14. Progressive women
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In the absence of the 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 more. Women's efforts were central to and the backbone of the progressive.
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Woman Protesting, Library of Congress
The industrial revolution wasn’t very revolutionary for women. While new technologies revolutionized the public sphere, the domestic sphere remained inefficient. Women increasingly took jobs outside the home and life became a bit faster, but law had not yet caught up with societal change. Children were laboring in factories, alcoholism was rampant, public education was underfunded and limited, immigrants needed support, and more. Women led the way to reform society in what today is known as the Progressive Era.
Forewarning, this chapter will discuss lynchings and racial violence.
Between about 1890 and 1914, the United States experienced a period of reform that has earned the label “Progressive.” Women were active leaders of reform groups, guaranteeing the safety of the food supply, supporting crusades for temperance, the elimination of child labor, and the improvement of working conditions in factories. Women’s writing, organizing, and protesting efforts were not always successful, but they did raise the consciousness of the American public to many of the negative consequences of rapid industrialization.
Forewarning, this chapter will discuss lynchings and racial violence.
Between about 1890 and 1914, the United States experienced a period of reform that has earned the label “Progressive.” Women were active leaders of reform groups, guaranteeing the safety of the food supply, supporting crusades for temperance, the elimination of child labor, and the improvement of working conditions in factories. Women’s writing, organizing, and protesting efforts were not always successful, but they did raise the consciousness of the American public to many of the negative consequences of rapid industrialization.
Women Protesting Jim Crow Laws, Britannica
Considering the time, the Progressive Era was incredibly intersectional with women reformers working on many issues from industrialization to race relations.
Jim Crow:
During the Progressive Era, race relations stagnated. Racial violence, riots, and neglect of Black Americans prevailed. Black women played a vital role in combating racism and organizing for change. Jim Crow laws severely oppressed Black women, impacting education, employment, accommodations, and voting rights. They resisted these injustices through activism.
Segregated schools for Black students were often underfunded and provided inferior resources and facilities compared to those available to white students. Black women, along with other community members, worked tirelessly to establish and maintain independent schools, known as "colored schools," to provide better educational opportunities for Black children.
Jim Crow laws enforced racial segregation in public spaces, including restaurants, theaters, and transportation. Black women faced humiliation, violence, and denial of basic services and accommodations. In response, Black women organized boycotts, sit-ins, and protests, advocating for equal access and challenging the discriminatory policies.
Jim Crow:
During the Progressive Era, race relations stagnated. Racial violence, riots, and neglect of Black Americans prevailed. Black women played a vital role in combating racism and organizing for change. Jim Crow laws severely oppressed Black women, impacting education, employment, accommodations, and voting rights. They resisted these injustices through activism.
Segregated schools for Black students were often underfunded and provided inferior resources and facilities compared to those available to white students. Black women, along with other community members, worked tirelessly to establish and maintain independent schools, known as "colored schools," to provide better educational opportunities for Black children.
Jim Crow laws enforced racial segregation in public spaces, including restaurants, theaters, and transportation. Black women faced humiliation, violence, and denial of basic services and accommodations. In response, Black women organized boycotts, sit-ins, and protests, advocating for equal access and challenging the discriminatory policies.
Ida. B Wells, Wikimedia Commons
Jim Crow laws aimed to suppress the political power of Black women and men by implementing poll taxes, literacy tests, and other voter suppression tactics. Despite these obstacles, Black women played a crucial role in mobilizing and organizing voter registration campaigns, advocating for suffrage, and fighting for equal representation.
Prominent Black women activists such as Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Mary Church Terrell, and many others led and participated in resistance movements against Jim Crow laws. They used various strategies such as grassroots organizing, civil disobedience, public speaking, journalism, and legal challenges to expose the injustices and fight for civil rights and social equality.
In 1884, Wells-Barnett sued a railroad company in Memphis, Tennessee for forcing her into a segregated car, even though she had a valid first-class ticket. She won her case at the local level but lost on appeal. This case was among the first of many in which African-Americans sought relief for discrimination in the courts. Wells-Barnett also organized a boycott of the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893 for the World’s Fair’s negative portrayal of people of color.
Prominent Black women activists such as Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Mary Church Terrell, and many others led and participated in resistance movements against Jim Crow laws. They used various strategies such as grassroots organizing, civil disobedience, public speaking, journalism, and legal challenges to expose the injustices and fight for civil rights and social equality.
In 1884, Wells-Barnett sued a railroad company in Memphis, Tennessee for forcing her into a segregated car, even though she had a valid first-class ticket. She won her case at the local level but lost on appeal. This case was among the first of many in which African-Americans sought relief for discrimination in the courts. Wells-Barnett also organized a boycott of the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893 for the World’s Fair’s negative portrayal of people of color.
The People's Grocery Store, Wikimedia Commons
Lynching:
The effect of widespread social, political, and economic discrimination against Black people in America was prejudice driven racial violence, and even state violence against Black people.
One incident of racial violence in particular would inspire perhaps one of the most significant American women in history. Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell, and Henry Stewart lived in Memphis, Tennessee and owned the People's Grocery Company, which competed with a nearby white-owned store. In 1892 a dispute between Black and white residents escalated, leading to violence. Moss and his associates were arrested, but before they could stand trial, a white mob stormed the jail, brutally murdered the three men, and burned down their store. The incident hit Ida B. Wells-Barnett deeply. The lynching of her close friends served as a turning point in her life and activism. She moved to Chicago and began investigating and documenting lynchings, aiming to expose the true motivations behind these acts of racial violence. In her pamphlets, she exposed the systemic racism and sexism, white supremacist ideologies, and economic competition that often lay behind lynchings, challenging the prevailing narrative that portrayed Black victims as criminals deserving punishment.
She also used her platform to defend Black men in particular against the racial and gendered fallacy of the Black-male predator. White people stoked fear that Black men were out to rape and molest their white daughters and so white women needed to be protected and segregated from Black men. Not only was this not statistically true, it was in fact the exact opposite based on criminal records. White men were molesting Black women. Wells wrote, “There are thousands of such cases throughout the South, with the difference that the Southern white men in insatiate fury wreak their vengeance without intervention of law upon the Afro-Americans who consort with their women.”
The effect of widespread social, political, and economic discrimination against Black people in America was prejudice driven racial violence, and even state violence against Black people.
One incident of racial violence in particular would inspire perhaps one of the most significant American women in history. Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell, and Henry Stewart lived in Memphis, Tennessee and owned the People's Grocery Company, which competed with a nearby white-owned store. In 1892 a dispute between Black and white residents escalated, leading to violence. Moss and his associates were arrested, but before they could stand trial, a white mob stormed the jail, brutally murdered the three men, and burned down their store. The incident hit Ida B. Wells-Barnett deeply. The lynching of her close friends served as a turning point in her life and activism. She moved to Chicago and began investigating and documenting lynchings, aiming to expose the true motivations behind these acts of racial violence. In her pamphlets, she exposed the systemic racism and sexism, white supremacist ideologies, and economic competition that often lay behind lynchings, challenging the prevailing narrative that portrayed Black victims as criminals deserving punishment.
She also used her platform to defend Black men in particular against the racial and gendered fallacy of the Black-male predator. White people stoked fear that Black men were out to rape and molest their white daughters and so white women needed to be protected and segregated from Black men. Not only was this not statistically true, it was in fact the exact opposite based on criminal records. White men were molesting Black women. Wells wrote, “There are thousands of such cases throughout the South, with the difference that the Southern white men in insatiate fury wreak their vengeance without intervention of law upon the Afro-Americans who consort with their women.”
Woman's Temperance Members, Ohio State University
Temperance:
Gender dynamics hit every progressive cause including the crusade for temperance. The image of the male factory worker drinking away his weekly salary while his wife and children starved motivated Progressive Era women to pick up the cause for abstinence from alcohol where their grandmothers had left off. In the 19th century, temperance, not suffrage, was the largest, most politically powerful women’s movement.
The struggle for a ban on alcohol was a mass women-led movement. Alcohol was associated with poverty and violence inflicted on wives by their inebriated husbands. But at the beginning of the twentieth century, state and local legal systems gave husbands almost total authority and control over their wives, up to and including inflicting serious physical damage, casting a woman out of the home, and taking full custody of children.
The Women's Crusade was a grassroots movement that emerged in Ohio in the early 1870s. It was a significant precursor to the larger temperance movement. Groups of women organized and conducted prayer meetings, hymn singing, and peaceful demonstrations outside saloons and alcohol-selling establishments. They would enter these establishments, often singing hymns and praying for the owners and patrons to give up alcohol. The Women's Crusade was remarkable for its emphasis on women's moral authority and their ability to effect change through peaceful and persuasive means.
However, despite its initial momentum and the fervor of its participants, the Women's Crusade ultimately failed due to the formidable and well funded resistance posed by the alcohol industry.
Gender dynamics hit every progressive cause including the crusade for temperance. The image of the male factory worker drinking away his weekly salary while his wife and children starved motivated Progressive Era women to pick up the cause for abstinence from alcohol where their grandmothers had left off. In the 19th century, temperance, not suffrage, was the largest, most politically powerful women’s movement.
The struggle for a ban on alcohol was a mass women-led movement. Alcohol was associated with poverty and violence inflicted on wives by their inebriated husbands. But at the beginning of the twentieth century, state and local legal systems gave husbands almost total authority and control over their wives, up to and including inflicting serious physical damage, casting a woman out of the home, and taking full custody of children.
The Women's Crusade was a grassroots movement that emerged in Ohio in the early 1870s. It was a significant precursor to the larger temperance movement. Groups of women organized and conducted prayer meetings, hymn singing, and peaceful demonstrations outside saloons and alcohol-selling establishments. They would enter these establishments, often singing hymns and praying for the owners and patrons to give up alcohol. The Women's Crusade was remarkable for its emphasis on women's moral authority and their ability to effect change through peaceful and persuasive means.
However, despite its initial momentum and the fervor of its participants, the Women's Crusade ultimately failed due to the formidable and well funded resistance posed by the alcohol industry.
Frances Willard, Wikimedia Commons
The largest temperance organization was the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, or WCTU, which had chapters all over the country. The first president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was Annie Wittenmyer. She served as the organization's president from its founding in 1874 until 1879. However, it is important to note that while Annie Wittenmyer was the first president, she did not hold this position for an extended period. She was retrained in her approach and failed to see the way in which various women’s organizations could work together to the same end, in particular suffrage. She viewed the suffrage movement as separate from the temperance movement and did not prioritize it.
Frances Willard succeeded her and served as the president of the WCTU from 1879 until her death in 1898. Under her leadership, the organization became the largest women's organization of its time, with thousands of members across the United States and around the world. Willard's organizational skills, strategic thinking, and oratory skills helped the WCTU grow in size and influence. Under Willard’s leadership, the WCTU officially endorsed suffrage in 1881, and many WCTU members actively campaigned for women's voting rights.
