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The Women’s Rights Movement, 1848–1917 | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives

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The fight for women’s suffrage in the United States began with the women’s rights movement in the mid-nineteenth century. This reform effort encompassed a broad spectrum of goals before its leaders decided to focus first on securing the vote for women. Women’s suffrage leaders, however, disagreed ov…

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" Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. " That was Margaret Mead's conclusion after a lifetime of observing very diverse cultures around the world. Her insight has been borne out time and again throughout the development of this country of ours. Being allowed to live life in an atmosphere of religious freedom, having a voice in the government you support with your taxes, living free of lifelong enslavement by another person. These beliefs about how life should and must be lived were once considered outlandish by many. But these beliefs were fervently held by visionaries whose steadfast work brought about changed minds and attitudes. Now these beliefs are commonly shared across U.S. society.

Another initially outlandish idea that has come to pass: United States citizenship for women. 1998 marked the 150th Anniversary of a movement by women to achieve full civil rights in this country. Over the past seven generations, dramatic social and legal changes have been accomplished that are now so accepted that they go unnoticed by people whose lives they have utterly changed. Many people who have lived through the recent decades of this process have come to accept blithely what has transpired. And younger people, for the most part, can hardly believe life was ever otherwise. They take the changes completely in stride, as how life has always been.

The staggering changes for women that have come about over those seven generations in family life, in religion, in government, in employment, in education - these changes did not just happen spontaneously. Women themselves made these changes happen, very deliberately. Women have not been the passive recipients of miraculous changes in laws and human nature. Seven generations of women have come together to affect these changes in the most democratic ways: through meetings, petition drives, lobbying, public speaking, and nonviolent resistance. They have worked very deliberately to create a better world, and they have succeeded hugely.

Throughout 1998, the 150th anniversary of the Women's Rights Movement is being celebrated across the nation with programs and events taking every form imaginable. Like many amazing stories, the history of the Women's Rights Movement began with a small group of people questioning why human lives were being unfairly constricted.

Today we are living the legacy of this afternoon conversation among women friends. Throughout 1998, events celebrating the 150th Anniversary of the Women's Rights Movement are looking at the massive changes these women set in motion when they daringly agreed to convene the world's first Women's Rights Convention.

Within two days of their afternoon tea together, this small group had picked a date for their convention, found a suitable location, and placed a small announcement in the Seneca County Courier. They called "A convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman." The gathering would take place at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls on July 19 and 20, 1848.

In the history of western civilization, no similar public meeting had ever been called.

In this Declaration of Sentiments, Stanton carefully enumerated areas of life where women were treated unjustly. Eighteen was precisely the number of grievances America's revolutionary forefathers had listed in their Declaration of Independence from England.

Stanton's version read, "The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world." Then it went into specifics:

Married women were legally dead in the eyes of the law

Women were not allowed to vote

Women had to submit to laws when they had no voice in their formation

Married women had no property rights

Husbands had legal power over and responsibility for their wives to the extent that they could imprison or beat them with impunity

Divorce and child custody laws favored men, giving no rights to women

Women had to pay property taxes although they had no representation in the levying of these taxes

Most occupations were closed to women and when women did work they were paid only a fraction of what men earned

Women were not allowed to enter professions such as medicine or law

Women had no means to gain an education since no college or university would accept women students

With only a few exceptions, women were not allowed to participate in the affairs of the church

Women were robbed of their self-confidence and self-respect, and were made totally dependent on men

Strong words... Large grievances... And remember: This was just seventy years after the Revolutionary War. Doesn't it seem surprising to you that this unfair treatment of women was the norm in this new, very idealistic democracy? But this Declaration of Sentiments spelled out what was the status quo for European-American women in 1848 America, while it was even worse for enslaved Black women.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton's draft continued: "Now, in view of this entire disenfranchisement of one-half the people of this country, their social and religious degradation, - in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of these United States."

That summer, change was in the air and Elizabeth Cady Stanton was full of hope that the future could and would be brighter for women.

The First Women's Rights Convention
The convention was convened as planned, and over the two-days of discussion, the Declaration of Sentiments and 12 resolutions received unanimous endorsement, one by one, with a few amendments. The only resolution that did not pass unanimously was the call for women's enfranchisement. That women should be allowed to vote in elections was almost inconceivable to many. Lucretia Mott, Stanton's longtime friend, had been shocked when Stanton had first suggested such an idea. And at the convention, heated debate over the woman's vote filled the air.

Today, it's hard for us to imagine this, isn't it? Even the heartfelt pleas of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a refined and educated woman of the time, did not move the assembly. Not until Frederick Douglass, the noted Black abolitionist and rich orator, started to speak, did the uproar subside. Woman, like the slave, he argued, had the right to liberty. "Suffrage," he asserted, "is the power to choose rulers and make laws, and the right by which all others are secured." In the end, the resolution won enough votes to carry, but by a bare majority.

The Declaration of Sentiments ended on a note of complete realism: "In entering upon the great work before us, we anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule; but we shall use every instrumentality within our power to effect our object. We shall employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the State and national Legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press in our behalf. We hope this Convention will be followed by a series of Conventions, embracing every part of the country."

In ridicule, the entire text of the Declaration of Sentiments was often published, with the names of the signers frequently included. Just as ridicule today often has a squelching effect on new ideas, this attack in the press caused many people from the Convention to rethink their positions. Many of the women who had attended the convention were so embarrassed by the publicity that they actually withdrew their signatures from the Declaration. But most stood firm. And something the editors had not anticipated happened: Their negative articles about the women's call for expanded rights were so livid and widespread that they actually had a positive impact far beyond anything the organizers could have hoped for. People in cities and isolated towns alike were now alerted to the issues, and joined this heated discussion of women's rights in great numbers!

The Movement Expands
The Seneca Falls women had optimistically hoped for "a series of conventions embracing every part of the country." And that's just what did happen. Women's Rights Conventions were held regularly from 1850 until the start of the Civil War. Some drew such large crowds that people actually had to be turned away for lack of sufficient meeting space!

The women's rights movement of the late 19th century went on to address the wide range of issues spelled out at the Seneca Falls Convention. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and women like Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, and Sojourner Truth traveled the country lecturing and organizing for the next forty years. Eventually, winning the right to vote emerged as the central issue, since the vote would provide the means to achieve the other reforms. All told, the campaign for woman suffrage met such staunch opposition that it took 72 years for the women and their male supporters to be successful.

As you might imagine, any 72-year campaign includes thousands of political strategists, capable organizers, administrators, activists and lobbyists. The story of diligent women's rights activism is a litany of achievements against tremendous odds, of ingenious strategies and outrageous tactics used to outwit opponents and make the most of limited resources. It's a dramatic tale, filled with remarkable women facing down incredible obstacles to win that most basic American civil right - the vote.

Among these women are several activists whose names and and accomplishments should become as familiar to Americans as those of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, of course. And Susan B. Anthony. Matilda Joslyn Gage. Lucy Stone. They were pioneer theoreticians of the 19th-century women's rights movement.

Esther Morris, the first woman to hold a judicial position, who led the first successful state campaign for woman suffrage, in Wyoming in 1869. Abigail Scott Duniway, the leader of the successful fight in Oregon and Washington in the early 1900s.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Mary Church Terrell, organizers of thousands of African-American women who worked for suffrage for all women.

Harriot Stanton Blatch, daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Alice Stone Blackwell, Lucy Stone's daughter, who carried on their mothers' legacy through the next generation.

Anna Howard Shaw and Carrie Chapman Catt, leaders of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in the early years of the 20th century, who brought the campaign to its final success.

Alice Paul, founder and leader of the National Woman's Party, considered the radical wing of the movement.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, now a Supreme Court Justice, learned the story of the Women's Rights Movement. Today she says, "I think about how much we owe to the women who went before us - legions of women, some known but many more unknown. I applaud the bravery and resilience of those who helped all of us - you and me - to be here today."

After the Vote was Won
After the vote was finally won in 1920, the organized Women's Rights Movement continued on in several directions. While the majority of women who had marched, petitioned and lobbied for woman suffrage looked no further, a minority - like Alice Paul - understood that the quest for women's rights would be an ongoing struggle that was only advanced, not satisfied, by the vote.

In 1919, as the suffrage victory drew near, the National American Woman Suffrage Association reconfigured itself into the League of Women Voters to ensure that women would take their hard-won vote seriously and use it wisely.

In 1920, the Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor was established to gather information about the situation of women at work, and to advocate for changes it found were needed. Many suffragists became actively involved with lobbying for legislation to protect women workers from abuse and unsafe conditions.

In 1923, Alice Paul, the leader of the National Woman's Party, took the next obvious step. She drafted an Equal Rights Amendment for the United States Constitution. Such a federal law, it was argued, would ensure that "Men and women have equal rights throughout the United States." A constitutional amendment would apply uniformly, regardless of where a person lived.

The second wing of the post-suffrage movement was one that had not been explicitly anticipated in the Seneca Falls "Declaration of Sentiments." It was the birth control movement, initiated by a public health nurse, Margaret Sanger, just as the suffrage drive was nearing its victory. The idea of woman's right to control her own body, and especially to control her own reproduction and sexuality, added a visionary new dimension to the ideas of women's emancipation. This movement not only endorsed educating women about existing birth control methods. It also spread the conviction that meaningful freedom for modern women meant they must be able to decide for themselves whether they would become mothers, and when. For decades, Margaret Sanger and her supporters faced down at every turn the zealously enforced laws denying women this right. In 1936, a Supreme Court decision declassified birth control information as obscene. Still, it was not until 1965 that married couples in all states could obtain contraceptives legally.

The Second Wave
So it's clear that, contrary to common misconception, the Women's Rights Movement did not begin in the 1960s. What occurred in the 1960s was actually a second wave of activism that washed into the public consciousness, fueled by several seemingly independent events of that turbulent decade. Each of these events brought a different segment of the population into the movement.

