first world war and boom: social position of women

economic opportunities for

• unmarried white women

• particularly educated and middle class more

• immigrant, AA or other ethnic groups of women

  • continued exploitation of them and their children

was the pursuit of rights a live issue in this time?

no.

• for a small minority

• didn’t reprsent the broad spectrum of American women

  • AA women focused on racial equality first e.g. Ida B Wells

18th amendment

prohibition 1919

• beer was German thing

19th amendment

women’s right to vote 1920

• Woodrow Wilson said women’s contribution in WW1 was huge so deserve it

• Native American women get it in the New Deal

• AA women get it in the South in the 1965 Civil Rights Act

21st amendment

overturned prohibition 1933

1920s

• mass production, consumer goods and class changes

• created more jobs for unmarried women making the home life for them easier

• cheap mass-produced labour saving devices such as cars, vacuum cleaners, refrigeration

  • women have more time for kids education

working 1920s

• working class married worforce increased from 22.8% to 28.8%

• demand for secretarties, typists and filing clerks of 2m

• still a wage discreppancy and resentment towards factory workers

• in 1929 a violent strike in north carolina led to the death of 6 women

• during the 1930s female membership of unions increased 265,000 to 800,000

  • were exckusively for white women. AA and Hispanic had no representation (household dometics and agriculture not a union)