Frances Willard succeeded her and served as the president of the WCTU from 1879 until her death in 1898. Under her leadership, the organization became the largest women's organization of its time, with thousands of members across the United States and around the world. Willard's organizational skills, strategic thinking, and oratory skills helped the WCTU grow in size and influence. Under Willard’s leadership, the WCTU officially endorsed suffrage in 1881, and many WCTU members actively campaigned for women's voting rights.
WCTU Meeting, Piedmont Digital History
The WCTU held conferences, protested outside taverns to embarrass male drinkers, and even hacked open barrels of whiskey. Carrie Nation was fed up with the state of Kansas’ failure to enforce anti alcohol laws and, convinced God had sent her, walked into bars and destroyed them with small rocks she called “smashers.” After her then husband picked her up from jail he ridiculed her and gave her the idea that would become her signature. He said she would be more effective if she used a hatchet, so she did. She went to bar after bar, town after town, smashing, amassing a following of members from the WCTU. They eventually divorced.
In the 1880s, the WCTU wanted to push for federal laws, so they started setting up chapters in the South. They thought that white Southern women could make a big impact in furthering these causes, but they faced some challenges. The society in the South had strict traditional gender roles, and lots of women didn't support suffrage because they were worried it would undermine their status as proper Southern "ladies." On top of that, many white Southern women were hesitant about collaborating with Black women.
Similarly, the WCTU was also active in Indigenous communities across the country—sometimes in cooperation with their women, though at other times in direct conflict with them. Given the devastating effect of alcohol consumption in their communities, Indigenous women often joined or partnered with the WCTU to improve the enforcement of existing laws banning the sale of alcohol to individuals of Native descent but also to promote abstinence amongst their own people. This proved to be a slippery slope, however, as efforts to instill temperance were often followed by and used as justification to separate Indigenous children from their families, promote conversion to Christianity, and overall, forcibly assimilate Indigenous peoples.
Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a member of the Women’s Christian Temperance union. She used her platform to battle for an intersectional approach to temperance and took to the press to challenge Willard to take a stand against lynchings in the south. Willard was worried that a public position on lynching would hurt the temperance cause in the south. Willard insisted that she had "not an atom of race prejudice," but her statements in the press upheld racial stereotypes and portrayed black men as specifically threatening white women.
Wells called her a coward. Willard eventually convinced the WCTU to put out a position statement on lynching after a private meeting with Wells.
In the 1880s, the WCTU wanted to push for federal laws, so they started setting up chapters in the South. They thought that white Southern women could make a big impact in furthering these causes, but they faced some challenges. The society in the South had strict traditional gender roles, and lots of women didn't support suffrage because they were worried it would undermine their status as proper Southern "ladies." On top of that, many white Southern women were hesitant about collaborating with Black women.
Similarly, the WCTU was also active in Indigenous communities across the country—sometimes in cooperation with their women, though at other times in direct conflict with them. Given the devastating effect of alcohol consumption in their communities, Indigenous women often joined or partnered with the WCTU to improve the enforcement of existing laws banning the sale of alcohol to individuals of Native descent but also to promote abstinence amongst their own people. This proved to be a slippery slope, however, as efforts to instill temperance were often followed by and used as justification to separate Indigenous children from their families, promote conversion to Christianity, and overall, forcibly assimilate Indigenous peoples.
Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a member of the Women’s Christian Temperance union. She used her platform to battle for an intersectional approach to temperance and took to the press to challenge Willard to take a stand against lynchings in the south. Willard was worried that a public position on lynching would hurt the temperance cause in the south. Willard insisted that she had "not an atom of race prejudice," but her statements in the press upheld racial stereotypes and portrayed black men as specifically threatening white women.
Wells called her a coward. Willard eventually convinced the WCTU to put out a position statement on lynching after a private meeting with Wells.
Black Women's Clubs, Wikimedia Commons
By 1917, rural and religious forces contributed to Congress's passage of the 18th amendment, which prohibited the manufacture, sale, and distribution of alcohol. The amendment was the law of the land in the United States until its repeal in 1933.
Black Women’s Clubs:
The second class status that Black women experienced in organizations like Temperance and Suffrage led Black women to form political clubs. Black women experienced intersecting forms of discrimination based on their race and gender. They faced racial segregation, limited access to education, employment discrimination, and restricted civil rights.
Black women's clubs provided a platform for addressing gender-specific issues and fostering solidarity among Black women. In this context, middle and upper class Black women adopted the “politics of respectability,” a set of social and cultural norms aimed at countering negative racial stereotypes and gaining acceptance within the larger society. They encouraged Black women to conform to societal expectations of proper behavior, appearance, and morality. It emphasized the importance of education, chastity, self-discipline, economic success, and adherence to traditional gender roles. By adhering to these standards, Black women sought to challenge prevailing racist beliefs that portrayed them as inferior or morally degenerate.
Critics argued that respectability politics served as a means of attaining acceptance, rather than advocating for structural change and social justice, which arguably would have helped Black women more.
Black Women’s Clubs:
The second class status that Black women experienced in organizations like Temperance and Suffrage led Black women to form political clubs. Black women experienced intersecting forms of discrimination based on their race and gender. They faced racial segregation, limited access to education, employment discrimination, and restricted civil rights.
Black women's clubs provided a platform for addressing gender-specific issues and fostering solidarity among Black women. In this context, middle and upper class Black women adopted the “politics of respectability,” a set of social and cultural norms aimed at countering negative racial stereotypes and gaining acceptance within the larger society. They encouraged Black women to conform to societal expectations of proper behavior, appearance, and morality. It emphasized the importance of education, chastity, self-discipline, economic success, and adherence to traditional gender roles. By adhering to these standards, Black women sought to challenge prevailing racist beliefs that portrayed them as inferior or morally degenerate.
Critics argued that respectability politics served as a means of attaining acceptance, rather than advocating for structural change and social justice, which arguably would have helped Black women more.
HIAS, Holocaust Encyclopedia
Immigration:
During the Progressive era, almost 30 million immigrants came from around the world to port cities like New York and Los Angeles before traveling further to the interior. Ethnic neighborhoods popped up everywhere as people settled near people from their home countries for social as well as practical support as they navigated a new nation.
Anti-immigrant sentiment raged around the turn of the twentieth century. Nativists argued that refugees from poverty in Italy and pogroms in Russia could not assimilate into their vision of a white and Protestant America. Fulfilling maternal roles, many middle-class and wealthy women were moved by the plight of the new immigrants to provide material help to the new arrivals. The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) was founded in 1881 by Jews of German ancestry to provide aid to poor immigrants.
During the Progressive era, almost 30 million immigrants came from around the world to port cities like New York and Los Angeles before traveling further to the interior. Ethnic neighborhoods popped up everywhere as people settled near people from their home countries for social as well as practical support as they navigated a new nation.
Anti-immigrant sentiment raged around the turn of the twentieth century. Nativists argued that refugees from poverty in Italy and pogroms in Russia could not assimilate into their vision of a white and Protestant America. Fulfilling maternal roles, many middle-class and wealthy women were moved by the plight of the new immigrants to provide material help to the new arrivals. The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) was founded in 1881 by Jews of German ancestry to provide aid to poor immigrants.
Lillian Wald, Wikimedia Commons
In 1893, Lillian Wald founded the Henry Street Settlement in New York to provide English language classes, health care, and other social services to the Lower East Side immigrant community.
The Henry Street Settlement followed the example of Chicago’s Hull House, founded in 1889 in a poor neighborhood of the city by Jane Addams, Jane Gates Starr and a small group of women dedicated to serving the needs of poor people who had no political voice or power. Addams, a graduate of the Rockford Female Seminary, grew up with a strong commitment to social justice and humanitarian service. Addams used her organizing ability to improve sanitary conditions in the Hull House neighborhood, and she provided a wide range of services and classes to immigrants who worked in Chicago’s factories and slaughterhouses. An opponent of World War I, Addams served as President of the Women’s Peace Party and later the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. An avid and active feminist, she supported women’s suffrage and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931, a few days before her death.
The Henry Street Settlement followed the example of Chicago’s Hull House, founded in 1889 in a poor neighborhood of the city by Jane Addams, Jane Gates Starr and a small group of women dedicated to serving the needs of poor people who had no political voice or power. Addams, a graduate of the Rockford Female Seminary, grew up with a strong commitment to social justice and humanitarian service. Addams used her organizing ability to improve sanitary conditions in the Hull House neighborhood, and she provided a wide range of services and classes to immigrants who worked in Chicago’s factories and slaughterhouses. An opponent of World War I, Addams served as President of the Women’s Peace Party and later the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. An avid and active feminist, she supported women’s suffrage and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931, a few days before her death.
Marie Van Vorst, Wikimedia Commons
Muckrakers:
Progressive women believed in the power of the written word and picked up their pen to improve society. Teddy Roosevelt dubbed these writers of the period Muckrakers because they were “raking through the muck” of American society. These women were sure that, if the American public could be informed about the evils of the factory system, citizens would support efforts to raise wages, limit working hours, promote the production of healthy food, and end child labor. These efforts were frequently couched in terms of protecting women and families from the evils of industrialization. Reporters like Marie Van Vorst wrote numerous exposes of factory conditions. Van Vorst, who came from a wealthy family, posed as a factory girl in Lynn, Massachusetts. Her descriptions of conditions of the workers in a shoe factory there led to the publication of The Woman Who Toils in 1903. While efforts to curb working hours, raise wages, or improve conditions in the factory did not bear fruit until the 1930s, reformers, including writers for “Good Housekeeping” magazine were successful in lobbying for the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906. Once again, women were successful in achieving reforms through a maternal approach to social reform.
Progressive women believed in the power of the written word and picked up their pen to improve society. Teddy Roosevelt dubbed these writers of the period Muckrakers because they were “raking through the muck” of American society. These women were sure that, if the American public could be informed about the evils of the factory system, citizens would support efforts to raise wages, limit working hours, promote the production of healthy food, and end child labor. These efforts were frequently couched in terms of protecting women and families from the evils of industrialization. Reporters like Marie Van Vorst wrote numerous exposes of factory conditions. Van Vorst, who came from a wealthy family, posed as a factory girl in Lynn, Massachusetts. Her descriptions of conditions of the workers in a shoe factory there led to the publication of The Woman Who Toils in 1903. While efforts to curb working hours, raise wages, or improve conditions in the factory did not bear fruit until the 1930s, reformers, including writers for “Good Housekeeping” magazine were successful in lobbying for the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906. Once again, women were successful in achieving reforms through a maternal approach to social reform.
Political Cartoon of the Comstock Act, 1934
Reproductive Justice:
The Progressive Era was also a crucial period in the struggle for reproductive justice. State laws enacted during this time sought to control women's reproductive choices and limit access to contraception and abortion. These laws reflected the prevailing cultural and ideological shifts of the era, but they also sparked resistance and advocacy, laying the groundwork for future battles for reproductive rights. Examining this historical context reminds us of the importance of reproductive autonomy and the ongoing struggle for reproductive justice in contemporary society.
