¶ … lives of women in the late 19th and early 20th century, including Susan B. Anthony and Ida B. Wells. Specifically, it will analyze the private lives of American women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries - as daughters, wives, and mothers. Did their lives mesh or clash with their participation in the wider public world of education, work, and politics? How so? Women in Victorian times and beyond were expected to conform to society's mores, which did not include rights for women. If a woman stepped outside the norm, she did not "fit" in polite society, and she was often ostracized and abandoned by those around her.
WOMEN'S PRIVATE LIVES
Women in the Victorian age, which lasted from1880 to 1900, were placed on pedestals, as long as they managed to conform to society's dictates about how women should act and dress, took care of their family and their home, and did not make any waves, socially or politically. Women like Susan B. Anthony, who campaigned vocally for women's rights, especially the right to vote, and Ida B. Wells, who campaigned tirelessly for anti-lynching laws, were outside the norm, and suffered because of it. Society ostracized them because they had "masculine thoughts." Anthony was arrested for committing the "sin" of voting in an election, and Wells had to leave her native South and flee to the North to escape persecution and violence because of her stand on black rights. Even Elizabeth Cady Stanton, mentor and dear friend of Anthony, could not convince her own father of the worth of her work for women.
She [Stanton] was an admirable housekeeper, a loyal wife, and the devoted mother of seven children, but that did not prevent her from becoming a writer, a public speaker, a pleader before law-making bodies, and a leader of women. To the day of his death his rebellious daughter was a thorn in the stern old man's side.
This short paragraph more than illustrates how men felt about their women taking up the cause of women's rights. Often, the women became an embarrassment to their families, and received no support from their husbands, families, and children. They had to continue with their "wifely" duties of house and home, while making time to work for their cause. Victorian writer John Ruskin could have been speaking for a majority of men in the early 1900s when he wrote in "Of Queen's Gardens" "There never was a time when wilder words were spoken or more vain imagination permitted respecting this question [women's rights].'"
Thus, women who fought for the right to vote often had to choose between their work and having a family. Susan B. Anthony never married; she did not have time for a conventional Victorian life, and neither did Ida B. Wells. Thus, these very vocal women's private lives, of which they had virtually none, obviously clashed with their very public lives. The two simply could not survive together during this time, and society suffered for it.
The Victorian Age was one of the most prosperous in American history. As such, more people moved into the middle- and upper-classes, and many women had more free time on their hands, which gave women more time to attain "perfect woman" status with their friends and neighbors.
Once married, the perfect lady did not work; she had servants. She was mother only at set time of the day, even of the year; she left the heirs in the hands of nannies and governesses. Her social and intellectual growth was confined to the family and close friends. Her status was totally dependent upon the economic position of her father and then her husband.
Society had extremely strict mores when it came to what women could and could not do, as the above paragraph clearly shows. She could socialize with women of her own class, and she could even do charity work for those who were "less fortunate," but upper-class women could not work outside the home, enjoy a career, or even closely...
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