Women Timeline

  • Anne Hutchinson

    Anne Hutchinson disagreed with the Puritan beliefs and believed that God did not solely speak only to the elder but to everyone. The Massachusetts Bay Colony saw here as a threat and claimed that she committed heresy and banished her. She then started a new colony called New Hampshire.
  • Salem Witch Trials

    This event involved mass hysteria and in result many innocent people, mainly women, who were hung for being convicted as witches. Afterwards, the people involved admitted that they had made a terrible mistake.
  • Englightenment

    This era was a time of western philosophy and was tempered by the need of major reforms. Movement that advocated the use of reason and rationality to establish a system of ethics and knowledge. This time led people to question traditional institutions, customs, and morals, including women, but most men disliked the idea of women being equal to them.
  • First Great Awakening

    Was a more religious movement concerning the mass attendance. This basically fired up the homilies in mass/church and got more people back into the faith as a result of the enlightenment. This was the very beginning, besides the enlightenment, of women thinking for themselves and taking more important roles in society
  • Daughters of Liberty

    This group was formed during the American Revolution era, after the unfair acts of the British, like the Townshend Acts of 1767. Along with patriots and the sons of liberty they pursued to support American resistance and even helped end the Stamp Act, protesting their treatment from the British. Make the decision to start to boycott British products. Started the idea of production of our own clothing. This is how women gained a public voice.
  • Abigail Adams

    Abigail Adams, sent a letter regarding the women during the American Revolution era to John Adams. This letter was a small step towards the fight for women's' rights. Her famous quote was "remember the ladies."
  • Republican Motherhood

    Essentially raised the standards of women for the most part, specifically mothers. Wanted to dismiss the public roles of women for voting rights, but to give them a bigger responsibility making sure that the next generation was raised up properly. By this, they would need a good education to teach the next generation. Taught the next generation much about the importance of education.
  • Second Great Awakening

    This awakening called for more reforms such as prison reforms, temperance reforms, education reforms and reasoning against slavery. Caused a turning point in American history. This was more focused on the improvement of society. Women really got involved with new reforms and created a bigger voice for themselves.
  • Waltham-Lowell System

    Women starting from about the age of 15 to 35 were employed in Lowell Mills which provided dormitories, meals, where it would be even more efficient to return back to their cheap, unskilled labor job making clothing all under one roof. This system was less prominent after the great waves of immigrants from the mid-1800s which provided even cheaper labor and also wage cuts. These wage cuts caused women to stand for themselves and they protested working conditions and salaries.
  • Cult of Domesticity

    This term was used to refer to the dominant role of women in the household. With this idea, women held great power in the house in regards to morals. This made the term separate spheres which was when the men were left with the responsibility of making income and women were left with specifically caring for the household.
  • Emily Dickinson

    United States poet noted for her mystical and unrhymed poems. Wrote "Wild Nights--Wild Nights!," "I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died," and "Because I Could Not Stop For Death."
  • Grimke Sisters

    these sisters were involved with abolition and suffrage. All of these women reformers gained a greater role in society as they expressed their opinions. The two sisters wrote the "Letter on the Condition of Women and the Equality of the Sexes." This letter showed their opinions on how men disliked the idea of abolishing slavery.
  • Dorothea Dix

    A New England teacher and author who spoke against the inhumane treatment of insane prisoners. People who suffered from insanity were treated worse than normal criminals. Dorothea Dix traveled over 60,000 miles in 8 years gathering information for her reports, reports that brought about changes in treatment, and also the concept that insanity was a disease of the mind, not a willfully perverse act by an individual.
  • Feminism

    This idea majorly provoked women to push for suffrage and equality with men. Began at the time when Seneca Falls Convention started. Many women took part in this movement. But there are now different meanings of feminism, mostly carrying a negative connotation today.
  • Seneca Falls Convention/Elizabeth Cady Stanton

    Majorly helped the women's rights progression. Formed by Elizabeth Stanton and Lucretia Mott, this convention pushed for women's suffrage and was successful. The "declaration of sentiments," written by Elizabeth herself, listed the discriminations of women and 11 resolutions. The document was the "grand basis for attaining the civil, social, political, and religious rights of women."
  • Lucretia Mott