State laws enacted in the late 19th century often aimed to restrict women's reproductive autonomy, reflecting prevailing societal values and the influence of religious and moral beliefs. These laws varied across states but generally criminalized the dissemination and use of contraceptives and established restrictions on abortion. The Comstock Act of 1873, at the federal level, prohibited the distribution of obscene materials, including contraceptive devices and information, effectively limiting women's access to birth control methods. The Comstock Act was prompted primarily by Anthony Comstock, an influential social reformer and anti-vice crusader of the late 19th century. Comstock was a devout Christian and a special agent of the United States Postal Service, tasked with enforcing laws related to obscenity and vice.
The Comstock Act faced significant criticism from advocates of women's rights, reproductive health, and civil liberties. They argued that the act violated freedom of speech, limited access to vital healthcare information, and disproportionately affected women's rights and reproductive autonomy. Moreover, the laws disproportionately affected low-income women and women of color, as they often faced limited resources and greater difficulties in accessing reproductive healthcare.
The Progressive Era was also a crucial period in the struggle for reproductive justice. State laws enacted during this time sought to control women's reproductive choices and limit access to contraception and abortion. These laws reflected the prevailing cultural and ideological shifts of the era, but they also sparked resistance and advocacy, laying the groundwork for future battles for reproductive rights. Examining this historical context reminds us of the importance of reproductive autonomy and the ongoing struggle for reproductive justice in contemporary society.
State laws enacted in the late 19th century often aimed to restrict women's reproductive autonomy, reflecting prevailing societal values and the influence of religious and moral beliefs. These laws varied across states but generally criminalized the dissemination and use of contraceptives and established restrictions on abortion. The Comstock Act of 1873, at the federal level, prohibited the distribution of obscene materials, including contraceptive devices and information, effectively limiting women's access to birth control methods. The Comstock Act was prompted primarily by Anthony Comstock, an influential social reformer and anti-vice crusader of the late 19th century. Comstock was a devout Christian and a special agent of the United States Postal Service, tasked with enforcing laws related to obscenity and vice.
The Comstock Act faced significant criticism from advocates of women's rights, reproductive health, and civil liberties. They argued that the act violated freedom of speech, limited access to vital healthcare information, and disproportionately affected women's rights and reproductive autonomy. Moreover, the laws disproportionately affected low-income women and women of color, as they often faced limited resources and greater difficulties in accessing reproductive healthcare.
Margaret Sanger, Library of Congress
Activists such as Margaret Sanger and Emma Goldman fought for women's reproductive rights, aiming to challenge the status quo and provide access to contraceptive methods and safe abortion services. These early pioneers paved the way for future reproductive justice movements, establishing a foundation for the fight for bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom.
Margaret Sanger’s reputation as a heroic fighter for a woman’s right to control her reproductive life is marred by her eugenicist views that stood in contrast to the work she did to help the very poor women whose value to society she denied. Early in her career, Sanger abandoned nursing to establish a clinic that provided basic contraceptive information to women in New York. A founder of Planned Parenthood, Sanger believed that having fewer children was beneficial to poor families and could help lift them out of poverty.
Emma Goldman, an immigrant from Russia, was a vocal proponent of birth control and reproductive freedom, advocating for women's right to access contraception at a time when it was heavily restricted. As an anarchist, she believed that women should have control over their bodies and reproductive choices, and she played a significant role in raising awareness about contraception methods and challenging the legal and societal barriers surrounding it. She was eventually arrested for distributing information about birth control and deported to Russia.
Conclusion:
By the end of this era, so much remained in question. Would writing books and articles and organizing commissions to lobby for social change be sufficient to bring about improved conditions for Americans? Even as women worked hard for change, do you think they found themselves limited by the fact that they did not yet have the vote? Do you think Progressive women were successful? What was the role of race in limiting the activism of many women in this period?
Margaret Sanger’s reputation as a heroic fighter for a woman’s right to control her reproductive life is marred by her eugenicist views that stood in contrast to the work she did to help the very poor women whose value to society she denied. Early in her career, Sanger abandoned nursing to establish a clinic that provided basic contraceptive information to women in New York. A founder of Planned Parenthood, Sanger believed that having fewer children was beneficial to poor families and could help lift them out of poverty.
Emma Goldman, an immigrant from Russia, was a vocal proponent of birth control and reproductive freedom, advocating for women's right to access contraception at a time when it was heavily restricted. As an anarchist, she believed that women should have control over their bodies and reproductive choices, and she played a significant role in raising awareness about contraception methods and challenging the legal and societal barriers surrounding it. She was eventually arrested for distributing information about birth control and deported to Russia.
Conclusion:
By the end of this era, so much remained in question. Would writing books and articles and organizing commissions to lobby for social change be sufficient to bring about improved conditions for Americans? Even as women worked hard for change, do you think they found themselves limited by the fact that they did not yet have the vote? Do you think Progressive women were successful? What was the role of race in limiting the activism of many women in this period?
Draw your own conclusions
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Learn how to teach with inquiry.
Many of these lesson plans were sponsored in part by the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Eastern Region Program, coordinated by Waynesburg University, the History and Social Studies Education Faculty at Plymouth State University, and the Patrons of the Remedial Herstory Project. |
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Lesson Plans from Other Organizations
- The National Women's History Museum has lesson plans on women's history.
- The Gilder 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: Letter 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: Letters
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.
Tarbell vs. Rockefeller
Numerous: Clash of Titans
Tarbell
[Mr. Rockefeller] was no ordinary man. He had the powerful imagination to see what might be done with the oil business if it could be centered in his hands — the intelligence to analyze the problem into its elements and to find the key to control. He had the essential element to all great achievement, a steadfastness to a purpose once conceived which nothing can crush.
Mr. Rockefeller was "good." There was no more faithful Baptist in Cleveland than he. Every enterprise of that church he had supported liberally from his youth. He gave to its poor. He visited its sick. He wept for its suffering… Yet he was willing to strain every nerve to obtain for himself special and illegal privileges from the railroads which were bound to ruin every man in the oil business not sharing them with him. Religious emotion and sentiments of charity, propriety and self-denial seem to have taken the place in him of notions of justice and regard for the rights of others.
Tarbell, Ida. “The Rockefellers: Clash of Titans.” American Experience. PBS. Last modified 2020. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/rockefellers-clash/.
Rockefeller
This sweetness that she tries to bring in, referring to these good qualities, and this praise that she brings in as to ability and perseverance and whatever traits which she concedes bring success, is simply covering up her wrath and her jealousy which were all the time present, but which she did not show all the time and which she thought she could bring out all the better by weaving this in as silken thread.
She makes a pretence of fairness, of the judicial attitude, and beneath that pretence she slips into her 'history' all sorts of evil and prejudicial stuff, calling it 'the record of the court,' where it is only a statement by a party at interest, and she hides the other side. She is very adroit and cunning; but even she has defeated herself. She has over-reached herself, and anyone who reads her book with care can see that she is dishonest, prejudiced, untruthful.
Poor woman! How she has degraded herself and failed of accomplishing her object to injure, to smirch, to overthrow the Standard Oil Company, to satisfy the petty spite against it because forsooth her father and brother could not compete in the oil business.
Rockefeller, John D. “The Rockefellers: Clash of Titans.” American Experience. PBS. Last modified 2020. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/rockefellers-clash/.
Questions:
[Mr. Rockefeller] was no ordinary man. He had the powerful imagination to see what might be done with the oil business if it could be centered in his hands — the intelligence to analyze the problem into its elements and to find the key to control. He had the essential element to all great achievement, a steadfastness to a purpose once conceived which nothing can crush.
Mr. Rockefeller was "good." There was no more faithful Baptist in Cleveland than he. Every enterprise of that church he had supported liberally from his youth. He gave to its poor. He visited its sick. He wept for its suffering… Yet he was willing to strain every nerve to obtain for himself special and illegal privileges from the railroads which were bound to ruin every man in the oil business not sharing them with him. Religious emotion and sentiments of charity, propriety and self-denial seem to have taken the place in him of notions of justice and regard for the rights of others.
Tarbell, Ida. “The Rockefellers: Clash of Titans.” American Experience. PBS. Last modified 2020. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/rockefellers-clash/.
Rockefeller
This sweetness that she tries to bring in, referring to these good qualities, and this praise that she brings in as to ability and perseverance and whatever traits which she concedes bring success, is simply covering up her wrath and her jealousy which were all the time present, but which she did not show all the time and which she thought she could bring out all the better by weaving this in as silken thread.
She makes a pretence of fairness, of the judicial attitude, and beneath that pretence she slips into her 'history' all sorts of evil and prejudicial stuff, calling it 'the record of the court,' where it is only a statement by a party at interest, and she hides the other side. She is very adroit and cunning; but even she has defeated herself. She has over-reached herself, and anyone who reads her book with care can see that she is dishonest, prejudiced, untruthful.
Poor woman! How she has degraded herself and failed of accomplishing her object to injure, to smirch, to overthrow the Standard Oil Company, to satisfy the petty spite against it because forsooth her father and brother could not compete in the oil business.
Rockefeller, John D. “The Rockefellers: Clash of Titans.” American Experience. PBS. Last modified 2020. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/rockefellers-clash/.
Questions:
- What do these sources have against each other?
Numerous: The Cleveland Massacre
Tarbell
There were at the time some 26 refineries in [Cleveland], some of them very large plants. All of them were feeling more or less the discouraging effects of the last three or four years of railroad discriminations in favor of the Standard Oil Company. To the owners [of the 26 refineries] Mr. Rockefeller went one by one, and explained the South Improvement Company. "You see," he told them, "this scheme is bound to work. It means absolute control by us of the oil business…But we are going to give everybody a chance to come in. You are to turn over your refinery… and I will give you Standard Oil Company stock or cash."… It was useless to resist, he told the hesitating: they would certainly be crushed if they did not accept his offer, and he pointed out in detail, and with gentleness, how beneficent the scheme really was.
Tarbell, Ida. “The Rockefellers: Clash of Titans.” American Experience. PBS. Last modified 2020. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/rockefellers-clash/.
Rockefeller
I do not remember just how many [refineries] there were [in Cleveland] -- say 25 or 30, more or less. Some of them were very little. … More than 75, and probably more than 80 per cent -- certainly a great number -- of the refiners at Cleveland were already crushed by the competition which had been steadily increasing up to this time. … They didn't collapse. They had collapsed before. That's the reason they were so glad to combine their interest if they so wished it … [They were] mighty glad to get somebody to come and find a way out. We were taking all the risks, putting up our good money. They were putting in their old junk. … When it was found how much of stock or money would be given in exchange for their plants we found no difficulty in proceeding rapidly with the negotiations, and nearly all came in…
What I did say [to them] was: "We here [in Cleveland] are at a disadvantage. Something should be done for our mutual protection. We think this is a good scheme. Think it over. We would be glad to consider it with you if you are so inclined."
There was no compulsion, no pressure, no 'crushing'. How could our company succeed if its members had been forced to join it and were working under the dash?
Rockefeller, John D. “The Rockefellers: Clash of Titans.” American Experience. PBS. Last modified 2020. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/rockefellers-clash/.
