner, Philip S., ed. The Factory Girls: A Collection of Writings on Life and Struggles in the New England Factories of the 1840's by the Factory Girls Themselves, and the Story, in Their Own Words, of the First Trade Unions of Women Workers in the United States. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1977.
The Daily Pheonix- The ‘Benefits’ of Factory Life for Women
In the early 1800s, rural areas were short on work and girls needed to work outside of the home and often
in cities to support their families. Yet girls and women leaving the safety of the domestic sphere roused
public concern both for protecting their womanhood and for making sure there wasn’t too much
competition for male laborers. Even as late as the 1870s, newspapers like the Daily Phoenix weighed in.
Here they quote a doctor, Jennie Collins, describes the conditions at Lowell.
We have not one woman too many in Massachusetts; in the next place, they are more
healthy than men, and both facts can be proved by the report of the city hospital, which received
2,088 men, and in the same period only 1,113 women although they are double in number, with
half the pay.
The next error of Dr. Ames, is the statement that manufacturing and kindred trade crafts
are injurious to health and morals in a greater degree than other modes of life. This is
contradicted by the records at the State House that will bear testimony that out of 150,000
women, only one in seventy-five chargeable to the State for support in sickness or old age, is
from factories or shops.
As for their morals, another record will show that out of the appalling number of poor
girls who are led away from rectitude and seek redress from the State, very rarely one comes
from the factory or work-shop. A significant fact for themselves and their surroundings.
The Daily Phoenix. (Columbia, SC), May. 7 1875. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn84027008/1875-
05-07/ed-1/.
Questions:
in cities to support their families. Yet girls and women leaving the safety of the domestic sphere roused
public concern both for protecting their womanhood and for making sure there wasn’t too much
competition for male laborers. Even as late as the 1870s, newspapers like the Daily Phoenix weighed in.
Here they quote a doctor, Jennie Collins, describes the conditions at Lowell.
We have not one woman too many in Massachusetts; in the next place, they are more
healthy than men, and both facts can be proved by the report of the city hospital, which received
2,088 men, and in the same period only 1,113 women although they are double in number, with
half the pay.
The next error of Dr. Ames, is the statement that manufacturing and kindred trade crafts
are injurious to health and morals in a greater degree than other modes of life. This is
contradicted by the records at the State House that will bear testimony that out of 150,000
women, only one in seventy-five chargeable to the State for support in sickness or old age, is
from factories or shops.
As for their morals, another record will show that out of the appalling number of poor
girls who are led away from rectitude and seek redress from the State, very rarely one comes
from the factory or work-shop. A significant fact for themselves and their surroundings.
The Daily Phoenix. (Columbia, SC), May. 7 1875. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn84027008/1875-
05-07/ed-1/.
Questions:
- Does this text depict a positive experience for women working in factories?
Lucy Larcom-A New England Girlhood
"A New England Girlhood" is the autobiography of poet Lucy Larcom. Arriving in Lowell, Massachusetts, in the 1830s after the death of her shipmaster father, eleven-year-old Lucy Larcom went to work in a textile mill to help support her family. Her mother also worked there as a Matron in the boarding house.
My grandfather came to see my mother once at about this time and visited the mills. When he had entered our room, and looked around for a moment, he took off his hat and made a low bow to the girls, first toward the right, and then toward the left. We were familiar with his courteous habits, partly due to his French descent; but we had never seen anybody bow to a room full of mill girls in that polite way, and some one of the family afterwards asked him why he did so. He looked a little surprised at the question, but answered promptly and with dignity, “I always take off my hat to ladies.”
His courtesy was genuine. Still, we did not call ourselves ladies. We did not forget that we were working-girls, wearing coarse aprons suitable to our work, and that there was some danger of our becoming drudges. I know that sometimes the confinement of the mill became very wearisome to me. In the sweet June weather I would lean far out of the window, and try not to hear the unceasing clash of sound inside. Looking away to the hills, my whole stifled being would cry out “Oh, that I had wings!” Still I was there from choice… And I was every day making discoveries about life, and about myself… I defied the machinery to make me its slave. Its incessant discords could not drown the music of my thoughts if I would let them fly high enough.
Larcom, Lucy. A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory. United States: Houghton, Mifflin Company, 1889.
Questions:
My grandfather came to see my mother once at about this time and visited the mills. When he had entered our room, and looked around for a moment, he took off his hat and made a low bow to the girls, first toward the right, and then toward the left. We were familiar with his courteous habits, partly due to his French descent; but we had never seen anybody bow to a room full of mill girls in that polite way, and some one of the family afterwards asked him why he did so. He looked a little surprised at the question, but answered promptly and with dignity, “I always take off my hat to ladies.”
His courtesy was genuine. Still, we did not call ourselves ladies. We did not forget that we were working-girls, wearing coarse aprons suitable to our work, and that there was some danger of our becoming drudges. I know that sometimes the confinement of the mill became very wearisome to me. In the sweet June weather I would lean far out of the window, and try not to hear the unceasing clash of sound inside. Looking away to the hills, my whole stifled being would cry out “Oh, that I had wings!” Still I was there from choice… And I was every day making discoveries about life, and about myself… I defied the machinery to make me its slave. Its incessant discords could not drown the music of my thoughts if I would let them fly high enough.
Larcom, Lucy. A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory. United States: Houghton, Mifflin Company, 1889.
Questions:
- How did Larcom’s grandfather view gender roles in this period?
- Why does Lucy Larcom, a mill girl herself, emphasize the distinction between “ladies” and “working-girls”?
Timetable of the Lowell Mills
Timetable of the Lowell Mills, 1868.
Arranged to make the working time 66 hours per week. The STANDARD TIME will be marked at noon, by the BELL of the MERRIMACK MANUFRATURING COMPANY.
Breakfast at 6 AM
Commence Work, at 6:30 AM
Dinner, at 12 PM
Commence Work, After Dinner, at 12:45 PM
Stop Work, except on Saturday evenings at 6:45 PM
BELLS.
Morning Bells.
First Bell, 4:30 AM
Second Bell, 5:30 AM
Third Bell, 6:20 AM
Dinner Bells.
Ring Out, 12 PM
Ring In, 12:35 PM
Evening Bells.
Ring Out, 6:30 PM...Except on Saturday Evenings.
SATURDAY EVNING BELL, 5 PM
YARD GATES will be opened at the first stroke of the bells for entering or leaving the Mills.
Speed Gate commence hoisting three minutes before commencing work.
“Timetable of the Lowell Mills.” 1868.
Questions:
Arranged to make the working time 66 hours per week. The STANDARD TIME will be marked at noon, by the BELL of the MERRIMACK MANUFRATURING COMPANY.
Breakfast at 6 AM
Commence Work, at 6:30 AM
Dinner, at 12 PM
Commence Work, After Dinner, at 12:45 PM
Stop Work, except on Saturday evenings at 6:45 PM
BELLS.
Morning Bells.
First Bell, 4:30 AM
Second Bell, 5:30 AM
Third Bell, 6:20 AM
Dinner Bells.
Ring Out, 12 PM
Ring In, 12:35 PM
Evening Bells.
Ring Out, 6:30 PM...Except on Saturday Evenings.
SATURDAY EVNING BELL, 5 PM
YARD GATES will be opened at the first stroke of the bells for entering or leaving the Mills.
Speed Gate commence hoisting three minutes before commencing work.
“Timetable of the Lowell Mills.” 1868.
Questions:
- What time of day do the mill-girls begin work?
- What time of day do the mill-girls stop work?
