a couple

different things for us. i'm going to tell you about the history of lucrecia coffin mott who was a noted antebellum reformer one of the most famous women of her day and she was noted because she was activist in the cause against slavery. she was famous to abolitionist. she opposed indian removal and stood up for native american rights. she was an attendee at the first woman's rights convention and a frequent speaker at the women's rights meetings through the 1850s and she spoke on a number of other causes as well major and minor of her day. she believed in religious tolerance. she believed in temperance and a number of other the social of the social causes of her day. and so i'm going to talk about her but i'm doing a couple of other things for you here too. a premise of this course is the idea that you must understand

women reformers in their context of their day. and so i'm going to trace her personal context, which is very important. she was a quaker and i'll talk about what that means. but also her social context or social and political and the religious context the things that we're going on around her and it's my argument that the cult of domesticity which we've talked about in previous classes the second great awakening, which i've mentioned as well were a part of what helped to radicalize her to contributed to her effectiveness and so both the her personal and her social context or part of this and as i'm talking about this i want you to see this as modeling for your own thinking about your own reformers. each of you is working on a reformer and i want you to kind of way as you're doing your research what's in her personal context that makes her reformer. and what is in her larger context that shapes her issues

and her effectiveness, so think about it on both of those levels there. okay, so in order to understand lucretia mott, i think you'll also have to understand what some of the other feminists of her day were like or other women who were interested in women's opportunities. i define feminism quite broadly as someone who believes that women ought to have equal opportunities that they ought to have influence and so let's look at two or three others of these women some of these are people that you all be looking for later on this week as well catherine beecher was a member of the very famous beecher family her father and all our siblings were famous for their reform activism. her sister was harriet beecher stowe who wrote uncle tom's cabin and was published in 1852 supposedly when lincoln met

harriet beecher stowe, he said oh, you're the woman who started this war the civil war he met because the popularity of her book was so important in stimulating the cause against slavery. that was harriet beecher catherine beecher also was opposed to slavery but never married and really was more famous for her arguments about women's education. she wrote a book called the treatise of the domestic on the domestic economy, which was published in 1840 that republished in the 1870s, which was widely sold. i have a copy even of it about how to operate in your family. beaches as a mother and as a housekeeper beechers premise was that women's special capabilities in the domestic world and as mothers suited them for influence within the home and as teachers, and so she

argued that women really ought to have influence only in the realm of in classrooms and in households as mothers and and how they raise their children alone amongst her family and a many other women of the day beach actually opposed woman suffrage. she thought that if women got the vote that they lose their influence. um and you know sort of held with that and we kind of think of her as seeing women's power is coming from the feminist realm. the second feminist i want to talk about is maria stewart to kind of again keeping lucretia mod in context here. maria stewart was born free in connecticut in 1803. her family was not wealthy and so early on she took on the job as a domestic servant in the household of a local clergyman.

he had an extensive library and she was self-educated so she learned to read she developed in a deafness for writing and she moved to boston in her early 20s where she met a relatively successful free african-american shipbuilder somebody who outfitted ships. his name was james stewart they married they did not have any children and unfortunately, he died at a young age and in the will arbitration of the will afterwards she was taking advantage of and once again found herself having to support herself. so for the rest for life, she never married again she took on a career as a public speaker as a teacher and does an activist as a journalist and made money as she could on occasion. she actually found herself at least one other occasion having to take work as a domestic servant because her own ability

to get jobs was, you know, she couldn't get one. so maria stewart, i'm arguing really reflects the notions of intersectionality not phrases, of course at all that they would have used in the antebellum period but what she was saying was that her causes centered on women's ability and right to speak publicly against the causes of slavery that women's voices were needed to end slavery and to push back against slavery. and so while she was using you know and arguing for the idea that women ought to have a public voice it was in this cause mainly of slavery the third woman i want to put in this context is louisa mccord. who was the daughter of langdon cheese a very famous south carolina politician. he was a wealthy planter and she

grew up on a wealthy plantation with several brothers the story goes that she hid when her brother's tutor came so that she could hear his lessons as well and eventually convinced her father that she ought to be formally included in the education that her brothers was were receiving counter to the expectations of young women of her day most young women of her day in the south were taught. french and watercolor and embroidery all right, but she was taught much more. always a mccord published rather frequently, of course, you didn't have to make a living publishing at all, but she married at the age of 30 and had five children and continued to publish because of course she had plenty of domestic service and her husband actually supported her public voice, although she often wrote under pseudonym too historians believe.