Questions:
There were at the time some 26 refineries in [Cleveland], some of them very large plants. All of them were feeling more or less the discouraging effects of the last three or four years of railroad discriminations in favor of the Standard Oil Company. To the owners [of the 26 refineries] Mr. Rockefeller went one by one, and explained the South Improvement Company. "You see," he told them, "this scheme is bound to work. It means absolute control by us of the oil business…But we are going to give everybody a chance to come in. You are to turn over your refinery… and I will give you Standard Oil Company stock or cash."… It was useless to resist, he told the hesitating: they would certainly be crushed if they did not accept his offer, and he pointed out in detail, and with gentleness, how beneficent the scheme really was.
Tarbell, Ida. “The Rockefellers: Clash of Titans.” American Experience. PBS. Last modified 2020. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/rockefellers-clash/.
Rockefeller
I do not remember just how many [refineries] there were [in Cleveland] -- say 25 or 30, more or less. Some of them were very little. … More than 75, and probably more than 80 per cent -- certainly a great number -- of the refiners at Cleveland were already crushed by the competition which had been steadily increasing up to this time. … They didn't collapse. They had collapsed before. That's the reason they were so glad to combine their interest if they so wished it … [They were] mighty glad to get somebody to come and find a way out. We were taking all the risks, putting up our good money. They were putting in their old junk. … When it was found how much of stock or money would be given in exchange for their plants we found no difficulty in proceeding rapidly with the negotiations, and nearly all came in…
What I did say [to them] was: "We here [in Cleveland] are at a disadvantage. Something should be done for our mutual protection. We think this is a good scheme. Think it over. We would be glad to consider it with you if you are so inclined."
There was no compulsion, no pressure, no 'crushing'. How could our company succeed if its members had been forced to join it and were working under the dash?
Rockefeller, John D. “The Rockefellers: Clash of Titans.” American Experience. PBS. Last modified 2020. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/rockefellers-clash/.
Questions:
- What happened in Cleveland?
- Would you characterize it as a massacre?
Numerous: Legacy of Standard Oil
Rockefeller
The Standard Oil Co. has been one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of upbuilders we ever had in this country — or in any country. All of which has inured to the benefit of the towns and cities the country over; not only in our country but the world over. And that is a very pleasant reflection now as I look back. I knew it at the time, though I realize it more keenly now.
We had vision, saw the vast possibilities of the oil industry, stood at the center of it, and brought our knowledge and imagination and business experience to bear in a dozen — 20, 30 directions. There was no branch of the business in which we did not make money.
It will be said: "Here was a force that reorganized business, and everything else followed it — all business, even the Government itself, which legislated against it."
Rockefeller, John D. “The Rockefellers: Clash of Titans.” American Experience. PBS. Last modified 2020. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/rockefellers-clash/.
Tarbell
Mr. Rockefeller is a hypocrite. This man has for 40 years lent all the power of his great ability to perpetuating and elaborating a system of illegal and unjust discrimination by common carriers. He has done more than any other person to fasten on this country the most serious interference with free individual development which it suffers, an interference which, today, the whole country is struggling vainly to strike off, which it is doubtful will be cured, so deep-seated and so subtle is it, except by revolutionary methods.
It does not pay. Our national life is on every side distinctly poorer, uglier, meaner, for the kind of influence he exercises.
Tarbell, Ida. “The Rockefellers: Clash of Titans.” American Experience. PBS. Last modified 2020. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/rockefellers-clash/.
Questions:
The Standard Oil Co. has been one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of upbuilders we ever had in this country — or in any country. All of which has inured to the benefit of the towns and cities the country over; not only in our country but the world over. And that is a very pleasant reflection now as I look back. I knew it at the time, though I realize it more keenly now.
We had vision, saw the vast possibilities of the oil industry, stood at the center of it, and brought our knowledge and imagination and business experience to bear in a dozen — 20, 30 directions. There was no branch of the business in which we did not make money.
It will be said: "Here was a force that reorganized business, and everything else followed it — all business, even the Government itself, which legislated against it."
Rockefeller, John D. “The Rockefellers: Clash of Titans.” American Experience. PBS. Last modified 2020. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/rockefellers-clash/.
Tarbell
Mr. Rockefeller is a hypocrite. This man has for 40 years lent all the power of his great ability to perpetuating and elaborating a system of illegal and unjust discrimination by common carriers. He has done more than any other person to fasten on this country the most serious interference with free individual development which it suffers, an interference which, today, the whole country is struggling vainly to strike off, which it is doubtful will be cured, so deep-seated and so subtle is it, except by revolutionary methods.
It does not pay. Our national life is on every side distinctly poorer, uglier, meaner, for the kind of influence he exercises.
Tarbell, Ida. “The Rockefellers: Clash of Titans.” American Experience. PBS. Last modified 2020. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/rockefellers-clash/.
Questions:
- Do you think Rockefellers tactics were unjust? Why or why not?
Temperance and Intersectionality
Frances Willard: The Race Problem
As President of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, Frances Willard was known for her work to prevent the negative impact of alcohol on society, especially women and children, and her lifelong mission to advance women’s rights. In 1890, Frances Willard had traveled to Atlanta for a WCTU convention. While there, she gave an interview to a pro-prohibition newspaper, the New York Voice, about Southern politics. In the interview, Willard blamed black voters for the defeat of prohibition bills in the South, even though there was no evidence to suggest they were responsible. Below is a transcription of the article.
THE RACE PROBLEM.
MISS WILLARD ON THE POLITICAL PUZZLE OF THE SOUTH
"If I were Black and Young No Steamer Could Revolve Its Wheels Fast Enough to Convey Me to the Dark Continent" -Suffrage, With an Educational Qualification, Solves the Problem for the South
A reporter recently interviewed Miss Willard, with the following result. His question was: "What do you think of the race problem and the Force Bill?"
"I was born an abolitionist," said Miss Willard, "taught to read out of the 'Slave's Friend,' my father and mother were educated in Oberlin College. So far as I know, I have not an atom of race prejudice. With me the color of the heart and not the skin is what settles a human being's status. It seems to me that Africa, the youngest of the continents, will some day be the greatest. Centuries from now, the poetic, musical, kindly, institutional people may lead the civilization of the globe. If I were black and young, no steamer could revolve its wheels fast enough to convey me to the dark continent. I should go where my color was the correct thing, and leave these pale faces to work out their own destiny; and I should build in my life to make my color fashionable by as much as one owe individuality could do it. You know that matchless lecture of Wendell Philips on Toussaint L'Ouverture! Nothing in it was so inspiring to me as the climax with which he closes. I read it with tearful eyes when I was a farmer's daughter on the prairies. It is to be remembered that this great St. Dominican chief was of unmixed Negro blood. Such as he are prophecies. They only betoken what race shall yet become, even as a genius is but the beckoning hand and smiling face that points all her brothers and sisters onward, for a time shall come when every human being shall be a greater genius than any human being has yet been. Let me quote Wendell Phillips: "You think me a fanatic to-night, for you read history not with your eyes, but with your prejudices. But 50 years hence, when truth gets a hearing, the muse of history will put Phocion for the Greek, and Brutus for the Roman, Hamden for England, LaFayette for France, choose Washington as the bright, consumate flower of our earlier civilization, and John Brown as the ripe fruit of our noonday, then dipping her pen in the sunlight, will write in the clear blue, above them all, the name of the solider, the statesman, the martyr, Toussaint L'Ouverture!"
"Now as to the 'race problem' in its minified, current meaning. I am a true lover of the Southern people. Have spoken and worked in perhaps 200 of their towns and cities, have been taken into their love and confidence at scores of hospitable firesides. Have heard tham pour out their hearts in the splendid frankness of their impetuous natures; and I have said to them at such times, 'When I go North there will be no work wafted to you from pen or voice that is not loyal to what we are saying here and now.' Going South, a woman, a temperance woman -three great barriers to their good will yonder- I was received by them with a confidence that was one of the most delightful surprises of my life, I think we have wronged the South, though we did not mean to do so. The reason was, in part, that we had irreparably wronged ourselves by putting so safeguard on the ballot-box at the North that would sift out alien illiterates. They rule our cities to-day, the saloon is their palace, and the toddy stick their scepter. It is not fair that they should vote, nor is it fair that a plantation Negro, who can neither read, nor write, whose ideas are bounded by the fence of his own field and the price of his own mule, should be entrusted with the ballot. We ought to have put an educational test upon that ballot from the first. The Anglo-Saxon race will never submit to be dominated by the Negro so long as his aptitude reaches no higher than the personal liberty of the saloon and the power of appreciating the amount of liquor that a dollar will buy New England would no more submit to this than South Carolina. 'Better whiskey and more of it has been the rallying cry of great dark-faced mobs in the Southern localities where Local Option was snowed under by the colored vote, Temperance has no enemy like that, for it unreasoning and unreachable. To-night it promises in a great congregation, a vote for temperance at the polls to-morrow; but to-morrow twenty five cents changes that vote in favor of the liquor seller.
'I pity the Southerners; and I believe the great mass of them are as conscientious, and kindly-intentioned toward the colored man, as an equal member of white church members at the North. Would be demagogues lead the colored people to destruction. Half drunken white rouges murder them at the polls, or intimidate them so that they do not vote. But the better class of people must not be blamed for this, and a more thoroughly American population than the Christian people of the South does not exist. They have the traditions, the kindness, the probity, the courage of our forefathers, The problem on their hands is immeasurable. The colored race multiples like the locusts of Egypt. The grog shop is its center of power, The safety of woman, of childhood, of the home, in menaced in a thousand localities at this moment, so that men dare not go beyond the sight of their own roof-tree. How little we know of all this, seated in comfort and affluence here at the North, descanting upon the right of every man 'to cast one ballot and have it fairly counted,' that well-worn shibboleth invoked once more to dodge a living issue.
"The fact that illiterate colored men will not vote at the South until the white population chooses to have them do so, and under similar conditions they would not at the North But every evil tends to its own cure in a Republic. See what this one of the Force bill is leading the Southerners to do. Look at Mississippi, with its Constitutional Convention. The wise measures there proposed may not carry, but they have at least been recommended by the Suffrage Committee to the convention, and they provide that women in Mississippi, who meet certain educational test, shall have the ballot, and shall vote at polling places separate from those of men. If the convention has the whit and wisdom to adopt this measure, Mississippi will be controlled by white people and delivered from the shot-gun policy of its political adventurers and whiskey-logged roughs. I hold that this measure simply sets a key for the colored people of Mississippi, which will bring them on into civilization dater than those of any other State, unless the other State shall get the eyes open wide enough to see that their safety lies in thus arming guards.
"What an incentive to the young colored women of that commonwealth to store their brains with ideas, for when they reach the standard set, (which is not an especially difficult one, and the colored youth have just as bright brains as the white,) they will come into the ranks of voters, the only condition being one of merit, not complexion. Man's extremity is God's opportunity, and it now looks as if the South would solve its own terrific color question by a method the mast fortunate for the development of the colored race that could possibly be devised. For whatever sets a high standard for the mothers, the whole race will shortly reach.