- How much of a break do they get for breakfast?
- Do these seem like reasonable working hours to you? Explain.
- This timetable is from AFTER a period of worker strikes. Does it surprise you that these were an improvement on the hours they were supposed to work?
Boarding House Rules
All persons in the employ of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company are to observe the regulations of the room where they are employed. They are not to be absent from their work without the consent of the over-seer, except in cases of sickness, and then they are to send him word of the cause of their absence. They are to board in one of the houses of the company and give information at the counting room, where they board, when they begin, or, whenever they change their boarding place; and are to observe t he regulations of their boarding-house.
Those intending to leave the employment of the company are to give at least two weeks' notice thereof to their overseer.
All persons entering into the employment of the company are considered as engaged for twelve months, and those who leave sooner, or do not comply with all these regulations, will not be entitled to a regular discharge.
The company will not employ any one who is habitually absent from public worship on the Sabbath [Sunday], or known to be guilty of immorality.
A physician will attend once in every month at the counting-room, to vaccinate all who may need it, free of expense.
Any one who shall take from the mills or the yard, any yarn, cloth or other article belonging to the company, will be considered guilty of stealing and be liable to prosecution.
Payment will be made monthly, including board and wages. The accounts will be made up to the last Saturday but one in every month, and paid in the course of the following week.
These regulations are considered part of the contract, with which all persons entering into the employment of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company, engage to comply.
Avery, John. “Boarding House Rules.” From the Handbook to Lowell 1848. https://libguides.uml.edu/c.php?g=529205&p=3619725.
Questions:
Those intending to leave the employment of the company are to give at least two weeks' notice thereof to their overseer.
All persons entering into the employment of the company are considered as engaged for twelve months, and those who leave sooner, or do not comply with all these regulations, will not be entitled to a regular discharge.
The company will not employ any one who is habitually absent from public worship on the Sabbath [Sunday], or known to be guilty of immorality.
A physician will attend once in every month at the counting-room, to vaccinate all who may need it, free of expense.
Any one who shall take from the mills or the yard, any yarn, cloth or other article belonging to the company, will be considered guilty of stealing and be liable to prosecution.
Payment will be made monthly, including board and wages. The accounts will be made up to the last Saturday but one in every month, and paid in the course of the following week.
These regulations are considered part of the contract, with which all persons entering into the employment of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company, engage to comply.
Avery, John. “Boarding House Rules.” From the Handbook to Lowell 1848. https://libguides.uml.edu/c.php?g=529205&p=3619725.
Questions:
- What rule surprises you most?
- Do you think these rules are unreasonable?
anonymous- A Factory Girl
The mill promoted themselves to parents and young women with promises that they would have engaging cultural experiences at the boarding houses. The women also began publishing The Lowell Offering from 1840 to 1845. It contained the work produced by some women, including poems and autobiographical sketches, published anonymously or acknowledged only by their initials. The mill owners controlled what appeared in the magazine, so the articles highlighted the girls femininity and tended to be positive. The Lowell Offering stopped being published when women began to strike in 1845. When the magazine promoted the cause of a workday shortened to 10 hours, tensions between workers and management became inflamed and the magazine was shut down.
It has been asserted that to put ourselves under the influence and restraints of corporate bodies, is contrary to the spirit of our institutions, and to that love of independence which we ought to cherish. . . . We are under restraints, but they are voluntarily assumed; and we are at liberty to withdraw from them, whenever they become galling or irksome. Neither have I ever discovered that any restraints were imposed upon us but those which were necessary for the peace and comfort of the whole, and for the promotion of the design for which we are collected, namely, to get money, as much of it and as fast as we can; and it is because our toil is so unremitting, that the wages of factory girls are higher than those of females engaged in most other occupations. It is these wages which, in spite of toil, restraint, discomfort, and prejudice, have drawn so many worthy, virtuous, intelligent, and well-educated girls to Lowell, and other factories; and it is the wages which are in great degree to decide the characters of the factory girls as a class. . . .
Mr. Brownson may rail as much as he pleases against the real injustice of capitalists against operatives, and we will bid him God speed, if he will but keep truth and common sense upon his side. Still, the avails of factory labor are now greater than those of many domestics, seamstresses, and school-teachers; and strange would it be, if in money-loving New England, one of the most lucrative female employments should be rejected because it is toilsome, or because some people are prejudiced against it. Yankee girls have too much independence for that. . . . And now, if Mr. Brownson is a man, he will endeavor to retrieve the injury he has done; . . . though he will find error, ignorance, and folly among us, (and where would he find them not?) yet he would not see worthy and virtuous girls consigned to infamy, because they work in a factory.
A Factory Girl, "Factory Girls," Lowell Offering, December 1840.
Questions:
It has been asserted that to put ourselves under the influence and restraints of corporate bodies, is contrary to the spirit of our institutions, and to that love of independence which we ought to cherish. . . . We are under restraints, but they are voluntarily assumed; and we are at liberty to withdraw from them, whenever they become galling or irksome. Neither have I ever discovered that any restraints were imposed upon us but those which were necessary for the peace and comfort of the whole, and for the promotion of the design for which we are collected, namely, to get money, as much of it and as fast as we can; and it is because our toil is so unremitting, that the wages of factory girls are higher than those of females engaged in most other occupations. It is these wages which, in spite of toil, restraint, discomfort, and prejudice, have drawn so many worthy, virtuous, intelligent, and well-educated girls to Lowell, and other factories; and it is the wages which are in great degree to decide the characters of the factory girls as a class. . . .
Mr. Brownson may rail as much as he pleases against the real injustice of capitalists against operatives, and we will bid him God speed, if he will but keep truth and common sense upon his side. Still, the avails of factory labor are now greater than those of many domestics, seamstresses, and school-teachers; and strange would it be, if in money-loving New England, one of the most lucrative female employments should be rejected because it is toilsome, or because some people are prejudiced against it. Yankee girls have too much independence for that. . . . And now, if Mr. Brownson is a man, he will endeavor to retrieve the injury he has done; . . . though he will find error, ignorance, and folly among us, (and where would he find them not?) yet he would not see worthy and virtuous girls consigned to infamy, because they work in a factory.
A Factory Girl, "Factory Girls," Lowell Offering, December 1840.
Questions:
- Why do you think “A Factory Girl” remains anonymous?
- Is she concerned about the way women are treated in the Lowell factories? Why or why not?
Mary Paul- Letter to her father
Mary Paul was one of thousands of Lowell mill "girls." She grew up in northern Vermont, one of four children born to Bela and Marry Briggs Paul. She worked in the mills from 1845 through 1848, joining her father in Claremont, New Hampshire.
Lowell Dec 21st 1845
Dear Father,
I received your letter on Thursday the 14th with much pleasure. I am well which is one comfort. My life and health are spared while others are cut off. Last Thursday one girl fell down and broke her neck which caused instant death. She was going in or coming out of the mill and slipped down it being very icy. The same day a man was killed by the [railroad] cars. Another had nearly all of his ribs broken. Another was nearly killed by falling down and having a bale of cotton fall on him. Last Tuesday we were paid. In all I had six dollars and sixty cents paid $4.68 for board. With the rest I got me a pair of rubbers and a pair of 50.cts shoes… Perhaps you would like something about our regulations about going in and coming out of the mill. At 5 o'clock in the morning the bell rings for the folks to get up and get breakfast. At half past six it rings for the girls to get up and at seven they are called into the mill. At half past 12 we have dinner are called back again at one and stay till half past seven.,, I get along very well with my work. I can doff as fast as any girl in our room… I think that the factory is the best place for me and if any girl wants employment I advise them to come to Lowell…
“Mary Paul Letters.” Vermont Historical Society. Montpelier, Vermont. Retrieved from https://www.albany.edu/history/history316/MaryPaulLetters.html.
