9/9 History Notes

  • Jane Brown, 1880 wins in federal court

  • Judge refused to let jury judge her as a prostitute

  • wins 3,000 dollars in damages

  • 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson: landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the "separate but equal" doctrine, ultimately reinforcing discriminatory laws.

  • Ida B. Wells

  • Wells challenges - 1884

  • Forcibly removed from car, sues train company

  • wins (judge was ex-union soldier)

  • loses in 1887 in State Supreme Court

  • journalist, anti-lynching crusade

  • Memphis friends were lynched

  • urged armed self-defense

  • researches lynching accusations

  • felt it had to do with economics/white supremacy, not rape

  • shines light on lack of justice for black victims of rape

  • forced to leave the south

  • criticized as too radical by both whites and blacks

  • Allies in her activism; black women’s club movement

  • “lifting as we climb”

  • Club women - mainly middle class women, leaders have a common background, educated at Oberlin or HBCU

  • Natural Association of Colored Women

  • 1896 merger of two other federations

  • Mary Church Terrel - daughter of first African-American millionaire in the south (Robert Reed Church)

  • active in suffrage movement & activist into the 1950’s.

  • Nannie Burroughs - lynching won’t end until white women stop it

  • 1930 - association of souther women for the prevention of lynching

  • 40,000 white women sign anti-lynching pledge

  • Industrialization & its effect on labor

  • Laissez-faire - “let it be” or “leave it alone (french)

  • Basically means little government regulation in business

  • workers - little regulation in hours, conditions

  • Freedom of Contract

  • Social Darwinism - sets of ideas about society drawn from Darwin’s ideas; survival of the fittest

  • Labor Segmentation

  • Divided by skill:

  • Skilled, unskilled

  • Divided by gender:

  • women = unskilled, men = skilled

  • women were also paid less than men

  • divided by race/ethnicity:

  • skilled jobs included white, native-born, and english speaking

  • unskilled jobs included immigrant, non-english speaking

  • African-Americans were not hired in almost all industrial jobs

  • notion was that men were paid more to care for families, yet many women have to work

  • 10-15% of urban families were female-headed

  • typical female factory worker is single & young (teenagers), working pre-married and left once married

  • “pin money” ideas - women just want money for luxuries and they’re not serious workers

  • “wage-earning women were therefore criticized if they worked out of choice or pitied if they worked out of need.”

  • White women’s labor patterns

  • white women leave domestic service by end of 19th century and move to factories

  • unskilled jobs in factories

  • north: garment industry

  • sweatshops

  • unmarried, younger women

  • paid by piece/men by time worked

  • south: textile mills