"When in the South I often speak in the academies and colleges devoted to the education of the Negro, and I studiously interrogate their teachers, many of them graduates of Yale, Princeton, and our own Northwestern University at Evanston, as to the ability displayed by these young people. Invariably they answer that it is just as great as was shown by their white students at the North. Nothing gives me a deeper sense of the inspiration that to talk to a chapel full of these devoted students, with their bright eyes, intelligent faces, and warm, sympathetic spirits. They are to be the leaders of their race. They are to bring it on in America to all that Christianity and education can win for any race, and in Africa they are to build up a great republic, founded upon the live of God and humanity, where they can profit by the experiments so laboriously wrought out by older civilizations, can discard the evil, and develop the good."
Willard, Frances. “The Race Problem.” Voice. Last modified October 23, 1890. Retrieved from https://scalar.usc.edu/works/willard-and-wells/the-voice-interview.
Questions:
THE RACE PROBLEM.
MISS WILLARD ON THE POLITICAL PUZZLE OF THE SOUTH
"If I were Black and Young No Steamer Could Revolve Its Wheels Fast Enough to Convey Me to the Dark Continent" -Suffrage, With an Educational Qualification, Solves the Problem for the South
A reporter recently interviewed Miss Willard, with the following result. His question was: "What do you think of the race problem and the Force Bill?"
"I was born an abolitionist," said Miss Willard, "taught to read out of the 'Slave's Friend,' my father and mother were educated in Oberlin College. So far as I know, I have not an atom of race prejudice. With me the color of the heart and not the skin is what settles a human being's status. It seems to me that Africa, the youngest of the continents, will some day be the greatest. Centuries from now, the poetic, musical, kindly, institutional people may lead the civilization of the globe. If I were black and young, no steamer could revolve its wheels fast enough to convey me to the dark continent. I should go where my color was the correct thing, and leave these pale faces to work out their own destiny; and I should build in my life to make my color fashionable by as much as one owe individuality could do it. You know that matchless lecture of Wendell Philips on Toussaint L'Ouverture! Nothing in it was so inspiring to me as the climax with which he closes. I read it with tearful eyes when I was a farmer's daughter on the prairies. It is to be remembered that this great St. Dominican chief was of unmixed Negro blood. Such as he are prophecies. They only betoken what race shall yet become, even as a genius is but the beckoning hand and smiling face that points all her brothers and sisters onward, for a time shall come when every human being shall be a greater genius than any human being has yet been. Let me quote Wendell Phillips: "You think me a fanatic to-night, for you read history not with your eyes, but with your prejudices. But 50 years hence, when truth gets a hearing, the muse of history will put Phocion for the Greek, and Brutus for the Roman, Hamden for England, LaFayette for France, choose Washington as the bright, consumate flower of our earlier civilization, and John Brown as the ripe fruit of our noonday, then dipping her pen in the sunlight, will write in the clear blue, above them all, the name of the solider, the statesman, the martyr, Toussaint L'Ouverture!"
"Now as to the 'race problem' in its minified, current meaning. I am a true lover of the Southern people. Have spoken and worked in perhaps 200 of their towns and cities, have been taken into their love and confidence at scores of hospitable firesides. Have heard tham pour out their hearts in the splendid frankness of their impetuous natures; and I have said to them at such times, 'When I go North there will be no work wafted to you from pen or voice that is not loyal to what we are saying here and now.' Going South, a woman, a temperance woman -three great barriers to their good will yonder- I was received by them with a confidence that was one of the most delightful surprises of my life, I think we have wronged the South, though we did not mean to do so. The reason was, in part, that we had irreparably wronged ourselves by putting so safeguard on the ballot-box at the North that would sift out alien illiterates. They rule our cities to-day, the saloon is their palace, and the toddy stick their scepter. It is not fair that they should vote, nor is it fair that a plantation Negro, who can neither read, nor write, whose ideas are bounded by the fence of his own field and the price of his own mule, should be entrusted with the ballot. We ought to have put an educational test upon that ballot from the first. The Anglo-Saxon race will never submit to be dominated by the Negro so long as his aptitude reaches no higher than the personal liberty of the saloon and the power of appreciating the amount of liquor that a dollar will buy New England would no more submit to this than South Carolina. 'Better whiskey and more of it has been the rallying cry of great dark-faced mobs in the Southern localities where Local Option was snowed under by the colored vote, Temperance has no enemy like that, for it unreasoning and unreachable. To-night it promises in a great congregation, a vote for temperance at the polls to-morrow; but to-morrow twenty five cents changes that vote in favor of the liquor seller.
'I pity the Southerners; and I believe the great mass of them are as conscientious, and kindly-intentioned toward the colored man, as an equal member of white church members at the North. Would be demagogues lead the colored people to destruction. Half drunken white rouges murder them at the polls, or intimidate them so that they do not vote. But the better class of people must not be blamed for this, and a more thoroughly American population than the Christian people of the South does not exist. They have the traditions, the kindness, the probity, the courage of our forefathers, The problem on their hands is immeasurable. The colored race multiples like the locusts of Egypt. The grog shop is its center of power, The safety of woman, of childhood, of the home, in menaced in a thousand localities at this moment, so that men dare not go beyond the sight of their own roof-tree. How little we know of all this, seated in comfort and affluence here at the North, descanting upon the right of every man 'to cast one ballot and have it fairly counted,' that well-worn shibboleth invoked once more to dodge a living issue.
"The fact that illiterate colored men will not vote at the South until the white population chooses to have them do so, and under similar conditions they would not at the North But every evil tends to its own cure in a Republic. See what this one of the Force bill is leading the Southerners to do. Look at Mississippi, with its Constitutional Convention. The wise measures there proposed may not carry, but they have at least been recommended by the Suffrage Committee to the convention, and they provide that women in Mississippi, who meet certain educational test, shall have the ballot, and shall vote at polling places separate from those of men. If the convention has the whit and wisdom to adopt this measure, Mississippi will be controlled by white people and delivered from the shot-gun policy of its political adventurers and whiskey-logged roughs. I hold that this measure simply sets a key for the colored people of Mississippi, which will bring them on into civilization dater than those of any other State, unless the other State shall get the eyes open wide enough to see that their safety lies in thus arming guards.
"What an incentive to the young colored women of that commonwealth to store their brains with ideas, for when they reach the standard set, (which is not an especially difficult one, and the colored youth have just as bright brains as the white,) they will come into the ranks of voters, the only condition being one of merit, not complexion. Man's extremity is God's opportunity, and it now looks as if the South would solve its own terrific color question by a method the mast fortunate for the development of the colored race that could possibly be devised. For whatever sets a high standard for the mothers, the whole race will shortly reach.
"When in the South I often speak in the academies and colleges devoted to the education of the Negro, and I studiously interrogate their teachers, many of them graduates of Yale, Princeton, and our own Northwestern University at Evanston, as to the ability displayed by these young people. Invariably they answer that it is just as great as was shown by their white students at the North. Nothing gives me a deeper sense of the inspiration that to talk to a chapel full of these devoted students, with their bright eyes, intelligent faces, and warm, sympathetic spirits. They are to be the leaders of their race. They are to bring it on in America to all that Christianity and education can win for any race, and in Africa they are to build up a great republic, founded upon the live of God and humanity, where they can profit by the experiments so laboriously wrought out by older civilizations, can discard the evil, and develop the good."
Willard, Frances. “The Race Problem.” Voice. Last modified October 23, 1890. Retrieved from https://scalar.usc.edu/works/willard-and-wells/the-voice-interview.
Questions:
- Who is Frances Willard and why might she be a credible source for information on the treatment of white women in the south?
- What claims does Willard make about black men?
- What evidence does she provide to support these claims?
- Does Willard have any incentives to be dishonest?
- Willard ran a temperance organization, should she take a stand on lynching when it is unrelated?
Ida B. Wells-Barnett: On Temperance
Ida B. Wells was an educator and journalist who began her civil rights activism in response to racist incidents she had experienced. In 1892, after one of her close friends was murdered by a white mob in Memphis, Tennessee, she began to investigate the circumstances surrounding lynchings, which had become horrifyingly common in the South. The conventional wisdom at the time was that white mobs murdered black men after they had raped white women. Wells's research proved that this was not true; allegations of rape were rarely involved, but the belief that they were reduced white sympathy for black victims of lynchings.
Wells began reporting on her findings. She showed that lynchings were not misguided vigilante justice against men who had committed crimes--what she called “the old threadbare lie that negro men rape white women.” Instead, they were a way for white people to systematically use violence and fear to oppress black people.
Wells embarked on a wide-ranging anti-lynching campaign to draw attention to and stop the killings. She became frustrated, however, by the reluctance of influential white reformers to support her work. One of those reformers was Frances Willard.
All things considered, our race is probably not more intemperate than other races. By reason, though, of poverty, ignorance, and consequent degradation as a mass, we are behind in general advancement. We can, therefore, less afford to equal other races in that which still further debases, degrades and impoverishes, when we lack so much of being their equal and noble manhood and womanhood parentheses intellectual, moral, and physical,) in houses, lands, gold and most things whatsoever which tend to elevate and ennoble a people. The treatment of the temperance question will be from a race and economic standpoint.
Racist, as individuals, make name and place for themselves by emulating the virtues of those who have made themselves great and powerful. The history of such nations teaches us that temperance is one of the cardinal virtues necessary to success. What headway are we making in cultivating this virtue?
Miss Francis E. Willard, president of the National Women's Christian Temperance Union, lately told the world that the center of power of the race is the saloon; that white men for this reason are afraid to leave their homes; that the Negro in the late prohibition campaign, sold his vote for twenty-five cents, etc.
Miss Willard’s statements possess the small pro rata of truth of all such sweeping statements. It is well known that the Negro's greatest injury is done to himself.
In his wildest moments he seldom molests others than his own, and this article is a protest against such wholesale self-injury.
Our color stands as a synonym for weakness, poverty and ignorance. It says to other nationalities: “This man belongs to a race possessing little of the power or influence which comes through riches, intellect, or even organization. We may proscribe, insult, ignore and oppress him as we please; he cannot help himself.”
The Anglo-Saxon every avenue of life puts in practice this line of reasoning; and as intemperance is one of the strongest foes to intellectual, material, and moral advancement, it is like playing with fire to take that in the mouth which steals away the brains, and thus gives judges and juries the excuse for filling the convict camps of Georgia alone with fifteen hundred Negroes out of the sixteen hundred convicts in them, most of whom are young men—the flower of the race, physically speaking.
At the close of the year, when farmers receive pay for the year's work, thousands of dollars, which might flow into honorable channels of trade and build up race enterprises, are spent for liquor to inflame the blood and incite to evil deeds. That which is not directly spent for liquor is lost or wasted; and thus, year in and out, one of the most useful factors in race progress—The farmer—is kept at a dead level, without money, without ambition, and consequently at the mercy of the landholder.
