Directions:
Follow the steps to discover conditions for women at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century.
Review the online workshop “Masculine Superiority Fever”: Making Sense of “Spheres” at the EDSITEment reviewed U.S. History Women’s Workshop [Click second image on left or, for browsers that do not support frames, go directly to the essay]. As you review this site, keep in mind the following key points:
Explore “Gender and the Nineteenth Century Home,” from the EDSITEment reviewed American Studies at the University of Virginia website, with specific attention to “Domesticity in Turn-of-the-Century Literature.” As you review this site, keep in mind the following key points:
Read a short history of the women’s movement at Brief history of women’s movement” via EDSITEment reviewed National Women’s History Project. Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s “Declaration of Sentiments,” from the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, reads: “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.” Some of Stanton’s specific points include the following:
Review Gilman’s brief suffrage commentary in the Votes for Women Collection from the EDSITEment reviewed American Memory collection.
Assignment:
Using the information you found during your research, write a two-page essay that answers the lesson’s guiding question, “What was life like for American middle- to upper-class women in the mid- to late-nineteenth century and early twentieth century?” Be sure to incorporate specific information from your sources and to document using MLA guidelines.