Blog #7

Textbook: Chapter 5

1. The main reason that the North and South women were divided was because they had different ideas on slavery. The women in the North were against the idea of slavery while those in the South wanted to keep their slaves. One of the reasons that the northern women had different perspectives was because the women in the north had more recently been involved in their Christian religion and believed that slavery was a sin. The women in the south depended on their slaves and would need the slaves to carry out many of the difficult duties. Since a civil war broke out between the North and South because of the different ideas, even more tension was created between the women.

2. The “New South” was the beginning of a new era for everyone living in the United States. It was a time of “Reconstruction” as many Americans liked to call it. Women dealt with these changes as well. The women in the north slowly attempted to receive their equal rights with men while the women in the south were adjusting to the new life of a non-slave owner even though they were not too eager about it. Southern White women began to look for new ways of being superior since they were no longer slave-owners. The elite women had suffered because of the economic struggle they had endured and from the fact that they were now widows, since their husbands had died in the war. Many of these white women would eventually headed towards the textile mills where they were given bad wages. Working in these industrial mills allowed women to live public lives. Many black people in the south were not told that they were free for many months after the war and therefore stayed with their owners. Laws had been passed that took away rights from black people so that they could not work.

Source Interpretation
Textbook document

1. Tensions that led to Thomas Moss being lynched was the fact that the white men in the south did not want the black men to succeed and become wealthy. The idea that these white men lived by was that it was important for them to keep the black people down. This meant that they wanted to keep the black people poor because if the black men received wealth, it meant that superiority would soon be acquired afterwards. Therefore, many of these black people, who were searching for a new and better way of life, were always treated horribly and sometimes decided to give up since the white men would always be there to keep them down.

2. Wells challenged that many of the black people who were being lynched in the South were charged with raping a white woman. She believed that the reason that these black men were charged with rape was because they were becoming successful, just as the story with Thomas Moss. She challenged that many of these black men who had been in relationships with white women were accused of being rapists because the white men did not like the fact that these black men and white women were having relationships with one another. The accusations of rape was just another way for the white man to keep the black people down and keep them in the lowest possible level of the social ranking.

3. The relationship that Wells saw between the two was that the black men who were accused of raping the white women were usually lynched and their stories were written throughout the newspapers while the raping of black women by the white men were usually never talked about. The white men who raped these black women did so without any interruptions but when the white men had seen a black man with a white woman, many of the white men became furious and began to lynch these black men. Many of these white men had created mulattos and were now afraid that the black men and white women would create their own mulattos. This had made the white men seem very hypocritical.

Blog #6

Textbook: Chapter 4
1. After the idea of Manifest Destiny had influenced the expansion of the United States, different groups of women began to have different experiences. White American women chose to follow their husbands, making their journey west towards California, Oregon, and Washington. While on the trail, these women had their responsibilities of taking care of the children and making sure that the family was being fed. These women also had to work at conditions that their grandmothers worked in because they were not allowed to bring new inventions such as iron stoves. The Native American women became servants or prostitutes of the white Americans after their white husbands had left them in order to marry white women. White women were fearful of the Native Americans and the Native American women were fearful of the white man who would rape them. As the settlers kept moving westwards, the Mexican women were effected just as the Native American women were. Mexican women were given a lot of property after their husbands had died because they were under a Mexican law. As time passed, the law was changed to follow the U.S. laws which gave the husbands more power over their land. This law allowed for the property to go from the Mexicans’ ownership to the Americans. Eventually, these Mexican women had lost their lands and turned to becoming servants for the White Americans.

2. One of the developments that allowed women to go into reform was the fact that women were becoming more religiously involved. Their religious involvement allowed for their increase in faith, which would then give them their strength to speak their minds and form organizations. The organizations that they formed were usually related to their religious obligations. This eventually helped lead to the temperance movement in which they focused on the abstinence of alcohol. The temperance movement was also a beginning in which more men were able to become criticized by the women. After turning to religion, many had realized that slavery was a sin. This belief helped lead to the abolitionism of slavery. Women’s role in religion brought women into the era of women’s right and also changed the way that black people were treated in certain states.

Source Interpretation Textbook document
1. She becomes curious about Chavez and his story of survival while running away from the Americans. Since she was so curious about Chavez, it allowed her to become involved in his story. She is also curious about the men that surrounded her house because she thought that the noise in the yard was caused by the sheep getting into her yard. She becomes fearful because she is unsure whether she will get caught helping Chavez and that if she does get caught, she and Chavez will both be killed. She exhibits her fear when she is unsure of what to do and wishes that her husband was there to help her in the decision. She is also great at concealing her reaction when she is calm throughout the experience. As the lieutenant points the gun at her, she calmly asks if the man they are looking for had been found. This showed the lieutenant that she was worried a man might be hiding in her home and that she was unaware of anything.