um her theories were embedded in her own dependence and the dependence of region on racial slavery. and in her mind the idea that racial slavery which reflected the the context of natural a natural order. that black was naturally subordinate to white if you questioned that natural subordination, then you are also questioning the natural subordination of women to men or if let's put that the other way around if you question this ordination of women to men you were questioning this subordination of black to white that made no sense. god made a natural hierarchy for a reason women's influence was as support subordinate within households. they had duties not public responsibilities according to mccord.

okay, so lucretia mott was born in 1793 in nantucket in massachusetts. she was both the daughter and eventually the wife of merchants so she had a relatively comfortable life materially speaking. and but she was raised as a quaker and her parents. um center initially to a private school but didn't like the way the private school was giving her errors above others. so then they sent her to a free school just to kind of give you an idea early on about the influence of quaker modesty and the notion that we are all equal and we all have an inner light we need to be free of the trappings. this is quaker theology. we need to be free the trappings of this world so that we can

hear god's message to us what god is telling us to do and what he means for us to do and so quakers quaker meetings were often marked by silence so that people could listen and there were men's and women's sessions and women could speak mostly to other women, but they could speak in all quaker meetings. it wasn't the notion that women didn't have a spiritual life and a voice to be. um mott was eventually sent to a rather famous quaker school known as the non-partner school where she did two things. she finished her education, and she also met her future husband james mott. the picture i'm showing you here this are the two images that were on the wall of her classroom at nine partners school, and i want you to kind of think about what it would be like if you were in a mostly

barren classroom with these images the image on the left is the famous thomas clarkson anti-slavery image. it's part of the abolitionist movement in britain and it is rendering of what a slave ship looked like. it's not an actual picture of what a slave -- looked like, but it is a political tract to demonstrate the inhumanity of transporting slaves from africa to the new world that the the transportation the trade in of itself was inhumane. the other image in the classroom is a picture of william penn the first quaker the preeminent quaker, i guess in the united states who was in the period in which pennsylvania was a colony worked with the native americans that were in the community and this is a a famous painting of a treaty signing between william penn and the native americans

found in in pennsylvania. these are the kind of images that as a young girl forward mott would have been exposed to and thought about and would have been a part of her world. after she graduated from non-partner school, she became an instructor there as did james mott she became incensed when she learned that her salary as a full-time instructor was $40 a term and his salary was $100 a term. she married him anyway, and yes, she didn't think of it as his fault that he was paid so much more in that, you know this inconsistency in quaker realtorianism didn't extend to salaries as well. but they married and moved to philadelphia. where they moved into this modest dwelling here although quite a nice one for the day. they had six children five that

lived to adulthood not was famous actually for our housekeeping and for rolling out pies as people were meeting in her living room and listening and contributing even as she carried on her domestic responsibilities. she began speaking a publicly at quaker meetings will publicly in the meeting. in 1818 when she was only 25 years old and she continued on with other charitable work typical of middle class women of her day by 1821. she was formally recognized as a quaker minister in the philadelphia meeting and began traveling to give sermons and public lectures on abolition nonviolence and peace native american rights the immorality of indian removal freedom of religion. in any number of other causes that she spoke to as a minister, she was not allowed to be paid when she spoke publicly. they referred to that as hireling preachers in the quaker

world and so cough and heart she depended upon the income of her husband james mott. in 1838 she and her husband were part of the founding of the american anti-slavery society, which had a philadelphia chapter as well. you'll note in this image that there are several women in the founding here. she helped to drop draft the mission statement though as a woman. she was not allowed to sign it. one of the other things you'll notice is she's sitting beside james fortin here an african-american sail maker member the middle class and active abolitionists. in the philadelphia community um, she then went on a few days after the founding of the american anti-slavery society to found the philadelphia female

