Women in the 19C United States of America: Fighting for Equality

Wednesday, March 10, 2021

Fighting for Equality - Hallie Quinn Brown 1850-1949

Hallie Quinn Brown was born on March 10, 1850 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the daughter of former slaves. Her family migrated to Canada and to the United States in 1870, settling in Wilberforce, Ohio. Brown attended Wilberforce College and received a degree in 1873. Brown taught at Allen University served as Dean of the University. Brown also served as Dean of Women at Tuskegee Institute before returning to Ohio where she taught in the Dayton public schools.

Brown had since childhood held an interest in public speaking In 1895 Hallie Q. Brown addressed an audience at the Women’s Christian Temperance Union Conference in London. In 1899, while serving as one of the United States representatives, she spoke before the International Congress of Women meeting in London, UK. Brown also spoke before Queen Victoria.

Brown was involved in the women’s suffrage campaign which led her to help organize the Colored Women’s League in Washington, D.C., one of the organizations that allied in 1896 to become the National Association of Colored Women (NACW). During her last year as president of the NACW, she spoke at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

Hallie Q. Brown published several significant books. In 1926, her book Homespun Heroines and Other Women of Distinction was published. It documented the biographies of leading African American women of the era. Hallie Quinn Brown died in Wilberforce, Ohio in 1949.

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.”