Women, Labor, & Reform Discussion

Women’s Labor & Reform 1865-1910s

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I. Black Women’s Labor Force Participation

A. How would Southern society organize labor? 1. Recall women’s work under slavery

https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/objects/delta-and-pine-company-african-ameri can-sharecropper-lonnie-fair-family

I. Black Women’s Labor Force Participation

A. How would Southern society organize labor? 1. Recall women’s work under slavery 2. Conflict over women’s labor

a. For whom? b. Where? c. Occupations

3. Migration–urban centers and the North

a. Schooling for the next generation b. Black Community life c. Emerging Elites

African American Population Map 1890 Census

https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african- american-odyssey/reconstruction.ht ml

Scroll down to the map three images down after following link.

II Black Women’s Labor Force Participation and 19th c. Developments

A. Emergence of a Black Professionals B. Black Women and “Respectability” C. Black Women and Reform 1. Universal Suffrage 2. “Uplift” 3. Reform and Black Women’s Suffrage

II Black Women’s Labor Force Participation and 19th c. Developments

A. Emergence of a Black Professionals B. Black Women and “Respectability” C. Black Women and Reform 1. Universal Suffrage 2. “…a question of race I let the lesser question of sex go. But the white women all go for sex letting the race occupy a minor

position. Being black means that every white including every working class woman, can discriminate against you.” Frances Harper

3. “Uplift” 4. Reform and Black Women’s Suffrage 5. NACW: "the resources and energies of scores of local and regional clubs into one strong

organization in order to attack the prevailing negative image of black womanhood." (1896)

II. Women’s Wage Labor and Union Organization

A. Lowell: Early Factory Employment & Protest 1. Workforce 2. Work Conditions 3. Workplace Consciousness & Organized Protest B. Women’s Employment after the Civil War 1. Changes a. Civil War

b. Immigration c. “Scientific Management”

2. Wage-earning Daughters

https://www.nps.gov/lowe/learn/historyculture/robinson.htm

III Women’s Wage Labor and Union Organization

A. Unions 1. Knights of Labor 2. AFL B. Women’s Trade Union League C. Women in the Garment Industry 1. ILGWU/Uprising of the 20,000 2. Triangle shirtwaist fire 3. Precedents

1886 Women’s Delegates to the KOL convention

https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3a14849/

https://www.nps.gov/lowe/learn/historyculture/convention_1910.htm

III. Middle Class Women’s Reform

A. Women’s Club Movement 1. Changes a. Women’s Education b. Smaller families c. Rising expectations

B. Self Improvement Clubs

1. Education 2. Awareness & Consciousness 3. General Federation of Women’s Clubs DANTE IS DEAD. He HAS BEEN DEAD FOR SEVERAL CENTURIES AND I THINK IT IS TIME THAT WE DROPPED THE STUDY OF HIS INFERNO AND TURNED OUR ATTENTION TO OUR OWN

A city is in many respects a great business corporation, but in other respects it is enlarged housekeeping. May we not say that city housekeeping has failed partly because women, the traditional housekeepers, have not been consulted as to its manifold activities?

https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbcmil.scrp5015501/?st=text