anti-slavery society, which was one of the earliest women's anti-slavery societies in the longest lived. it lasted until 1870 when the 15th amendment 14th and 15th amendments were ratified. it's noted. they were noted not only for being advocating speaking in what they call in the language of the day promiscuous audiences promiscuous. meant men and women were there in the audience's but also the ppas was also interracial a to the 45 original members were in fact african americans and they regularly challenged racism even within their own movement anti-slavery people in general for the end of slavery abolitionist wanted slavery abolished immediately lucretia mott was an immediatist an abolitionist and also someone

that thought that african americans should be given civil rights immediately upon abolition this put her on the far left french of the anti-slavery movement of the 1830s. despite i'm far left friend. she was a really good speaker really well liked and so she was chosen as one of the seven i think seven delegates to the world anti-slavery convention in 1840. but she arrived in london along with her husband james mott to discover that this convention despite vigorous protest by the americans decided not to seek women. so it's a convention which all the people who are trying to organize to figure out how to persuade people around europe in the americas to oppose slavery to politically organize against it to do what they could in this

system of slavery because of its sort of human rights violations. and yet women were second-class members. of the organization so she this did not bother her as much as some people but garrison who was william more garrison who a delegate and a famous abolitionist in protest went up and sat in the gallery with her and the other person she met in the gallery while as set up there to not be on the floor of this convention was elizabeth cady stanton. as elizabeth's katie stanton's husband was also a member of this delegation. they had recently begun become married. this was their honeymoon for their honeymoon. they went to this anti-slavery convention in london and the two of them began to talk and developed a friendship. lighter stanton said that it was this meeting that led to the development of a woman's rights movement per se at least her her

part in the leadership. i think you know, there's eight years between this and seneca falls. so i think there's probably a lot going on here. and i think also there's a lot more than women's rights movement than just this idea of women's civil rights, which stanton did to focus on. so, let's jump ahead to 1848 and get to this particular point in her travels. i think speaking mostly on native american issues in new york in 1848 lucretia. mott was visiting this woman another quaker jane hunt in june of 1848 and they invited over elizabeth cady stanton who lived in the neighborhood and this is martha wright is actually lucrecia mott's sister and another woman who lived in new york. they got together and they decided that in fact, they should have a convention like anti-slavery conventions of the day, but it should be dedicated

to women's rights. and so they had this convention by the way. i like to point this out whenever you get involved in some sort of long-range planting. this is an air of course before any kind of major technology. they decided to have the meeting they put out the call and they held the meeting. in less than one month. right and later in the summer of june of 1848. they actually had the seneca falls convention not husband cheered the convention because they were going to be men and women in attendance on the second day and there they passed the declaration of sentiments and resolutions, which was debated by the convention as a whole and then signed by a hundred attendees. all right. i've asked you all to look a little bit about that at that resolution and i'm gonna ask a question about it here in a minute. this is what was produced afterwards and you can see the

prominent place of lucretia mott towards the top of the at the top of the list here. these are the women who signed the resolutions. after they were passed and it's kind of interesting because might though she's at the top of the list and agreed and helped it draft. most of those resolutions was not an advocate. of the resolution that caught the most attention. um and is also the most one of the most what we remember seneca falls for and that is the resolution that asked for women's right to vote. so it's interesting. why did lucretia mott oppose not? well not support necessarily the right to vote. part of this is kind of quaker asteticism a lot of quakers. thought that being a part of a public system like the united states that also in its other

branches supported racial slavery made you less pure, right and so they opposed it on those grounds. they also opposed it because they thought that she also thought that it was not really where attention needed to be now. some people thought that asking for the vote made you look silly that wasn't much she didn't think it made him silly to look for the boat, but she really thought that women should be concentrating at a more basic level at what the inequalities in their society were that solution like the vote that the state would grant you was not deep enough not systemic enough to change the status of women. and now we're at the heart of why i call her a radical. i think radical means that you're challenging the system, right? um the systems that grant you

the privileges the racial the marriage systems the gender systems all of those things. she thought almost all the major systems of her day. she really thought at their heart were part of the problem that women and of course slavery was built upon and so she saw the vote is a little too upper level two superficial though. she did sign on to the cause. here she is in one of her most premium, you know kind of primary causes the women's rights. she gave this one much later. so there were 1848 was the first seneca falls was the first women's rights meeting. they were every year except for 1857 until the start of the war then they began again in 1865 and continued through 1869. so send a couple falls was the first of about 15 and to be on

