Women in the 19C United States of America: Photo Archives - African American Women at Work & School in the 1890s

Thursday, August 16, 2018

Photo Archives - African American Women at Work & School in the 1890s

These photos come from the Library of Congress collection of African American Photographs Assembled for 1900 Paris Exposition. They are part of the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog of the Library of Congress, and there are many more there to see.
5 Female Negro officers of Women's League, Newport, R.I. 189osAfrican Americans, mostly women] assorting tobacco at the T.B. Williams Tobacco Co., Richmond, Virginia 1890sAgricultural and Mechanical College, Greensboro, N.C - Butter making 1890sBazoline Estelle Usher, Atlanta University Student 1890sFour African American women seated on steps of building at Atlanta University, Georgia 189osGroup of Children from the Model School, Fisk University, Nashville Tenn. 1890sNine African American women seated on steps of a building at Atlanta University, Georgia 1890sRoger Williams University--Nashville, Tenn.--Normal class 1890sSewing class at Haines Normal and Industrial Institute, Augusta, Georgia 1890sSewing ClassYoung women cutting and fitting clothing in class at Agricultural and Mechanical College, Greensboro, N.C. 1890s

About this blog

In colonial America, men were considered superior to woman in all ways. In a strict patriarchal hierarchy, men controlled not only wealth & political power but also how their children were raised, religious questions, & all matters of right & wrong.

In the early part of the 19Cy, however, many Americans experienced a revolution in gender. The doctrine of “separate spheres” maintained that woman’s sphere was the world of privacy, family, & morality while man’s sphere was the public world -– economic striving, political maneuvering, & social competition. But women were interested in equality.

In 1848, New York passed the Married Woman’s Property Act. Now a woman wasn’t automatically liable for her husband’s debts; she could enter contracts on her own; she could collect rents or receive an inheritance in her own right; she could file a lawsuit on her own behalf. She became for economic purposes, an individual. By 1900, every state has passed legislation modeled after this, granting married women some control over their property and earnings.

In 1870 after the Civi War, the 15th Amendment was ratified, saying, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” African-Americans could vote, but women could not.

But it was not until 1920, that the 19th Amendment was ratified granting women the right to vote. “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”