    Quaker activist in both the abolitionist and women's movements; together with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she was a principal organizer of the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848.
  • Amelia Bloomer

    An American women's rights and temperance advocate. She presented her views in her own monthly paper, The Lily. When Amelia was 22, she married a lawyer by the name of Dexter Bloomer. One of the major causes promoted by Amelia was a change in dress standards for women. She promoted semi-masculine, short skirts with Trousers; an attire known as "bloomers."
  • Elizabeth Blackwell

    The first female doctor in the United States and the first on the UK Medical Register. She was the first openly identified woman to graduate from medical school, a pioneer in educating women in medicine in the United States, and was prominent in the emerging women's rights movement.
  • Susan B. Anthony

    Susan B. Anthony was a lecturer for women's rights. She was a Quaker. Many conventions were held for the rights of women in the 1840s. Susan B. Anthony was a strong woman who believed that men and women were equal. She fought for her rights even though people objected. Her followers were called Suzy B's.
  • Married Women's Property Act

    This act was one of the most progressive acts during the era of reform and movements towards women's rights. This act let women have more control over property for themselves. Showed that the early feminist movement was making significant progress in America.
  • Lucy Stone

    American woman suffragist, she was a well-known and accomplished antislavery speaker who supported the women's rights movement. She was the first woman to receive a college degree and the first to keep her maiden name.
  • Louisa May Alcott

    American writer and reformer best known for her largely autobiographical novel, Little Women.
  • Woman's Christian Temperance Union

    This organization advocated for the prohibition of alcohol, using women's supposedly greater purity and morality as a rallying point. Advocates of prohibition in the United States found common cause with activists elsewhere, especially in Britain, and in the 1880s they founded the World Women's Christian Temperance Union, which sent missionaries around the world to spread the gospel of temperance.
  • Frances Willard

    an American educator, temperance reformer, and women's suffragist. Her influence was instrumental in the passage of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Willard became the national president of the World Woman's Christian Temperance Union, in 1879, and remained president for 19 years. She developed the slogan "Do everything" for the women of the WCTU to incite lobbying, petitioning, preaching, publication, and education.
  • Jane Addams Hull House

    Jane Addams was middle class woman. The Hull House is a settlement house that she installed in a ghetto of Chicago. The house inspired many other like settlements across the country, while Addams spent her lifetime battling for garbage removal, playgrounds, better street lighting, and police protection.
  • Ellen Gates Starr

    Along with her college roommate, Jane Addams, they founded the Hull house on South Halstead Street in Chicago. Ellen Gates Starr, established America's premier social settlement.
  • National Woman Suffrage Association

    American women's rights organization was established by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony in May of 1890. This and other groups led to the nineteenth amendment: women's suffrage.
  • Ida B. Wells

    Black journalist, after having three friends lynched, launched a one woman campaign against lynching, as it was not for interracial rape as claimed but the real cause was more often economic competition, a labor dispute, or a consensual relationship between a white woman and a black man.
  • Florence Kelley

    A woman who worked at the Hull House, alongside Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr; successfully lobbied in 1893 for an Illinois anti sweatshop law that protected women workers and put an end to child labor; her whole life she battled for women's suffrage, children, African Americans, and consumers; later she moved to New York as the general secretary of the National Consumers League.
  • Marry Ellen Lease

    Wichita lawyer and "fiery alliance orator" who prompted the formation of the National Women's Alliance who became well known during the early 1890's for her actions as a speaker for the populist party. Significant because she symbolized the parallel relationship between public purpose advancement and that of most other disadvantaged groups by denouncing the corrupt government and encouraged farmers to speak about their troubles with the economic situation.
  • National Association of Colored Women

    An organization created in 1896 by African American women to provide community support. Local clubs arranged for the care of orphans, founded homes for the elderly, advocated temperance, and undertook public health campaigns
  • Carrie A. Nation

    "Kansas Cyclone"; 1st husband died of alcoholism and so she took a hatchet and destroyed saloons. She was an obvious, radical reformer towards the temperance movement.
  • Carrie Chapman Catt

    Spoke powerfully in favor of suffrage, worked as a school principal and a reporter ., became head of the National American Woman Suffrage, an inspired speaker and brilliant organizer. Devised a detailed battle plan for fighting the war of suffrage.
  • Harriot Stanton Blatch