women rights meetings. here's one of them that she i chose in this quote because she says it's so clearly here one of her major causes. it's not christianity, but priest craft that a subjective woman as we find her. what do y'all think she means here when she says that it's priest craft. that is the problem. anybody have an idea about what she's what she's talking about here and what what change she wants? go ahead, nick. well, i think it's you know. saying that you know it in the core teachings and tenements of christianity there isn't actually any encouragement of subjugation of women. that's more product of men and the people who are spreading and and preaching a certain view on

christianity that they endorsed it would maintain and continue a status quo with which they are benefiting from or at least comfortable with. yeah. yeah, it's it's the operators. it's not the ideas right and in particular she's talking about the catholic church here, but at this point the only people beyond quakers that allowed women to speak publicly are some of the methodist some of the free will baptists allowed women to speak unitarians some but but that those are the groups that mostly allowed women to speak and she said, you know morality is a key issue theology is a key issue and you need women's voices if you don't up in the rules that keep women from being able to speak and to think and

to engage in the ideas of christianity then you have. in the systemic decision to keep women silent helped sustain the problem. right. so there's one idea that's really important is is that she really thought that women ought to have more religious influence in the religious realm than they did? anybody else? yeah, let me know. yeah, we can go ahead. okay. um i think that it's kind of interesting that she's mentioning this because if i've taken some medieval history classes and um women were allowed for a very long time in the medieval era to be a part of the church and religion and then suddenly it changed so i see where she's coming where she says it's it'll used and that it

became. almost corrupted hmm, and that that was not how it was original is that it was equal almost and even if it was originally meant that way it was not or not. originally meant that way but creating that way that that it is as you say illused. it's part of the problem itself. all right the point i want to kind of make here is that my is really has her religious perspectives established. well before the rise of other protestant religious revivals that happen in this time period she's ahead of this curve, but what i want to suggest to you, is that part of the context that makes mops popularity possible and and creates a radical potential for her age comes from a widespread religious revival

through the 1820s up to 1850s the second right awakening and i've mentioned this before to you all as part of the cult of that's responsible and helpful responsible for the cult of domesticity, but i want to make sure that we understand that theology of this moment and the ideas that are behind the religious revivals of the 1820s. 40s and 50s are that. the new millennium is at hand that christ's second coming is imminent and so we must be preparing for christ's rival. the idea is that christ will almost certainly come to the united states this new special place when he returns to earth for his new thousand year reign, and so americans in particular have to be ready for this return and here's the most important part in order to get ready for

christ's imminent return all americans have to choose salvation. it's in their hands to use their salvation through their faith and religious works separate from those puritans that we talked about earlier. they really embrace the notion that every person has the potential to earn salvation through faith and good works. and in fact it is their obligation to to go forward and to try to perfect society. that's the theology of the second great awakening and it's led by people like this man charles grandison finney who had a whole method as well that they really tried to make people consider what their obligations were towards perfectionism and getting the united states to evangelical evangelize into reform society. about two-thirds in certain areas where the revivals were most dominant say in western new

york about 2/3 of converts for a female finney himself had a process whereby he would create what he called the anxious bench at the front of the congregation where he was giving this revival sermon, and he made sure that women were amongst those on the anxious bench because he believed both in their moral piety, but also in their their ability and willingness to hear his words the emotion in his words and to for to to reach out in the revival itself to claim salvation to climb their calling in the revival itself. so women were a part of this. religious movement that talked about perfectibility about the obligation to reform society about you know, the immorality of staying silent at a moment of such enormous possibility of

preparing for the second reign of christ. so that's one major part of a radical context that might operated within didn't create but operated within. another element. is that cult of domesticity that we've been talking about here this idea that women have a special set of qualities that make them reformers because they are more moral and more pious that they have an influence as mothers and within the domestic sphere and that because they have special qualities some more morals. in fact, sarah joseph a hale referred to women as god's moral agents, right some people argue that women were actually more moral than men. because they had these special qualities. they were to be a part of relationships that marriages that respected both halves of

