Women in the 19C United States of America: The Grandmother I Never Met

Sunday, September 4, 2022

The Grandmother I Never Met

William McGregor Paxton (1869-1941) In the Sunlight, Portrait of the Artist's Wife

This painting always reminds me of the grandmother I never met. Her name was Jennie, and she died just after giving birth to my Aunt. My father always told me how beautiful she was; what a great gardener & cook she was; and how she had every hymn in the Methodist hymnal memorized. They lived next door to the church. She played the piano everyday for family & friends after supper. Everyone would sing those hymns & lots of popular tunes as well. It was a house full of music & joy. His world collapsed when she died; but when he met my mother, he found his joy again. He maintained that delight for 64 years of marriage.

Although I never met her, I did spend hours on the porch that wrapped around the front & side of their house. Whenever someone inside would sit down at their piano & begin to play, I would think of those stories of my Grandmother Jennie. It was the same piano she had played.

William McGregor Paxton (1869-1941) Detail The White Veranda 1902.

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.”