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Women's Rights Mid-1800s Essay

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Before the mid-1800s, there was a focus on the notion that women's duties were to manage the home by taking care of their husbands and children. America's start of industrialization during the Market Revolution in the 1820s and 1830s created a demand for labor; filled by women, significantly changing traditional gender roles. However, women had lower wages than men, and they began to protest these wages through unions and the press, which ignited fragments of the first women's movements. A significant movement started with the Seneca Falls Convention, which took place at Seneca Falls, New York, on July 19 and 20, 1848. It was the first convention in America to focus on women's civil and political rights, also the introduction of the Declaration …show more content…

Inspired by the Declaration of Independence, the document asserted that all men and women are created equal (Stanton and Mott 2) and that women had the same unalienable rights as men. These unalienable rights were denied to women, such as property ownership and education. Most grievances were resolved by a list of resolutions, which ultimately got the approval of over a hundred people. The declaration's success inspired acts passed by individual states, such as the Married Women's Property Act of New York, and acts that funded public and private education for women in 1860. The Married Women's Property Act of New York granted women the rights over any property they owned while single and stated that women could inherit property(Cullen-DuPont 3). The funding of public and private education allowed women to expand their education. This education allowed for a wider variety of occupations, such as teaching and positions in the medical field(Tendrich-Frank 4). Both rights would expand women's presence as equal members of society. The Declaration of Sentiments served as a manifesto of all the possibilities in store for women and laid the groundwork for expanding women's rights and dissolving the idealogy of gender

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