Feminism In The United States During The 1800's

The United States during the 1800’s was going through a mode of metamorphosis. The Civil War was a period dedicated to those who fought or opposed slavery in the nation. It solely focused on the people who fought for what they thought would benefit the country more. Apart from the Civil War was the Antebellum Period. The nation went through a phase of shifting individualism and gradual polarization before and after the Civil War, known as the Antebellum Period. There were movements done by various groups to voice out their opinions on how they want to improve their social or national status. Searching for equal opportunities and parallelism in the nation was quite difficult knowing that there were many circumstances one had to understand and
The initial and primordial status of women were well below the social status of an average man. It was more than complicated to figure out what women wanted to be and what status they wanted to have in the beginning, but as more reforms are being formed in the nation, women were well qualified and ready to fight for their status in the nation. As historian Nancy F. Cott have noted, feminism is a movement of rising expectations (Allgor 1533). An important action done by women was the Women’s Right Movement from 1848-1869. The national conventions were most vociferously promoted by Paulina Wright Davis. Perhaps most notably, Fuller's Woman in the Nineteenth Century(1845) was a primer in women's right to self-culture for Paulina Wright Davis, the president of the first two national women's rights conventions(1850 and 1851) and the founding editor of the first women's rights newspaper,the Una (1853-1855) (Kelley 1431). The conventions led by Davis demanded a change in their legal, social and economic disadvantages that women faced. These conventions allowed them to strongly focus on their arguments using the Declaration of Independence to fight for their
The strong women such as Paulina Wright Davis, used this piece of authority and legal process to establish a strong front for women in the present and the future. To enable a well founded and well made regulation and framework for women, they used the Declaration of Independence to have a strong and substantial support system. The byproduct of using the Declaration of Independence, was the chain reaction of the “Declaration of Sentiment”. The “Declaration of Sentiment” composed of a preamble, twelve resolutions and a proposal. According to the Women’s Right movement, they hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed (The Women's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls: A Lesson Plan