Women in the 19C United States of America: Ex-slave Lizzie Jones Remembers the beds & the food in 19C America

Saturday, March 30, 2019

Ex-slave Lizzie Jones Remembers the beds & the food in 19C America

Ex-slave Lizzie Jones, about 86 years old

Lizzie remembered, "The slaves slep' on bunks of homemade boa'ds nailed to the wall, wid poles fer legs. They cooked on the fire-place. I did'n know what a stove was till after the war. Sometime they would bake co'n-bread in the ashes. Ebber bit of the grub they et come from the white fo'ks, an' the clothes too. I run them looms many a night weavin' cloth. In the summer time the Niggers had lots of turnips, turnip-greens, an' garden-stuff to eat. Master allus put up several barrels of kraut an' a smokehouse full of po'k fer winter. He giv' the Niggers kraut, salt-po'k, meal, an' tallow, but no flour or lard. Huntin' was good 'fore the war, and on Saturday the men could go huntin' an' fishin' an' catch fish, possum, rabbit, squirrel an' coon to eat."

Photos and quotes of former slaves used in these blog posts come from the Slave Narratives.

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.”