African American Women In The 1930's

Women struggled to be treated as equals when trying to qualify for federal programs. Social security benefits were structured around the idea of a male breadwinner and a dependant housewife. (Ware). Much of society believed that women could not possibly be the head of the household and therefore it was much more difficult for women to get the help they needed in the depression. Even though many people believe that the need for feminism died out it was still needed in the 1930s to help the women with jobs.

During this time, people believed that women were only good at cooking, cleaning, or nurturing their children and couldn’t do much else. Because people thought this way, women were uneducated unless they were in the upper class. Wealthy women would sometimes have private tutors that would teach them.

No founding father and revolutionist who affirmed and believed in a just and free America would affirm human bondage. At the time and in 1776, only a few men proclaimed slavery as a necessary evil, however, most men, even in the remotest of the United States believed in the freedom of men. According to Thomas Jefferson in his love for Justice and the love of country script, he stood on the viewpoint that that equality was a moral obligation that ought to be preserved and observed by all mankind

They also didn’t wear make-up and would never smoke or drink in public, as well as not playing any sports. Their relationships were controlled, and they had to have a chaperone with them at all times during the date. Women were also unable to vote and there were very few paid jobs, as they were expected to be housewives and those who did have a job were extremely low paid ones like cleaning ladies, dress makers and secretaries. However, during the First World War, women were taken into war industries which

High class women had the resources and means to possess quality corsets. Middle class women wore corsets as well, but the quality was severely lacking, in regards to the higher class corsets. And finally lower class women did not wear them on a daily basis, if at all. Generally working class women, although at the time many women were not considered to be working, did not wear a corset as it severely inhibited physical performance. To wear a corset, at the time, was a defining part of their social status.

Gender Roles Today women are paid seventy-five cents to the dollar of what men make because it is perceived that women have a lower ranking than men. Women are expected to settle down, get married, have kids, and stay a housewife and/or stay at home mom for the rest of their lives. A woman is expected to stay at home to cook, clean, and make sure everyone else’s needs are met before her own. But, what a woman is not expected to do is go out, have a career of her own, and take care of herself.

The implication is, Lyddie is not paid by the hour, but also from how much fabric she makes. Other factory girls are not even increasing their pay, in fact their pay is only lowering. In addition to the other girls not even going to budge working because of their low pay, Lyddie has a chance to get the money she needs to reunite with her family. Therefore, if Lyddie were to sign the petition, her pay will only decrease. Lyddie is already making a good amount of money, signing the petition will only slow her down, and even worse, Lyddie could be dismissed leaving her with debt.

Many women who were considered feminists in this era were also supporters of Jim Crow laws and believed that African Americans were part of society’s problems. Feminism throughout this time period was also exclusive to women of the middle-class because workingwomen and poor women did not have the luxury of technology and worked out of necessity rather than for autonomy. Another issue with this part of the movement was that once a woman had children, she was no longer considered worthy of the rights she had while she was unmarried and childless (Nolan, 370). The birth of the feminist movement in the progressive era paved the way for tackling complex women’s issues into the 1930s.

Women were seen as hardworking and helpful people to have working on and off the battlefield. Women during this time were seen as below men and have the thoughts of women "Many people thought a girl lacked a boy 's intelligence; to much study would make her unladylike" (Reef 16). People thought a women could not be anymore intelligent or smart and work as hard as a man, nowadays this is way different and people see things in a new light. When Nightingale was learning and gathering as much information on topics like these as a little girl to prove society wrong. Nightingale forever showed the world that no one 's gender should make one entitled to more or less education than another (“Florence Nightingale The Legendary Nurse”).

According to this data, it is evident that the women was treated unfairly in getting paid. This gap is caused by the women’s lack of courage about asking the boss to raise the salary and the women was seemed to be less able to afford much work than the men. Then, they would be offered easier work which provided less salary. To extend, all those conclusions were based on the bias, natural sex differences and the logical fallacies. People all thought women were weaker than the men, because it the early society, the women had lower social levels and were forced to do the houseworks and the men worked outside.

In the 1960’s, the women's population of how many worked outside of their house had been 35%. Also in the 1960’s, the work force women had increased by 6 percent since 1950 and had become 35%. Women’s employment with children who had gone to school had also increased. Women who had children who were preschoolers had been a major influence in work because ⅓ of them were working outside their house. Also, 40% of women with children ages six to seventeen years old had been working outside of their house.

Betty Friedan was born on February 4, 1921, in Peoria, Illinois. She was known for her active participation in women’s rights back in the 1950s. She went out of the norm to create equality for females. Back in those days, not only women but minorities had barely any rights in society. Only white men in the United States benefitted, where they were the only ones who had control, be it businesses, the government, and even in the family.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” (U.S.). This quote, from the Declaration of Independence, is probably one of the most well-known quote there is. It speaks of man’s right to be free and equal of any one man out there. As we have all learned in our history class back in junior high, the Declaration of Independence was written mainly by Thomas Jefferson to explain why the colonies wanted independence from Great Britain. This document is a list of complaints by the English colonists’ against King George III.

The 1930s was a defining decade in America's history it was a test of the nation's strength and resulted in many changes, both good and bad. One of the many challenges America faced was the disastrous dust storms in the southern Great Plains. In the years before the dust storms began, farmers cleared the land of the grass in order to plant wheat when the drought came the wheat failed, resulting the Dust Bowl ("Dust Bowl 1931-1939" 3). These storms caused the greatest migration in U.S. history, with about 2.5 million farmers and their families leaving the plains ("Dust Bowl 1931-1939" 3). The Dust Bowl was an enormous struggle that resulted in many economic and agricultural problems that were going to be extremely strenuous to fix.