Abolitionism and The Womens Rights Movement

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Abolitionism and The Womens Rights Movement

• Womens rights emerges from the Antislavery
  movement?

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Abolitionism

• Movement to abolish slavery
• Had existed since the founding of the new United
  States
• Different strains
• Colonization (early on)
• Gradualist
• Immediate

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Abolitionists Tactics

• Moral Suasion- most popular tactic
• Slave narratives- Frederick Douglass (1845),
  Harriet Jacobs
• Newspapers- William Lloyd Garrison (President of
  American Anti-Slavery Society- AASS) pub. The
  Liberator
• Speeches Maria Stewart, Angelina Grimke Weld,
  Sojourner Truth, Abby Kelley
• Pamphlets- Appeal to the Christian Women of the
  South (Angelina Grimke- 1836)
• Meetings- Philadelphia, England, etc.
• Radical- calls for slave rebellions
• David Walkers Appeal
• Radical- open rebellion, attempts to arm slaves

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Abolitionism- Support

• Most Americans, even in the North, did not want
  immediate abolition
• Even most members of Abraham Lincolns Republican
  Party advocated gradual and/or colonization
• Democrats were against it- Southern party, also
  Northern immigrants who feared competition from
  newly freed slave migration to the North.
• Racism throughout the US, even among immediate
  abolitionists (eg. Garrison encouraging former
  slaves to speak in a less educated manner)

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Our Countrymen in ChainsBy John Greenleaf
Whittier

• Our countrymen in chains!
• Slaves-in a land of light and law!
• Slaves-crouching on the very plains!
• Where rolled the storm of freedoms war!
• Up now for Freedom!- not in strife
• Like that your sterner fathers saw
• That awful waste of human life-
• The glory and the guilt of war
• But break the chain- the yoke remove
• And smite to earth oppressions rod,
• With those mild arms of Truth and Love,
• Made mighty through the living God!

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Women and Abolitionism

• Maria Stewart
• Sarah and Angelina Grimke
• Sojourner Truth
• Abby Kelley
• Lucy Stone
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton

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Women and Abolitionism

• Arguments over womens role in the movement split
  the abolitionist movement in 1840
• Garrison wing- full female participation
• Theodore Dwight Weld (Angelina Grimkes husband)
  both Grimke sisters- restrained their beliefs
  on womens rights to focus on abolitionism
• Talk of womens rights in the air throughout
  the 1840s

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Women and Abolitionism

• Key Moment Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Convention
  in 1839
• Mob attacked because women were speaking in
  public and because they were against abolition
• Angelina Grimke gave an impassioned speech (see
  document)
• But she was not the first woman to speak before a
  mixed gender (promiscuous) audience
• Maria Stewart was, but she is often ignored- why?
  (see document)

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The Womens Movement

• Pauline Wright Davis
• Maria Stewart
• Abby Kelley
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton
• Lucy Stone
• Sojourner Truth
• Susan B. Anthony
• Thomas Wentworth Higginson

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Abby Kelley Foster
Image Source http//www.abbyshouse.org/images/pan
el/abby.jpg
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Paulina Wright Davis
Image Source http//z.about.com/d/womenshistory/
1/0/x/A/paulina_wright_davis.jpg
Sojourner Truth
Image Source http//www.sacs.csd109.k12.me.us/HLA
NE/Famous_Women/Pictures/ElizabethCadyStanton.jpg
Image Source http//www.assumption.edu/whw/old/Na
rrativeGuide.html
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Cult of True Womanhood

• 4 pillars- dominant societys view of how women
  should be
• Reinforced in literature, magazines
• Eg. Childrens cautionary tales

Worst of all is what happened to Pauline who
persisted in playing with matches. Pauline's
story is about the dangers of playing with fire,
both literally and figuratively. Her mother and
nurse both warned her. But, as soon as she found
herself alone, she determined to light a match or
two. Her pet cats call out to warn her, but
Pauline pays them no heed. The fire is too
pretty. She runs about and fails to put it out. A
spark gets on her apron, and Pauline finds
herself ablaze. The illustration strongly
suggests a sexual theme to the story. Source
http//www.assumption.edu/whw/old/NarrativeGuide.h
tml
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Seneca Falls Conference

• 1848, Seneca Falls, NY
• Women met to discuss rights
• Wrote Declaration of Sentiments
• All ________ are created equal

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Seneca Falls Conference

• 1848, Seneca Falls, NY
• Women met to discuss rights
• Wrote Declaration of Sentiments
• All men and women are created equal

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1850 Convention Worcester,MA

• Elizabeth Cady Stanton- beginning of movement for
  womens rights
• The first National Convention
• Nominated Pauline Wright Davis President
• Sojourner Truth- famous speech
• Abby Kelley was the most controversial speaker
  (see doc)

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Abby Kelly Foster-

• I do not talk of woman's rights, but of human
  rights, the rights of human beings. I do not come
  to ask for them, but to demand them not to get
  down on my knees and beg for them, but to claim
  them. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the
  gander. We have our rights, and the right to
  revolt, as did our fathers against King George
  the Third--the right to rise up and cut the
  tyrants' throats. On this subject I scorn to talk
  like a woman. We must give them the truth, and
  not twaddle. From the NY Herald account
• (Source http//www.assumption.edu/whw/old/Narrat
  iveGuide.html)

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Reaction of the Dominant Society

• Newspaper Account of Worcester Conference
• THE NEW YORK HERALD, Friday, October 25,
  1850WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION. AWFUL COMBINATION
  of SOCIALISM, ABOLITIONISM, AND INFIDELITY.The
  Pantalettes Striking for the Pantaloons. Bible
  and Constitution Repudiated.
• Source http//www.assumption.edu/whw/old/Narrati
  veGuide.html

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Political Cartoons Satirizing Womens Changing
Roles

• From Scraps, no. 1, 1849 (book published in
  Boston
• Available on the Gilder Lehrman Institute of
  American History site
• http//www.icue.com/portal/site/iCue/iCueSearchRes
  ultsNavItem/?showResultsyestermswomen20cartoon
  sselectedValueADVANCED