these complimentary nation natures complementary with the e. not you look pretty with the eye but complement as in they fit together. and so does that notion of complementary attributes of male and female? you know, we look at this and we know that we associate particularly religious women or particularly domestic women as often being more politically conservative. right you you probably think that this cult of domesticity sounds just like june cleaver 1950s your grandmother's whatever right? if you look at it in the context of what it was juxtaposed to the in the 19th century. it's got a much more radical potential. because what it's saying, is that women have attributes that

complement men they live in subordination's missive in marriages because they're naturally submissive because but and because they can exercise their influence within the household not as an earlier era would have said because they are weak because they have to be controlled. they need strong patriarchs to keep them from ruining communities by following their sex drive to break up other relationships that a strong patriarch is needed because women are weak the cult of domesticity says something different it says women are by their nature is more moral more pious more pure than men and that that gives them influence. and so my argument is that that mont is not just where she is because of her quaker background

and because they're kind of deeply held egalitarian views that were inculated in an early age and developed over the course of her religious upbringing but that she's also a part of a society that is acknowledging women's roles and acknowledging a particular influence that women might have okay, so here's another one here to think about. so i'm here's your context. what does she actually saying? we would all admit the difference that our great beneficent creator has made in the relation of man to woman and we wouldn't seek to disturb this relation, but we denied the present position of women as her true sphere of usefulness, and she won't attain that true sphere until the dis. these disadvantages religious civil which impede her progress

are taken removed from her way. what are the religious sensibilities the disadvantages that she's talking about here? somebody had their hand up. i i did a little bit earlier just because i just wanted to clarify like the on the differentiation between the changing attitude on women. is that like previously it was that women, you know need these types of structural, you know manifestations and the change was that while women might be submissive or whatever in certain contexts. it's an active choice versus a forceful subjugation of necessity or that it works out. retributes that them suited here, so just slightly

different. i mean choice be maybe and in fact, there is something that mott's kind of pushing back on there. but yeah. and then i guess in terms of disadvantages it would be by true capability or yeah, the ability to be independent. i guess like religiously would that be? i don't know like divorce. i know i know we're could talk about that on thursday, i guess but well, i mean part of what they heard they're complain about divorce. was that it what you couldn't both sides initiate it. yeah within marriage women were quote unquote civilly dead right covered by the identity of their husbands. the other things that appear in the declaration of sentiments anybody catch any of those can't

speak in church civilly dead in marriage here's one. i think that's particularly interesting men are assumed to send absolved in men are not absolved in women. right, so whenever you expectations are different like the expectations of like sinning or are more for women but the if you put them on men and they're not really that big of a deal. yes, and in particular, i think what she's talking about what they're referring to here is the double standard in terms of sexuality, right? men men are interested in sex if women ever stray in those ways. they've committed an unpardonable and natural sin. um, so if you you know commend those to you those declaration of sentiments, they list all them and then they have all these resolutions and most of the resolutions have to do with the idea that women ought to be able to control more property. they ought to be able to speak

up and teach both religiously and elsewhere that they ought to be able to have some control within their marriages and that they ought to be able to have the elect of franchise they ought to have the right to vote. so they she's this is suggesting that there's all kinds of things that actually impeding them. beyond the the causes of um, just the vote. and so i want to go back and look on to the very next one. what is she saying here? so circumscribed have been women's limits that she does not realize the misery of her conditions. such dupes are men to custom that even in servitude. the worst of bills comes to be thought of good till down from sire to sun is kept and guarded as a sacred thing. what is she talking about here?

emmy i think that what she's saying is kind of like you don't know you feel bad until you're feeling better. so you're you think that this is normal, but in reality you're being. hurt and she's saying don't shall see. that this is going on that we don't know better. hmm that we will feel better when this is. that women that women and their families and the people who love them are part of the problem. right that the ways in which women operate within a household as near servants within those households as the as the people who are expected to sacrifice every time, you know their assumption that they're all of their sacrifices are an aspect

of of love, right that is the the assumption here that that women are a part of the process and that it is in the politics of their household, right? and so this is really what i hold up to you as the kind another one of the most radical elements of what mott was about because she's saying it is the politics of the household it is the way in which fathers and sons wives and children within households operate that women in a hurt in a of hurt as abby put it in a position in which they have no options themselves. and so they this is part of the problem. she's saying is that it's personal relationships that keep women down. the foundation of the household

