Anne Brown Adams to Alexander Ross,circa 1880s,
In the early nineteenth century, married women in the US were legally subordinate to their husbands. Wives could not own their own property, keep their own wages, or enter into contracts. Beginning in 1839, states slowly began to enact Married Women’s Property Acts to allow women more control over their property and finances.
In the late nineteenth century, however, Anne Brown Adams, a daughter of the abolitionist John Brown, wrote to a friend that reform was slow and did not necessarily change behaviors inside the home. In her letter, Adams lamented that the “struggle for a married woman’s rights will be a longer and a harder fought battle than any other that the world has ever known.” She declared that “men have been taught that they are absolute monarchs in their families” and enumerated the abuses that some women suffered:
Women are taught that their only hope of heaven, is to “endure to the end,” That it is a religious duty to “submit themselves to their husbands in all things,” I know a man who tells his wife “I own you, I have got a deed(marriage license and certificate) to you and got it recorded, I have a right to do what I please to you,” And the law of a Christian land says she shall submit, to indecencies that would make a respectable devil blush for shame.
In the early nineteenth century, married women in the US were legally subordinate to their husbands. Wives could not own their own property, keep their own wages, or enter into contracts. Beginning in 1839, states slowly began to enact Married Women’s Property Acts to allow women more control over their property and finances.
In the late nineteenth century, however, Anne Brown Adams, a daughter of the abolitionist John Brown, wrote to a friend that reform was slow and did not necessarily change behaviors inside the home. In her letter, Adams lamented that the “struggle for a married woman’s rights will be a longer and a harder fought battle than any other that the world has ever known.” She declared that “men have been taught that they are absolute monarchs in their families” and enumerated the abuses that some women suffered:
Women are taught that their only hope of heaven, is to “endure to the end,” That it is a religious duty to “submit themselves to their husbands in all things,” I know a man who tells his wife “I own you, I have got a deed(marriage license and certificate) to you and got it recorded, I have a right to do what I please to you,” And the law of a Christian land says she shall submit, to indecencies that would make a respectable devil blush for shame.
Frederick Douglass, a former slave and premier champion of civil rights for African Americans and women, was the nineteenth century’s most famous black leader. In this letter, written in December 1888, he protests the disfranchisement of black Southern voters following Reconstruction. Douglass wrote that he was “a good deal disturbed just now by the clamour raised for the disfranchisement of the colored voters of the South.” He compares the disfranchisement argument that black suffrage would encourage “negro supremacy” to “the old cry you and I so often heard in the old time about the negroes going to cut their masters throats.” The argument was “all humbug,” Douglass wrote, “There is nothing in it.”
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Picture of new york flooded with people, mainly immigrants, going on about their lives. shopping trading, working. (c. 1900) this photograph represents just how many people and how little space they were all forced to work with. The entire street is filled, even see people up on fire escapes watching the chaos.
This is a picture of European immigrants getting off a ship at Ellis Island, carrying all their stuff with them because they have nothing in this new world... yet. The expression on their faces says that it's been a long journey. They're exhausted but the work has only just began, making a new life isn't easy Male immigrants are being examined upon arrival in america. part of the immigration process... inspection. their overall health standing is determined, and if they don't pass they go back to wherever they came from. They Came from Jamaica, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and other Islands. This picture shows how cautious the U.S. was when it came to foreigners. This picture has a family presumably getting off a boat and getting ready to start anew. I choose this photo in particular because families immigrating together was pretty rare. not unheard of but uncommon. |
This is a graph showing the percentage of immigrants from each continent from different periods of time. mainly gather that the majority of immigrants came from North and West Europe, until the new century. Also that the overall number of immigrants continued to rise drastically in a matter of a couple decades.