Women in the 19C United States of America: Spreading the News 1830s-1850s in Rural America by William Sidney Mount 1807-1868

Sunday, January 24, 2021

Spreading the News 1830s-1850s in Rural America by William Sidney Mount 1807-1868

William Sidney Mount (American painter, 1807-1868) California News

William Sidney Mount (American painter, 1807-1868) Caught Napping 1848

William Sidney Mount (American painter, 1807-1868) Coming to the Point 1854

William Sidney Mount (American painter, 1807-1868) Farmers Nooning 1836

William Sidney Mount (American painter, 1807-1868) Politics of 1852

William Sidney Mount (American painter, 1807-1868) The Long Story 1837

William Sidney Mount (American painter, 1807-1868) The Painter's Triumph 1838
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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.”