Women in the 19C United States of America: Back To School

Friday, July 22, 2022

Back To School

Grandchildren at This Summer's End

Summer is really coming to an end. Last night I was talking to one of my daughters who reminded me that her youngest would join her big sister in "school" next week. It took me aback. Of course, it is just pre-kindergarden, but how could that little baby be so old so soon? When I saw this photo of these sisters at the beach, I remembered another photo of older grandchildren at the beach taken nearly a decade ago.

These children in 21st-century settings are not as formal as those posed & painted over a century ago by John Singer Sargent (1856-1925); but beyond the clothing & settings, the difference is negligible no matter the surroundings, the decade, or the century. Each one just a fragile, precious life...

John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Marian Madge Roller

John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Frances Winifred Hill

John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Portrait of a Child

John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Dorothy Vickers

John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Charlotte Cram

John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Dorothy

John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Jeanne Kieffer

John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Teresa Gosse

John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Cara Burch

John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Helen Sears

John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Village Children

John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Young Girl Wearing a White Muslin Blouse.

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.”