Coming to America: Portrait of Colonial Life: Family and Community Life in New England
The portrait of life in New England plays out in stark contrast to life in the Southern colonies primarily because New England is settled by family groups. Although birth rates and life expectancy are generally high, women settlers find themselves i...
Worlds Apart: Role of Women and Cult of Domesticity, The
A woman staying at home and managing her family's affairs rather than working for wages outside the home becomes an indication that the family has achieved middle-class status. Few immigrant or African-American women have this option. Middle-class w...
Progressive Era, The: Fight for Women's Suffrage
Perhaps the largest single reform movement of the progressive era is the fight for women's suffrage, a movement which attracts support from both men and women. Most states grant women some voting rights before passage of 19th amendment, acknowledgin...
New Corporate Order, A: Plight of the Worker, The
The industrial revolution creates many factory jobs, most of which are occupied by unskilled laborers. These men, women and children earn a very low wage, work long hours and in deplorable conditions. The result is a poor, uneducated working class w...
Progressive Era, The: Women in the Workforce
It is rare for a woman to hold public office in the early 20th century much less enter professions dominated by men. When women engage in "women's jobs" there is not much controversy. It is in higher earning and more prestigious areas like medicine ...
Divergent Paths: Southern Women: The Plantation Mistress and Her Slaves
The mistresses of successful southern plantations are businesswomen who spend most of their time and energy managing the plantation household. The slave women they oversee have a dual burden: the physical work they perform as slaves and the reproduc...
The Role of Gender: Women in the Workplace
The experiences of men and women in the workplace are often very different. Women frequently must contend with gender-based discrimination. Although the courts got involved in gender-related employment issues in the 1970's, the burden of fighting ...
Determined to be Heard: New Feminism, The
Women begin to question the gender hierarchy particularly in light of their contribution to the civil rights and anti-war movements. President Kennedy initiates a commission on the status of women with Eleanor Roosevelt as its chair. Title 7 of the ...
Changing Families: Alternative Family Structures
Among the most obvious changes in American families has been the increased diversity of family forms and structures. Some of the most common alternative family forms are: single parent families, married couples without children, stepfamilies, and f...
Best Laid Plans...: Jefferson's Vision for America
Thomas Jefferson and his Republican followers have an almost idyllic image of the America they would like to promote--families living on farms and in small villages, working together free from government interference and the industrial squalor commo...