The belief is widespread that our people will patronize the saloon as they do no other enterprise. Desiring to secure some of the enormous profits flowing into Anglo-Saxon coffers, many of our young men are entertaining the nefarious traffic for the money it brings and thus every year sacrificing to the Moloch of intemperance hundreds of our young men. Intemperance is general and organized. In the cities it beguiles from every street corner and is found in many homes.
What shall be done to neutralize this power which tempts our young manhood and robs us of their time, talents, labor and money? Throughout the length and breadth of our land there exists little organized effort among ourselves against it. What can we do?
The convention of Educators of Colored Youth in Atlanta, GA., last December, in discussing the relative mortality of the race, took ground that intemperance was chiefly the cause of our alarming morality. The presidents of the schools and colleges in that convention assembled represented thousands of students who are to be the teachers of the race. The subject of temperance and her twin sister, frugality, should not be left for them to touch upon as an abstract matter, or in an incidental or spasmodic manner. An earnest, constant, systematic course of instruction from an economic standpoint in these schools, on this subject, which the students are in turn to impart to the people, is of vital importance, would be far-reaching and beneficial in its results; That association can wield a great power for the spread of temperance.
The National Press Association (representing over one hundred newspapers) which met in Cincinnati last month, speaking weekly to a constituency of perhaps a million readers, as an organized body can revolutionize public sentiment by showing how intemperance is sapping our physical and financial resources. The writer knows one secular journal which has lost many dollars by refusing to advertise saloons. That is the action of one sheet. There is needed however harmonious and consistent combination of agitation and effort from the entire body.
Nor must the ministers of the gospel, the most potent agents, who directly reach the masses, cease to preach temperance in their lives and pulpits, line upon line, and precept upon precept.
The Negro’s greatest lack is his seeming incapacity for organization for his own protection and elevation. Yet every reader of these lines, who loves his race and feels the force of these statements, and make himself a committee of one to influence someone else. One person does not make a race, but the nation is made-up of a multiplicity of units. Not one grain of sand, but countless millions of them, side by side, make the ocean bed. A single stream does not form the “Father of Waters,” but the conjunctive force of 100 streams in the bottom of the Mississippi basin, swells to the broad artery of commerce, which courses the length of this continent, and sweeps the resistless current to the sea. So, too, an organized combination of all these agencies for humanities good will sweep the country with a wave of public sentiment which shall make the liquor traffic unprofitable and dishonorable, and remove one of the principal stumbling blocks to race progress.
Wells-Barnett. “Temperance and Race Progress.” AME Church Review. Last modified 1891. Retrieved from https://scalar.usc.edu/works/willard-and-wells/ida-b-wells-temperance?path=timeline.
Wells began reporting on her findings. She showed that lynchings were not misguided vigilante justice against men who had committed crimes--what she called “the old threadbare lie that negro men rape white women.” Instead, they were a way for white people to systematically use violence and fear to oppress black people.
Wells embarked on a wide-ranging anti-lynching campaign to draw attention to and stop the killings. She became frustrated, however, by the reluctance of influential white reformers to support her work. One of those reformers was Frances Willard.
All things considered, our race is probably not more intemperate than other races. By reason, though, of poverty, ignorance, and consequent degradation as a mass, we are behind in general advancement. We can, therefore, less afford to equal other races in that which still further debases, degrades and impoverishes, when we lack so much of being their equal and noble manhood and womanhood parentheses intellectual, moral, and physical,) in houses, lands, gold and most things whatsoever which tend to elevate and ennoble a people. The treatment of the temperance question will be from a race and economic standpoint.
Racist, as individuals, make name and place for themselves by emulating the virtues of those who have made themselves great and powerful. The history of such nations teaches us that temperance is one of the cardinal virtues necessary to success. What headway are we making in cultivating this virtue?
Miss Francis E. Willard, president of the National Women's Christian Temperance Union, lately told the world that the center of power of the race is the saloon; that white men for this reason are afraid to leave their homes; that the Negro in the late prohibition campaign, sold his vote for twenty-five cents, etc.
Miss Willard’s statements possess the small pro rata of truth of all such sweeping statements. It is well known that the Negro's greatest injury is done to himself.
In his wildest moments he seldom molests others than his own, and this article is a protest against such wholesale self-injury.
Our color stands as a synonym for weakness, poverty and ignorance. It says to other nationalities: “This man belongs to a race possessing little of the power or influence which comes through riches, intellect, or even organization. We may proscribe, insult, ignore and oppress him as we please; he cannot help himself.”
The Anglo-Saxon every avenue of life puts in practice this line of reasoning; and as intemperance is one of the strongest foes to intellectual, material, and moral advancement, it is like playing with fire to take that in the mouth which steals away the brains, and thus gives judges and juries the excuse for filling the convict camps of Georgia alone with fifteen hundred Negroes out of the sixteen hundred convicts in them, most of whom are young men—the flower of the race, physically speaking.
At the close of the year, when farmers receive pay for the year's work, thousands of dollars, which might flow into honorable channels of trade and build up race enterprises, are spent for liquor to inflame the blood and incite to evil deeds. That which is not directly spent for liquor is lost or wasted; and thus, year in and out, one of the most useful factors in race progress—The farmer—is kept at a dead level, without money, without ambition, and consequently at the mercy of the landholder.
The belief is widespread that our people will patronize the saloon as they do no other enterprise. Desiring to secure some of the enormous profits flowing into Anglo-Saxon coffers, many of our young men are entertaining the nefarious traffic for the money it brings and thus every year sacrificing to the Moloch of intemperance hundreds of our young men. Intemperance is general and organized. In the cities it beguiles from every street corner and is found in many homes.
What shall be done to neutralize this power which tempts our young manhood and robs us of their time, talents, labor and money? Throughout the length and breadth of our land there exists little organized effort among ourselves against it. What can we do?
The convention of Educators of Colored Youth in Atlanta, GA., last December, in discussing the relative mortality of the race, took ground that intemperance was chiefly the cause of our alarming morality. The presidents of the schools and colleges in that convention assembled represented thousands of students who are to be the teachers of the race. The subject of temperance and her twin sister, frugality, should not be left for them to touch upon as an abstract matter, or in an incidental or spasmodic manner. An earnest, constant, systematic course of instruction from an economic standpoint in these schools, on this subject, which the students are in turn to impart to the people, is of vital importance, would be far-reaching and beneficial in its results; That association can wield a great power for the spread of temperance.
The National Press Association (representing over one hundred newspapers) which met in Cincinnati last month, speaking weekly to a constituency of perhaps a million readers, as an organized body can revolutionize public sentiment by showing how intemperance is sapping our physical and financial resources. The writer knows one secular journal which has lost many dollars by refusing to advertise saloons. That is the action of one sheet. There is needed however harmonious and consistent combination of agitation and effort from the entire body.
Nor must the ministers of the gospel, the most potent agents, who directly reach the masses, cease to preach temperance in their lives and pulpits, line upon line, and precept upon precept.
The Negro’s greatest lack is his seeming incapacity for organization for his own protection and elevation. Yet every reader of these lines, who loves his race and feels the force of these statements, and make himself a committee of one to influence someone else. One person does not make a race, but the nation is made-up of a multiplicity of units. Not one grain of sand, but countless millions of them, side by side, make the ocean bed. A single stream does not form the “Father of Waters,” but the conjunctive force of 100 streams in the bottom of the Mississippi basin, swells to the broad artery of commerce, which courses the length of this continent, and sweeps the resistless current to the sea. So, too, an organized combination of all these agencies for humanities good will sweep the country with a wave of public sentiment which shall make the liquor traffic unprofitable and dishonorable, and remove one of the principal stumbling blocks to race progress.
Wells-Barnett. “Temperance and Race Progress.” AME Church Review. Last modified 1891. Retrieved from https://scalar.usc.edu/works/willard-and-wells/ida-b-wells-temperance?path=timeline.
Ida b. Wells-Barnett: "Southern Horrors"
THE OFFENSE
Wednesday evening May 24, 1892, the city of Memphis was filled with excitement. Editorials in the daily papers of that date caused a meeting to be held in the Cotton Exchange Building; a committee was sent for the editors of the Free Speech an Afro-American journal published in that city, and the only reason the open threats of lynching that were made were not carried out was because they could not be found. The cause of all this commotion was the following editorial published in the Free Speech May 21, 1892, the Saturday previous.
Eight negroes lynched since last issue of the Free Speech one at Little Rock, Ark., last Saturday morning where the citizens broke(?) into the penitentiary and got their man; three near Anniston, Ala., one near New Orleans; and three at Clarksville, Ga., the last three for killing a white man, and five on the same old racket—the new alarm about raping white women. The same programme of hanging, then shooting bullets into the lifeless bodies was carried out to the letter.
Nobody in this section of the country believes the old thread-bare lie that Negro men rape white women. If Southern white men are not careful, they will overreach themselves and public sentiment will have a reaction; a conclusion will then be reached which will be very damaging to the moral reputation of their women.
The Daily Commercial of Wednesday following, May 25, contained the following leader:
Those negroes who are attempting to make the lynching of individuals of their race a means for arousing the worst passions of their kind are playing with a dangerous sentiment. The negroes may as well understand that there is no mercy for the negro rapist and little patience with his defenders. A negro organ printed in this city, in a recent issue publishes the following atrocious paragraph: "Nobody in this section of the country believes the old thread-bare lie that negro men rape white women. If Southern white men are not careful they will overreach themselves, and public sentiment will have a reaction; and a conclusion will be reached which will be very damaging to the moral reputation of their women."
The fact that a black scoundrel is allowed to live and utter such loathsome and repulsive calumnies is a volume of evidence as to the wonderful patience of Southern whites. But we have had enough of it.
There are some things that the Southern white man will not tolerate, and the obscene intimations of the foregoing have brought the writer to the very outermost limit of public patience. We hope we have said enough.…
…The editor of the Free Speech has no disclaimer to enter, but asserts instead that there are many white women in the South who would marry colored men if such an act would not place them at once beyond the pale of society and within the clutches of the law. The miscegnation laws of the South only operate against the legitimate union of the races; they leave the white man free to seduce all the colored girls he can, but it is death to the colored man who yields to the force and advances of a similar attraction in white women. White men lynch the offending Afro-American, not because he is a despoiler of virtue, but because he succumbs to the smiles of white women…
THE BLACK AND WHITE OF IT
The Cleveland Gazette of January 16, 1892, publishes a case in point. Mrs. J.S. Underwood, the wife of a minister of Elyria, Ohio, accused an Afro-American of rape. She told her husband that during his absence in 1888, stumping the State for the Prohibition Party, the man came to the kitchen door, forced his way in the house and insulted her. She tried to drive him out with a heavy poker, but he overpowered and chloroformed her, and when she revived her clothing was torn and she was in a horrible condition. She did not know the man but could identify him. She pointed out William Offett, a married man, who was arrested and, being in Ohio, was granted a trial.
The prisoner vehemently denied the charge of rape, but confessed he went to Mrs. Underwood's residence at her invitation and was criminally intimate with her at her request. This availed him nothing against the sworn testimony of a ministers wife, a lady of the highest respectability. He was found guilty, and entered the penitentiary, December 14, 1888, for fifteen years. Some time afterwards the woman's remorse led her to confess to her husband that the man was innocent.