Lowell Dec 21st 1845
Dear Father,
I received your letter on Thursday the 14th with much pleasure. I am well which is one comfort. My life and health are spared while others are cut off. Last Thursday one girl fell down and broke her neck which caused instant death. She was going in or coming out of the mill and slipped down it being very icy. The same day a man was killed by the [railroad] cars. Another had nearly all of his ribs broken. Another was nearly killed by falling down and having a bale of cotton fall on him. Last Tuesday we were paid. In all I had six dollars and sixty cents paid $4.68 for board. With the rest I got me a pair of rubbers and a pair of 50.cts shoes… Perhaps you would like something about our regulations about going in and coming out of the mill. At 5 o'clock in the morning the bell rings for the folks to get up and get breakfast. At half past six it rings for the girls to get up and at seven they are called into the mill. At half past 12 we have dinner are called back again at one and stay till half past seven.,, I get along very well with my work. I can doff as fast as any girl in our room… I think that the factory is the best place for me and if any girl wants employment I advise them to come to Lowell…
“Mary Paul Letters.” Vermont Historical Society. Montpelier, Vermont. Retrieved from https://www.albany.edu/history/history316/MaryPaulLetters.html.
Harriet Robbinson- Lowell Girls Strike
This text is a recollection about the Lowell Mill Girls Strike from Harriet Robinson, a founder of the Massachusetts chapter of the National Women's Suffrage Association.
One of the girls stood on a pump, and gave vent to the feelings of her companions in a neat speech, declaring that it was their duty to resist all attempts at cutting down the wages. This was the first time a woman had spoken in public in Lowell, and the event caused surprise and consternation among her audience.
Cutting down the wages was not their only grievance, nor the only cause of this strike… It was estimated that as many as twelve or fifteen hundred girls turned out, and walked in procession through the streets. They had neither flags nor music, but sang songs, a favorite (but rather inappropriate) one being a parody on “I won't be a nun.”
Oh! isn't it a pity, such a pretty girl as I
Should be sent to the factory to pine away and die?
Oh ! I cannot be a slave,
I will not be a slave,
For I'm so fond of liberty
That I cannot be a slave. …
I worked in a lower room, where I had heard the proposed strike fully, if not vehemently, discussed; I had been an ardent listener to what was said against this attempt at "oppression" on the part of the corporation, and naturally I took sides with the strikers. When the day came on which the girls were to turn out, those in the upper rooms started first, and so many of them left that our mill was at once shut down. Then, when the girls in my room stood irresolute, uncertain what to do, asking each other, "Would you? " or "Shall we turn out?" and not one of them having the courage to lead off, I, who began to think they would not go out, after all their talk, became impatient, and started on ahead, saying, with childish bravado, "I don't care what you do, I am going to turn out, whether any one else does or not;'' and I marched out, and was followed by the others.
As I looked back at the long line that followed me, I was more proud than I have ever been since…
Robinson, Harriet Hanson. Loom and Spindle or Life Among the Early Mill Girls. New York: T.Y. Crowell, 1898. https://historymatters.gmu.edu/blackboard/robinson.html.
Questions:
One of the girls stood on a pump, and gave vent to the feelings of her companions in a neat speech, declaring that it was their duty to resist all attempts at cutting down the wages. This was the first time a woman had spoken in public in Lowell, and the event caused surprise and consternation among her audience.
Cutting down the wages was not their only grievance, nor the only cause of this strike… It was estimated that as many as twelve or fifteen hundred girls turned out, and walked in procession through the streets. They had neither flags nor music, but sang songs, a favorite (but rather inappropriate) one being a parody on “I won't be a nun.”
Oh! isn't it a pity, such a pretty girl as I
Should be sent to the factory to pine away and die?
Oh ! I cannot be a slave,
I will not be a slave,
For I'm so fond of liberty
That I cannot be a slave. …
I worked in a lower room, where I had heard the proposed strike fully, if not vehemently, discussed; I had been an ardent listener to what was said against this attempt at "oppression" on the part of the corporation, and naturally I took sides with the strikers. When the day came on which the girls were to turn out, those in the upper rooms started first, and so many of them left that our mill was at once shut down. Then, when the girls in my room stood irresolute, uncertain what to do, asking each other, "Would you? " or "Shall we turn out?" and not one of them having the courage to lead off, I, who began to think they would not go out, after all their talk, became impatient, and started on ahead, saying, with childish bravado, "I don't care what you do, I am going to turn out, whether any one else does or not;'' and I marched out, and was followed by the others.
As I looked back at the long line that followed me, I was more proud than I have ever been since…
Robinson, Harriet Hanson. Loom and Spindle or Life Among the Early Mill Girls. New York: T.Y. Crowell, 1898. https://historymatters.gmu.edu/blackboard/robinson.html.
Questions:
- According to Harriet Robinson, what caused the strike of 1836 and how did it unfold?
Lowell Factory Girls Association- Constitution
In 1836, the workers at the Lowell Mills had had enough: they organized themselves into the Lowell Factory Girls Association, and were dedicated to providing the laborers some degree of power to negotiate through union. In their union, they formed the constitution below.
Preamble
Whereas we, the undersigned, residents of Lowell, moved by a love of honest industry and the expectation of a fair and liberal recompense, have left our homes, our relatives and youthful associates, and come hither, and subjected ourselves to all the danger and inconvenience, which necessarily attend young and unprotected females, when among strangers, and in a strange land; and however humble the condition of Factory Girls (as we are termed) may seem, we firmly and fearlessly (though we trust with a modesty becoming our sex) claim for ourselves that love of moral and intellectual culture, that admiration of, and desire to attain and preserve pure, elevated, and refined characters; a true reverence for the divine principle which bids us render to everyone his due; a due appreciation of those great and cardinal principles of our government, of justice and humanity, which enjoins on us “to live and let live”—that chivalrous and honorable feeling, which with equal force, forbids us to invade others’ rights, or suffer others, upon any consideration, to invade ours; and at the same time, that utter abhorrence and detestation of whatever is mean, sordid, dishonorable, or unjust—all of which can alone, in our estimation, entitle us to be called the daughters of freemen, or of republican America.
And, whereas, we believe that those who have preceded us have been, we know that ourselves are, and that our successors are liable to be, assailed in various ways by the wicked and unprincipled, and cheated out of just, legal, and constitutional dues by ungenerous, illiberal, and avaricious capitalists[1]—and convinced that “union is power,” and that as the unprincipled consult and advise, that they may the more easily decoy and seduce—and the capitalists that they may the more effectually defraud—we (being the weaker) claim it to be our undeniable right to associate and concentrate our power, that we may the more successfully repel their equally base and iniquitous aggressions.
And, whereas, impressed with this belief, and conscious that our cause is a common one, and our conditions similar, we feel it our imperative duty to stand by each other through weal and woe; to administer to each other’s wants, to prevent each other’s backsliding—to comfort each other in sickness and advise each other in health, to incite each other to the love and attainment of those excellences, which can alone constitute the perfection of the female character—unsullied virtue, refined tastes, and cultivated intellects—and in a word, do all that in us lies, to make each other worthy [of] ourselves, our country and Creator.