First: Esther Peterson was the director of the Women's Bureau of the Dept. of Labor in 1961. She considered it to be the government's responsibility to take an active role in addressing discrimination against women. With her encouragement, President Kennedy convened a Commission on the Status of Women, naming Eleanor Roosevelt as its chair. The report issued by that commission in 1963 documented discrimination against women in virtually every area of American life. State and local governments quickly followed suit and established their own commissions for women, to research conditions and recommend changes that could be initiated.

Then: In 1963, Betty Friedan published a landmark book, The Feminine Mystique. The Feminine Mystique evolved out of a survey she had conducted for her 20-year college reunion. In it she documented the emotional and intellectual oppression that middle-class educated women were experiencing because of limited life options. The book became an immediate bestseller, and inspired thousands of women to look for fulfillment beyond the role of homemaker.

Next: Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed, prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of sex as well as race, religion, and national origin. The category "sex" was included as a last-ditch effort to kill the bill. But it passed, nevertheless. With its passage, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was established to investigate discrimination complaints. Within the commission's first five years, it received 50,000 sex discrimination complaints. But it was quickly obvious that the commission was not very interested in pursuing these complaints. Betty Friedan, the chairs of the various state Commissions on the Status of Women, and other feminists agreed to form a civil rights organization for women similar to the NAACP. In 1966, the National Organization for Women was organized, soon to be followed by an array of other mass-membership organizations addressing the needs of specific groups of women, including Blacks, Latinas, Asians-Americans, lesbians, welfare recipients, business owners, aspiring politicians, and tradeswomen and professional women of every sort.

During this same time, thousands of young women on college campuses were playing active roles within the anti-war and civil rights movement. At least,that was their intention. Many were finding their efforts blocked by men who felt leadership of these movements was their own province, and that women's roles should be limited to fixing food and running mimeograph machines. It wasn't long before these young women began forming their own "women's liberation" organizations to address their role and status within these progressive movements and within society at large.

New Issues Come to the Fore
These various elements of the re-emerging Women's Rights Movement worked together and separately on a wide range of issues. Small groups of women in hundreds of communities worked on grassroots projects like establishing women's newspapers, bookstores and cafes. They created battered women's shelters and rape crisis hotlines to care for victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence. They came together to form child care centers so women could work outside their homes for pay. Women health care professionals opened women's clinics to provide birth control and family planning counseling - and to offer abortion services - for low-income women. These clinics provided a safe place to discuss a wide range of health concerns and experiment with alternative forms of treatment.

With the inclusion of Title IX in the Education Codes of 1972, equal access to higher education and to professional schools became the law. The long-range effect of that one straightforward legal passage beginning "Equal access to education programs...," has been simply phenomenal. The number of women doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects and other professionals has doubled and doubled again as quotas actually limiting women's enrollment in graduate schools were outlawed. Athletics has probably been the most hotly contested area of Title IX, and it's been one of the hottest areas of improvement, too. The rise in girls' and women's participation in athletics tells the story: One in twenty-seven high school girls played sports 25 years ago; one in three do today. The whole world saw how much American women athletes could achieve during the last few Olympic Games, measured in their astonishing numbers of gold, silver, and bronze medals. This was another very visible result of Title IX.

In society at large, the Women's Rights Movement has brought about measurable changes, too. In 1972, 26% of men and women said they would not vote for a woman for president. In 1996, that sentiment had plummeted to just over 5% for women and to 8% for men. The average age of women when they first marry has moved from twenty to twenty-four during that same period.

But perhaps the most dramatic impact of the women's rights movement of the past few decades has been women's financial liberation. Do you realize that just 25 years ago married women were not issued credit cards in their own name? That most women could not get a bank loan without a male co-signer? That women working full time earned fifty-nine cents to every dollar earned by men?

Help-wanted ads in newspapers were segregated into "Help wanted - women" and "Help wanted- men." Pages and pages of jobs were announced for which women could not even apply. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled this illegal in 1968, but since the EEOC had little enforcement power, most newspapers ignored the requirement for years. The National Organization for Women (NOW), had to argue the issue all the way to the Supreme Court to make it possible for a woman today to hold any job for which she is qualified. And so now we see women in literally thousands of occupations which would have been almost unthinkable just one generation ago: dentist, bus driver, veterinarian, airline pilot, and phone installer, just to name a few.

Many of these changes came about because of legislation and court cases pushed by women's organizations. But many of the advances women achieved in the 1960s and '70s were personal: getting husbands to help with the housework or regularly take responsibility for family meals; getting a long-deserved promotion at work; gaining the financial and emotional strength to leave an abusive partner.

The campaign for state ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment provided the opportunity for millions of women across the nation to become actively involved in the Women's Rights Movement in their own communities. Unlike so many other issues which were battled-out in Congress or through the courts, this issue came to each state to decide individually. Women's organizations of every stripe organized their members to help raise money and generate public support for the ERA. Marches were staged in key states that brought out hundreds of thousands of supporters. House meetings, walk-a-thons, door-to-door canvassing, and events of every imaginable kind were held by ordinary women, many of whom had never done anything political in their lives before. Generous checks and single dollar bills poured into the campaign headquarters, and the ranks of NOW and other women's rights organizations swelled to historic sizes. Every women's magazine and most general interest publications had stories on the implications of the ERA, and the progress of the ratification campaign.

But Elizabeth Cady Stanton proved prophetic once again. Remember her prediction that the movement should "anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule"? Opponents of the Equal Rights Amendment, organized by Phyllis Schlafly, feared that a statement like the ERA in the Constitution would give the government too much control over our personal lives. They charged that passage of the ERA would lead to men abandoning their families, unisex toilets, gay marriages, and women being drafted. And the media, purportedly in the interest of balanced reporting, gave equal weight to these deceptive arguments just as they had when the possibility of women winning voting rights was being debated. And, just like had happened with woman suffrage, there were still very few women in state legislatures to vote their support, so male legislators once again had it in their power to decide if women should have equal rights. When the deadline for ratification came in 1982, the ERA was just three states short of the 38 needed to write it into the U.S. constitution. Seventy-five percent of the women legislators in those three pivotal states supported the ERA, but only 46% of the men voted to ratify.

Despite polls consistently showing a large majority of the population supporting the ERA, it was considered by many politicians to be just too controversial. Historically speaking, most if not all the issues of the women's rights movement have been highly controversial when they were first voiced. Allowing women to go to college? That would shrink their reproductive organs! Employ women in jobs for pay outside their homes? That would destroy families! Cast votes in national elections? Why should they bother themselves with such matters? Participate in sports? No lady would ever want to perspire! These and other issues that were once considered scandalous and unthinkable are now almost universally accepted in this country.

Women's reproductive rights. Whether or not women can terminate pregnancies is still controversial twenty-five years after the Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade affirmed women's choice during the first two trimesters.

Women's enrollment in military academies and service in active combat. Are these desirable?

Women in leadership roles in religious worship. Controversial for some, natural for others.

Affirmative action. Is help in making up for past discrimination appropriate? Do qualified women now face a level playing field?

The mommy track. Should businesses accommodate women's family responsibilities, or should women compete evenly for advancement with men, most of whom still assume fewer family obligations?

Pornography. Is it degrading, even dangerous, to women, or is it simply a free speech issue?

Sexual harassment. Just where does flirting leave off and harassment begin?

Surrogate motherhood. Is it simply the free right of a woman to hire out her womb for this service?

Social Security benefits allocated equally for homemakers and their working spouses, to keep surviving wives from poverty as widows.

Today, young women proudly calling themselves "the third wave" are confronting these and other thorny issues. While many women may still be hesitant to call themselves "feminist" because of the ever-present backlash, few would give up the legacy of personal freedoms and expanded opportunities women have won over the last 150 years. Whatever choices we make for our own lives, most of us envision a world for our daughters, nieces and granddaughters where all girls and women will have the opportunity to develop their unique skills and talents and pursue their dreams.

In the world of work, large numbers of women have entered the professions, the trades, and businesses of every kind. We have opened the ranks of the clergy, the military, the newsroom. More than three million women now work in occupations considered "nontraditional" until very recently.

We've accomplished so much, yet a lot still remains to be done. Substantial barriers to the full equality of America's women still remain before our freedom as a Nation can be called complete. But the Women's Rights Movement has clearly been successful in irrevocably changing the circumstances and hopes of women. The remaining injustices are being tackled daily in the courts and conference rooms, the homes and organizations, workplaces and playing fields of America.

Women and girls today are living the legacy of women's rights that seven generations of women before us have given their best to achieve. Alice Paul, that intrepid organizer who first wrote out the Equal Rights Amendment in 1923, said, "I always feel the movement is sort of a mosaic. Each of us puts in one little stone, and then you get a great mosaic at the end." Women, acting together, adding their small stones to the grand mosaic, have increased their rights against all odds, nonviolently, from an initial position of powerlessness. We have a lot to be proud of in this heroic legacy, and a great deal to celebrate on the occasion of the 150th Anniversary of the founding of the Women's Rights Movement.

© By Bonnie Eisenberg and Mary Ruthsdotter, the National Women's History Alliance. 1998

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History of the Women's Rights Movement - National Women's History Alliance

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Living the Legacy: The Women's Rights Movement (1848-1998) "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." That was Margaret Mead's conclusion after a lifetime of observing very diverse cultures around the world.

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When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to such a course.

We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon the institution of a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves, by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of the women under this government, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to demand the equal station to which they are entitled.

The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise.

He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice.

He has withheld from her rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded men - both natives and foreigners.

Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides.

He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.

He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns.

He has made her, morally, an irresponsible being, as she can commit many crimes, with impunity, provided they be done in the presence of her husband. In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her master - the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty, and to administer chastisement.

