Module Lecture

"Declaration of Sentiments": Women's Rights in the 19th Century

Week 12, Lecture 1

Next Class: Thursday, 5 November

Harriet Jacobs. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (862-82).

Literary Response 3 is due.

NOTE: Literary Argument Essay is due on Thursday, 19 November.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton: “Declaration of Sentiments” (821-23)

Why did Stanton base her document appealing for women’s rights on the Declaration of Independence?

Sentiment (definition). A view or attitude toward a situation or event; an opinion.

Exaggerated and self-indulgent feelings of tenderness, sadness, or nostalgia.

The Sentimental Novel: a type of novel popular with women readers during the middle of the nineteenth century.

Source: https://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/domestic.htm

Are any of the sentiments in Stanton’s declaration relevant today? Are any of these issues evident, for instance, in the “Me Too” movement?

What Happened at the Seneca Falls Convention? / History (4:27)

What Happened at the Seneca Falls Convention? | History
Birth of the Women’s Rights Movement in the United States

Seneca Falls, New York, July 1848.

Attendees: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and Frederick Douglass.

Related Movements: Women’s Rights (Suffragist) & Anti-Slavery (Abolitionist)

Issues: Social, Civil & Religious Rights of Women

Education (esp. access to higher education - college)
Property Ownership
Child Custody (in the event of divorce)
The Right to Vote (Women’s Suffrage).
Legal and political representation. Why should women be subject to laws written solely by men? How can they expect justice in a patriarchal legal system?

19^th Amendment (Ratified in 1920). Granted women in the United States the right to vote.

Women in the 19^th Century: Crash Course US History #16 (13:10)

Women in the 19th Century: Crash Course US History #16

Women & Class. Working-class women were somewhat equal to men in their class. Upper-class women were subject to codes of behavior and were preventing from meaningful employment.

Cult of Domesticity

A woman’s place was in the home, taking care of her husband and children.

Women were Active in Several Reform Movements

Prison reform.
Temperance movement.
Anti-slavery movement.

Women’s Movement in the 19^th Century

An international movement.

A middle- or upper-class effort.

Faced strong resistance from the status quo (male patriarchy).

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