Women's history: key themes and perspectives

Women's History

This report discusses how most women who participated in the many reform movements during the late 19th and early 20th century did not intend to solely help their own kind of white middle to upper class women. There is no doubt that the period witnessed an abundance of female activism and this report will incorporate various reform movements of the time such as the Women's Club Movement and the Women's Trade Union League to demonstrate that the interests of these groups were for overall social improvement. The time period in question was dominated by whites so even in the sense of female rights and activism, privilege usually only allowed well to-to white women to rebel. But, since they tried to help underprivileged parts of the entire society, they were clearly thinking of more than just other white women with money.

The women's movements of the late 19th and early 20th century were driven be a new class of women. That particular time had an increase of women who were born into the middle and upper classes after the Civil War and during the early phases of the industrial revolution. These women, who were of course white, enjoyed the advantage of having unprecedented access to higher education. Historians have demonstrated that over forty percent of the college graduates in 1900 were female. These new educated women had alternatives and therefore many of them, instead of marrying and having children, decided to pursue careers as teachers, social workers and even office clerks at a time when men held most of these positions.

Some of the before mentioned educated women participated in society through dual roles. For example, a woman may have taken a job to further here own economic potential but she may also have participated in the more traditional roles of taking care of others by attempting to improve overall conditions in slums and factories or by contributing to the efforts that built hospitals, parks and other social institutions. The Women's Trade Union League in 1903 for example, attempted to help all women on the social scale by helping implement strikes through union activities. As a result, these middle class women established more than 400 houses that helped working class women, rich or poor, organize for better working conditions and pay increases.

These types of social activism drew more women into large national organizations that were all headed by white middle to upper class and highly educated women. These groups began to tackle all types of problems. The General Federation of Women's Clubs was established in 1890 as an association of reading clubs but later became a very powerful lobby against poverty caused social conditions in urban slums as well as new child labor legislation. Other groups like the Women's Christian Temperance Union attracted almost a million members and they fought a broad range of women's labor rights.

There may have been a subconscious objective in some of these groups to only help other middle and upper class white women because this was a time when there was a great deal more prejudice and racism. But, a great many of the efforts during these active movements helped a large number of other social groups. So, whether these reforms came as additional outcomes, the fact remains that the female reformers of the late 19th and early 20th century were extremely active politically and many new laws that helped care for women and children were possible. The bulk of these laws would never have passed without this coordinated reform effort.