Blog # 10

Textbook: Chapter 7

1. While the white women were fighting for reforms they set aside class in order to form better unions, but still did not accept African Americans. Many black women instead formed their own help groups and reformed for a change in their own communities. Jim Crow laws were in effect during this time period and these laws prohibited people of color from using certain public outlets, such as stores, hospitals, libraries, etc. To off set the discrimination of these laws the black communities started their own stores, hospitals, and libraries, in turn creating their own black communities where Jim Crow laws could not harm them. Black women opened and operated their own day care programs and schools for young children so that mothers could work. African Americans also began their own political groups where they could speak their mind without being discriminated.

2. The suffrage movement were primarily based on the equality of women's public and political life. This movement advocated for voting rights and equality. The feminist movement focused on a women's natural rights and privileges. It advocated for a womens rights in the home, sexual rights, and their independence. The feminist movement was based of the idea of feminism where a woman could be whomever she believed she wanted to be, regardless of a man. This idea was still very new and not all agreed with its principles. The suffrage movement was a universal goal and was received by the public.

Source Interpretation
Textbook document

3.The definitions given from the convention varied greatly. Many speakers, both men and women, spoke about feminism as being a right to do certain things. A right to have fun, to experiment, to think what she wants, and to be different. George Middletown said that feminism is a “spiritual attitude” and also called it an “educational idea”. He argued that “men and women are made up of the same soul stuff,” (461) a thought that was progressive of the eras before. Rose Young thought that feminism is a woman's need to develop her own self. Edwin Bjorkman put it nicely stating that feminism “meant that a 'woman should have the right to be a full-fledged personality and not merely a social unit.” (461)

4. What I gathered from the text is this: a women's place is now the workplace, not the home. Inez Milholland's essay says that to send a woman “back to the home” would mean to follow her to her place of work. Therefore, a women's economic independence is a base thought in feminist theory. Her economic independence makes her a feminist. In the article before many speakers stated that feminism was a women being independent. Working for her own money would cause her to be independent, therefore a feminist. Not to say that all working women are feminists, but in some sense one would believe there would be at least a hint of feminism in the female working class.

5. I believe that feminism is when a women depends on no one but herself. She thinks for herself, works for herself, believes in herself, and she does not need anyone, especially a man, to back her up on those. A women is a feminist when she fights for the rights and privileges of her own kind. My favorite definition that came from the feminism convention is Edwin Bjorkman's response, “a women should have the right to be a full-fledged personality and not merely a social unit.” (461) For the longest time women were perceived to be social homemakers, with no life outside the home or occasional book club meeting. Women were perceived to have certain capabilities and none other. If a woman had showed that she did, she was rejected by society. Women finally struck out of that mold when feminism was introduced, and it gained many rights for women then and in the future. Feminism is the action of breaking out of that mold.

Blog # 9

Textbook: Chapter 6
1. The United States was regarding as new and rich world to those who did not live there. That is why immigrants migrated to the US. Women from all over Europe and Asia traveled to the US for better opportunities, higher wages, independence, and hopefully a chance at true love. Upon entering the Uniter States though, life was different than what the expected. Women worked in factories or as servants and still received low wages for their hard work, similar to men. Men as well traveled from all of the world to find better wages and opportunities only to be kept down under the hand of the whites. What men did not have to suffer from was the likelihood of being forced into prostitution were often forced into a life of prostitution just to make enough to survive. Men also usually came to the Uniter States to work temporarily and then return home. Wages were higher than in the countries they called home so they would make the trip to the US and work just for the money to take back home to their families. Men and women immigrants alike suffered from the low wages and difficult, harsh labor, but it was the women that suffered more from prostitution.

2. Women involved in these three movements all had one common goal but different reasons to join. They all wanted equality, but they joined the group that would help in the fight for what they most believed in. The industrial protest called for higher wages, better working conditions and a better equality in the factories. This protest included both men and women and was for the bettering of all factories nationwide. The populist movement consisted of farmers of the South that were in debt. This included white non-elite women and black women. Finally, the settlement house movement was the idea to help immigrants learn the values and culture of United States. This movement also helped immigrant women in their daily lives. All three were designed to better women and men in the whole nation and called for reforms of women's lives.
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Source Interpretation
Textbook document
3. Addams wrote about the two different spectrums which the saw: The rich and the poor. She viewed the rich as living in particular parts of town, such as the Hull House, because there were other rich people living there as well. She viewed the poor as lazy and that is why they were poor. The poor view the wealthy as the landlords and those who are charitable. They believe that the landlords unkindly ways are to just make money. The charitable wealthy people are looking down on the poor and handing out money because they feel sorry for they. Because the poor feel these ways towards the rich they are often disrespectful and cold toward them. In the act of trying to become more like the rich by wearing cheaper versions of the fancy clothes they wear, the poor lose their identities and their ethical standards. The rich are confused after they donate to the poor because the poor still view them rudely, and are not very thankful.

4. Addams realized that people were different from one another and always would be. The social structure made them different. As a settlement house volunteer she realized the ways of the social structure and that the poor was poor not because that they were lazy but because they had no choice. It was society's fault for why the rich were rich and the poor were poor. The wealthy had control of the money and they were the ones that employed the poor and kept their wages low. Addams understood better this system with help of their Hebrew religion

Blog # 8

Textbook: Chapter 5
1. The significance in women's wage labor was that women were starting to be allowed into labor unions. Many women such as Leonora Barry and Mary Kenney were even appointed by unions to form women branches. Women fought for eight hour work days so that they would be able to go home and take care of families. Hypocritically, men did not want women to work at all, yet factory owners and owners of other companies men worked for would not allow for their salaries to be enough to cover at home expenses. One man said that women workers were unnecessary and an economic disadvantage (290).Working men and women aided the economic growth after the Civil War, increasing the wealth of the the upper-class business and factory owners. In turn, this new wealth allowed for more leisures and expenses for the upper- and middle-class women.

Textbook: Chapter 6
2. As white American settlers moved into the West, Native Americans were pushed out. The book describes how awful the whites treated Native Americans, often murdering and masacaring whole tribes of women, children, infants and men. The Native American women had to experience the suppression of the white man first hand. The first thing you notice about the three girls in the pictures is that they are not smiling. But what do they have to smile about? They have been taken away from their parents and tribe and have been forced to learn the ways of the white Americans' values, morals, language, and education. The Native American girls have physically learned the new values and dress, but they are still attached to their old ways.

Source Interpretation
Textbook document
1. Bessie Van Vorst meets many different girls in the factory that are there for varias reasons. Some work for their own pleasure, some work because they need to support their families. Many women were working to try to gain independences in hopes of gaining more rights and freedoms. They worked for spending money because their parents were fine with their money and could support their family comfortably. Many women though were working to support their large families and unworkable parents. Three girls were working to support their mother and to pay for the thirteen dollar a month rent, groceries and coal to keep them warm. Women's responses varied because no woman's family history, economic status, and needs were the same.

2. Von Vorst concludes “ There will be no strikes among them so long as the question of wages is not equally vital to them all...” (315). This means that since all the women are working for different reasons they as a group do not want the same things. Some women work for the littlest pay just so they can have extra spending money. Then there are the women who work themselves to death for as much as pay as their employer will allow them. Collectively they are unwilling to fight for themselves because no two women in the factory want the same thing. This idea of Von Vorst's is definitely a major factor to why working women are passive.