He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what shall be the proper causes of divorce; in case of separation, to whom the guardianship of the children shall be given, as to be wholly regardless of the happiness of women - the law, in all cases, going upon the false supposition of the supremacy of man, and giving all power into his hands.

After depriving her of all rights as a married woman, if single and the owner of property, he has taxed her to support a government which recognizes her only when her property can be made profitable to it.

He has monopolized nearly all the profitable employments, and from those she is permitted to follow, she receives but a scanty remuneration.

He closes against her all the avenues to wealth and distinction, which he considers most honorable to himself. As a teacher of theology, medicine, or law, she is not known.

He has denied her the facilities for obtaining a thorough education - all colleges being closed against her.

He allows her in Church as well as State, but a subordinate position, claiming Apostolic authority for her exclusion from the ministry, and with some exceptions, from any public participation in the affairs of the Church.

He has created a false public sentiment, by giving to the world a different code of morals for men and women, by which moral delinquencies which exclude women from society, are not only tolerated but deemed of little account in man.

He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her conscience and her God.

He has endeavored, in every way that he could to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life.

Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half the people of this country, their social and religious degradation, - in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of these United States.

In entering upon the great work before us, we anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule; but we shall use every instrumentality within our power to effect our object. We shall employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the State and national Legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press in our behalf. We hope this Convention will be followed by a series of Conventions, embracing every part of the country.

Firmly relying upon the final triumph of the Right and the True, we do this day affix our signatures to this declaration.

Lucretia Mott
Harriet Cady Eaton
Margaret Pryor
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Eunice Newton Foote
Mary Ann M'Clintock
Margaret Schooley
Martha C. Wright
Jane C. Hunt
Amy Post
Catherine F. Stebbins
Mary Ann Frink
Lydia Mount
Delia Matthews
Catharine C. Paine
Elizabeth W. M'Clintock
Malvina Seymour
Phebe Mosher
Catherine Shaw
Deborah Scott
Sarah Hallowell
Mary M'Clintock
Mary Gilbert
Sophrone Taylor
Cynthia Davis
Hannah Plant
Lucy Jones
Sarah Whitney
Mary H. Hallowell
Elizabeth Conklin
Sally Pitcher
Mary Conklin
Susan Quinn
Mary S. Mirror
Phebe King
Julia Ann Drake
Charlotte Woodward
Martha Underhill
Dorothy Matthews
Eunice Barker
Sarah R. Woods
Lydia Gild
Sarah Hoffman
Elizabeth Leslie
Martha Ridley
Rachel D. Bonnel
Betsey Tewksbury
Rhoda Palmer
Margaret Jenkins
Cynthia Fuller
Mary Martin
P.A. Culvert
Susan R. Doty
Rebecca Race
Sarah A. Mosher
Mary E. Vail
Lucy Spalding
Lavinia Latham
Sarah Smith
Eliza Martin
Maria E. Wilbur
Elizabeth D. Smith
Caroline Barker
Ann Porter
Experience Gibbs
Antoinette E. Segur
Hannah J. Latham
Sarah Sisson

The following are the names of the gentlemen present in favor of the movement:

Richard P. Hunt
Samuel D. Tillman
Justin Williams
Elisha Foote
Frederick Douglass
Henry W. Seymour
Henry Seymour
David Salding
William G. Barker
Elias J. Doty
John Jones
William S. Dell
James Mott
William Burroughs
Robert Smalldridge
Jacob Matthews
Charles L. Hoskins
Thomas M'Clintock
Saron Phillips
Jacob Chamberlain
Jonathan Metcalf
Nathan J. Milliken
S.E. Woodworth
Edward F. Underhill
George W. Pryor
Joel Bunker
Isaac Van Tassel
Thomas Dell
E.W. Capron
Stephen Shear
Henry Hatley
Azaliah Schooley

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Declaration of Sentiments - Women's Rights National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service)

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When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to such a course.

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This link has many resources and videos over this movement and the people involved.

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By Kylie Roloson Did you know? The first National Women's Rights Convention was held in Worcester, Mass. on October 23 and 24, 1850. Quiz How many Reforms was Susan B. Anothony involved in? The Seneca Falls Convention was the first of it's kind. It inspired people to fight for Women's rights and go the word out.

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MLA - Michals, Debra. "Elizabeth Cady Stanton." National Women's History Museum. National Women's History Museum, 2017. Date accessed.

Chicago- Michals, Debra. "Elizabeth Cady Stanton." National Women's History Museum. 2017. www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/elizabeth-cady-stanton.

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Chief philosopher of the suffrage movement Elizabeth Cady Stanton formulated the agenda for woman's rights that guided the struggle well into the 20th century. Read more about her on womenshistory.org.

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MLA - Michals, Debra. "Lucretia Mott." National Women's History Museum, 2017. Date accessed.

Chicago - Michals, Debra "Lucretia Mott." National Women's History Museum. 2017. www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/lucretia-mott.

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Lucretia Coffin Mott was an early feminist activist and strong advocate for ending slavery. A powerful orator, she dedicated her life to speaking out against racial and gender injustice.

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Champion of temperance, abolition, the rights of labor, and equal pay for equal work, Susan Brownell Anthony became one of the most visible leaders of the women's suffrage movement. Along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she traveled around the country delivering speeches in favor of women's suffrage.

Susan B. Anthony was born on February 15, 1820 in Adams, Massachusetts. Her father, Daniel, was a farmer and later a cotton mill owner and manager and was raised as a Quaker. Her mother, Lucy, came from a family that fought in the American Revolution and served in the Massachusetts state government. From an early age, Anthony was inspired by the Quaker belief that everyone was equal under God. That idea guided her throughout her life. She had seven brothers and sisters, many of whom became activists for justice and emancipation of slaves.

After many years of teaching, Anthony returned to her family who had moved to New York State. There she met William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass, who were friends of her father. Listening to them moved Susan to want to do more to help end slavery. She became an abolition activist, even though most people thought it was improper for women to give speeches in public. Anthony made many passionate speeches against slavery.

In 1848, a group of women held a convention at Seneca Falls , New York. It was the first Women's Rights Convention in the United States and began the Suffrage movement. Her mother and sister attended the convention but Anthony did not. In 1851, Anthony met Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The two women became good friends and worked together for over 50 years fighting for women's rights. They traveled the country and Anthony gave speeches demanding that women be given the right to vote. At times, she risked being arrested for sharing her ideas in public.

Anthony was good at strategy. Her discipline, energy, and ability to organize made her a strong and successful leader. Anthony and Stanton co-founded the American Equal Rights Association. In 1868 they became editors of the Association's newspaper, The Revolution, which helped to spread the ideas of equality and rights for women. Anthony began to lecture to raise money for publishing the newspaper and to support the suffrage movement. She became famous throughout the county. Many people admired her, yet others hated her ideas.

When Congress passed the which give voting rights to African American men, Anthony and Stanton were angry and opposed the legislation because it did not include the right to vote for women. Their belief led them to split from other suffragists. They thought the amendments should also have given women the right to vote. They formed the National Woman Suffrage Association , to push for a constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote.

In 1872, Anthony was arrested for voting. She was tried and fined $100 for her crime. This made many people angry and brought national attention to the suffrage movement. In 1876, she led a protest at the 1876 Centennial of our nation's independence. She gave a speech-"Declaration of Rights"-written by Stanton and another suffragist, Matilda Joslyn Gage.

"Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less."

Anthony spent her life working for women's rights. In 1888, she helped to merge the two largest suffrage associations into one, the National American Women's Suffrage Association. She led the group until 1900. She traveled around the country giving speeches, gathering thousands of signatures on petitions, and lobbying Congress every year for women. Anthony died in 1906, 14 years before women were given the right to vote with the passage of the in 1920.

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Champion of temperance, abolition, the rights of labor, and equal pay for equal work, Susan Brownell Anthony became one of the most visible leaders of the women's suffrage movement. Along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she traveled around the country delive

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MLA - Michals, Debra. "Sojourner Truth." National Women's History Museum. National Women's History Museum, 2015. Date accessed.

Chicago - Michals, Debra. "Sojourner Truth." National Women's History Museum. 2015. www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/sojourner-truth.

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A former slave, Sojourner Truth became an outspoken advocate for abolition, temperance, and civil and women's rights in the nineteenth century. Learn more at womenshistory.org.

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"I sell the shadow to support the substance." -- Sojourner Truth. Carte de Visite, circa 1864, in the collections of the Library of Congress (http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/97513239/)

Born into slavery in 1797, Isabella Baumfree, who later changed her name to Sojourner Truth, would become one of the most powerful advocates for human rights in the nineteenth century. Her early childhood was spent on a New York estate owned by a Dutch American named Colonel Johannes Hardenbergh. Like other slaves, she experienced the miseries of being sold and was cruelly beaten and mistreated. Around 1815 she fell in love with a fellow slave named Robert, but they were forced apart by Robert's master. Isabella was instead forced to marry a slave named Thomas, with whom she had five children.

In 1827, after her master failed to honor his promise to free her or to uphold the New York Anti-Slavery Law of 1827, Isabella ran away, or, as she later informed her master, "I did not run away, I walked away by daylight...." After experiencing a religious conversion, Isabella became an itinerant preacher and in 1843 changed her name to Sojourner Truth. During this period she became involved in the growing antislavery movement, and by the 1850s she was involved in the woman's rights movement as well. At the 1851 Women's Rights Convention held in Akron, Ohio, Sojourner Truth delivered what is now recognized as one of the most famous abolitionist and women's rights speeches in American history, "Ain't I a Woman?" She continued to speak out for the rights of African Americans and women during and after the Civil War. Sojourner Truth died in Battle Creek, Michigan, in 1883.