Therefore, for the better attainment of those objects, we associate ourselves together, and mutually pledge to each other, a female’s irrefragable[2] vow, to stand by, abide by, and be governed by the following
Provisions
Article 1st. It shall be denominated the LOWELL FACTORY GIRLS’ ASSOCIATION.
Art. 2d. Any female of good moral character, and who works in any one of the mills in this city, may become a member of this Association by subscribing to this Constitution.
Art. 3d. The officers of the Association shall be, a President, Vice President, a Recording Secretary, a Corresponding Secretary, a Treasurer, a Collector, and a Prudential Committee, two of whom shall be elected from each corporation in this city.
Art. 4th. The officers shall be chosen by the vote of the Association; that is, by the vote of a majority of the members present.
Art. 5th. The duties of the President, Vice President, Secretaries, Treasurer, and Collector shall be the same as usually appertain to such offices. The duties of the Prudential Committee shall be to watch over the interests of the Association generally; to recommend to the Association, for their consideration and adoption, such by-laws, and measures as in their opinion the well-being of the Association may require: and also to ascertain the necessities of any of its members, and report the same, as soon as may be, to the Association. And whenever, in the opinion of the Committee, there are necessities so urgent as to require immediate relief, they shall forthwith report the same to the President, who shall immediately draw upon the Treasurer for the sum recommended, and which sum the Committee shall forthwith apply to the relief of the necessitous.
Art. 6th. The Treasurer and Collector shall be subject to the supervision of the Prudential Committee, to whom they shall be accountable, and to whom they shall give such security for the faithful discharge of their duties as the Committee shall require.
Art. 7th. All moneys shall be raised by vote of a majority of the Association, or of the members present, and shall be assessed equally on all the members.
Art. 8th. All the officers shall hold their office for the term of one year, with the privilege of resigning, and subject to be removed by vote of the Association, for good cause.
Art. 9th. The Association shall meet once in three months, and may be convened oftener, if occasion require, by the President, upon a petition of twenty of the members first petitioning her for that purpose.
Art. 10th. It shall forever be the policy of the members of this Association, to bestow their patronage, so far as is practicable, upon such persons as befriend, but never upon such as oppose our cause.
Art. 11th. The Association shall have power to make all necessary by-laws, which shall be consistent with these provisions, and such by-laws, when made, shall be binding upon all the members.
Art. 12th. Any member may dissolve her connection with the Association by giving two weeks’ notice to the Recording Secretary; and any members shall be expelled from the Association by a vote of a majority of the members present, for any immoral conduct or behavior unbecoming respectable and virtuous females.
Art. 13th. This Constitution may be altered or amended at any time by a vote of two-thirds of the members present.
Questions:
Preamble
Whereas we, the undersigned, residents of Lowell, moved by a love of honest industry and the expectation of a fair and liberal recompense, have left our homes, our relatives and youthful associates, and come hither, and subjected ourselves to all the danger and inconvenience, which necessarily attend young and unprotected females, when among strangers, and in a strange land; and however humble the condition of Factory Girls (as we are termed) may seem, we firmly and fearlessly (though we trust with a modesty becoming our sex) claim for ourselves that love of moral and intellectual culture, that admiration of, and desire to attain and preserve pure, elevated, and refined characters; a true reverence for the divine principle which bids us render to everyone his due; a due appreciation of those great and cardinal principles of our government, of justice and humanity, which enjoins on us “to live and let live”—that chivalrous and honorable feeling, which with equal force, forbids us to invade others’ rights, or suffer others, upon any consideration, to invade ours; and at the same time, that utter abhorrence and detestation of whatever is mean, sordid, dishonorable, or unjust—all of which can alone, in our estimation, entitle us to be called the daughters of freemen, or of republican America.
And, whereas, we believe that those who have preceded us have been, we know that ourselves are, and that our successors are liable to be, assailed in various ways by the wicked and unprincipled, and cheated out of just, legal, and constitutional dues by ungenerous, illiberal, and avaricious capitalists[1]—and convinced that “union is power,” and that as the unprincipled consult and advise, that they may the more easily decoy and seduce—and the capitalists that they may the more effectually defraud—we (being the weaker) claim it to be our undeniable right to associate and concentrate our power, that we may the more successfully repel their equally base and iniquitous aggressions.
And, whereas, impressed with this belief, and conscious that our cause is a common one, and our conditions similar, we feel it our imperative duty to stand by each other through weal and woe; to administer to each other’s wants, to prevent each other’s backsliding—to comfort each other in sickness and advise each other in health, to incite each other to the love and attainment of those excellences, which can alone constitute the perfection of the female character—unsullied virtue, refined tastes, and cultivated intellects—and in a word, do all that in us lies, to make each other worthy [of] ourselves, our country and Creator.
Therefore, for the better attainment of those objects, we associate ourselves together, and mutually pledge to each other, a female’s irrefragable[2] vow, to stand by, abide by, and be governed by the following
Provisions
Article 1st. It shall be denominated the LOWELL FACTORY GIRLS’ ASSOCIATION.
Art. 2d. Any female of good moral character, and who works in any one of the mills in this city, may become a member of this Association by subscribing to this Constitution.
Art. 3d. The officers of the Association shall be, a President, Vice President, a Recording Secretary, a Corresponding Secretary, a Treasurer, a Collector, and a Prudential Committee, two of whom shall be elected from each corporation in this city.
Art. 4th. The officers shall be chosen by the vote of the Association; that is, by the vote of a majority of the members present.
Art. 5th. The duties of the President, Vice President, Secretaries, Treasurer, and Collector shall be the same as usually appertain to such offices. The duties of the Prudential Committee shall be to watch over the interests of the Association generally; to recommend to the Association, for their consideration and adoption, such by-laws, and measures as in their opinion the well-being of the Association may require: and also to ascertain the necessities of any of its members, and report the same, as soon as may be, to the Association. And whenever, in the opinion of the Committee, there are necessities so urgent as to require immediate relief, they shall forthwith report the same to the President, who shall immediately draw upon the Treasurer for the sum recommended, and which sum the Committee shall forthwith apply to the relief of the necessitous.
Art. 6th. The Treasurer and Collector shall be subject to the supervision of the Prudential Committee, to whom they shall be accountable, and to whom they shall give such security for the faithful discharge of their duties as the Committee shall require.
Art. 7th. All moneys shall be raised by vote of a majority of the Association, or of the members present, and shall be assessed equally on all the members.
Art. 8th. All the officers shall hold their office for the term of one year, with the privilege of resigning, and subject to be removed by vote of the Association, for good cause.
Art. 9th. The Association shall meet once in three months, and may be convened oftener, if occasion require, by the President, upon a petition of twenty of the members first petitioning her for that purpose.
Art. 10th. It shall forever be the policy of the members of this Association, to bestow their patronage, so far as is practicable, upon such persons as befriend, but never upon such as oppose our cause.
Art. 11th. The Association shall have power to make all necessary by-laws, which shall be consistent with these provisions, and such by-laws, when made, shall be binding upon all the members.
Art. 12th. Any member may dissolve her connection with the Association by giving two weeks’ notice to the Recording Secretary; and any members shall be expelled from the Association by a vote of a majority of the members present, for any immoral conduct or behavior unbecoming respectable and virtuous females.
Art. 13th. This Constitution may be altered or amended at any time by a vote of two-thirds of the members present.
Questions:
- What words do the women use to describe themselves?
- Do they seem “fearless” or “humble” in their preamble?
- What do the “factory girls” consider to be the necessary virtues of the “daughters of freemen”?
