User:Berg-10990/"True Womanhood in U.S. and England" Revolutionized

Womanhood is the qualities considered to be natural to or characteristic of a woman or also known as the state of being a woman. What people think a woman should be like psychically and mentally. The contempt True Womanhood is when society makes rules for how women should behave or else be scorned but overtime, people started to change their opinions of what the meaning of True Womanhood really is.

Victorian Era

In the 1830s-1901 women were always considered subordinate to men. They were considered to be domestic and non-political creatures. Their only job was to get married and have children. And when they get married they have to stay at home and manage the household. Such as manage the household staff, raise the children and take care of her husband; this way she will be able to full-fill her private sphere role. They were also expected to follow expected to follow five virtues.

Victorian Era Family: Woman caring for child and obienatily listening to her husband.

Woman were expected to be have piety, she was to stay at home and read nothing but religious books. Purity, women were to be virgins until the day she gotten married to her husband. Submissive, they were to be obedient “like children,” because according to the bible, men were the superiors.

“Likewise, tell the older women to be reverent in behavior, not to be slanderers or slaves to drink; they are to teach what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be self-controlled, chaste, good managers of the household, kind, being submissive to their husbands, so that the word of God may not be discredited,” by 1 Peter 3:1-7

They must love motherhood, and only want sexual intercourse for it. Also, domesticity, they stay at home and don’t leave without a male escort.

Lowell Mill Girls

The Lowell Mill Girls, who are also sometimes referred to as the Yankee Mill Girls were young women between the ages of 15-38, who were hired by Francis Cabot Lowell to work for a famous factory during the Industrial Revolution in the United States. Many of these women were from farms and small villages, who never had any economic independence or opportunities. The women were also into earning a monthly cash wage.

Lowell Mills Girls Sewing in Industrial factories represented on a 2019 coin

Lowell assured the women’s families that although they would be working, that they would still be considered as “True Women” and that when it came to the time that she would get married she would quit working at the factory and return home to live and be a proper wife and mother. During this time women had no property rights. Meaning their fathers left most of his inheritance to his sons and the wives husbands property became a possession to the state, so as long as she was single or a widow; she had no choice but to enter the work force, earning a wage as much as fifty cents to one dollar a week.

In 1830s the economic depression hit, leading to Lowell to reduce the wages of workers on October 1836 and those workers were the women. This caused the women to stop working, assemble a group of protests and strike. Women formed a group called Factory Girls’ Association, which had a membership of 2500. Together they formed a protest against Lowell and the industrial world. Their protests caused the owners of the factories to cut more wages, which later caused more women to quit. The protests of labor in the 1830s led to a turn of events in 1840s which was when the Ten-Hour Movement was created. Which stated that women and men work 10 hrs. per day, a reasonable work-load.

Rosie’s

Woman lathe operator in the 1940s

During World War II (September 1, 1939 - September 2, 1945) when men were called to war, women were called to work the jobs that men left behind. Many of these women were married, white and middle-classed women, who were inspired to work for their families. With women’s help they were able to win the war.

“She cradles a very large riveting gun in her lap, and it links visually to Adolf Hitler's book, “Mein Kampf”, beneath her feet. The implication is clear: through her defense job, she will help to crush Hitler”

After the war was declared over and the men were coming back home, women were only able to keep their jobs temporarily. Women were now expected to go back to their everyday work in the household and let the men take the jobs over again. Many of the women were fired. Some were able to keep working, but never were able to gain the same job again.