Sojourner Truth (1797-1883): Ain't I A Woman?
Delivered 1851
Women's Rights Convention, Old Stone Church (since demolished), Akron, Ohio

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.[1]

But Wait!
There is some controversy regarding Sojourner Truth's famous 'Ain't I a Woman?' Speech listed above. There are different versions of the speech. The popular 'Ain't I a Woman' Speech was first published by Frances Gage in 1863, 12 years after the speech itself. Another version was published a month after the speech was given in the Anti-Slavery Bugle by Rev. Marius Robinson. In Robinson's Version the phrase 'Ain't I a Woman' is not present.

Compare the speeches and decide yourself at the Library of Congress or at The Sojourner Truth Project. [2]

[1] This text is part of the Internet Modern History Sourcebook.
[2] This article first appeared on the Women's Rights National Historical Park website.

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Sojourner Truth: Ain't I A Woman? (U.S. National Park Service)

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Born into slavery in 1797, Isabella Baumfree, who later changed her name to Sojourner Truth, would become one of the most powerful advocates for human rights in the nineteenth century. Her early childhood was spent on a New York estate owned by a Dutch American named Colonel Johannes Hardenbergh.

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It took suffragists about 100 years to win women the right to vote. What helped? The skills and connections they’d made fighting for abolition, the end to slavery.

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Woman’s Suffrage History Timeline - Women’s Rights National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service)

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The below timeline is from the National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection Home Page on the Library of Congress website.

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Women's Suffrage

During America's early history, women were denied some of the basic rights enjoyed by male citizens.

For example, married women couldn't own property and had no legal claim to any money they might earn, and no female had the right to vote. Women were expected to focus on housework and motherhood, not politics.

The campaign for women's suffrage was a small but growing movement in the decades before the Civil War. Starting in the 1820s, various reform groups proliferated across the U.S. including temperance leagues, the abolitionist movement and religious groups. Women played a prominent role in a number of them.

Meanwhile, many American women were resisting the notion that the ideal woman was a pious, submissive wife and mother concerned exclusively with home and family. Combined, these factors contributed to a new way of thinking about what it meant to be a woman and a citizen in the United States.

Seneca Falls Convention

It was not until 1848 that the movement for women's rights began to organize at the national level.

In July of that year, reformers Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized the first women's rights convention at Seneca Falls, New York (where Stanton lived). More than 300 people-mostly women, but also some men-attended, including former African-American slave and activist Frederick Douglass.

In addition to their belief that women should be afforded better opportunities for education and employment, most of the delegates at the Seneca Falls Convention agreed that American women were autonomous individuals who deserved their own political identities.

Declaration of Sentiments

A group of delegates led by Stanton produced a "Declaration of Sentiments" document, modeled after the Declaration of Independence, which stated: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

What this meant, among other things, was that the delegates believed women should have the right to vote.

Following the convention, the idea of voting rights for women was mocked in the press and some delegates withdrew their support for the Declaration of Sentiments. Nonetheless, Stanton and Mott persisted-they went on to spearhead additional women's rights conferences and they were eventually joined in their advocacy work by Susan B. Anthony and other activists.

National Suffrage Groups Established

With the onset of the Civil War, the suffrage movement lost some momentum, as many women turned their attention to assisting in efforts related to the conflict between the states.

After the war, women's suffrage endured another setback, when the women's rights movement found itself divided over the issue of voting rights for Black men. Stanton and some other suffrage leaders objected to the proposed 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which would give Black men the right to vote, but failed to extend the same privilege to American women of any skin color.

In 1869, Stanton and Anthony formed the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) with their eyes on a federal constitutional amendment that would grant women the right to vote.

That same year, abolitionists Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell founded the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA); the group's leaders supported the 15th Amendment and feared it would not pass if it included voting rights for women. ( The 15th Amendment was ratified in 1870.)

The AWSA believed women's enfranchisement could best be gained through amendments to individual state constitutions. Despite the divisions between the two organizations, there was a victory for voting rights in 1869 when the Wyoming Territory granted all-female residents age 21 and older the right to vote. (When Wyoming was admitted to the Union in 1890, women's suffrage remained part of the state constitution.)

By 1878, the NWSA and the collective suffrage movement had gathered enough influence to lobby the U.S. Congress for a constitutional amendment. Congress responded by forming committees in the House of Representatives and the Senate to study and debate the issue. However, when the proposal finally reached the Senate floor in 1886, it was defeated.

In 1890, the NWSA and the AWSA merged to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). The new organization's strategy was to lobby for women's voting rights on a state-by-state basis. Within six years, Colorado, Utah and Idaho adopted amendments to their state constitutions granting women the right to vote. In 1900, with Stanton and Anthony advancing in age, Carrie Chapman Catt stepped up to lead NAWSA.

Black Women in the Suffrage Movement

During debate over the 15th Amendment, white suffragist leaders like Stanton and Anthony had argued fiercely against Black men getting the vote before white women. Such a stance led to a break with their abolitionist allies, like Douglass, and ignored the distinct viewpoints and goals of Black women, led by prominent activists like Sojourner Truth and Frances E.W. Harper, fighting alongside them for the right to vote.

As the fight for voting rights continued, Black women in the suffrage movement continued to experience discrimination from white suffragists who wanted to distance their fight for voting rights from the question of race.

Pushed out of national suffrage organizations, Black suffragists founded their own groups, including the National Association of Colored Women Clubs (NACWC), founded in 1896 by a group of women including Harper, Mary Church Terrell and Ida B. Wells-Barnett. They fought hard for the passage of the 19th Amendment, seeing the women's right to vote as a crucial tool to winning legal protections for Black women (as well as Black men) against continued repression and violence.

State-level Successes for Voting Rights

The turn of the 20th century brought renewed momentum to the women's suffrage cause. Although the deaths of Stanton in 1902 and Anthony in 1906 appeared to be setbacks, the NASWA under the leadership of Catt achieved rolling successes for women's enfranchisement at state levels.

Between 1910 and 1918, the Alaska Territory, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota and Washington extended voting rights to women.

Also during this time, through the Equality League of Self-Supporting Women (later, the Women's Political Union), Stanton's daughter Harriot Stanton Blatch introduced parades, pickets and marches as means of calling attention to the cause. These tactics succeeded in raising awareness and led to unrest in Washington, D.C.

Did you know? Wyoming, the first state to grant voting rights to women, was also the first state to elect a female governor. Nellie Tayloe Ross (1876-1977) was elected governor of the Equality State-Wyoming's official nickname-in 1924. And from 1933 to 1953, she served as the first woman director of the U.S. Mint.

Protest and Progress

On the eve of the inauguration of President Woodrow Wilson in 1913, protesters thronged a massive suffrage parade in the nation's capital, and hundreds of women were injured. That same year, Alice Paul founded the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage, which later became the National Woman's Party.

The organization staged numerous demonstrations and regularly picketed the White House, among other militant tactics. As a result of these actions, some group members were arrested and served jail time.

In 1918, President Wilson switched his stand on women's voting rights from objection to support through the influence of Catt, who had a less-combative style than Paul. Wilson also tied the proposed suffrage amendment to America's involvement in World War I and the increased role women had played in the war efforts.

When the amendment came up for vote, Wilson addressed the Senate in favor of suffrage. As reported in The New York Times on October 1, 1918, Wilson said, "I regard the extension of suffrage to women as vitally essential to the successful prosecution of the great war of humanity in which we are engaged."

However, despite Wilson's newfound support, the amendment proposal failed in the Senate by two votes. Another year passed before Congress took up the measure again.

The Final Struggle For Passage

On May 21, 1919, U.S. Representative James R. Mann, a Republican from Illinois and chairman of the Suffrage Committee, proposed the House resolution to approve the Susan Anthony Amendment granting women the right to vote. The measure passed the House 304 to 89-a full 42 votes above the required two-thirds majority.

Two weeks later, on June 4, 1919, the U.S. Senate passed the 19th Amendment by two votes over its two-thirds required majority, 56-25. The amendment was then sent to the states for ratification.

Within six days of the ratification cycle, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin each ratified the amendment. Kansas, New York and Ohio followed on June 16, 1919. By March of the following year, a total of 35 states had approved the amendment, just shy of the three-fourths required for ratification.

Southern states were adamantly opposed to the amendment, however, and seven of them-Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, South Carolina and Virginia-had already rejected it before Tennessee's vote on August 18, 1920. It was up to Tennessee to tip the scale for woman suffrage.

The outlook appeared bleak, given the outcomes in other Southern states and given the position of Tennessee's state legislators in their 48-48 tie. The state's decision came down to 23-year-old Representative Harry T. Burn, a Republican from McMinn County, to cast the deciding vote.

Although Burn opposed the amendment, his mother convinced him to approve it. Mrs. Burn reportedly wrote to her son: "Don't forget to be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt put the 'rat' in ratification."

With Burn's vote, the 19th Amendment was fully ratified.

When Did Women Get the Right to Vote?

On August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment was certified by U.S. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby, and women finally achieved the long-sought right to vote throughout the United States.

On November 2 of that same year, more than 8 million women across the U.S. voted in elections for the first time.

It took over 60 years for the remaining 12 states to ratify the 19th Amendment. Mississippi was the last to do so, on March 22, 1984.

What Is the 19 Amendment?

The 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote, and reads:

"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

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19th Amendment - Definition, Passage & Summary

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The passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 guaranteed women the right to vote. Learn how suffragists fought for the cause and hear a summary of amendment in this brief video.

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Eastern State Penitentiary

Eastern State Penitentiary was designed to intimidate prisoners by its appearance. Today a historical society runs tours of the prison, as well as a haunted house around Halloween.