- How does the constitution for the association reflect those virtues?
anonymous-Factory Tracts. Factory Life As It Is.
This anonymous author described her experience working in the Lowell Mills, choosing to only refer to herself as operative.
[L]et us go with that light-hearted, joyous young girl who is about for the first time to leave the home of her childhood; that home around which clusters so many beautiful and holy associations, pleasant memories, and quiet joys; to leave, too, a mother’s cheerful smile, a father’s care and protection; and wend her way toward this famed
“city of spindles,” this promised land of the imagination, in whose praise she has doubtless heard so much…
Follow her now as she enters that large gloomy looking building—she is in search of employment, and has been told that she might here obtain an eligible situation. She is sadly wearied with her journey, and withal somewhat annoyed by the noise, confusion, and strange faces all around her…
Here is the beginning of mischief; for in addition to the tyranous and oppressive rules which meet her astonished eyes, she finds herself compelled to remain for the space of twelve months in the very place she then occupies, however reasonable and just cause of complaint might be hers, or however strong the wish for dismission; thus, in fact, constituting herself a slave, a very slave to the caprices of him for whom she labors… she must still continue to toil on, long after Nature’s lamp has ceased to lend its aid… thus working on an average, at least twelve hours and… hasty meals, which is in winter simply one half hour at noon,—in the spring is allowed the same at morn, and during the summer is added 15 minutes to the half hour at noon. Then too, when she is at last released from her wearisome day’s toil, still may she not depart in peace. No! … subjected to the manifold inconveniences of a large crowded boarding-house, where too… she is obliged to sleep in a small comfortless, half ventilated apartment containing some half a dozen occupants each, but no matter, she is an operative—it is all well enough for her; there is no “abuse” about it; no, indeed; so think our employers,—but do we think so? time will show.
“Factory Tracts. Factory Life As It Is. Number One.” Lowell, MA, 1845. https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6217.
Guiding Questions:
[L]et us go with that light-hearted, joyous young girl who is about for the first time to leave the home of her childhood; that home around which clusters so many beautiful and holy associations, pleasant memories, and quiet joys; to leave, too, a mother’s cheerful smile, a father’s care and protection; and wend her way toward this famed
“city of spindles,” this promised land of the imagination, in whose praise she has doubtless heard so much…
Follow her now as she enters that large gloomy looking building—she is in search of employment, and has been told that she might here obtain an eligible situation. She is sadly wearied with her journey, and withal somewhat annoyed by the noise, confusion, and strange faces all around her…
Here is the beginning of mischief; for in addition to the tyranous and oppressive rules which meet her astonished eyes, she finds herself compelled to remain for the space of twelve months in the very place she then occupies, however reasonable and just cause of complaint might be hers, or however strong the wish for dismission; thus, in fact, constituting herself a slave, a very slave to the caprices of him for whom she labors… she must still continue to toil on, long after Nature’s lamp has ceased to lend its aid… thus working on an average, at least twelve hours and… hasty meals, which is in winter simply one half hour at noon,—in the spring is allowed the same at morn, and during the summer is added 15 minutes to the half hour at noon. Then too, when she is at last released from her wearisome day’s toil, still may she not depart in peace. No! … subjected to the manifold inconveniences of a large crowded boarding-house, where too… she is obliged to sleep in a small comfortless, half ventilated apartment containing some half a dozen occupants each, but no matter, she is an operative—it is all well enough for her; there is no “abuse” about it; no, indeed; so think our employers,—but do we think so? time will show.
“Factory Tracts. Factory Life As It Is. Number One.” Lowell, MA, 1845. https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6217.
Guiding Questions:
- Why does the author of the “Factory Tracts” remain anonymous in the text itself, opting to only refer to themselves as an “operative”?
- What concerns her the most about the way women are treated in the Lowell factories?
- Why might it be controversial that they refer to themselves as “slaves”?
Petitions from the Lowell mill girls
These are two of the many petitions sent by Lowell mill girls to garner support for their strike.
Sign the Petition!
Ten Hours, Ten Hours!!
Sign the Petition!
We have forwarded to some of our friends in different towns of Massachusetts, petitions asking the Legislature to prohibit incorporated companies for employing one set of hands more than ten hours per day. We hope our friends will be active in circulating them for signatures and have them all returned to the office of the Voice of Industry
--Lowell Female Labor Reform Association, January 15, 1845.
March Boldly
On Sisters, let us be encouraged to labor yet more abundantly! Let the thought that we are engaged in a good work nerve us on to duty. The battle is not to the strong, alone, nor the race to the swift—but to the righteousness of the cause. In the strength of Elijah's God, the God of Right, let us march boldly on to the conquest. Let us take no rest until the shout shall rend the earth and heavens— "Goliath is fallen!"
—Juliana Voice of Industry, June 12, 1846.
“Petition from the Lowell Mills.” Voice of Industry, January 15, 1845. Retrieved from http://industrialrevolution.org/petition-and-legislature.html.
Questions:
Sign the Petition!
Ten Hours, Ten Hours!!
Sign the Petition!
We have forwarded to some of our friends in different towns of Massachusetts, petitions asking the Legislature to prohibit incorporated companies for employing one set of hands more than ten hours per day. We hope our friends will be active in circulating them for signatures and have them all returned to the office of the Voice of Industry
--Lowell Female Labor Reform Association, January 15, 1845.
March Boldly
On Sisters, let us be encouraged to labor yet more abundantly! Let the thought that we are engaged in a good work nerve us on to duty. The battle is not to the strong, alone, nor the race to the swift—but to the righteousness of the cause. In the strength of Elijah's God, the God of Right, let us march boldly on to the conquest. Let us take no rest until the shout shall rend the earth and heavens— "Goliath is fallen!"
—Juliana Voice of Industry, June 12, 1846.
“Petition from the Lowell Mills.” Voice of Industry, January 15, 1845. Retrieved from http://industrialrevolution.org/petition-and-legislature.html.
Questions:
- What are the girls asking for?
- Based on the second petition, do the mill workers' complaints seem resolved by 1846?
Catey Casey
Remedial Herstory Editors. "14. PROGRESSIVE WOMEN." The Remedial Herstory Project. November 20, 2022. www.remedialherstory.com.
Primary AUTHOR: |
Dr. Barbara Tischler
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Primary ReviewerS: |
Dr. Deanna Beachley
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Consulting TeamKelsie Brook Eckert, Project Director
Coordinator of Social Studies Education at Plymouth State University Dr. Barbara Tischler, Consultant Professor of History Hunter College and Columbia University Dr. Alicia Gutierrez-Romine, Consultant Assistant Professor of History at La Sierra University Jacqui Nelson, Consultant Teaching Lecturer of Military History at Plymouth State University Dr. Deanna Beachley Professor of History and Women's Studies at College of Southern Nevada |
EditorsReviewersColonial
Dr. Margaret Huettl Hannah Dutton Dr. John Krueckeberg 19th Century Dr. Rebecca Noel Michelle Stonis, MA Annabelle L. Blevins Pifer, MA Cony Marquez, PhD Candidate 20th Century Dr. Tanya Roth Dr. Jessica Frazier Mary Bezbatchenko, MA |
Survey's on U.S. Women's History
Berry and Gross tell a survey of black women in the United States.
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Susan Ware tells a short introduction to women's history in the United States.
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Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz tells a survey of indigenous people in the United States.
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Jill Lepore tells a survey of the United States.
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Gail Collins tells a survey of Women in the United States.
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Daina Ramey Berry and Leslie M. Harris place sexuality at the center of slavery studies, spanning early colonialism through the civil war.
