In 1849 Elizabeth Blackwell became the first female doctor in the U.S. after earning her M.D. from the Medical Institution of Geneva, N.Y.

Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell.  1865.
http://library.thinkquest.org/05aug/00160/images/elizabethblacwell1885.jpg

"As a widow [Cornelia] turned down lucrative marriage offers to be faithful to the memory of her husband, by whom she had borne twelve children - all for the glory of Rome.  Her fecundity was much praised, as was her devotion to her children's education.  Under her tutelage, two of her sons, the Gracchi - Tiberius and Gaius - led a reform movement of the plebians against the patricians.  Both sons died in the ensuing unrest, but Cornelia was stoical.  She owes her fame to her reply when asked why she did not wear her jewels.  "These," she said pointing to her children, 'are my jewels.'" - Myths of Motherhood

The Cult of True Womanhood

Lilly Martin Spencer.  Domestic Happiness.  1849.

The True Woman was:

Pious, pure, submissive and domestic

Morally and spiritually superior to men

Because of this, her body should not be used for debase things like sexual pleasure (men used prostitutes - "public" women - for such things)

Exposure to the nude form could disturb her delicate equilibrium

The home was the "separate and proper sphere for women"

Alexander Melville.  Queen Victoria.  1845.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Melville_-_Queen_Victoria.jpg

By mid century the idealized True Woman
was increasingly questioned

Suffrage parade in New York City, May 6, 1912.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Feminist_Suffrage_Parade_in_New_York_City%2C_1912.jpeg

Industrial Revolution made more jobs available to women

Many families needed women to work because of class/ economic changes

Growing middle class broke traditional rules for women

Women became significantly involved in anti-slavery movement, prison reform, labor reform and educational reform movements, thereby gaining limited access to the public realm

After emancipation of slaves, turned collective efforts to women’s rights

The Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 began the Women's Movement in America

Lucretia Mott

Susan B. Anthony

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

About 300 people attended the convention and 100 (68 women and 32 men) signed the conclusive document.

An article in the Oneida Whig published soon after the convention described the document as "the most shocking and unnatural event ever recorded in the history of womanity."

When, in the course of events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to such a absolution.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon the institution of a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are suffer able, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they were accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design despotism, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of the women under this government, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to demand the equal station to which they are entitled.

The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

• He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise.
• He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice.
• He has withheld from her rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded men - both natives and foreigners.
• Having deprived her of this first right as a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides.
• He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.
• He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns.
• He has made her morally, an irresponsible being, as she can commit many crimes with impunity, provided they be done in the presence of her husband. In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her master - the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty, and to administer chastisement.
• He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what shall be the proper causes of divorce, in case of separation, to whom the guardianship of the children shall be given; as to be wholly regardless of the happiness of the women - the law, in all cases, going upon a false supposition of the supremacy of a woman, and giving all power into his hands.
• After depriving her of all rights as a married woman, if single and the owner of property, he has taxed her to support a government which recognizes her only when her property can be made profitable to it.
• He has monopolized nearly all the profitable employments, and from those she is permitted to follow, she receives but a scanty remuneration.
• He closes against her all the avenues to wealth and distinction, which he considers most honorable to himself. As a teacher of theology, medicine, or law, she is not known.
• He has denied her the facilities for obtaining a thorough education - all colleges being closed against her.
• He allows her in church, as well as State, but a subordinate position, claiming Apostolic authority for her exclusion from the ministry, and, with some exceptions, from any public participation in the affairs of the Church.
• He has created a false public sentiment by giving to the world a different code of morals for men and women, by which moral delinquencies which exclude women from society, are not only tolerated but deemed of little account in man.
• He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her conscience and her God.
• He has endeavored, in every way that he could to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life.

Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half the people of this country, their social and religious degradation, - in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of these United States.

In entering upon the great work before us, we anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule; but we shall use every instrumentality within our power to effect our object. We shall employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the State and national Legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press in our behalf. We hope this Convention will be followed by a series of Conventions, embracing every part of the country.

Firmly relying upon the final triumph of the Right and the True, we do this day affix our signatures to this declaration.

A Suffragette's Home
http://tommcmahon.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/03/01/suffragette2.jpg

Suffragette Being Tortured in Prison
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~sfos0060/images/Suffragette_poster.jpg