The pretty woman who stood before the all-male audience seemed unlikely to provoke controversy. Tiny and timid, she rose to the platform of the Massachusetts Legislature to speak. Those who had underestimated the determination and dedication of Dorothea Dix, however, were brought to attention when they heard her say that the sick and insane were "confined in this Commonwealth in cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens! Chained, beaten with rods, lashed into obedience." Thus, her crusade for humane hospitals for the insane, which she began in 1841, was reaching a climax. After touring prisons, workhouses, almshouses, and private homes to gather evidence of appalling abuses, she made her case for state-supported care. Ultimately, she not only helped establish five hospitals in America, but also went to Europe where she successfully pleaded for human rights to Queen Victoria and the Pope.

Dorothea Dix, a tireless crusader for the treatment of the mentally ill, was made the Superintendent of Nurses for the Union Army during the Civil War. After the war, she retired to an apartment in the first hospital that she had founded, in Trenton, New Jersey.

The year 1841 also marked the beginning of the superintendence of Dr. John Galt at Eastern Lunatic Asylum, in Williamsburg, Virginia, the first publicly supported psychiatric hospital in America. Warehousing of the sick was primary; their care was not. Dr. Galt had many revolutionary ideas about treating the insane, based on his conviction that they had dignity. Among his enlightened approaches were the use of drugs, the introduction of "talk therapy" and advocating outplacement rather than lifelong stays.

In addition to the problems in asylums, prisons were filled to overflowing with everyone who gave offense to society from committing murder to spitting on the street. Men, women, children were thrown together in the most atrocious conditions. Something needed to be done - but what?

Until the 19th century, juveniles offenders were passed into the custody of their parents. During the time of prison and asylum reform, juvenile detention centers like the House of Refuge in New York were built to reform children of delinquent behavior.

After the War of 1812, reformers from Boston and New York began a crusade to remove children from jails into juvenile detention centers. But the larger controversy continued over the purpose of prison - was it for punishment or penitence? In 1821, a disaster occurred in Auburn Prison that shocked even the governor into pardoning hardened criminals. After being locked down in solitary, many of the eighty men committed suicide or had mental breakdowns. Auburn reverted to a strict disciplinary approach. The champion of discipline and first national figure in prison reform was Louis Dwight. founder of the Boston Prison Discipline Society, he spread the Auburn system throughout America's jails and added salvation and Sabbath School to further penitence.

After several bad starts, America finally enjoyed about a decade of real reform. Idealism, plus hope in the perfectibility of institutions, spurred a new generation of leaders including Francis Lieber, Samuel Gridley Howe and the peerless Dix. Their goals were prison libraries, basic literacy (for Bible reading), reduction of whipping and beating, commutation of sentences, and separation of women, children and the sick.

By 1835, America was considered to have two of the "best" prisons in the world in Pennsylvania. Astonishingly, reformers from Europe looked to the new nation as a model for building, utilizing and improving their own systems. Advocates for prisoners believed that deviants could change and that a prison stay could have a positive effect. It was a revolutionary idea in the beginning of the 19th century that society rather than individuals had the responsibility for criminal activity and had the duty to treat neglected children and rehabilitate alcoholics.

In reality it became clear that, despite intervention by outsiders, prisoners were often no better off, and often worse off, for their incarceration. Yet, in keeping with the optimistic spirit of the era, these early reformers had only begun a crusade to alleviate human suffering that continues today.

Medicating the mentally ill is nothing new - Benjamin Hornor Coates, M.D. was working wonders with narcotics way back in 1752.
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Listen up to this radio broadcast about the story of Sing Sing, one of America's most notorious prisons which actually began during the time of reform.
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Prison and Asylum Reform [ushistory.org]

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Eastern State Penitentiary Eastern State Penitentiary was designed to intimidate prisoners by its appearance. Today a historical society runs tours of the prison, as well as a haunted house around Halloween. The pretty woman who stood before the all-male audience seemed unlikely to provoke controversy.

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Dorothea Dix was an early 19 th century activist who drastically changed the medical field during her lifetime. She championed causes for both the mentally ill and indigenous populations. By doing this work, she openly challenged 19 th century notions of reform and illness. Additionally, Dix helped recruit nurses for the Union army during the Civil War. As a result, she transformed the field of nursing.

Dix was born in Hampden, Maine in 1802. Little is known about her childhood. However, historians believe that her parents suffered from alcoholism and her father was abusive. Due to this abuse at a young age she moved to Boston to stay with her grandmother. Dix attended school in Boston and tutored children. She became ill several times and was forced to stop teaching. During one of her bouts of illness her physicians suggested she spend time in Europe. While visiting overseas, Dix met with groups of reformers interested in changing the way the mentally ill were cared for. Once Dix returned to the United States, she set out to tour mental hospitals across the country. She often reported her findings to several politicians. Dix pushed states to care for the unfortunate. Although many politicians disagreed with her work, she moved forward. She eventually established asylums in New Jersey, North Carolina, and Illinois. She worked to pass federal legislation that would create a national asylum, though the bill did not pass. Dix also toured overseas, reporting on the conditions of hospitals in various countries.

When the Civil War started, Dix completely dedicated herself to the Union cause. She was designated as the Superintendent of Army Nurses for the Union Army. Although many believed she set impossibly high standards for recruited nurses, the army of nurses was extremely successful and crucial in advancing the role of nurses in the war and in the medical field. Dix was also known for treating both Confederate and Union soldiers, a practice which gained her respect from many. During a period when male doctors openly expressed disdain for female nurses, Dix continued to push for formal training and more opportunities for women nurses. Over the course of the war she appointed more than 3,000, or about 15%, of Union Army nurse. She stepped down from the position in 1865.

After the war, Dix raised funds for the building of a national monument to honor deceased soldiers, which stands at Fort Monroe, Virginia today. She continued fighting for social reform throughout her life. Her work in support of better care for the mentally ill culminated in the restructuring of many hospitals both in the United States and abroad. After suffering from illness, Dix returned to New Jersey where she spent the remainder of her life in a specially designed suite in the New Jersey State Hospital. She died on July 17, 1887 and is buried in Cambridge Massachusetts.

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Dorothea Dix was an early 19th century activist who drastically changed the medical field during her lifetime.

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Dorothea Dix - Prison Reform, Accomplishments & Facts

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Dorothea Dix was an educator and social reformer whose devotion to the welfare of the mentally ill led to widespread international reforms.

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Mentioned from 3:01-4:09

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EXPERIENCE Real Support

Access on-demand teaching strategies, interactive professional development courses, and membership to the Discovery Educator Network-one of the largest professional networks of educators in the world.

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Social Reform in the Early United States

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Emphasizes that democratic movements of the early 1800s expanded far beyond the ballot box, and focuses on the Second Great Awakening. The segment discusses ways that Americans organized to combat societal ills through charities, public education, temperance, criminal-justice reform, insane-asylum reform, the women's movement, abolition, and other efforts.

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Mentioned from 4:09-the end.

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EXPERIENCE Real Support

Access on-demand teaching strategies, interactive professional development courses, and membership to the Discovery Educator Network-one of the largest professional networks of educators in the world.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Social Reform in the Early United States

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Emphasizes that democratic movements of the early 1800s expanded far beyond the ballot box, and focuses on the Second Great Awakening. The segment discusses ways that Americans organized to combat societal ills through charities, public education, temperance, criminal-justice reform, insane-asylum reform, the women's movement, abolition, and other efforts.

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Dix's Memorial to the Massachusetts Legislature. 

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Dix's Memorial to the Massachusetts Legislature. 

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Memorial to the Massachusetts Legislature

Gentlemen,--I respectfully ask to present this Memorial, believing that the cause, which actuates to and sanctions so unusual a movement, presents no equivocal claim to public consideration and sympathy. . .

About two years since leisure afforded opportunity and duty prompted me to visit several prisons and almshouses in the vicinity of this metropolis. I found, near Boston, in the jails and asylums for the poor, a numerous class brought into unsuitable connection with criminals and the general mass of paupers. I refer to idiots and insane persons, dwelling in circumstances not only adverse to their own physical and moral improvement, but productive of extreme disadvantages to all other persons brought into association with them. I applied myself diligently to trace the causes of these evils, and sought to supply remedies. As one obstacle was surmounted, fresh difficulties appeared. Every new investigation has given depth to the conviction that it is only by decided, prompt, and vigorous legislation the evils to which I refer, and which I shall proceed more fully to illustrate, can be remedied. I shall be obliged to speak with great plainness, and to reveal many things revolting to the taste, and from which my woman's nature shrinks with peculiar sensitiveness. But truth is the highest consideration. I tell what I have seen--painful and shocking as the details often are--that from them you may feel more deeply the imperative obligation which lies upon you to prevent the possibility of a repetition or continuance of such outrages upon humanity. . . .

I come to present the strong claims of suffering humanity. I come to place before the Legislature of Massachusetts the condition of the miserable, the desolate, the outcast. I come as the advocate of helpless, forgotten, insane, and idiotic men and women; of beings sunk to a condition from which the most unconcerned would start with real horror; of beings wretched in our prisons, and more wretched in our almshouses. . . .

I must confine myself to few examples, but am ready to furnish other and more complete details, if required.

If my pictures are displeasing, coarse, and severe, my subjects, it must be recollected, offer no tranquil, refined, or composing features. The condition of human beings, reduced to the extremest states of degradation and misery cannot be exhibited in softened language, or adorn a polished page.

I proceed, gentlemen, briefly to call your attention to the present state of insane persons confined within this Commonwealth, in cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens! Chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience. . . .

It is the Commonwealth, not its integral parts, that is accountable for most of the abuses which have lately and do still exist. I repeat it, it is defective legislation which perpetuates and multiplies these abuses. In illustration of my subject, I offer the following extracts from my Note-book and Journal:--

Springfield. In the jail, one lunatic woman, furiously mad, a State pauper, improperly situated, both in regard to the prisoners, the keepers, and herself. It is a case of extreme self-forgetfulness and oblivion to all the decencies of life, to describe which would be to repeat only the grossest scenes. She is much worse since leaving Worcester. In the almshouse of the same town is a woman apparently only needing judicious care, and some well-chosen employment, to make it unnecessary to confine her in solitude, in a dreary unfurnished room. Her appeals for employment and companionship are most touching, but the mistress replied she had no time to attend to her. . . .