These are her words:
I met Offett at the Post Office. It was raining. He was polite to me, and as I had several bundles in my arms he offered to carry them home for me, which he did. He had a strange fascination for me, and I invited him to call on me. He called, bringing chestnuts and candy for the children. By this means we got them to leave us alone in the room. Then I sat on his lap. He made a proposal to me and I readily consented. Why I did so, I do not know, but that I did is true. He visited me several times after that and each time I was indiscreet. I did not care after the first time. In fact I could not have resisted, and had no desire to resist.
When asked by her husband why she told him she had been outraged, she said: "I had several reasons for telling you. One was the neighbors saw the fellows here, another was, I was afraid I had contracted a loathsome disease, and still another was that I feared I might give birth to a Negro baby. I hoped to save my reputation by telling you a deliberate lie." Her husband horrified by the confession had Offett, who had already served four years, released and secured a divorce.
There are thousands of such cases throughout the South, with the difference that the Southern white men in insatiate fury wreak their vengeance without intervention of law upon the Afro-Americans who consort with their women. A few instances to substantiate the assertion that some white women love the company of the Afro-American will not be out of place. Most of these cases were reported by the daily papers of the South.
Wells-Barnett, Ida. B. “Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases.” Originally printed 1892. New York Age Print. Retrieved from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/14975/14975-h/14975-h.htm.
Questions:
Wednesday evening May 24, 1892, the city of Memphis was filled with excitement. Editorials in the daily papers of that date caused a meeting to be held in the Cotton Exchange Building; a committee was sent for the editors of the Free Speech an Afro-American journal published in that city, and the only reason the open threats of lynching that were made were not carried out was because they could not be found. The cause of all this commotion was the following editorial published in the Free Speech May 21, 1892, the Saturday previous.
Eight negroes lynched since last issue of the Free Speech one at Little Rock, Ark., last Saturday morning where the citizens broke(?) into the penitentiary and got their man; three near Anniston, Ala., one near New Orleans; and three at Clarksville, Ga., the last three for killing a white man, and five on the same old racket—the new alarm about raping white women. The same programme of hanging, then shooting bullets into the lifeless bodies was carried out to the letter.
Nobody in this section of the country believes the old thread-bare lie that Negro men rape white women. If Southern white men are not careful, they will overreach themselves and public sentiment will have a reaction; a conclusion will then be reached which will be very damaging to the moral reputation of their women.
The Daily Commercial of Wednesday following, May 25, contained the following leader:
Those negroes who are attempting to make the lynching of individuals of their race a means for arousing the worst passions of their kind are playing with a dangerous sentiment. The negroes may as well understand that there is no mercy for the negro rapist and little patience with his defenders. A negro organ printed in this city, in a recent issue publishes the following atrocious paragraph: "Nobody in this section of the country believes the old thread-bare lie that negro men rape white women. If Southern white men are not careful they will overreach themselves, and public sentiment will have a reaction; and a conclusion will be reached which will be very damaging to the moral reputation of their women."
The fact that a black scoundrel is allowed to live and utter such loathsome and repulsive calumnies is a volume of evidence as to the wonderful patience of Southern whites. But we have had enough of it.
There are some things that the Southern white man will not tolerate, and the obscene intimations of the foregoing have brought the writer to the very outermost limit of public patience. We hope we have said enough.…
…The editor of the Free Speech has no disclaimer to enter, but asserts instead that there are many white women in the South who would marry colored men if such an act would not place them at once beyond the pale of society and within the clutches of the law. The miscegnation laws of the South only operate against the legitimate union of the races; they leave the white man free to seduce all the colored girls he can, but it is death to the colored man who yields to the force and advances of a similar attraction in white women. White men lynch the offending Afro-American, not because he is a despoiler of virtue, but because he succumbs to the smiles of white women…
THE BLACK AND WHITE OF IT
The Cleveland Gazette of January 16, 1892, publishes a case in point. Mrs. J.S. Underwood, the wife of a minister of Elyria, Ohio, accused an Afro-American of rape. She told her husband that during his absence in 1888, stumping the State for the Prohibition Party, the man came to the kitchen door, forced his way in the house and insulted her. She tried to drive him out with a heavy poker, but he overpowered and chloroformed her, and when she revived her clothing was torn and she was in a horrible condition. She did not know the man but could identify him. She pointed out William Offett, a married man, who was arrested and, being in Ohio, was granted a trial.
The prisoner vehemently denied the charge of rape, but confessed he went to Mrs. Underwood's residence at her invitation and was criminally intimate with her at her request. This availed him nothing against the sworn testimony of a ministers wife, a lady of the highest respectability. He was found guilty, and entered the penitentiary, December 14, 1888, for fifteen years. Some time afterwards the woman's remorse led her to confess to her husband that the man was innocent.
These are her words:
I met Offett at the Post Office. It was raining. He was polite to me, and as I had several bundles in my arms he offered to carry them home for me, which he did. He had a strange fascination for me, and I invited him to call on me. He called, bringing chestnuts and candy for the children. By this means we got them to leave us alone in the room. Then I sat on his lap. He made a proposal to me and I readily consented. Why I did so, I do not know, but that I did is true. He visited me several times after that and each time I was indiscreet. I did not care after the first time. In fact I could not have resisted, and had no desire to resist.
When asked by her husband why she told him she had been outraged, she said: "I had several reasons for telling you. One was the neighbors saw the fellows here, another was, I was afraid I had contracted a loathsome disease, and still another was that I feared I might give birth to a Negro baby. I hoped to save my reputation by telling you a deliberate lie." Her husband horrified by the confession had Offett, who had already served four years, released and secured a divorce.
There are thousands of such cases throughout the South, with the difference that the Southern white men in insatiate fury wreak their vengeance without intervention of law upon the Afro-Americans who consort with their women. A few instances to substantiate the assertion that some white women love the company of the Afro-American will not be out of place. Most of these cases were reported by the daily papers of the South.
Wells-Barnett, Ida. B. “Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases.” Originally printed 1892. New York Age Print. Retrieved from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/14975/14975-h/14975-h.htm.
Questions:
- What claims does Wells-Barnett make about black men?
- What evidence does she provide to support these claims?
- Does Wells-Barnett have any incentives to be dishonest?
The Lowell Mills Girls
Numerous: 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 Phoenix: 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”?
Merrimack Manufacturing Company: 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?
Hamilton Manufacturing Company: 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?
Unknown: 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?
Unknown: 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”?
Numerous: 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?
Triangle Workers on Strike!
Kheel Center: Historical Context
The Triangle Waist Company was in many ways a typical sweated factory in the heart of Manhattan, at 23-29 Washington Place, at the northern corner of Washington Square East. Low wages, excessively long hours, and unsanitary and dangerous working conditions were the hallmarks of sweatshops.
Even though many workers toiled under one roof in the Asch building, owned by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, the owners subcontracted much work to individuals who hired the hands and pocketed a portion of the profits. Subcontractors could pay the workers whatever rates they wanted, often extremely low. The owners supposedly never knew the rates paid to the workers, nor did they know exactly how many workers were employed at their factory at any given point. Such a system led to exploitation…
The International Ladies' Garment Workers Union organized workers in the women's clothing trade. Many of the garment workers before 1911 were unorganized, partly because they were young immigrant women intimidated by the alien surroundings. Others were more daring, though. All were ripe for action against the poor working conditions. In 1909, an incident at the Triangle Factory sparked a spontaneous walkout of its 400 employees. The Women's Trade Union League, a progressive association of middle class white women, helped the young women workers picket and fence off thugs and police provocation. At a historic meeting at Cooper Union, thousands of garment workers from all over the city followed young Clara Lemlich's call for a general strike.
With the cloakmakers' strike of 1910, a historic agreement was reached, that established a grievance system in the garment industry. Unfortunately for the workers, though, many shops were still in the hands of unscrupulous owners, who disregarded basic workers' rights and imposed unsafe working conditions on their employees…
Near closing time on Saturday afternoon, March 25, 1911, a fire broke out on the top floors of the Asch Building in the Triangle Waist Company. Within minutes, the quiet spring afternoon erupted into madness, a terrifying moment in time, disrupting forever the lives of young workers. By the time the fire was over, 146 of the 500 employees had died.
Kheel Center, Cornell University. “SWEATSHOPS & STRIKES BEFORE 1911.” Remembering The 1911 Triangle Factory Fire. Last modified February 13, 2014. https://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/story/sweatshopsStrikes.html.
Even though many workers toiled under one roof in the Asch building, owned by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, the owners subcontracted much work to individuals who hired the hands and pocketed a portion of the profits. Subcontractors could pay the workers whatever rates they wanted, often extremely low. The owners supposedly never knew the rates paid to the workers, nor did they know exactly how many workers were employed at their factory at any given point. Such a system led to exploitation…
The International Ladies' Garment Workers Union organized workers in the women's clothing trade. Many of the garment workers before 1911 were unorganized, partly because they were young immigrant women intimidated by the alien surroundings. Others were more daring, though. All were ripe for action against the poor working conditions. In 1909, an incident at the Triangle Factory sparked a spontaneous walkout of its 400 employees. The Women's Trade Union League, a progressive association of middle class white women, helped the young women workers picket and fence off thugs and police provocation. At a historic meeting at Cooper Union, thousands of garment workers from all over the city followed young Clara Lemlich's call for a general strike.
With the cloakmakers' strike of 1910, a historic agreement was reached, that established a grievance system in the garment industry. Unfortunately for the workers, though, many shops were still in the hands of unscrupulous owners, who disregarded basic workers' rights and imposed unsafe working conditions on their employees…
Near closing time on Saturday afternoon, March 25, 1911, a fire broke out on the top floors of the Asch Building in the Triangle Waist Company. Within minutes, the quiet spring afternoon erupted into madness, a terrifying moment in time, disrupting forever the lives of young workers. By the time the fire was over, 146 of the 500 employees had died.
Kheel Center, Cornell University. “SWEATSHOPS & STRIKES BEFORE 1911.” Remembering The 1911 Triangle Factory Fire. Last modified February 13, 2014. https://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/story/sweatshopsStrikes.html.
Clara Lemlich: Account
First let me tell you something about the way we work and what we are paid. There are two kinds of work - regular, that is salary work, and piecework. The regular work pays about $6 a week and the girls have to be at their machines at 7 o'clock in the morning and they stay at them until 8 o'clock at night, with just one-half hour for lunch in that time.
The shops. Well, there is just one row of machines that the daylight ever gets to - that is the front row, nearest the window. The girls at all the other rows of machines back in the shops have to work by gaslight, by day as well as by night. Oh, yes, the shops keep the work going at night, too.
The bosses in the shops are hardly what you would call educated men, and the girls to them are part of the machines they are running. They yell at the girls and they "call them down" even worse than I imagine the Negro slaves were in the South.