2. We are shown that she is a very independent women and is able to handle and make decisions by herself. She is a women that is not afraid to handle the toughest situations. Her independence shows us her strength that she herself has created along with her faith. The source of her strength comes from her faith in God because in the document she stated, “love of God” had a great impact on the decision that she made. Although, she does show a sign of being dependant when she is in need of male figure for advice. This is shown when she goes to her brothers for their opinions since her husband is away. The absence of the men allowed her to take the male role in the home by making the decisions and acting upon those decisions. Her strength and courage are traits that are memorable throughout history.

Blog #5

1. The white women in the south had lived very different lives than the white women living in the northern states. White Women had been seen more equal to men than they had been in earlier years. Therefore, many of the elite white women did not and were not expected to labor since they were slave-owners. The white women also had a duty to manage these slaves. They were instructed to discipline any slaves who had done anything which unsatisfied the slave-owners. The non-elites role was different than those of the elites. Their duty was to take care of the slaves by nursing for them. They had labored more than the elites because their priority was to produce items for the family rather than buying these items, as women had done in the north. The implications for the black women was to work in the plantation and agricultural fields. Their work in the fields were just as effective as the work done by the black men. The black women had been beaten by their owners in order to humiliate the slaves. It was hard for these women to bear children because they knew that they would have to give the children up to the slave-owners so that the child, too, could be a slave.

2. The significance of the story is that it shows us the troubles that these slave women endured while being under the command of their male slave-owners. Harriet Jacobs had been a victim of her owner because of the way he had attempted to take advantage of her sexually. Many of the male slave-owners convinced these black women that it was their duty to give in to the sexual favors because they were owned property. The sexual relations that the white men and black women had with one another led to deliberate breeding in which the black women gave birth to the children of the white men. These women had learned to hate their slave-owners because they were victimized and had felt ashamed for the rest of their lives.

1. Many of the slave-owners in the south saw their slaves as being fundamental in their way of living because it allowed for their lives to be easier and had also brought in more wealth. These slave-owners had also seen the relationships between their slaves inconsequential. The characters in the accounts resisted the assumptions made about them by showing us the reality of their relationships and the emotions that they lived with. The Crafts’ relationship showed many readers of the article that black people are able to have emotional bonds with one another and that they would go through many obstacles in order to keep a strong bond. They had gone through their search for freedom as a couple and proved that even black people are able to work together when they are emotionally tied.

2. The fact that these two documents were written with different amounts of decades between the actual occurrence and the written accounts changes the way the individuals were able to record and explain their memories. The memories that the Crafts had are more detailed than those of Polly Shine because the Crafts were able to record the dialogue that occurred between each other and the dialogue that occurred with the people at the train station. William Craft’s experience is very detailed because he explains every action, every thought, every sound that had taken place during their running away from slavery. Polly Shines is more vague with her memory because she only gives general information of the occurrences. For example, she only estimates the amount of slaves that her slave-owner had and remembers general information of only one story. It is easy to see that an earlier account of an occurrence is more effective than a later account. Although, an argument could be made regarding Polly Shine’s memories because of the fact that she was a lot younger during her experiences than the Crafts were in theirs. This might play a role in distorting her memories as well. The Crafts account is much more effective because of the detailed information we are given and therefore allows us to have a stronger emotional connection.

Blog #4

Chapter 3
1.The concept of “true womanhood” came from the belief that men and women are completely opposite and that there is no similarities that cross between the two. The major components of “true womanhood” were that the women usually were not able to do anything that had to do with business, politics or jobs needing harsh labor. All the women were to do during the early nineteenth century was to take care of the family in the home while the men worked at their businesses. This was only true for the white families because if hard labor was needed to be done in the fields, it was usually performed by the slaves, regardless of gender. This ideology was very important for white men in America during the nineteenth century because they had seen it as a new class structure in which they would build their families. This allowed the building of the middle class families. It became a lot easier to create a middle class family when the men were working while the women were taking care of the children. Middle Class women began separating themselves from the poor by preaching that it was because of the lack of values women had for their families that made them poor.

2.The significance of the Lowell mill girls in the history of U.S. women is that it was a step in introducing women into their own independence without the practice of “true womanhood.” The girls that were working in these mills were young in age, usually in their teenage years. Women were finally able to receive their own wages through their labor which led to more possibilities that would rise for women. These girls moved out of their family’s farms and moved into boarding houses in the cities, where they would work and receive a maximum wage of two dollars a week for long periods of work. These girls would usually spend this money on themselves and were finally able to show that they were indeed able to support themselves and be independent. Eventually, there were problems with the unfair wages that were being paid to these women. These unfair wages inevitably led to a strike. Since it was the first time a women’s voice was heard loudly throughout Lowell, the strikes allowed for women to take a political stand on more issues in the future.



