Women in the 19C United States of America: From the 19C Newspapers

Wednesday, February 3, 2021

From the 19C Newspapers - Dead mermaid washes ashore...

The dead ‘mermaid’, recently cast up by the sea near Lewes,ought to be preserved in the interest of science.

A Mermaid Found in Delaware.

Date: January 20 1880
Newspaper published in: St. Louis, Mo.
(From the Breakwater (Del.) Light)

On Tuesday of this week Capt. RAYMOND, keeper of Life-Saving Station No. 3, found on the beach what he supposed to be a mermaid which had been washed up from the sea. Capt. RAYMOND describes it as being about the size of a six year old boy, and to the middle or waist of the body resembling a boy in every particular. He says that its face, head, neck, arms and bust, as well as its hair, were similar in appearance to those of a human being. There were no fingers on the hands, but a coarse, moppy hair like the frizzled end of a whalebone, supplied their place. The lower portion of the body, from the middle or waist downward, resembles that of a shark, the tail being covered with a hairy substance similar to that of the hands. Capt. FOWLER says that the “tarnal critter” came there for no good, and it betokens a terrible shipwreck and fearful loss of life, which is soon to happen on that part of the coast.

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.”