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

Friday, March 5, 2021

From the 19C Newspapers - Chicken Bones

New York, Nov. 16, 1899–

Justice Bookstaver, in the Supreme Court, yesterday heard the application for divorce made by Mrs. Mary E. Okerlind from Gustavus E. Okerlind of Brooklyn. Mrs. Okerlind testified that when they used to have chicken for dinner Mr. Okerlind would pick up his chicken bones and dance them upon the table, so she could see how she would look as a skeleton. He would say to her upon such occasions that they had been married nine years and that it was time she died, as no wife should live longer.Mr. Okerlind testified that his wife has always treated him harshly and threatened him with bodily harm. Once she threw a pail of water on him when he was in the garden. Justice Bookstaver reserved decision.
-The New Haven Evening Register

From Tweets Of Old

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.”