    Head of the Food Administration Speaker's Bureau, The daughter of suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton who headed the Food Administration's Speakers' Bureau.
  • Muller v. Oregon

    Louis D. Brandeis persuaded the Supreme Court to accept the constitutionality of laws protecting women workers by presenting evidence of the harmful effects of factory labor on women's weaker bodies.
  • Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

    This traumatic event, causing the death of 146 garment workers drew much attention to the working conditions of factories. In the end result, the fire led to regulations requiring better safety standards.
  • International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union

    One of the largest labor unions in the US, which was the first to have primarily female members. It fought for safer and better working conditions for sweatshop workers in that industry.
  • Alice Paul

    Leader of the National Woman's Party and the Congressional Union, campaigned for an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution and led protests.
  • National Woman's Party

    A group of militant suffragists who took to the streets with mass pickets, parades, and hunger strikes to convince the government to give them the right to vote. Led by Alice Paul.
  • Women's International League for Peace and Freedom

    The WILPF was the largest women's peace group in the post-world war I and pre-world war II years. The organization was headed by Jane Addams and Emily Greene Balch. This group was actually rather radical. Called for an end to American economic imperialism.
  • Margret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement

    American leader of the movement to legalize birth control during the early 1900's. As a nurse in the poor sections of NYC, where she had seen the problems caused by unplanned pregnancy. Founded the first birth control clinic in America and the American Birth Control League, which today is known as Planned Parenthood.
  • 19th Amendment

    After the long process and struggle, Wilson rewarded women for their wartime services and supported the amendment, granting women the right to vote.
  • Adkins vs. Children's Hospital

    In this court case, the Supreme Court reversed its own reasoning in Muller v. Oregon, on the grounds that women were now the legal equals of men (after the Nineteenth Amendment).
  • WAC and WAVES

    The 216,000 women who held noncombat positions in the army, navy, and Coast Guard when more "manpower" was needed and the men needed to be sent to fight.
  • Rosie the Riveter

    Symbol of American women who went to work in factories during the war. WWII
  • Equal Pay Act

    Prohibited employers from paying unequally on the basis of gender. Helped women immensely.
  • The Feminine Mystique

    Betty Friedan depicted how difficult a woman's life is because she doesn't think about herself, only her family. It said that middle-class society stifled women and didn't let them use their talents. Attacked the "cult of domesticity."
  • National Women's Political Caucus

    Established by Betty Frieden, encouraged women to seek help or run for political office.
  • National Organization for Women

    Founded by Betty Friedan, this group called for equal pay, equal job opportunities for women, and political representation. Also NOW championed the legalization of abortion and even passage of an equal rights amendment to the Constitution.
  • Women’s Liberation

    A new brand of feminism in the 1960s that attracted primarily younger, college-educated women fresh from the New Left, antiwar, and civil rights movements who sought to end to the denigration and exploitation of women.
  • Shirley Chishom

    Chishom is known for being the first black congresswoman. Chisholm was the first major-party African-American candidate to run for the presidential nomination in 1972. In Congress she supported minority education and employment opportunities and opposed the U.S. military draft.
  • Roe v. Wade

    The 1973 Supreme Court ruling that the Constitution protects the right to abortion, which states cannot prohibit in the early stages of pregnancy. The decision galvanized social conservatives and made abortion a controversial policy issue for decades to come.
  • Equal Rights Amendment

    This amendment was supposed to outlaw any discrimination based on gender, it was at first seen as a great victory by women's-rights groups or the women's activists.
  • Sandra Day O'Conner

    The first woman to be in the Supreme Court from the dry history of male judges, dating back around 200 years. Appointed by Ronald Reagan, O'Connor was an Associate Justice from 1981 until 2006.
  • Webster v. Reproductive Health Services

    1989 Supreme Court ruling that upheld the authority of state governments to limit the use of public funds and facilities for abortions.
  • Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey

    A 1992 Supreme Court case that upheld a law requiring a twenty-four-hour waiting period prior to an abortion. Although the decision upheld certain restrictions on abortions.
  • Women's Trade Union League

    A U.S. organization of both working class and more wealthy women formed to eliminate bad working conditions and to support the efforts of women to organize labor unions.