Lincoln. A woman in a cage. Medford. One idiotic subject chained, and one in a close stall for seventeen years. Pepperell. One often doubly chained, hand and foot; another violent; several peaceable now. Brookfield. One man caged, comfortable. Granville. One often closely confined; now losing the use of his limbs from want of exercise. Charlemont. One man caged. Savoy. One man caged. Lenox. Two in the jail, against whose unfit condition there the jailer protests.

Dedham. The insane disadvantageously placed in the jail. In the almshouse, two females in stalls, situated in the main building; lie in wooden bunks filled with straw; always shut up. One of these subjects is supposed curable. The overseers of the poor have declined giving her a trial at the hospital, as I was informed, on account of expense...

Besides the above, I have seen many who, part of the year, are chained or caged. The use of cages all but universal. Hardly a town but can refer to some not distant period of using them; chains are less common; negligences frequent; wilful abuse less frequent than sufferings proceeding from ignorance, or want of consideration. I encountered during the last three months many poor creatures wandering reckless and unprotected through the country. . . . But I cannot particularize. In traversing the State, I have found hundreds of insane persons in every variety of circumstance and condition, many whose situation could not and need not be improved; a less number, but that very large, whose lives are the saddest pictures of human suffering and degradation.

I give a few illustrations; but description fades before reality.

Danvers. November. Visited the almshouse. A large building, much out of repair. Understand a new one is in contemplation. Here are from fifty-six to sixty inmates, one idiotic, three insane; one of the latter in close confinement at all times.

Long before reaching the house, wild shouts, snatches of rude songs, imprecations and obscene language, fell upon the ear, proceeding from the occupant of a low building, rather remote from the principal building to which my course was directed. Found the mistress, and was conducted to the place which was called "the home" of the forlorn maniac, a young woman, exhibiting a condition of neglect and misery blotting out the faintest idea of comfort, and outraging every sentiment of decency. She had been, I learnt, "a respectable person, industrious and worthy. Disappointments and trials shook her mind, and, finally, laid prostrate reason and self-control. She became a maniac for life. She had been at Worcester Hospital for a considerable time, and had been returned as incurable." The mistress told me she understood that, "while there, she was comfortable and decent." Alas, what a change was here exhibited! She had passed from one degree of violence to another, in swift progress. There she stood, clinging to or beating upon the bars of her caged apartment, the contracted size of which afforded space only for increasing accumulations of filth, a foul spectacle. There she stood with naked arms and dishevelled hair, the unwashed frame invested with fragments of unclean garments, the air so extremely offensive, though ventilation was afforded on all sides save one, that it was not possible to remain beyond a few moments without retreating for recovery to the outward air. Irritation of body, produced by utter filth and exposure, incited her to the horrid process of tearing off her skin by inches. Her face, neck, and person were thus disfigured to hideousness. She held up a fragment just rent off. To my exclamation of horror, the mistress replied: "Oh, we can't help it. Half the skin is off sometimes. We can do nothing with her; and it makes no difference what she eats, for she consumes her own filth as readily as the food which is brought her."

Men of Massachusetts, I beg, I implore, I demand pity and protection for these of my suffering, outraged sex. Fathers, husbands, brothers, I would supplicate you for this boon; but what do I say? I dishonor you, divest you at once of Christianity and humanity, does this appeal imply distrust. If it comes burdened with a doubt of your righteousness in this legislation, then blot it out; while I declare confidence in your honor, not less than your humanity. Here you will put away the cold, calculating spirit of selfishness and self-seeking; lay off the armor of local strife and political opposition; here and now, for once, forgetful of the earthly and perishable, come up to these halls and consecrate them with one heart and one mind to works of righteousness and just judgment.

Become the benefactors of your race, the just guardians of the solemn rights you hold in trust. Raise up the fallen, succor the desolate, restore the outcast, defend the helpless, and for your eternal and great reward receive the benediction, "Well done, good and faithful servants, become rulers over many things!"

Injustice is also done to the convicts: it is certainly very wrong that they should be doomed day after day and night after night to listen to the ravings of madmen and madwomen. This is a kind of punishment that is not recognized by our statutes, and is what the criminal ought not to be called upon to undergo. The confinement of the criminal and of the insane in the same building is subversive of that good order and discipline which should be observed in every well-regulated prison. I do most sincerely hope that more permanent provision will be made for the pauper insane by the State, either to restore Worcester Insane Asylum to what it was originally designed to be or else make some just appropriation for the benefit of this very unfortunate class of our "fellow-beings."

Gentlemen, I commit to you this sacred cause. Your action upon this subject will affect the present and future condition of hundreds and of thousands. In this legislation, as in all things, may you exercise that "wisdom which is the breath of the power of God." Respectfully Submitted, D. L. Dix

Source: Dix, Memorial to the Legislature of Massachusetts (1843).

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Excerpted version of the Memorial to the Massachusetts Legislature

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Memorial to the Massachusetts Legislature Gentlemen,--I respectfully ask to present this Memorial, believing that the cause, which actuates to and sanctions so unusual a movement, presents no equivocal claim to public consideration and sympathy. . . About two years since leisure afforded opportunity and duty prompted me to visit several prisons and almshouses in the vicinity of this metropolis.

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OUT OF AN INSANE ASYLUM: A Released Patient's Remarkable Story of Cruel Treatment

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What Is an Abolitionist?

An abolitionist, as the name implies, is a person who sought to abolish slavery during the 19th century. More specifically, these individuals sought the immediate and full emancipation of all enslaved people.

Most early abolitionists were white, religious Americans, but some of the most prominent leaders of the movement were also Black men and women who had escaped from bondage.

The abolitionists saw slavery as an abomination and an affliction on the United States, making it their goal to eradicate slave ownership. They sent petitions to Congress, ran for political office and inundated people of the South with anti-slavery literature.

These staunch activists wanted to abolish slavery completely, which differed from the ideas of other groups like the Free Soil Party, which opposed the expansion of slavery into U.S. territories and newly formed states such as Kansas.

Did you know? Female abolitionists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott went on to become prominent figures in the women's rights movement.

How Did Abolitionism Start?

Opposition to slavery wasn't a new concept when abolitionism started. Since the inception of the Atlantic slave trade, which began in the 16th century, critics voiced their disapproval of the system.

In an early effort to stop slavery, the American Colonization Society, founded in 1816, proposed the idea of freeing slaves and sending them back to Africa. This solution was thought to be a compromise between antislavery activists and slavery supporters.

By 1860, nearly 12,000 African Americans had returned to Africa.

Missouri Compromise

The Missouri Compromise of 1820, which allowed Missouri to become a slave state, further provoked anti-slave sentiment in the North.

The abolitionist movement began as a more organized, radical and immediate effort to end slavery than earlier campaigns. It officially emerged around 1830.

Historians believe ideas set forth during the religious movement known as the Second Great Awakening inspired abolitionists to rise up against slavery. This Protestant revival encouraged the concept of adopting renewed morals, which centered around the idea that all men are created equal in the eyes of God.

Abolitionism started in states like New York and Massachusetts and quickly spread to other Northern states.

Laws Inflame Tensions

In 1850, Congress passed the controversial Fugitive Slave Act, which required all escaped enslaved people to be returned to their owners and American citizens to cooperate with the captures.

Seven years later, the Supreme Court ruled in the Dred Scott decision that Black people-free or enslaved-didn't have legal citizenship rights. Owners of enslaved people were also granted the right to take their enslaved workers to Western territories. These legal actions and court decisions sparked outrage among abolitionists.

Famous Abolitionists

Many Americans, including free and formerly enslaved people, worked tirelessly to support the abolitionist movement. Some of the most famous abolitionists included:

William Lloyd Garrison: A very influential early abolitionist, Garrison started a publication called The Liberator, which supported the immediate freeing of all enslaved men and women.

Frederick Douglass: Douglass escaped slavery himself and published a memoir titled Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. An instrumental figure in the abolitionist movement, he also supported women's suffrage.

Harriet Beecher Stowe: Stowe was an author and abolitionist who was best known for her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Susan B. Anthony: Anthony was an author, speaker and women's rights activist who also supported the abolitionist movement. She is revered for her diligent efforts in fighting for women's rights to vote.

: Brown was a radical abolitionist who organized various raids and uprisings, including an infamous raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia.

Harriet Tubman: Tubman was a fugitive enslaved person and abolitionist who was known for helping escaped enslaved people reach the North via the Underground Railroad network.

Sojourner Truth: Best known for her speech, "Ain't I a Woman?," Truth was both an abolitionist and a women's rights advocate.

Rift Widens Between North and South

As it gained momentum, the abolitionist movement caused increasing friction between states in the North and the slave-owning South. Critics of abolition argued that it contradicted the U.S. Constitution, which left the option of slavery up to individual states.

Abolitionism was illegal in the South, and President Andrew Jackson banned the U.S. Postal Service from delivering any publications that supported the movement.

In 1833, a white student at Lane Theological Seminary named Amos Dresser was publicly whipped in Nashville, Tennessee, for possessing abolitionist literature while traveling through the city.

Elijah Lovejoy

In 1837, a pro-slavery mob attacked a warehouse in Alton, Illinois, in an attempt to destroy abolitionist press materials. During the raid, they shot and killed newspaper editor and abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy.

After the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 was passed, both pro- and anti-slavery groups inhabited the Kansas Territory. In 1856, a pro-slavery group attacked the town of Lawrence, which was founded by abolitionists from Massachusetts. In retaliation, abolitionist John Brown organized a raid that killed five pro-slavery settlers.

