Rebecca Felton: Women's Pre-Civil War

Rebecca Felton began to work to persuade men to take action, restore the South to its pre-Civil War vitality, and address the issues of women’s interest. She believed that men must be held accountable, and during her 1887 address at the Women’s Christian Temperance Union state convention she argued that women fulfilled their duties as wives and mothers, but men undervalued their importance.
I am of the opinion that a lady is the woman of all work in the family-trainer of children- housekeeper and cook-seamstress and servant- mistress and maid- counselor and waiting woman- nurse and general standby in all difficulties- graduated and accomplished in so much work, and in so many useful ways is entitled to rather more respect that some accord