the home, earning about half the pay men received to do
the same job. Women could neither vote nor sit on juries in
the early 1800s, even if they were taxpayers. Typically, when
a woman married, her property and any money she earned
became her husband’s. In many instances, married women
lacked guardianship rights over their children.
Women Mobilize for Reform
Despite such limits, women actively participated in all the
important reform movements of the 19th century. Many
middle-class white women were inspired by the optimistic
message of the Second Great Awakening. Women were often
shut out of meetings by disapproving men, and responded by
expanding their efforts to seek equal rights for themselves.
WOMEN ABOLITIONISTS
Sarah and Angelina Grimké,
daughters of a South Carolina slaveholder, spoke eloquently
for abolition. In 1836 Angelina Grimké published An Appeal
to Christian Women of the South, in which she called upon
women to “overthrow this horrible system of oppression and
cruelty.” Women abolitionists also raised money, distributed
literature, and collected signatures for petitions to Congress.
Some men supported women’s efforts. William Lloyd
Garrison, for example, joined the determined women who
had been denied participation in the World’s Anti-Slavery
Convention in 1840. Garrison said, “After battling so many
long years for the liberties of African slaves, I can take no part
in a convention that strikes down the most sacred rights of all
women.” Other men, however, denounced the female aboli-
tionists. The Massachusetts clergy criticized the Grimké sisters
for assuming “the place and tone of man as public reformer.”
Opposition only served to make women reformers more
determined. The abolitionist cause became a powerful spur
to other reform causes, as well as to the women’s rights movement.
WORKING FOR TEMPERANCE
The temperance movement, the effort to
prohibit the drinking of alcohol, was another offshoot of the influence of church-
es and the women’s rights movement. Speaking at a temperance meeting in 1852,
Mary C. Vaughan attested to the evils of alcohol.
A PERSONAL VOICE MARY C. VAUGHAN
“ There is no reform in which woman can act better or more appropriately than
temperance. . . . Its effects fall so crushingly upon her . . . she has so often seen
its slow, insidious, but not the less surely fatal advances, gaining upon its victim.
. . . Oh! the misery, the utter, hopeless misery of the drunkard’s wife!
”
—quoted in Women’s America: Refocusing the Past
In the early 19th century, alcohol flowed freely in America. Liquor helped
wash down the salted meat and fish that composed the dominant diet and, until
the development of anesthetics in the 1840s, doctors dosed their patients with
whiskey or brandy before operating.
Many Americans, however, recognized drunkenness as a serious problem.
Lyman Beecher, a prominent Connecticut minister, had begun lecturing against
all use of liquor in 1825. A year later, the American Temperance Society was
founded. By 1833, some 6,000 local temperance societies dotted the country.
Reforming American Society 255
A
MAIN IDEA
MAIN IDEA
A
Identifying
Problems
What were the
main problems
faced by women in
the mid-1800s?
LUCRETIA MOTT
1793–1880
History has it that Lucretia Mott
was so talkative as a child that
her mother called her Long
Tongue. As an adult, she used her
considerable public-speaking skills
to campaign against slavery.
Mott became interested in
women’s rights when she learned
that her salary as a teacher
would be roughly half of what a
man might receive. She was a
prominent figure at the Seneca
Falls Convention, at which she
delivered the opening and closing
addresses. Mott and her hus-
band later acted on their aboli-
tionist principles by taking in run-
away slaves escaping on the
Underground Railroad.
MAIN IDEA
MAIN IDEA
B
Summarizing
In what ways
were women
excluded from the
abolitionist
movement?
A. Answer
Women had lim-
ited legal and
economic rights.
They could not
vote and were
not allowed to
work in many
professions.
B. Answer
Women were
often excluded
from meetings.
This led them to
work for other
reform move-
ments.
B