Source Interpretation
Textbook document ( Chapter 3 pp. 169-173) – “The History of Prostitution”
1. Sanger’s view was that women were not the ones who should be blamed for prostitution. He believed that men were at fault because they showed no concern for the pain that these women were enduring throughout their lives. Sanger also proved that these women that chose the life of prostitution were brought into the way of life do to their will to survive in the world. He also found that the women living in urban cities had to go through “financial pressures(169).” These women were also influenced into prostitution because most women, morally, would not live a public life of non marital sex (170).

2. After interviewing and analyzing the two thousand women, Sanger found that the top cause for the women going into prostitution was that they were poor and needed enough money in order to survive. They did not want to starve in the streets and prostitution was their ticket out. One girl could not stand watching her crippled sister suffering everyday, which is why she had gone into prostitution. It had ultimately become her only source of making money and she was unable to get out of it since nobody would give her another job. The women that go into prostitution develop a lot of problems mentally. They begin to feel as if they are unjust and begin to feel a lot of guilt.

3. During the study, Sanger does not blame the women for their choice of prostitution but instead gives us reasons for their choice. All the women who were interviewed had a reasonable motive. Many of the prostitute’s motives were that they needed enough money in order avoid starvation. The values that individuals had were usually ignored because surviving was their first priority. After reading the article, it seems that people did not have many values during the time in which Sanger lived because the women that went into prostitution were provoked by the harsh society that they lived in. Therefore, the values that are not taught to individuals in society will lead to individuals deviant behavior.

Blog #3

Section A: Textbook Chapter 2

1. The expectations about women’s roles were able to be challenged because men had noticed that the economy and the goods that had been created in order to help the economy was do to the help from women. Their expectations were also challenged because they were large contributors during the boycotts and had influenced many others to help with the colonial fight against the British. They had been there to aid the soldiers in time of war. Some worked as nurses while a few even fought the British themselves. As most Americans know, helping the nation in a time of war is respected by many. Many of these women put their lives on the line in order to protect the nation which is why it was easier for their role expectations to be challenged. One women had even helped her son-in-law fight off 150 British soldiers(80). Although their expectations were challenged, they were also limits to the challenges because some thought that the women were there to aid the soldiers because they were not able to live without their husbands due to financial problems they would encounter at home. Therefore, women were seen as not having the ability to be independent because their following of the soldiers showed the dependence that they still had.

2. Women had a very large role during the revolutionary era because they played a big part in helping the colonies boycott items that were taxed towards them by the English. This activity during the revolutionary era was a minor catalyst to the women’s political involvement. As women gradually received the opportunity of education, their political involvement was gradually rising as well. Activity that might be considered as political was the fact that the women took the position of “deputy husbands.” This eventually lead to the women’s speaking out against politics. An example was of Eliza Wilkinson who argued her “liberty of thought”(93). Many of the women who had the opportunity to make a choice of what stance they would take was acting politically.

3. The revolution had made legacies to women that changed the way that American society views women today. The revolution allowed women to show their importance to the nation and also gave women the opportunity to express their opinions. Even though some may think that women were not able to show their independence throughout the revolutionary era, they had done a lot to prove to themselves that people depend on them as well. The fact that they were able to compete against men in the educational field showed women of the future that anyone, regardless of gender, is capable of learning anything they put their minds to.

Section B: Source Interpretation Chapter 2
4. Rush an Murray say that it is important for women to complete their educational goals in order to teach their children how to become better citizens of the nation. Even though they do agree with educating women, their intent is to educate women on what they will teach their family as mothers. They do not agree that women should be educated in order to receive careers, but rather to stay in the home as housewives and assist their husbands and children using the educational credentials they received. In his article Thoughts upon Female Education, Rush states that the women “should be qualified to a certain degree,”(125) which proves that he agreed women should only receive a certain amount of education.

5. Rush’s and Murray’s ideas accord to Republican Motherhood because in Republican Motherhood, it states that women should be educated in order to teach their children the roles of being citizens. Rush and Murray both use Republican Motherhood in their articles to show how the women is needed in the home to better the lives of the family and that through education for women, the lives of the family will reach its complete potential. The articles use education as a tool to teach future mothers how to raise a family. It is the “pursuit of happiness” that every American chases and women should have the equal liberty as men to pursue their own happiness through education.