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In From Back Alley to the Border, Alicia Gutierrez-Romine examines the history of criminal abortion in California.
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Jan Manion tells the history of women in male clothing who married other women between the Colonial Era and WWI.
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Native American Cultures
Stockel interviews Apache women and stories are told of women warrior ancestors.
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A collection of essays examining power and gender status in native cultures.
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Dive into the history of Cherokee women, and their long standing traditions.
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A collection of historical and contemporary women of Indigenous heritage who have contributed to the survival and success of their families, communities--and the United States of America.
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Colonial Era 1600-1775
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By examining the lives of six specific women in the Salem Witch Trials, Marilynne Roach shows readers what it was like to be present throughout this horrific time and how it was impossible to live through it unchanged. Roach believes that the individuals involved are too often reduced to stock characters and stereotypes when accuracy is sacrificed to indignation.
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In The Jamestown Bride, Jennifer Potter recounts the lives of the women in Jamestown, but without the resource of letters or journals she turns to the Virginia Company's merchant lists -- which were used as a kind of sales catalog for prospective husbands -- as well as censuses, court records, the minutes of Virginia's General Assemblies, letters to England from their male counterparts, and other such accounts of the everyday life of the early colonists.
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Kathleen Brown examines the origins of racism and slavery in British North America from the perspective of gender. Both a basic social relationship and a model for other social hierarchies, gender helped determine the construction of racial categories and the institution of slavery in Virginia.
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Carol Berkin's multicultural history reconstructs the lives of American women in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries-women from European, African, and Native backgrounds-and examines their varied roles as wives, mothers, household managers, laborers, rebels, and, ultimately, critical forces in shaping the new nation's culture and history.
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Revolutionary Period 1763-1783
Women of all classes and races were not only supporters and opponents of the American Revolution, they actively promoted, engaged, wrote, fought, and were deeply impacted by the outcome of the American Revolution. There are a lot of perspectives to consider, and we can only brush the surface.
Liberty's Daughters is widely considered a landmark book on the history of American women and on the Revolution itself. Norton brilliantly portrays a dramatic transformation of women's private lives in the wake of the Revolution. This fascinating human story includes lively anecdotes and revealing details from the personal papers of 450 eighteenth-century families.
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Holton describes the origins and crucial battles of the Revolution from Lexington and Concord to the British surrender at Yorktown, always focusing on marginalized Americans—enslaved Africans and African Americans, Native Americans, women, and dissenters—and on overlooked factors such as weather, North America’s unique geography, chance, misperception, attempts to manipulate public opinion, and (most of all) disease.
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They baked New England's Thanksgiving pies, preached their faith to crowds of worshippers, spied for the patriots during the Revolution, wrote that human bondage was a sin, and demanded reparations for slavery. Black women in colonial and revolutionary New England sought not only legal emancipation from slavery but defined freedom more broadly to include spiritual, familial, and economic dimensions.
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The American Revolution was a home-front war that brought scarcity, bloodshed, and danger into the life of every American. In this book, Carol Berkin shows us how women played a vital role throughout the conflict. This incisive and comprehensive history illuminates a fascinating and unknown side of the struggle for American independence.
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Mercy Otis Warren’s book is one of the earliest histories of the American Revolution, and the first to be written by a woman. It charts the progress of the entire revolution, from the imposition of the Stamp Act in 1765 through to ratification of the Constitution in 1787.This book provides brilliant insight into the history of the American Revolution from the perspective of a contemporary who was able to talk to the key figures involved. This book should be essential reading for anyone interested in the Revolutionary period and how the United States was founded.
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Early Republic 1783-1815
Following the American Revolution, US culture morphed and shifted. Women in this new republic found new roles and expectations as mothers: for to give power to the masses in a democracy, meant men needed to be educated, and their mothers needed to do it. The ideal of a Republican Mother emerged and the dynamic women of the colonial and revolutionary eras became a thing of the past.
"A New England Girlhood" is the autobiography of poet Lucy Larcom. Arriving in Lowell, Massachusetts, in the 1830s after the death of her shipmaster father, eleven-year-old Lucy Larcom went to work in a textile mill to help her family make ends meet. Originally published in 1889, her engaging autobiography offers glimpses of the early years of the American factory system as well as of the social influences on her development.
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In 1762, John Adams penned a flirtatious note to “Miss Adorable,” the 17-year-old Abigail Smith. In 1801, Abigail wrote to wish her husband John a safe journey as he headed home to Quincy after serving as president of the nation he helped create. The letters that span these nearly forty years form the most significant correspondence―and reveal one of the most intriguing and inspiring partnerships―in American history.
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In Mere Equals, Lucia McMahon narrates a story about how a generation of young women who enjoyed access to new educational opportunities made sense of their individual and social identities in an American nation marked by stark political inequality between the sexes.
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Antebellum 1815-1861
The Antebellum Period is full of historical events and movements. From the rise of the abolitionist movement, the Mexican-American War, and the Trail of Tears.
In Patriots, Prostitutes, and Spies, John M. Belohlavek tells the story of women on both sides of the Mexican-American War (1846-48) as they were propelled by the bloody conflict to adopt new roles and expand traditional ones.
American women "back home" functioned as anti-war activists, pro-war supporters, and pioneering female journalists. Others moved west and established their own reputations for courage and determination in dusty border towns or bordellos. |
Bridging women's history, the history of the South, and African American history, this book makes a bold argument about the role of white women in American slavery. Historian Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers draws on a variety of sources to show that slave‑owning women were sophisticated economic actors who directly engaged in and benefited from the South's slave market.
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This book traces the lived experiences of women lawbreakers in the state of Pennsylvania from 1820 to 1860 through the records of more than six thousand criminal court cases. By following these women from the perpetration of their crimes through the state’s efforts to punish and reform them, Erica Rhodes Hayden places them at the center of their own stories.
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The brave pioneers who made a life on the frontier were not only male—and they were not only white. The story of African-American women in the Old West is one that has largely gone untold until now. The stories of ten African-American women are reconstructed from historic documents found in century-old archives. Some of these women slaves, some were free, and some were born into slavery and found freedom in the old west.
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Civil War & Reconstruction 1861-1877
The role of women throughout the American Civil War was diverse and widespread. No matter whether one was black or white, southern or northern, women were vital in the war efforts. Some were soldiers, nurses, or took control over their farms and families stations that the men usually would.
Through richly detailed letters from the time and exhaustive research, Wickenden traces the second American revolution these women fought to bring about, the toll it took on their families, and its lasting effects on the country. Riveting and profoundly relevant to our own time, The Agitators brings a vibrant, original voice to this transformative period in our history.
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This lively and authoritative book opens a hitherto neglected chapter of Civil War history, telling the stories of hundreds of women who adopted male disguise and fought as soldiers. It explores their reasons for enlisting; their experiences in combat, and the way they were seen by their fellow soldiers and the American public.
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Historians of the Civil War often speak of "wars within a war"—the military fight, wartime struggles on the home front, and the political and moral battle to preserve the Union and end slavery. In this broadly conceived book, Thavolia Glymph provides a comprehensive new history of women's roles and lives in the Civil War—North and South, white and black, slave and free—showing how women were essentially and fully engaged in all three arenas.
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When Confederate men marched off to battle, southern women struggled with the new responsibilities of directing farms and plantations, providing for families, and supervising increasingly restive slaves. Drew Faust offers a compelling picture of the more than half-million women who belonged to the slaveholding families of the Confederacy during this period of acute crisis, when every part of these women's lives became vexed and uncertain.
