American Women's Rights Movement:
A Chronology of Events and of Opportunities from 1600 to 2008
by
Paul D. Buchanan
Copyright 2011 Paul D. Buchanan,
All rights reserved.
Published in eBook format by Branden Books
Converted by http://www.eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-0-8283-2275-1
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
To
Penni Thorpe
And All
Other Women--
Pioneers in
Their Own Right
PREFACE
The entries chronicled in this work depict events which have had lasting national significance in opening opportunities in the struggle for equal civil rights and opportunities for women. The impact of many of the included events was initially felt on a local level; but in time it created repercussions that spread across the country. These stories feature women – and men supporting the struggle of women – who were trailblazers, whose actions paved the way for those who followed them. These women were heroes – whether subtle or obvious – who for the most part have not received the comparable attention enjoyed by their male counterparts through history. However, their importance and impact on their gender – and the country – is at least as impressive as the men.
The common historical assumption was that – particularly in the 17th through 19th centuries – the man assumed the role of provider and head of the house, while the woman was the homemaker and child care provider, subject to the rule of the male. However, as these stories illustrate, there were a great many exceptions to the common myth; in fact, the exceptions were more common than history could have ever recorded. They would show women assuming the role of provider and head of the household, due to a number of circumstances involving the male: sickness, disability, absenteeism, death. The leadership these women exerted in and outside the home would often manifest in the community at large and, in turn, in the nation and in the world.
The reader might wonder why I, as a man, would be drawn to the subject of women’s rights and opportunities. First of all, there is a fascination with historic accounts that have not generally made it to the mainstream history books. In addition, the issue of equal opportunities and rights for women is essential for my own personal development and fulfillment. If women are pigeon-holed to particular roles, opportunities, and ideas, men also will be bound to similar confinements. The more expansive the opportunities for women to engage in whatever activities and vocations they wish, a similar bountiful selection of prospects will arise for men. The more women are allowed to develop as human beings to their full potentials, so the same may be said for men. If each gender is allowed to share equally the burdens and benefits of life, each person will enjoy the prospect to be more wholly realized.
My wife is of the opinion that women, in general, are more in need of – and better at developing – “connections” than men are. That is, there seems to be an innate drive – perhaps due to the maternal extinct, perhaps due to the roles society have traditionally established for women – to create relationship and community. Particular in this age of global interaction and conflict, in which the interdependence of each nation upon the rest is beginning to be fully realized, it may be of utmost importance that women now take a greater leadership in creating a world community which values peace, stewardship, and consensus. It seems most appropriate, then, to echo the words of Jeannette Rankin – the first woman member of Congress – uttered more than ninety years ago: “Peace is a Woman’s Job”.
The Seeds Are Planted: The 17th & 18th Centuries
November 17, 1637
The General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony banishes leader Anne Hutchinson, convicted of heresy, sedition, and “traducing the ministers”. Hutchinson would eventually follow fellow exile Roger Williams to the religious haven of Rhode Island, where she and several followers would settle on Aquidneck Island, near present-day Portsmouth.
A former Puritan, Hutchinson led a group of believers called Antinomians, who believed established moral law to be of no consequence, since salvation depended on faith in Christ alone. Her crime seemed to be hosting weekly women’s meetings in her Boston home. As many as sixty women at a time would attend, using the meetings to discuss the weekly sermon and study the Scriptures. The women would compare and contrast the Colony’s “Covenant of Works” with Hutchinson’s profession “Covenant of Grace”. Hutchinson would assert that those blessed by God’s grace were not bound by human law, were in no need of guidance and intervention by the established church, and could determine their own religious practice for themselves. Moreover, she claimed to have a direct communion with divine inspiration, in the form of the Holy Ghost.
Hutchinson’s professions flew directly in the face of Governor John Winthrop and the Puritan ministerial hierarchy, by essentially asserting that she did not need spiritual intercession from the Colony ministers. Moreover, her behavior opposed the will of the ministers, who discouraged women to consider the spiritual discourse without the guidance – or, rather, dictation – of their husbands.
Perhaps more than the threat she imposed toward the theological and economic bases of the Colony, as a strong, nimble-minded woman Hutchinson challenged the male dominated Puritan Society, which traditionally relegated women to roles of servitude and silence. (Buchanan, p. 43)
After Aquidneck Island, Hutchinson and her followers eventually moved to Pelham Bay in New York. There, in 1643, Hutchinson was scalped during a Wappinger Indian raid.
June 10, 1650
A collection of poetry, called “The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America”, is published by Anne Bradstreet. She becomes the first American female author to be published, and is often regarded as the first published poet – male or female – in America. Her brother-in-law Reverend John Woodbridge, had carried her manuscript of poetry to London, where it was published. A second collection, called “Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning”, was released posthumously in America.
Born in 1612 in Northampton, England, Anne Dudley sailed on the Arbella in 1630 with her father Thomas Dudley and family to America with the Massachusetts Bay Company. In 1628, she married Simon Bradstreet. In New England, she befriended Anne Hutchinson, but never followed her disruptive ways. Instead, she lived largely under the shadows of her husband and father, except for the publication of her poetry. In 17th century New England, any woman who tried to display her intellectual gifts to the larger community risked ridicule or exile by the Colony’s male hierarchy.
A highly educated woman, Bradstreet had been tutored in Greek, Latin, French, Hebrew, and English. Through her literary career, she regularly wrote about politics, history, theology, and medicine. Though much of her poetry focused on her Puritan world of God, husband, and home, occasionally Bradstreet would write a verse on the virtue of women. Such are the lines from In Honor of that High and Mighty Princess Queen Elizabeth of Happy Memory.
Now say, have women worth, or have they none,
Or had they some, but with our Queen is’t gone?
Nay, masculines, you have taxed us long
But she, though dead, will vindicate our wrong
Let