“In the history of the world,” Ralph Waldo Emerson declared in 1841, “the doctrine of Reform had never such scope as at the present hour” (1). Waldo was not adherently known as a reformer, but he did recognize the reformation movement of the nineteenth century. As white male suffrage expanded, women and slaves were excluded or neglected in the political process and society. In protest, these marginalized groups and their sympathizers organized with a civic duty and moral conviction to improve American society and to influence social and political policy. While dissenters viewed reform as an invasion of their freedom, the public sphere proved instrumental to sequential organized reform movements evolving the women’s movement, heightening public awareness, and enlightening women of their own subordinate status. …show more content…
Even though the movements were diverse, Women emerged in support of these groups. Three reform movements bolstered one another and more importantly cultivated an egalitarian movement among women in the public realm – temperance, abolition, and women’s movements. We see this evident in the life of Susan B. Anthony who began her reformist career in support of the temperance movement. Making her first public speech in 1948, she understood the impact the public sphere would have in the movement (2). Following her speech, “The next year her leadership qualities were recognized when she was voted president of her local branch of the Daughters of Temperance” wrote Sarah McGill (3). Temperance was a movement that emerged from the second Great Awakening that addressed the morality of American society, particularly alcohol consumption. Anthony, as many supporters of temperance, recognized the immorality of slavery and cross-sectionally supported both the abolition movement along with the temperance