There are no dressing rooms for the girls in the shops. They have to hang up their hats and coats - such as they are - on hooks along the walls. Sometimes a girl has a new hat. It never is much to look at because it never costs more than 50 cents, that means that we have gone for weeks on two-cent lunches - dry cake and nothing else.
The shops are unsanitary - that's the word that is generally used, but there ought to be a worse one used. Whenever we tear or damage any of the goods we sew on, or whenever it is found damaged after we are through with it, whether we have done it or not, we are charged for the piece and sometimes for a whole yard of the material.
At the beginning of every slow season, $2 is deducted from our salaries. We have never been able to find out what this is for.
Lemlich Clara. New York Evening Journal. November 28, 1909. Cited in Leon Stein, ed., Out of the Sweatshop: The Struggle for Industrial Democracy. Quadrangle/New Times Book Company New York, 1977.
Questions:
The shops. Well, there is just one row of machines that the daylight ever gets to - that is the front row, nearest the window. The girls at all the other rows of machines back in the shops have to work by gaslight, by day as well as by night. Oh, yes, the shops keep the work going at night, too.
The bosses in the shops are hardly what you would call educated men, and the girls to them are part of the machines they are running. They yell at the girls and they "call them down" even worse than I imagine the Negro slaves were in the South.
There are no dressing rooms for the girls in the shops. They have to hang up their hats and coats - such as they are - on hooks along the walls. Sometimes a girl has a new hat. It never is much to look at because it never costs more than 50 cents, that means that we have gone for weeks on two-cent lunches - dry cake and nothing else.
The shops are unsanitary - that's the word that is generally used, but there ought to be a worse one used. Whenever we tear or damage any of the goods we sew on, or whenever it is found damaged after we are through with it, whether we have done it or not, we are charged for the piece and sometimes for a whole yard of the material.
At the beginning of every slow season, $2 is deducted from our salaries. We have never been able to find out what this is for.
Lemlich Clara. New York Evening Journal. November 28, 1909. Cited in Leon Stein, ed., Out of the Sweatshop: The Struggle for Industrial Democracy. Quadrangle/New Times Book Company New York, 1977.
Questions:
- When was this document written in relation to the fire?
- What qualifies her to speak about the Triangle factory?
- What were the conditions like in the factory?
- Does it surprise you that these conditions were known before the fire?
Anne Morgan: Account
Miss Anne Morgan, daughter of J. Pierpont Morgan, is a recent applicant for membership in the Women's Trade Union League, and when her name has been passed upon she will become a regular member, paying $1 a year, which is the fee. This is the league to which the striking shirtwaist makers belong, and the application for membership means that Miss Morgan is interested in the attempt these girls are making for their own betterment. In joining the league she gives her moral support…
"I have only known something of this strike for a short time," said Miss Morgan to a Times reporter last night, "and I find other people to whose attention it has not been brought do not know anything about it. If we come to fully recognize these conditions, we can't live our own lives without doing something to help them, bringing them at least the support of public opinion.
"We can see from the general trade conditions how difficult it must be for these girls to get along. Of course, the consumer must be protected, but when you hear of a woman who presses forty dozen skirts for $8 a week something must be very wrong. And fifty-two hours a week seems little enough to ask.
"Rose Schneiderman told me of a woman who had worked in a box shop in Chicago for thirty years and could not in ten hours a day make enough to live on-she could only do it by working twelve to fourteen hours. Those conditions are terrible, and the girls must be helped to organize and to keep up their organizations, and if public opinion is on their side they will be able to do it."
"Miss Morgan Aids Girl Waiststrikers." New York Times. Last modified December 14, 1909
Questions:
"I have only known something of this strike for a short time," said Miss Morgan to a Times reporter last night, "and I find other people to whose attention it has not been brought do not know anything about it. If we come to fully recognize these conditions, we can't live our own lives without doing something to help them, bringing them at least the support of public opinion.
"We can see from the general trade conditions how difficult it must be for these girls to get along. Of course, the consumer must be protected, but when you hear of a woman who presses forty dozen skirts for $8 a week something must be very wrong. And fifty-two hours a week seems little enough to ask.
"Rose Schneiderman told me of a woman who had worked in a box shop in Chicago for thirty years and could not in ten hours a day make enough to live on-she could only do it by working twelve to fourteen hours. Those conditions are terrible, and the girls must be helped to organize and to keep up their organizations, and if public opinion is on their side they will be able to do it."
"Miss Morgan Aids Girl Waiststrikers." New York Times. Last modified December 14, 1909
Questions:
- Who is Anne Morgan?
- What qualifies her to speak about the Triangle factory?
- What were the conditions like in the factory?
- Does it surprise you that a woman in her position would support the workers?
Eva McDonald Valesh: Fires First Gun in Fight
The opening gun in Miss Anne Morgan’s campaign for a new trade union movement was fired yesterday morning by Mrs. Eva McDonald Valesh who, in a speech before the Women’s Forum, at No. 23 West 44th street, said the socialists were using strikers for their own "dangerous purposes." The speaker charged that the Woman’s Trade Union League was "full of socialism, marked by its perfunctory interest for the strikers."
"Do you want to go on record as saying that?" demanded a woman in the audience.
"I do, and I’ll write it down if you like," said Mrs. Valesh.
The speaker began by criticising the executive committee of the shirtwaist strikers for turning down an offer which, she said, was made through her informally by the Associated Waist and Dress Manufacturers.
"It was made informally, but I was assured that the organization would stand by it if the strikers agreed," she went on. "The manufacturers proposed to submit the differences to a committee to be composed of either Samuel Gompers, John Mitchell or any labor leader they might name, a representative of the manufacturers, and a third man to be designated by the other two. The strikers committee refused to consider any overture but one agreeing to the closed shop.
"What is that strikers’ committee? Eighteen men and two girls were present the day I saw them--the men all socialists, connected with the trade perhaps, but ignorant of what the girls want. And to show you the feminine view point, those girl strikers are actually grateful to the men who are using them for their own purposes. It’s so nice of the men, who know so much more than we, to serve on our committees, they say.
"I propose," Mrs. Valesh went on, "to start a campaign against socialism. This strike may be used to pave the way for forming clean, sensible labor unions, and I want to enroll every woman of leisure, every clubwoman, in the movement. The existing unions aren’t doing what they ought to stem the tide of socialism this country. The Woman’s Trade Union League is dominated by socialism, though I won’t deny they have helped the shirtwaist strikers some.
"Socialism is a menace… There’s nothing constructive about socialism. It just makes those ignorant foreigners discontented, sets them against the government, makes them want to tear down. And socialists are using the strikers."
"How about the suffragists?" demanded Mrs. William H. McCartney.
"That’s different," said Mrs. Valesh. "The suffragists have used the strikers, but they’ve helped them, given them spiritual vision, and, besides, the suffragists say frankly to the strikers, “We want votes for women, while the socialists veil their purposes under all sorts of pretences…'
Miss Morgan’s name was not mentioned during the meeting, but Mrs. Valesh said afterward that she might be considered as representing Miss Morgan.
"New Trade Union: Eva McDonald Valesh Fires First Gun In Fight." New York Daily Tribune. Last modified January 22, 1910, p. 9.
"Do you want to go on record as saying that?" demanded a woman in the audience.
"I do, and I’ll write it down if you like," said Mrs. Valesh.
The speaker began by criticising the executive committee of the shirtwaist strikers for turning down an offer which, she said, was made through her informally by the Associated Waist and Dress Manufacturers.
"It was made informally, but I was assured that the organization would stand by it if the strikers agreed," she went on. "The manufacturers proposed to submit the differences to a committee to be composed of either Samuel Gompers, John Mitchell or any labor leader they might name, a representative of the manufacturers, and a third man to be designated by the other two. The strikers committee refused to consider any overture but one agreeing to the closed shop.
"What is that strikers’ committee? Eighteen men and two girls were present the day I saw them--the men all socialists, connected with the trade perhaps, but ignorant of what the girls want. And to show you the feminine view point, those girl strikers are actually grateful to the men who are using them for their own purposes. It’s so nice of the men, who know so much more than we, to serve on our committees, they say.
"I propose," Mrs. Valesh went on, "to start a campaign against socialism. This strike may be used to pave the way for forming clean, sensible labor unions, and I want to enroll every woman of leisure, every clubwoman, in the movement. The existing unions aren’t doing what they ought to stem the tide of socialism this country. The Woman’s Trade Union League is dominated by socialism, though I won’t deny they have helped the shirtwaist strikers some.
"Socialism is a menace… There’s nothing constructive about socialism. It just makes those ignorant foreigners discontented, sets them against the government, makes them want to tear down. And socialists are using the strikers."
"How about the suffragists?" demanded Mrs. William H. McCartney.
"That’s different," said Mrs. Valesh. "The suffragists have used the strikers, but they’ve helped them, given them spiritual vision, and, besides, the suffragists say frankly to the strikers, “We want votes for women, while the socialists veil their purposes under all sorts of pretences…'
Miss Morgan’s name was not mentioned during the meeting, but Mrs. Valesh said afterward that she might be considered as representing Miss Morgan.
"New Trade Union: Eva McDonald Valesh Fires First Gun In Fight." New York Daily Tribune. Last modified January 22, 1910, p. 9.
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 Dr. Alicia Gutierrez-Romine Matthew Cerjak |
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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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.
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Prohibition is a documentary that highlights the rise and fall of the 18th Amendment. It centers on the women behind the temperance movement, like the WCTU, Anti-Saloon League, and prominent figures like Carrie Nation.
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Bibliography
Coyote, Peter, Ken Burns, Lynn Novick & PBS Distribution (Firm) dirs. 2011. Prohibition. PBS Distribution.
Frances Willard House Museum. “Introduction." Frances Willard House Museum. Last
modified N.D. https://scalar.usc.edu/works/willard-andwells/introduction?path=index.
Wells-Barnett, Ida. B. “Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases.” Originally printed 1892. New York Age Print. Retrieved from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/14975/14975-h/14975-h.htm.
Wells-Barnett. “Temperance and Race Progress.” AME Church Review. Last modified
1891. Retrieved from https://scalar.usc.edu/works/willard-and-wells/ida-bwells-temperance?path=timeline.
Willard, Frances. “The Race Problem.” Voice. Last modified October 23, 1890. Retrieved
from https://scalar.usc.edu/works/willard-and-wells/the-voice-interview.
Frances Willard House Museum. “Introduction." Frances Willard House Museum. Last
modified N.D. https://scalar.usc.edu/works/willard-andwells/introduction?path=index.
Wells-Barnett, Ida. B. “Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases.” Originally printed 1892. New York Age Print. Retrieved from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/14975/14975-h/14975-h.htm.
Wells-Barnett. “Temperance and Race Progress.” AME Church Review. Last modified
1891. Retrieved from https://scalar.usc.edu/works/willard-and-wells/ida-bwells-temperance?path=timeline.
Willard, Frances. “The Race Problem.” Voice. Last modified October 23, 1890. Retrieved
from https://scalar.usc.edu/works/willard-and-wells/the-voice-interview.