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Freedom's Women examines African American women's experiences during the Civil War and early Reconstruction years in Mississippi. Exploring issues of family and work, the author shows how African American women's attempts to achieve more control over their lives shaped their attitudes toward work, marriage, family, and community.
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Emilie Davis was a free African American woman who lived in Philadelphia during the Civil War. She lived an average life in her day, but what sets her apart is that she kept a diary. Her daily entries from 1863 to 1865 touch on the momentous and the mundane: she discusses her own and her community’s reactions to events of the war, such as the Battle of Gettysburg, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the assassination of President Lincoln, as well as the minutiae of social life in Philadelphia’s black community.
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Karen Abbott illuminates one of the most fascinating yet little known aspects of the Civil War: the stories of four courageous women—a socialite, a farmgirl, an abolitionist, and a widow—who were spies. Using a wealth of primary source material and interviews with the spies’ descendants, Abbott seamlessly weaves the adventures of these four heroines throughout the tumultuous years of the war.
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Women in the Reconstruction Era, which followed the American Civil War, faced many new challenges. Freedwomen struggled to find their place in society due to separated families, mistreatment from former masters, racism, and no substantial help. Some White Northern women helped with the Freedman's Bureau and fought to help African American's where they could. Whereas, White Southern women worked towards honoring their dead and mythologizing the Confederacy.
This book examines the problems that Southern women faced during the Reconstruction Era, in Part I as mothers, wives, daughters or sisters of men burdened with financial difficulties and the radical Republican regime, and in Part II with specific illustrations of their tribulations through the letters and diaries of five different women.
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In this first critical study of female abolitionists and feminists in the freedmen's aid movement, Carol Faulkner describes these women's radical view of former slaves and the nation's responsibility to them. Moving beyond the image of the Yankee schoolmarm, Women's Radical Reconstruction demonstrates fully the complex and dynamic part played by Northern women in the design, implementation, and administration of Reconstruction policy.
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The advocates of woman suffrage and black suffrage came to a bitter falling-out in the midst of Reconstruction, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton opposed the 15th Amendment because it granted the vote to black men but not to women. How did these two causes, so long allied, come to this? Based on extensive research, Fighting Chance is a major contribution to women's history and to 19th-century political history--a story of how idealists descended to racist betrayal and desperate failure.
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The Wild West 1876-1897
On May 30, 1899, history was made when Pearl Hart, disguised as a man, held up a stagecoach in Arizona and robbed the passengers at gunpoint. A manhunt ensued as word of her heist spread, and Pearl Hart went on to become a media sensation and the most notorious female outlaw on the Western frontier.
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Hard-drinking, hard-living poker players and prostitutes of the new boom towns; wives and mothers traveling two and a half thousand miles across the prairies in covered-wagon convoys, some of them so poor they walked the entire route.
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Born a slave in eastern Tennessee, Sarah Blair Bickford (1852–1931) made her way while still a teenager to Montana Territory, where she settled in the mining boomtown of Virginia City. Race and the Wild West is the first full-length biography of this remarkable woman, whose life story affords new insight into race and belonging in the American West around the turn of the twentieth century.
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In Women of the Northern Plains, Barbara Handy-Marchello tells the stories of the unsung heroes of North Dakota's settlement era: the farm women. Enlivened by interviews with pioneer families as well as diaries, memoirs, and other primary sources, Women of the Northern Plains uncovers the significant and changing roles of Dakota farm women who were true partners to their husbands, their efforts marking the difference between success and failure for their families.
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Soiled Doves tells the story of the grey world of prostitution and the women who participated in the oldest profession. Colorful, if not socially acceptable, these ladies of easy virtue were a definite part of the early West--wearing ruffled petticoats with fancy bows, they were glamorous and plain, good and ad and many were as wild as the land they came to tame.
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Daughters of Joy will prove to be a gold mine of information, since the author's massive research makes the book a primary source as well as a thoughtful study of soiled doves on the frontier.....Butler has portrayed the stark realities of prostitution in the American West With sensitivity and insight.
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The Progressive Era 1897-1920
Following the Civil War, Americans were still divided on many many socio-political topics--including universal suffrage. Although female suffragist fought tooth and nail for the right other women fought just as hard against it. Women of all backgrounds played important roles on both sides of the journey to suffrage.
Women of color, especially African American women, were fighting for their right to vote and to be treated as full, equal citizens of the United States. Their battlefront wasn't just about gender. African American women had to deal with white abolitionist-suffragists who drew the line at sharing power with their black sisters. They had to overcome deep, exclusionary racial prejudices that were rife in the American suffrage movement. And they had to maintain their dignity--and safety--in a society that tried to keep them in its bottom ranks.
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Woodrow Wilson lands in Washington, DC, in March of 1913, a day before he is set to take the presidential oath of office. He is surprised by the modest turnout. The crowds and reporters are blocks away from Union Station, watching a parade of eight thousand suffragists on Pennsylvania Avenue in a first-of-its-kind protest organized by a twenty-five-year-old activist named Alice Paul. The next day, The New York Times calls the procession “one of the most impressively beautiful spectacles ever staged in this country.”
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Comprised of historical texts spanning two centuries, The Women's Suffrage Movement is a comprehensive and singular volume with a distinctive focus on incorporating race, class, and gender, and illuminating minority voices. At a time of enormous political and social upheaval, there could be no more important book than one that recognizes a group of exemplary women--in their own words--as they paved the way for future generations.
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Ever wonder what our foremothers were doing while our forefathers were making recorded history? And what did these women do to claim their social and political power to change their circumstances? We Demand the Right to Vote: The Journey to the 19th Amendment introduces readers to American women's first civil rights movement known as "Women's Suffrage"--women's 72-year struggle for social and political equality that culminated in their winning the right to vote via the 19th Amendment.
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Early in the twentieth century, maternal and child welfare evolved from a private family responsibility into a matter of national policy. Molly Ladd-Taylor explores both the private and public aspects of child-rearing, using the relationship between them to cast new light on the histories of motherhood, the welfare state, and women's activism in the United States.
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During the Progessive Era, a period of unprecedented ingenuity, women evangelists built the old time religion with brick and mortar, uniforms and automobiles, fresh converts and devoted protégés. Across America, entrepreneurial women founded churches, denominations, religious training schools, rescue homes, rescue missions, and evangelistic organizations.
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Native American women
Based on an Athabascan Indian legend passed along for many generations from mothers to daughters of the upper Yukon River Valley in Alaska, this is the suspenseful, shocking, ultimately inspirational tale of two old women abandoned by their tribe during a brutal winter famine.
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In this haunting and groundbreaking historical novel, Danielle Daniel imagines the lives of women in the Algonquin territories of the 1600s, a story inspired by her family’s ancestral link to a young girl who was murdered by French settlers.
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Daunis Fontaine must learn what it means to be a strong Anishinaabe kwe (Ojibwe woman) and how far she’ll go for her community, even if it tears apart the only world she’s ever known.
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Colonial Women
Amari's life was once perfect. Engaged to the handsomest man in her tribe, adored by her family, and fortunate enough to live in a beautiful village, it never occurred to her that it could all be taken away in an instant. But that was what happened when her village was invaded by slave traders. Her family was brutally murdered as she was dragged away to a slave ship and sent to be sold in the Carolinas. There she was bought by a plantation owner and given to his son as a "birthday present".
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A riveting historical novel about Peggy Shippen Arnold, the cunning wife of Benedict Arnold and mastermind behind America’s most infamous act of treason.
