Women in the 19C United States of America: 19C Americans in their grand Victorian homes

Monday, May 11, 2020

19C Americans in their grand Victorian homes

James Wells Champney (American artist, 1843–1903) Wedding Presents

Eastman Johnson (American genre painter, 1824-1906). Not at Home (An Interior of the Artist's House)

Edward Lamson Henry (American genre artist, 1841–1919) Parlor on Brooklyn Heights of Mr and Mrs John Ballard

Seymour Joseph Guy (American artist, 1824-1910) The Family of Robert Gordon in Their New York Dining Room 1866

Edward Lamson Henry (American genre artist, 1841–1919) Can They Go Too

Edward Lamson Henry (American genre artist, 1841–1919)The Sitting Room

Frederick Judd Waugh (American, 1861-1940) Chess Players

Pinckney Marcius-Simons (1865 – 1909) The Writer

Samuel S. Carr (American artist, 1837–1908) Getting Ready for the Market

Samuel S. Carr (American genre artist, 1837–1908) Reading by the Fire

Samuel S. Carr (American genre artist, 1837–1908) News From Her Sailor Boy

Thomas Eakins (American artist, 1844-1916) Elizabeth Crowell with a Dog 1773-4

Eastman Johnson (American painter, 1824-1906) The Blogget Family

Daniel Huntington (American artist, 1816-1906) The Field Family in a Garden

Unknown Artist 19th-Century American School Fredericksburg, VA Family in a War-Torn House 1860s
Aaron Draper Shattuck (American artist, 1832–1928)The Shattuck Family with Grandmother, Mother, and Baby William 1865

Johannes Adam Simon Oertel (Bavarian-born American artist, 1823-1909) The Colgate Family 1866

John Barnard Whittaker (American, 1836-1926) The Lesson 1871 Detail

Eastman Johnson (American painter, 1824-1906) The Brown Family

Eastman Johnson (American painter, 1824-1906) The Hatch Family

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.”