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2010

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Michelle W. ©
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The reason for American women’s and minority history

Ø  Discrimination

Ø  Male-dominated society forced them into inferior categories

Ø  Gap between national ideals and realities of prejudice

Ø  Changes in law did not function as intended, nor did they assure changes in attitudes

Ø  Strong opposition towards affirmative-action programmes and election districts that arrange for preferential treatment of women and minorities in order to correct the effects of the past discrimination

Women in America

Ø  They do not: - work in most prestigious occupations, - earn as much money, - enjoy positions of equal social status

Ø  Work in poorly paid service jobs

Ø  Under-represented in politics and the highest level in business management

Ø  Women’s legal status was determined by English common law:
Law made by judges through decisions in specific cases is known as the common law. These case-by-case decisions were used again and again in similar cases and thereby become routine, or common to all people living under the authority of the court of law.

The common law used in the United States originated in England and was compiled in the 18th century by Sir William Blackstone in his Commentaries on the Law of England.
The English common law was taken by emigrants from the Old Country to the American colonies. After the American Revolution, English common law became the foundation of legal procedures in the United States of America.

Today, the legal system in every American state, except Louisiana, is based on the Anglo-American common law. In Louisiana, once a French colony, certain French legal customs have been maintained.
Arthur R. Hogue, Origins of the Common Law (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1986).

Lawrence H. Tribe, American Constitutional Law (Mineola, N.Y.: Foundation Press, 1978)

Ø  Until 1800: ‛civil death’ upon marriage (ceased to exist legally except through her spouse)

Ø  No right to own property, control wages or sign contracts

Ø  Historical circumstances and attitudes worked against conventional view of women:

-          In the west: women’s skills were as essential as men’s

-          ‛Back East’: shortage of men meant widows and single women were often needed to fill the occupation roles of men

-          Church: proclaimed idleness to be a sin for both sexes

-          Before the Industrial Revolution: most requirements were made at home, women were expected to be as proficient at handicrafts as men, women were majority among first factory workers, less skilled jobs, earned about one quarter of men’s wages

Nineteenth century

Ø  Middle and upper-class women were leisured, no paid work at home, founded girls’ schools and colleges (between 1800-1850)

Ø  Female reformers (crusade against alcohol abuse, movements to improve conditions in prison, insane asylums, hospital, schools and immigrant ghettos)

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Ø  First movement for women’s rights was closely related to female reformers’ experiences in abolitionist (anti-slavery) campaigns

Ø  In 1848 Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton led the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, NY.

-          The convention’s ‛Declaration of Sentiments’ called for property and divorce rights, educational and employment opportunities and the vote.


Ø  Susan B. Anthony led successful efforts to improve women’s status in marriage and divorce, economic rights under NY state law
- few years later these approvals were repealed Lucretia Mott

Ø  The Thirteenth Amendmentto the U.S. Constitution reads:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. > Abolition of slavery (Law Encyclopedia. West's Encyclopedia of American Law. Copyright © 1998 by The Gale Group, Inc.)

Ø  The Constitution left the question of who should have the right to vote to the states. Initially, women who owned property could vote in New Jersey, but by 1808 this right had disappeared even there, and throughout the 19th century women could not vote. In 1848 delegates to the Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York, demanded that women have the right to vote.

After the Civil War, the woman suffrage campaign spread, led by Susan B. Anthony. Woman suffragists held conventions in Washington, lobbied members of Congress, and testified before congressional committees. In 1913 women paraded down Pennsylvania Avenue and militant protestors began picketing the White House, even chaining themselves to its fence, to draw attention to their campaign.

When President Woodrow Wilson delivered his State of the Union message to Congress in December 1916, women in the galleries unfolded a large banner that read, “Mr. President, What Will You Do For Woman Suffrage?” Several states, mostly in the West, individually gave women the right to vote in both state and national elections, and in 1916 Montana elected suffrage leader Jeannette Rankin to the House of Representatives.

Ø  The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA):
A proposed addition to the U.S. Constitution that read, "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex," and that failed to receive ratification by the required number of states.

-          was the most highly publicized and debated constitutional amendment before the United States for most of the 1970s and early 1980s. First submitted by Congress to the states for ratification on March 22, 1972, it failed to be ratified by its final deadline of June 30, 1982. If ratified, the ERA would have become the Twenty-seventh Amendment to the Constitution.

-          written by Alice Paul, of the National Woman's party, and was first introduced in Congress in 1923. However, no action on the amendment was taken until the National Organization for Women, which was founded in 1966, revived interest in it.