Then, in 1859, Brown led 21 men to capture the U.S. arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. He and his followers were seized by a group of Marines and convicted of treason. Brown was hanged for the crime.

The Civil War and Its Aftermath

President Abraham Lincoln opposed slavery but was cautious about fully supporting the more radical ideas of the abolitionists. As the power struggle between the North and the South reached its peak, the Civil War broke out in 1861.

As the bloody war waged on, Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, calling for the freeing of enslaved people in areas of the rebellion. And in 1865, the Constitution was ratified to include the Thirteenth Amendment, which officially abolished all forms of slavery in the United States.

Abolitionist Movement Ends

Though the abolitionist movement seemed to dissolve after the addition of the Thirteenth Amendment, many historians argue that the effort didn't completely cease until the 1870 passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, which extended voting rights to Black men. Meanwhile, the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, granted citizenship to all persons "born or naturalized in the United States," including former enslaved people.

When slavery officially ended, many prominent abolitionists turned their focus to women's rights issues. Historians believe that the experiences and lessons learned during the abolitionist movement paved the way for leaders who were eventually successful in the women's suffrage movements.

Abolitionist ideals and traditions also served as a model for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP), which was formed in 1909.

HISTORY Vault: Black History

Sources

Abolition and the Abolitionists. National Geographic.
Early abolition. Khan Academy.
Abolitionist Sentiment Grows. UShistory.org.

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Abolitionist Movement - Definition & Famous Abolitionists | HISTORY

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The abolitionist movement was the effort to end slavery, led by famous abolitionists like Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth and John Brown.

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Most of the African American characters in Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin are transported to Africa at the end of the novel, causing controversy amongst abolitionists and free African Americans.

As the cotton industry took hold and slavery became more and more entrenched across the American south, the opposition to the Peculiar Institution began to grow.

The first widely accepted solution to the slavery question in the 1820s was colonization. In effect, supporters of colonization wanted to transplant the slave population back to Africa. Their philosophy was simple: slaves were brought to America involuntarily. Why not give them a chance to enjoy life as though such a forced migration had never taken place? Funds were raised to transport freed African-Americans across the Atlantic in the opposite direction. The nation of Liberia was created as a haven for former American slaves.

But most African-Americans opposed this practice. The vast majority had never set foot on African soil. Many African-Americans rightly believed that they had helped build this country and deserved to live as free citizens of America. By the end of the decade, a full-blown Abolitionist movement was born.

Abolitionist Wendell Phillips spoke on behalf of fugitive slave Thomas Sims, and against the Fugitive Slave Law in 1851. Sims was later returned to Savannah where he was publicly whipped.

These new Abolitionists were different from their forebears. Anti-slavery societies had existed in America since 1775, but these activists were more radical. Early Abolitionists called for a gradual end to slavery. They supported compensation to owners of slaves for their loss of property. They raised money for the purchase of slaves to grant freedom to selected individuals.

Many runaway slaves died on their way to freedom on the Underground Railroad. This stone marking the grave of a four-year-old fugitive slave orphan is in Oberlin, Ohio, a town noted for helping slaves escape.

The new Abolitionists thought differently. They saw slavery as a blight on America. It must be brought to an end immediately and without compensation to the owners. They sent petitions to Congress and the states, campaigned for office, and flooded the south with inflammatory literature.

Needless to say, eyebrows were raised throughout the north and the south. Soon the battle lines were drawn. President Andrew Jackson banned the post office from delivering Abolitionist literature in the south. A "gag rule" was passed on the floor of the House of Representatives forbidding the discussion of bills that restricted slavery. Abolitionists were physically attacked because of their outspoken anti-slavery views. While northern churches rallied to the Abolitionist cause, the churches of the south used the Bible to defend slavery.

Abolitionists were always a minority, even on the eve of the Civil War. Their dogged determination to end human bondage was a struggle that persisted for decades. While mostly peaceful at first, as each side became more and more firmly rooted, pens were exchanged for swords. Another seed of sectional conflict had been deeply planted.

The "drinking gourd" was another name for the Big Dipper, which points to the North and freedom. The lyrics to the folk song "Follow the Drinking Gourd" contain clues to known escape routes on the Underground Railroad.
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As well as being a compelling force in the anti-slavery movement, Frederick Douglass strongly supported the women's rights movement. In fact, when he died in February 1895, he had just attended a Woman's Council meeting.
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Among the founders of the American Colonization Society were Presidents James Monroe and Andrew Jackson, Senators Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, and Francis Scott Key, songwriter of "The Star-Spangled Banner."
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Most of the African American characters in Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin are transported to Africa at the end of the novel, causing controversy amongst abolitionists and free African Americans. As the cotton industry took hold and slavery became more and more entrenched across the American south, the opposition to the Peculiar Institution began to grow.

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Resources/Links about the Abolitionist Movement

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Resources/Links about the Abolitionist Movement

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The abolitionist movement was the social and political effort to end slavery everywhere. Fueled in part by religious fervor, the movement was led by people like Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth and John Brown.

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The practice of slavery is one of humankind's most deeply rooted institutions. Anthropologists find evidence of it in nearly every continent and culture dating back to ancient times and even the Neolithic period of human development. In Europe, the first significant efforts to ban human trafficking and abolish forced labor emerged in the 18th century.

Enslaved Africans supplied the free labor that helped the British Empire prosper for much of the 18th century. The practice took hold in the English colonies in North America, too. Before, during, and after the United States Revolutionary War, several of the original 13 British colonies abolished slavery. The agricultural-based plantation economy of Southern colonies like Virginia and the Carolinas required a large labor force, which was met via enslaving people of African descent.

In the New England states, many Americans viewed slavery as a shameful legacy with no place in modern society. The abolitionist movement emerged in states like New York and Massachusetts. The leaders of the movement copied some of their strategies from British activists who had turned public opinion against the slave trade and slavery.

In 1833, the same year Britain outlawed slavery, the American Anti-Slavery Society was established. It came under the leadership of William Lloyd Garrison, a Boston journalist and social reformer. From the early 1830s until the end of the Civil War in 1865, Garrison was the abolitionists' most dedicated campaigner. His newspaper, the Liberator, was notorious. It was limited in circulation but was still the focus of intense public debate. Its pages featured firsthand accounts of the horrors of slavery in the South and exposed, for many, the inhumane treatment of enslaved people on U.S. soil. Garrison was a close ally of Frederick Douglass, who escaped his enslavement and whose 1845 autobiography became a bestseller.

Abolitionists were a divided group. On one side were advocates like Garrison, who called for an immediate end to slavery. If that were impossible, it was thought, then the North and South should part ways. Moderates believed that slavery should be phased out gradually, in order to ensure the economy of the Southern states would not collapse. On the more extreme side were figures like John Brown, who believed an armed rebellion of enslaved people in the South was the quickest route to end human bondage in the United States.

Harriet Tubman was like Douglass, she too had escaped enslavement and became a prominent abolitionist. She was active in the Underground Railroad, the clandestine network of safe houses and abolitionists that helped escapees reach freedom in the North. In the late 1850s, she assisted Brown in his planning for the disastrous raid on a federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia.

The threat of an armed revolt alarmed Americans on both sides of the debate over slavery. In the 1860 presidential election, voters chose Republican Party candidate Abraham Lincoln. The senator from Illinois opposed slavery but was cautious about supporting the abolitionists. Thirty-nine days after Lincoln's inauguration, the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, which marked the onset of the U.S. Civil War. Five years later the war ended and the ratification of the 13th Amendment formally ended slavery in December 1865.

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The practice of slavery is one of humankind's most deeply rooted institutions. Anthropologists find evidence of it in nearly every continent and culture dating back to ancient times and even the Neolithic period of human development. In Europe, the first significant efforts to ban human trafficking and abolish forced labor emerged in the 18th century.

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The American Anti-Slavery Society was established in 1833, but abolitionist sentiment antedated the republic. For example, the charter of Georgia prohibited slavery, and many of its settlers fought a losing battle against allowing it in the colony, Before independence, Quakers, most black Christians, and other religious groups argued that slavery was incompatible with Christ's teaching. Moreover, a number of revolutionaries saw the glaring contradiction between demanding freedom for themselves while holding slaves. Although the economic center of slavery was in the South, northerners also held slaves, as did African Americans and Native Americans. Moreover, some southerners opposed slavery. Blacks were in the vanguard of the anti-slavery movement. Abolitionist literature began to appear about 1820. Until the Civil War, the anti-slavery press produced a steadily growing stream of newspapers, periodicals, sermons, children's publications, speeches, abolitionist society reports, broadsides, and memoirs of former slaves.

The Library of Congress has a wealth of material that demonstrates the extent of public support for and opposition to abolition. Broadsides advertise fairs and bazaars that women's groups held to raise money for the cause. Other publications advertise abolitionist rallies, some of which are pictured in prints from contemporaneous periodicals. To build enthusiasm at their meetings, anti-slavery organizations used songs, some of which survive. The Library also has many political and satirical prints from the 1830s through the 1850s that demonstrate the rising sectional controversy during that time.

Although excellent studies of the abolition movement exist, further research in the Library's manuscripts could document the lesser known individuals who formed the movement's core. Other promising topics include the roles of women and black abolitionists and the activities of state and local abolitionist societies.

Abolition as a Social Movement

Anti-Slavery Publication for Children

The American Anti-Slavery Society produced The Slave's Friend, a monthly pamphlet of abolitionist poems, songs, and stories for children. In its pages, young readers were encouraged to collect money for the anti-slavery cause. Here a picture of the coffle- yoke used to chain groups of slaves together illustrates a dialogue about the horrors of slavery between a girl named Ellen and her father, Mr. Murray. A shocked Ellen concludes that "I will never boast of our liberty while there is a slave in this land."

