From: Anonymous One
Date: 3/28/00
Time: 8:37:49 AM
Remote Name: 155.247.185.77
Anonymous OneChapter 11 Question 1: What were the roles of women and the family in the pre Civil War America? Compared to their colonial forebears, did American women have more autonomy or less by 1840?
Womanhood was an increasing division between the working lives of men and women. In the eighteen century and earlier, economic activity had been centered near the home. Husbands and wives often worked together in a common enterprise. By the early mid-nineteenth century, this way of life was declining. Men went every morning to their places of labor while women remained at home. Women's place was in the home and on pedestal. Women were responsible for doing all the house holds chores, which included, cleaning the home, cooking and taking care of he children. Women were also responsible for bringing up the family together and also increasing the family by giving birth to a lot of children. They were also responsible educating their children at home, the girls helped their mother with some of the household chores while the boys helped their fathers at the farms. Husband treated women as their servants. In urban areas, unmarried working class women often lived on their own and toiled as house hold servants, in the sweatshops of the garment industry and in factories. For some of them, the relatively well-paid and gregarious life of prostitution seem to offer an alternative of life of loneliness .Men were the heads of the family. They were responsible for running the affairs of the world and building up the economy. They often worked in the farms and factories. Men were responsible for feeding up the family, and they were looked up as a source of security. By 1840, American women had more autonomy as compared to their colonial forebears. Women went public and demanded their rights. They participated in anti slavery demanding equal role in leadership of the anti slavery society. In 1840, the declaration of sentiments went on to demand that women should be given their vote and that women should be freed from the unjust laws. Women started working in industries