Women in the 19C United States of America: From the 19C Newspapers - A Curious Case of Kidnapping in June 1857

Saturday, February 27, 2021

From the 19C Newspapers - A Curious Case of Kidnapping in June 1857

Unknown American Artist Baby in a Red Chair 1825

A German girl named Bertha Bushkill, “was arrested on Sunday last, in New York, for kidnapping a child. Her purpose was that she might induce a young man who had been courting her to marry her.

She had told him that he was the father of a child which she pretended was being taken care of by some of her friends.

Her lover consented to marry her, provided she would produce the child. She accordingly, stole a child; took it home, and her lover being pleased with the appearance of the child agreed to fulfill his part of the contract.

Preparations were going forward for the marriage at the time of the arrest.”

From the Semi-Weekly Western Sun, June 30, 1857

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.”