Feminism, Suffrage, and Cultural Revolutions

When was the Nineteenth Amendment ratified?

August 18 1920

What did the 19th Amendment create?

A constitutional guarantee of women’s suffrage

Were women allowed to vote in most states?

Yes. In most other states either allowed women to vote in certain elections, like presidential primaries, or had already granted the right to vote to women

Prior to the 19th Amendment women’s right to vote was only granted at what level?

The state level

Due to the 19th Amendment being in federal law, what couldn’t states do?

Restrict women’s right to vote

Who were considered architects of the women’s suffrage movement?

Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucretia Mott

Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Licretia Mott were pioneers of what?

First Wave Feminism

What is First Wave Feminism?

The first major activist movement focused on women’s political, social, and person issues

What did the Seneca Falls Convention do?

Made feminism a significant force in American Politics

When was the Seneca Falls Convention?

1848

Who lobbied local state and federal politicians for women’s suffrage?

The National American Woman’s Suffrage Association, and later the League of Women’s Voters

Who led the League of Women Voters?

Carrie Chapman Catt

What did suffragists believe?

The U.S was perpetuating a grave moral and political failure by refusing to allow women the right to vote and participate equally in society

How were women’s rights activists treated?

They were often ignored, ridiculed, and even physically attacked while advocating for women’s rights

What progress would be seen by women’s suffrage supporters?

Various states permitted limited forms of woman suffrage, and presidential endorsement

Both candidates in the 1920 election offered vocal support for what?

The 19th Amendment

What did the Silent Sentinels do?

Begin a two-and-a-half-year campaign in front of the White House in favor of women’s suffrage

When did the Silent Sentinels begin their campaign in front of the white house?

1917

True or False, the ratification of the 19th Amendment greatly impacted the day-to-day lives of Americans

False, Its impact of the day to day lives of many Americans was rather minor as elections are relatively infrequent and many had accepted the obviousness of the cause’s claims

Feminist revolutions involved what?

How women dressed in public, how they behaved in private and in public, how they sought out or were pursuit by potential suitors, and how they explored their own sexuality

What figure embodied the popular and controversial shifts in the way that women carried themselves?

The flapper

What does Joshua Zeits argue?

Understanding the flapper can help us understand the period itself

How were flappers described?

Bobbed hair, scandalously short dresses and new dance moves

Flappers rejected what?

Victorian mores

What did the flapper represent?

A new way to look and be

The flapper offered a model of how to dress in what ways?

Ways that rejected stuffy ideas about modesty and propriety

What did the flapper most importantly model?

A model of self-empowerment for women, a model that prioritized autonomy and a refusal to simply do as one was told

As much as the flapper was a symbol of frivolity and excess, what do historians also argue about the meaning of the flapper?

She was also a symbol of power

What does Paula S. Fass argue?

The flappers fashion choices and behavioral indulgences were as much about freedom as they were about control

The look and meaning of a flapper was also determined by what?

Commercial and cultural forces

The image of the flapper was often used for what?

To sell certain brands of clothing or promote different venues or clubs, even persuade people to visit certain cities and neighborhoods

The flapper was a irresistible character type of who?

F. Scott Fitzgerald

What was the lifespan of Fitzgerald?

1896-1940

What is Fitzgerald credited with?

Helping popularize the character of the flapper and her debonaire male suitors

What did Fitzgerald provide readers?

Provocative men and women in his novels, short stories, and essays

What was Fitzgeralds first novel?

This Side of Paridise

When was This Side of Paradise released?

1920

What collection of stories from Fitzgerald depicted the flapper?

Flappers and Philosophers

When was Flappers and Philosophers released?

1920

When was The Beautiful and Damned released?

1922

Fitzgerald was considered what?

One of the country’s experts of flappers and the world of youth culture

What was Lois Long’s pseudonym?

Lipstick

What did Long create?

The New Yorker

How did The New Yorker become a literary sensation?

By detailing the lives of women (like herself) who stayed up all night in the New York City, drank in exclusive bars, and danced the newest dances, and entertained multiple male suitors

What dances might have been danced at parties int he 1920s?

The Charleston, Black bottom, and the Foxtrot

Who was Dorothy Parker?

A critic, poet, and perhaps the decade’s most famous hurmorist

What poem did Dorothy Parker write about flappers?

The Flapper

When was The Flapper released?

1922

What did The Flapper focus on?

The flappers attention-grabbing ways

Behaving like a flapper was one of the manifestations of what?

Feminism

What did activists work for?

Increased legal protection of women of all classes

What did activist campaign against?

Outdated and restrictive laws

What did Emma Goldman campaign for?

Greater protections for working class women

What did Margaret Sanger campaign for?

The rights of women to purchase and use borth control

Why was Sanger controversial?

Her frank and open discussions of women’s bodies and their medical needs was unprecedented in American society

Which writers wrote poems plays and experimental novels challenging social norms regarding marriage and female sexuality?

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Gertrude Stein, Dorothy Parker, Helene Johnson, and Angelina Weld Grimke

The writings that challenged social norms regarding marriage and female sexuality forced readers to confront what?

The negative effects of the ongoing marginalization of women

Where did women face marginalization?

In social political and artistic institutions

When was I, being born a woman and distressed released?

1923

How does I being born a woman and distressed critique traditional marrage?

Through the use of Irony

What play did Grimke make?

Rachel

When was Rachel written?

1916

What does Rachel feature?

A female protagonist who openly decides to not have children

How did readers react to the works of Grimke and Millay?

They found these works liberating and empowering while some were scandalized by the directness with which women writers tackled such topics

Why was the 1920’s significant for feminism?

It was the decade in which much of the work of the early first-wave feminists came to fruition, resulting in significant ways in how women were treated