Dbq Essay On Women's Rights Movement

One of the most momentous reform movements that our country has experienced has been the Women's Rights Movement. This movement has had influential effects on the economic, social, educational, and political aspects of women's lives. If the pivotal reform of women's rights had not occurred, then our world and lives today could look a lot different. The Women's Rights Movement started gaining momentum in 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention in Seneca Falls, New York with the “Declaration of Sentiments''. This document stated that all men and women are created equal and women should have equal rights to vote, own property, and seek employment. At the time of the convention, Charlotte Woodward was one of the youngest signers of this document

Elizabeth Stanton did not live to see the effect of her hard work throughout her life of women gaining the right to vote and she wrote towards the end of her life that “We are sowing winter wheat, which other hands than ours will reap and enjoy.”(2) In 1791 they hired women to work in textile mills in Rhode Island and in 1821 Emma Willard founded the Troy Female Seminary located in Troy, New York which was the first American-established institution of advanced education for women.(3) These were some of the first efforts to start the women's rights reform movement. In the states of Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, and Utah women had gained the right to vote by 1896 and by 1919 in 24 states in the United States, women had gained some sort of voting rights in those states. However, it was not until 1920 when the Nineteenth Amendment was passed that all women actually got the right to vote.(5) This means it took over a century, 129 years to be exact for women to gain all equal rights when they were actively trying to gain

Many of the nineteenth-century reform movement leaders were the same across women's rights, temperance, and abolition. Some leaders focused on one reform more than the others, but most of the leaders involved in these reforms supported each other and shared their ideas. Then many abolitionists after the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments were passed did not see the need for any more of their effort to be put in; however many women's rights leaders who had supported abolition believed that they should support them until everyone received equal rights. Because many leaders for other reforms like abolition did not continue supporting all the movements until everyone received equal voting rights, many women leaders turned their focus to gaining rights and equality for all women.(1) This led Susan B. Anthony after the civil war ended to suggest that the Fourteenth Amendment should also include granting voting rights to all women as well as to African American men.