History Of The Women's Suffrage Movement

Before the Women’s Suffrage movement began, women faced hardships that would later motivate them to take a stand for women’s rights. Women were, at that time, being abused and mistreated by men and society, in order to gain what was necessary to survive during this time in American history. The industrial revolution had just swept the nation by surprise. The industrial revolution changed the process of production from hand tools and man labor, to power driven machinery. (Dublin). This change from hand labor to power machinery affected the women greatly. The women continued to do the same jobs as before the industrial era, but now all work was done on machines to increase both output and production rates on products. This new way of manufacturing
was leading people to the city life and leaving farming in the past. Families would abandon their farms, and move into the vastly developing cities for the growing popularity of factory work. (Working Class Women). Many women also left their farms to work in towns. They did this in order to support themselves financially, or to make extra money to send back to their families who stayed working on farms. When young women came to the cities to find work, it was not because they found themselves in poverty situations, but merely they came because they saw a lack of future opportunities in the places they were from. (Dublin). Women of this age saw others risking their steady farm life to explore the cities and factories and wanted to receive that same opportunity despite of sex, age, or inexperience. In addition to finding themselves in boring, repetitive lives, families were in need of money, but finding jobs for women was a difficult task. There were more choices for women without children, some of them included: domestic service, factory work, street selling, manual labor, agricultural work, mine work, and prostitution. In comparison, the jobs available for women with children were less abundant. Possible jobs were piecework in homes and taking in lodgers. Women doing piecework included that of making matchbook covers, matches, plaiting straw for bonnets, lace-making, and sewing. Women who didn’t have children to care for, often were paid more for their jobs than women who did work while caring for kids. Out of all the jobs available for women during this time, prostitution was the best paying job. Prostitutes made the same amount of money in one day as a woman working in a different job could make in a week. Women’s permission to prostrate themselves came from their husband if they were married or the police for the single. The husband’s and police’s reason for granting permission was to protect the spread of diseases. (Working Class Women). Not only were women struggling during this time to find and maintain respectable jobs, but women were treated poorly.
Women were underpaid, expected to stay at home to run the household, and abused, all without others taking a second glance at the morality of these situations. From the 1830s to approximately the 1860s, women who chose to work in mills made about three to three and a half dollars a week; this was about one third to half of a man’s wages (Dublin, Working Class Women). At that time, three to three and half dollars was much more than a farmer’s daughter could earn but was still not enough for a single person to live off of. (Dublin). A single woman making low wages could only afford to pay their rent; they were unable to buy extra necessities such as food or clothing. Due to low income and being unable to support themselves, a woman's goal was to get married. After marriage, she would be supported by her husband’s income and no longer had to worry about the financial burden alone. Consequently, married life could be considered almost as hard as the life of a single woman. Women were still required to get a job after marriage to help pay for needs. Women also tended to eat less than their husbands and children to ensure their family was their main priority and was managed adequately. Women who failed to manage the household sufficiently or those who spent too much money were often abused. The abuse would go unintervened unless a man beat another man’s wife or death was suspected. (Working Class Women). Women of this time were second rate compared to men and had much less important than males. This caused tension among feminists who believed that men and women should be treated equal. With this in mind, those same women who saw the unequal treatment of women during this time in history, were probably women who started the fight for women’s
suffrage.