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A young Puritan woman—faithful, resourceful, but afraid of the demons that dog her soul—plots her escape from a violent marriage in this riveting and propulsive novel of historical suspense.
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Revolutionary Era Women
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Rebellious Frannie Tasker knows little about the war between England and its thirteen colonies in 1776, until a shipwreck off her home in Grand Bahama Island presents an unthinkable opportunity. The body of a young woman floating in the sea gives Frannie the chance to escape her brutal stepfather--and she takes it.
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Antebellum Women
Born on a plantation in Charles City, Virginia, Pheby Delores Brown has lived a relatively sheltered life. Shielded by her mother’s position as the estate’s medicine woman and cherished by the Master’s sister, she is set apart from the others on the plantation, belonging to neither world.
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The House Girl, the historical fiction debut by Tara Conklin, is an unforgettable story of love, history, and a search for justice, set in modern-day New York and 1852 Virginia.
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Moments after Lisbeth is born, she’s taken from her mother and handed over to an enslaved wet nurse, Mattie, a young mother separated from her own infant son in order to care for her tiny charge. Thus begins an intense relationship that will shape both of their lives for decades to come.
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The Civil War and Reconstruction
Conjure Women is a sweeping story that brings the world of the South before and after the Civil War vividly to life. Spanning eras and generations, it tells of the lives of three unforgettable women: Miss May Belle, a wise healing woman; her precocious and observant daughter Rue, who is reluctant to follow in her mother’s footsteps as a midwife; and their master’s daughter Varina.
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Set in the midst of the Civil War, The Thread Collectors follows two very different women whose paths collide unexpectedly. In New Orleans, Stella, a young Black woman, sews maps that help enslaved men escape and join the Union Army. Lily, a Jewish woman in New York City, creates a quilt for her husband, a Union soldier stationed in Louisiana. When she goes months without hearing from him, she decides to journey to Louisiana to find him.
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Josephine N. Leary is determined to build a life of her own and a future for her family. When she moves to Edenton, North Carolina, from the plantation where she was born, she is free, newly married, and ready to follow her dreams.
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The wild West and Second Industrial Revolution
The day of her wedding, 17 year old Ada’s life looks good; she loves her husband, and she loves working as an apprentice to her mother, a respected midwife. But after a year of marriage and no pregnancy, in a town where barren women are routinely hanged as witches, her survival depends on leaving behind everything she knows.
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When Kate Thompson’s father is killed by the notorious Rose Riders for a mysterious journal that reveals the secret location of a gold mine, the eighteen-year-old disguises herself as a boy and takes to the gritty plains looking for answers and justice.
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In this gripping historical, Chance exposes the horrors women faced in late 19th-century New York when they dared to show passion of any kind or repudiate society's norms.
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The Progressive Era
Since childhood, Anita Hemmings has longed to attend the country’s most exclusive school for women, Vassar College. Now, a bright, beautiful senior in the class of 1897, she is hiding a secret that would have banned her from admission: Anita is the only African-American student ever to attend Vassar. With her olive complexion and dark hair, this daughter of a janitor and descendant of slaves has successfully passed as white, but now finds herself rooming with Louise “Lottie” Taylor, the scion of one of New York’s most prominent families.
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It's 1913 and Laura Lyons lives with her husband, superintendent of the New York Public Library building, and their two children in an apartment located in the grand building on 5th Avenue. But Laura wants more—she applies to the Columbia Journalism School and her world is cracked open. She discovers a radical, all-female group where women loudly share their opinions on suffrage, birth control, and women's rights. Soon, Laura finds herself questioning her traditional role as wife and mother.
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In City of Lies, con woman Elizabeth Miles is desperately trying to escape men that are after her in 1917 Washington D.C. so she joins a suffragist parade in front of the White House only to get swept up, arrested and sent to the Occoquan, VA women’s prison with the other marchers.
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How to teach with Films:
Remember, teachers want the student to be the historian. What do historians do when they watch films?
- Before they watch, ask students to research the director and producers. These are the source of the information. How will their background and experience likely bias this film?
- Also, ask students to consider the context the film was created in. The film may be about history, but it was made recently. What was going on the year the film was made that could bias the film? In particular, how do you think the gains of feminism will impact the portrayal of the female characters?
- As they watch, ask students to research the historical accuracy of the film. What do online sources say about what the film gets right or wrong?
- Afterward, ask students to describe how the female characters were portrayed and what lessons they got from the film.
- Then, ask students to evaluate this film as a learning tool. Was it helpful to better understand this topic? Did the historical inaccuracies make it unhelpful? Make it clear any informed opinion is valid.
Documentaries
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Ascent of Woman: is a documentary about prehistoric and Ancient women's history across cultures.
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Witches: A Century of Murder is about the witch trials that plagued England under Kings James IV and I and Charles I.
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Taking Root is a documentary about the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, Wangari Maathai. She was from Kenya and her work was on environmental protection.
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Feature Length Movies
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The Last Duel highlights the way that rape was handled in medieval Europe. It barely passes the Bechdel Test, with main actors being the male characters, but the whole theme of sex, sexuality, and gender dynamics cannot be ignored.
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Elizabeth tells the story of Elizabeth's Golden era.
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Mary Queen of Scots is a film about the relationship between the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I of England and her Catholic cousin Mary Queen of Scots who challenged her throne.
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Catherine the Great is about the career of Catherine of Russia and her challenges as a female leader.
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The Favorite is about the interesting palace life of Queen Anne and her closest female confidants. This film expands upon rumors of lesbianism within the court.
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The Woman King is a film about the Dahomey "Amazons," women warriors who fought European imperialism in West Africa.
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Albert Nobbs is a film about the life of a poor woman living in 19th century Ireland who cross dresses in order to improve her station.
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Victoria and Abdul is a film about the interesting relationship between Queen Victoria and Abdul Karim, an Indian man who earned her confidence.
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Suffragette tells the stories of English women who grappled with a way to have their voices heard in the early movement.
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The Danish Girl is historical fiction based losely on the life and marriage of a transgender pioneer.
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A Call to Spy is about the first British and American women spies that worked on the ground in France during WWII.
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Frida is a film about the first Mexican woman to have her work displayed at the Louvre in Paris, FR.
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Television Series
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The White Queen and the series that follow are based on a historical fiction novel about the rise of the Tudor family in England. The main characters are the women, who through marriage gain and lose the crown.
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The Serpent Queen tells the story of Queen Catherine de Medici of France and the complexities of being a queen regent.
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The Tudors tells the story of Henry VIII and each of his six wives. Remember the old school tale: divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.
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Victoria is a TV series about the rise and career of Queen Victoria, whose reign spanned much of the 19th century.
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The Crown is a TV series that shows the rise and career of the current Queen of England, Elizabeth II. Her reign began shortly after WWII.
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Bibliography
Collins, Gail, America's Women: Four Hundred Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines. New York, William Morrow, 2003.
DuBois, Ellen Carol, 1947-. Through Women's Eyes : an American History with Documents. Boston :Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005.Indians Editors. “NATIVE AMERICAN WOMEN.” Indians. N.D. http://indians.org/articles/Native-american-women.html.
Ware, Susan. American Women’s History: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
DuBois, Ellen Carol, 1947-. Through Women's Eyes : an American History with Documents. Boston :Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005.Indians Editors. “NATIVE AMERICAN WOMEN.” Indians. N.D. http://indians.org/articles/Native-american-women.html.
Ware, Susan. American Women’s History: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
