Age Of The Common Woman
For three-quarters of a century, beginning at the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, American women centered their aspirations of freedom and power on the demand to be seen as equal. To appreciate the historic significance of the women’s movement, it is necessary to understand the leaps women made in the home, society, and on the vocational front to have arrived at that first women’s rights convention in American history.
In the mid-eighteenth century there were few opportunities for women outside the household. By law, the husband held managerial rights over family property, but widows received support in the form of a one-third lifetime interest in a deceased husband’s real estate. One of the few ways to obtain a job as an American white woman at this time was for a widow to take over her husband’s business, as did Widow Cornelia Smith Bradford who continued to publish her deceased husband’s Philadelphia paper. In the south, the plantation master was the source of authority to whom the wife, children, and slaves were expected to be obedient. If a southern woman challenged her husband or sought more independence she threatened the entire patriarchal system of control. In addition to their strictly defined family roles, while plantation owners, such as John C. Calhoun, traveled widely for political and business reason, their wives who were left with the responsibilities of the slaves and children found it hard to leave their homes and suffered deeply form their isolation from friends and family. Also, though woman of any race were denied the right to vote, women of the upper classes had long played important informal roles in national politics. Fist Ladies Abigail Adams and Dolley Madison were famous for providing social settings in which their husbands could conduct political business.
The basic principle that the man represented the common interests of everyone for whom he was responsible slowly diminished as new employment possibilities...
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