-          When the amendment was first submitted to the states in 1972, Congress prescribed a deadline of seven years for ratification. Because an amendment must be ratified by the legislatures or conventions of three-fourths of the states, the ERA required approval by thirty-eight states.

-          15 % of married women employed in 1940; by 1970 almost 50%

-          Majority in 1970 were middle-aged and middle class women

-          Most wives didn’t take jobs until children entered school

-          Earned wages that kept the family in the middle class

-          Getting a higher education

Ø  Civil Right Act:
Comprehensive U.S. law intended to end discrimination based on race, colour, religion, or national origin. It is generally considered the most important U.S. law on civil rights since Reconstruction (1865 – 77). It guarantees equal voting rights (Title I); prohibits segregation or discrimination in places of public accommodation (Title II); bans discrimination, including sex-based discrimination, by trade unions, schools, or employers that are involved in interstate commerce or that do business with the federal government (Title VII); calls for the desegregation of public schools (Title IV); and assures nondiscrimination in the distribution of funds under federally assisted programs (Title VI).

Ø  U.S. Women's Rights Organization:
It was founded in 1966 by Betty Friedan to promote equal rights for women, particularly in the area of employment. With some 500,000 members (both women and men) and 550 chapters, it addresses, through lobbying and litigation, issues such as child care, pregnancy leave, and abortion and pension rights.

In the 1970s its major concern was passage of the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution, though the amendment failed in 1982. NOW has been more successful at the state level, where it has lobbied for state equal rights amendments and comparable-worth (equal pay for equal work) legislation.

Native Americans

Ø  Peoples who occupied North America before the arrival of the Europeans in the 15th century

Ø  Most scholars agree that Native Americans came into the Western Hemisphere from Asia via the Bering Strait or along the North Pacific coast in a series of migrations

Ø  From Alaska they spread east and south

Ø  The several waves of migration are said to account for the many native linguistic families, while the common origin is used to explain the physical characteristics that Native Americans have in common: Mongolic features, coarse, straight black hair, dark eyes, sparse body hair, and a skin color ranging from yellow-brown to reddish brown

Ø  Some scholars accept evidence of Native American existence in the Americas back more than 25,000 years, while many others believe that people arrived later than that, perhaps as recently as 12,000 years ago

Ø  This population dropped dramatically within a few decades of the first contacts with Europeans as many Native Americans died from smallpox, influenza, measles, and other diseases to which they had not previously been exposed

Ø  Native Americans were far more likely to die

Ø  From prehistoric times until recent historic times there were roughly six major cultural areas, i.e. Northwest Coast, Plains, Plateau, Eastern Woodlands, Northern, and Southwest.

Ø  French and Indian Wars:
North American phase of a war between France and Britain to control colonial territory (1754 – 63). The war's more complex European phase was the Seven Years' War. Earlier phases of the quest for overseas mastery were King William's War, Queen Anne's War and King George's War. The North American dispute was whether the upper Ohio River valley was a part of the British Empire or part of the French Empire; the bigger question was which national culture would dominate the heart of North America.

In the Treaty of Paris (1763) France gave up its North American territory to Britain.

(Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 1994-2010)

Contemporary Life:

Ø  In the 1890s the long struggle between the expanding white population and the indigenous peoples, which had begun soon after the coming of the Spanish in the 16th century and the British and French in the 17th century, was brought to an end

Ø  Native American life in the United States in the 20th century has been marked to a large degree by poverty, inadequate health care, poor education and unemployment

Ø  However, the situation is changing for some groups. New economic opportunities have arisen from an upswing in tourism and the development of natural resources and other businesses on many reservations

Ø  The first tribal college opened on the Navajo reservation in 1968; by 1995 there were 29 such colleges. A number of Native American radio stations now broadcast in English and native languages

Ø  Although there have been Native American newspapers since the early 1800s, there has been an increase in all types of native periodicals since the 1970s, including academic journals, professional publications, and the first national weekly, Indian Country Today

Ø  Many of these publications are now produced in cities as more Native Americans move off reservations and into urban centers

Ø  Over the years many Native Americans have bitterly objected to the disturbing of the bones of their ancestors in archaeological digs carried out across the country. These concerns brought about the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990)

Ø  In 1990 the Native American population in the United States was some 1.9 million, an increase of almost 38% since 1980

Ø  Oklahoma, California, Arizona, and New Mexico have the most Native American inhabitants; most Eskimos and Aleuts live in Alaska.

(Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2010, Columbia University Press.)


Picture 1: Lucretia Mott:
² Eleanor Flexner, Century of Struggle: The Woman's Rights Movement in the United States (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975)
West's Encyclopedia of American Law, published by Thomson Gale

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