itself is oppressing women. one of the radical statements of the second wave or at the 1970s version of feminism was that the personal is political right personal relationships have implications for power in society as a whole. lucretia mott saying that in 1854 nick did you have anything else you want to add in there? why was so to what extent was lucretia mott like in line with those ideas of the second grade awakening and those views on women as complementary or you know, things like that. suggesting is that women ought to have influence they ought to be able to reform they ought to be able to carry on in a kind of public way and and yet they're

not able to because of of the kind of treatment of them as a servants. so she's saying that their own quality says women. she's not challenging that women are different for men. right? it's not a kind of liberal individualist notion. she's accepting the idea that women and men are not our you know are different. that women aren't able to express the full nature of their contributions. the question here is that you know was she punished for taking on such a line, you know, not everybody. she wasn't everybody's cup of tea, but she was so forthright in the way that she spoke about them and and so true to her own

causes that she was really and and perhaps i would guess if i would, you know, if i were completely honest here, she's also sheltered a good bit by her own class status. she's not making her own living here, but but she's not she was not excoriated in her own day. people saw her as being extraordinarily principled. maybe even a little too principled right so another need to make that point in the anti-slavery campaign. there was a division amongst abolitionists about whether or not both men and women whether or not well there was the division about whether or not women ought to be able to speak and that split up some of the abolitionists said that controversy aside. there was also an argument about whether or not women should any

of the anti-slavers should pay to get an escape slave out of slavery. so for example frederick douglass a famous abolitionist had escaped slavery in maryland and was still sought after by his former master and a group of abolitionists paid. his master to free him and mott saw that as a unprincipled stand because no human should be able to be sold. so she and her her group never used their money to pay for a slaves enslaved people to earn their freedom. which is kind of a a principled stand but if you were a former slave, i'm not sure you would have agreed to that principled stand certainly douglas didn't right. yeah, megan. um, so by personal relationships she mean that? it's kind of hard for a woman to go out and protest and reform

when her own husband is opposed to the cause. yes, i think that would be part of it. you know, you had to have a husband who agreed and and if you were a true woman you should have been able to you know, pursue your own moral callings and that would be an example of what she's talking about and about how women can't reach their own sphere until they are let go by you know, but by the oppression of the household, yeah, lindsey so my question is referring to what you just explained about like she wouldn't they a group that had her same beliefs would not but money into get back slaves that were. that escaped so was it cheaper to get your slave back that way or just to get a new one? you mean from the perspective of the slave owners? yes, because i'm like, why would you pay to like hunt down your old slave? wouldn't it? just be cheaper to get a new one

to replace it. like what's the big deal about getting that specific one? is it just have no no the capital we're talking about by the it depends on where you're talking about and when but by the there's no slave trade. yes, and so there's a in somewhat of finite capacity by the 1850s. the value of cotton was such and the supply of enslaved people was such that. an active, you know an adept male slave cost 1500 dollars and that era which would be in the tens of thousands in our own. it was an enormous capital investment. okay. thank you and the the like desire not to like pay. to kind of free a an escape slave of those ties is is like in in line with the same thing

is not really pushing for the right to vote. like it's like investing in and participating in that system is a legitimization of it as acknowledgment of its validity. yes, okay. it's a way putting it. all right. the last point i want to make here is about her own her own marriage in her own household here and this is actually in lucretia mott's own handwritten just months before she died in a true marriage relation the independence of the husband and the wife is equal. they're dependents mutual and their obligation reciprocal months talking about a certain sort of relationship in which husbands and wives are a unified a companionate group here companion at pairing not one in which the relationship is economic in nature that it's particularly uneven in terms of hierarchy that she has to ask

permissions for extra why they do things as a team and this is you know and a way in which people talk about good marriages today. i think that the idea you know that she's calling for it. then does put her again in a very modern or sort of a head of her time perspective, but it's not for the radical groups in which she was a part of they really did see the the development of these relationships of household relationships as being on the forefront of being able to challenge the wrongs of their society overall that it started in the household and in fact william lloyd garrison when he talked about this and this is a later home of the mats. talked about the nature of their household and their relationship

as a little heaven a little heaven below the real heaven. they were a kind of personal relationship that really shown to the the world as a how we're as a whole about how to act and how you got real change and i would suggest to you that that is in many ways a very systemic and significant change in society. so i'll recap here a little bit. i've suggested that mott herself is a radical because of her own causes that in particular merging out of her own personal religious beliefs about inner lights and egalitarianism, but that she was a part of a context in which religious beliefs were calling everyone to bring a whole new set of assumptions to social reform. to attempt to perfect americans society men and women alike.

she's also part of a new ideology of womanhood that has broad implications in particular giving women a role within not just households. but within the public sphere and so in challenging the idea that are putting forward the idea, i guess that marriage was a good marriage was a critical aspect of good reform. it's where good reform and good politics started then what these people are doing is really blurring the lines between public and profit. so the era that the name we often use for this fear. this era is the era of separate spheres right or that they claimed this interest in separate spheres, but what these mocked in her fellow radical feminists were arguing is that that was a rhetorical line and that you could not be effective in the public sphere unless you had reform within the private

sphere that the private was in fact political. and and they're in i think lies most of what i see as as they're radicalism, but but also their potential for change and the fact that you know, there wasn't significant systemic change. well ending slavery was systemic change major systemic change and i would argue that the abolitionists had a significant like mott had a significant part in that. however women who were arguing for equal rights after the war moved almost exclusively to the cause of the vote the vote was something the state granted while it was kind of systemically challenging to suggest that women ought to be equal to their husbands politically so i get the kind of radicalism of giving women the

vote it is still a an acceptance of the notion of women as individuals and that happens within sort of state acknowledged reforms so the post-war feminist movement in some ways was not as radical as not in her movement in the antebellum period the post-war period she was borealised by adelaide johnson who built a statues or created statues of lucretia mott alongside elizabeth cady stanton and susan b anthony and then recreated that and gave them to congress in 1920 to acknowledge the passage of the 19th amendment a hundred years ago this past month and when congress received this more than 70 women's groups

arrived to kind of call attention to this new landmark congress accepted the monument and then put it in the crypt it stayed in the basement of the capital between 1920 and 1997 when a group of organized women finally got this monument to women's activism out of the basement and put it into the the rotunda itself. and i'd argue that that is actually kind of telling about what the vote, you know in some ways the influence of the vote. thanks so much go to the basement. stay in the home. listen to what your husband says. so, you know moz radicalism was there for a later group of women to to pick up on and to talk about and we'll get to those by the end of the term, but i really like looking at her as an

example of that. what questions do you have for me? all right. there's a question suggesting that she's that mott actually thought the vote was not really what was needed and it was superficial and she was proven right and i would say yeah, there's a lot of evidence that that's the case. i mean women remained activists through the 20th century, but you don't see them using that vote in significant ways. there's not a gender difference until the 1980s. we suspect there's a significant gender difference now and that it might be effective in having a political outcome. but you know, we'll have to see in november if that's the case. it took a lot more for the vote to have a more radical impact than people eventually it did have a significant impact in politics, but it wasn't immediate because the personal relationships within households

meant that women generally voted as their husbands and fathers voted. and didn't vote separately, you know as women. for a long time any other questions for me on this front? yeah, abby. this isn't exactly a question, but it's a kind of a comment about what you just said. about the voting not being super important superficial and i wonder how much? the culture and like i don't know if it was. overt or not but kind of like the use of like news and things like that would have been to getting women to vote like their husbands versus like them. they were themselves would think.

what to put it in the language of the examples that i've used here, you know in that one quote. she's saying that women are dupes themselves and it's there there doomness. they're being servants is seen as a sacred thing, right? and so if you you give women the vote and don't give them access to developing the news. they need don't suggest that they ought to be autonomous within their own households and make their own decisions giving women. the vote was not enough until you sort of changed the economics of of the country the the way people related within marriages and households. you gave women more autonomy overall the vote was meaningless so eventually what happens of course is and i think this is part of what you're suggesting that, you know women do get access to news and other formats and and ways of informing

themselves and organizing apart from being members of families, right? that leads to revolutionary change that gets us out of the correct. thank you. anything else well then okay if there's nothing else i'll see you thursday. bye.

and science. all right, so good afternoon and welcome today. we're going to talk about