Anti-Colonization Song

Anti-colonization sentiment was common in abolitionist publications such as The Anti-Slavery Picknick, a collection of speeches, poems, dialogues, and songs intended for use in schools and anti-slavery meetings. A song called the "Colored Man's Opinion of Colonization" denounces plans to transport free blacks out of the United States. Many African-Americans opposed colonization, and, in 1831, a convention of free blacks meeting in New York asserted, "This is our home, and this is our country. Beneath its sod lie the bones of our fathers; for it some of them fought, bled, and died. Here we were born, and here we will die."

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The American Anti-Slavery Society was established in 1833, but abolitionist sentiment antedated the republic. For example, the charter of Georgia prohibited slavery, and many of its settlers fought a losing battle against allowing it in the colony, Before independence, Quakers, most black Christians, and other religious groups argued that slavery was incompatible with Christ's teaching.

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LOC- Resources and Overview over movement and leaders

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LOC- Resources and Overview over movement and leaders

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Black and white abolitionists in the first half of the nineteenth century waged a biracial assault against slavery. Their efforts proved to be extremely effective. Abolitionists focused attention on slavery and made it difficult to ignore. They heightened the rift that had threatened to destroy the unity of the nation even as early as the Constitutional Convention.

Although some Quakers were slaveholders, members of that religious group were among the earliest to protest the African slave trade, the perpetual bondage of its captives, and the practice of separating enslaved family members by sale to different masters.

As the nineteenth century progressed, many abolitionists united to form numerous antislavery societies. These groups sent petitions with thousands of signatures to Congress, held abolition meetings and conferences, boycotted products made with slave labor, printed mountains of literature, and gave innumerable speeches for their cause. Individual abolitionists sometimes advocated violent means for bringing slavery to an end.

Although black and white abolitionists often worked together, by the 1840s they differed in philosophy and method. While many white abolitionists focused only on slavery, black Americans tended to couple anti-slavery activities with demands for racial equality and justice.

Anti-Slavery Activists

Sojourner Truth

Abolitionist and women's rights advocate Sojourner Truth was enslaved in New York until she was an adult. Born Isabella Baumfree around the turn of the nineteenth century, her first language was Dutch. Owned by a series of masters, she was freed in 1827 by the New York Gradual Abolition Act and worked as a domestic. In 1843 she believed that she was called by God to travel around the nation-sojourn-and preach the truth of his word. Thus, she believed God gave her the name, Sojourner Truth. One of the ways that she supported her work was selling these calling cards.

Woman to Woman

Ye wives and ye mothers, your influence extend-
Ye sisters, ye daughters, the helpless defend-
The strong ties are severed for one crime alone,
Possessing a colour less fair than your own.

Abolitionists understood the power of pictorial representations in drawing support for the cause of emancipation. As white and black women became more active in the 1830s as lecturers, petitioners, and meeting organizers, variations of this female supplicant motif, appealing for interracial sisterhood, appeared in newspapers, broadsides, and handicraft goods sold at fund-raising fairs.

Harriet Tubman-the Moses of Her People

The quote below, echoing Patrick Henry, is from this biography of underground railroad conductor Harriet Tubman:

Harriet was now left alone, . . . She turned her face toward the north, and fixing her eyes on the guiding star, and committing her way unto the Lord, she started again upon her long, lonely journey. She believed that there were one or two things she had a right to, liberty or death.

After making her own escape, Tubman returned to the South nineteen times to bring over three hundred fugitives to safety, including her own aged parents.

In a handwritten note on the title page of this book, Susan B. Anthony, who was an abolitionist as well as a suffragist, referred to Tubman as a "most wonderful woman."

William Lloyd Garrison-Abolitionist Strategies

White abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, born in 1805, had a particular fondness for poetry, which he believed to be "naturally and instinctively on the side of liberty." He used verse as a vehicle for enhancing anti-slavery sentiment. Garrison collected his work in Sonnets and Other Poems (1843).

During the 1840s, abolitionist societies used song to stir up enthusiasm at their meetings. To make songs easier to learn, new words were set to familiar tunes. This song by William Lloyd Garrison has six stanzas set to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne."

Popularizing Anti-Slavery Sentiment

Abolitionist Songsters

Music was one of the most powerful weapons of the abolitionists. In 1848, William Wells Brown, abolitionist and former slave, published The Anti-Slavery Harp, "a collection of songs for anti-slavery meetings," which contains songs and occasional poems. The Anti-Slavery Harp is in the format of a "songster"-giving the lyrics and indicating the tunes to which they are to be sung, but with no music. The book is open to the pages containing lyrics to the tune of the "Marseillaise," the French national anthem, which to 19th-century Americans symbolized the determination to bring about freedom, by force if necessary.

Fugitive Slave Law

North to Canada

In the wake of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, which forced Northern law enforcement officers to aid in the recapture of runaways, more than ten thousand fugitive slaves swelled the flood of those fleeing to Canada. The Colonial Church and School Society established mission schools in western Canada, particularly for children of fugitive slaves but open to all. The school's Mistress Williams notes that their success proves the "feasibility of educating together white and colored children." While primarily focusing on spiritual and secular educational operations, the report reproduces letters of thanks for food, clothing, shoes, and books sent from England. This early photograph accompanied one such letter to the children of St. Matthew's School, Bristol.

Growing Sectionalism

Distribution of Slaves

Although the Southern states were known collectively as the "slave states" by the end of the Antebellum Period, this map provides statistical evidence to demonstrate that slaves were not evenly distributed throughout each state or the region as a whole. Using data from the 1860 census, the map shows, by county, the percentage of slave population to the whole population. Tables also list population and area for both Southern and Northern states, while an inset map shows the extent of cotton, rice, and sugar cultivation. Another version of this map was published with Daniel Lord's The Effect of Secession upon the Commercial Relations between the North and South, and upon Each Section (New York, 1861), a series of articles reprinted from The New York Times.

Militant Abolition

John Brown's Raid

More than twenty years after the militant abolitionist John Brown had consecrated his life to the destruction of slavery, his crusade ended in October 1859 with his ill-fated attempt to seize the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry in western Virginia. He hoped to take the weapons from the arsenal and arm the slaves, who would then overthrow their masters and establish a free state for themselves.

Convicted of treason and sentenced to death, Brown maintained to the end that he intended only to free the slaves, not to incite insurrection. His zeal, courage, and willingness to die for the slaves made him a martyr and a bellwether of the violence soon to consume the country during the Civil War.

Frederick Douglass on John Brown

The friendship of Frederick Douglass and John Brown began in 1848, when Douglass visited Brown's home in Springfield, Massachusetts. Brown confided to Douglass his ambitious scheme to free the slaves. Over the next eleven years, Brown sought Douglass's counsel and support.

In August 1859 Brown made a final plea to Douglass to join the raid on Harpers Ferry. Douglass refused. After Brown's capture, federal marshals issued a warrant for Douglass's arrest as an accomplice. Douglass fled abroad. When he returned five months later to mourn the death of his youngest daughter Annie, he had been exonerated. Douglass wrote this lecture as a tribute to "a hero and martyr in the cause of liberty."

"The Book That Made This Great War"

Harriet Beecher Stowe's Mighty Pen

Harriet Beecher Stowe is best remembered as the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, her first novel, published as a serial in 1851 and then in book form in 1852. This book infuriated Southerners. It focused on the cruelties of slavery-particularly the separation of family members-and brought instant acclaim to Stowe. After its publication, Stowe traveled throughout the United States and Europe speaking against slavery. She reported that upon meeting President Lincoln, he remarked, "So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war."

Uncle Tom's Cabin-Theatrical Productions

This poster for a production of Uncle Tom's Cabin features the Garden City Quartette under the direction of Tom Dailey and George W. Goodhart. Many stage productions of Harriet Beecher Stowe's famous novel have been performed in various parts of the country since Uncle Tom's Cabin was first published as a serial in 1851. Although the major actors were usually white, people of color were sometimes part of the cast. African American performers were often allowed only stereotypical roles-if any-in productions by major companies.

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The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship Abolition, Anti-Slavery Movements, and the Rise of the Sectional Controversy

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Black and white abolitionists in the 1st half of the 19th century waged a biracial assault against slavery. Their efforts heightened the rift that had threatened to destroy the unity of the nation even as early as the Constitutional Convention.

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The Good Stuff | From the Abolitionist Movement to #BlackLivesMatter

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The Good Stuff The abolitionist movement of the 19th century helped galvanize the country against slavery and made the civil war a war for freedom. While the abolitionists made great strides in their own time, the fight for equality continues today with groups like Black Lives Matter.

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NATIONAL ABOLITION HALL OF FAME AND MUSEUM

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Born in Massachusetts in 1805, William Lloyd Garrison was an untiring reformer who worked for women's right to vote, civil rights, and prohibition, but he is best know for his "fierce opposition to slavery." He led the moral crusade for abolition of slavery in the United States. Garrison's lifelong interest in human rights first found expression in the early 1830s through the issue of slavery. He established the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1832, and the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, and popularized the need for immediate, as opposed to gradual, abolition of slavery.

He founded The Liberator, an antislavery newspaper, in 1831, and was its outspoken editor until the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in 1865. Though criticized heavily for his well-written editorial opinions, and imprisoned for a short time for these editorials, he refused to be silenced. When speaking in public gatherings, he was frequently heckled by proslavery interests in the North, and physical threats to his personal safety were common. In October of 1835, he was tied up and dragged through the streets of Boston with the threat of being lynched for his antislavery views. His preferred tactics of non-violence, and the moral persuasion of slaveholders concerning the sin of slavery were the keystones for a group of active and influential abolitionists centered in Boston.

Garrison's view of the Constitution of the United States as a proslavery document alienated him from political activity, and from those abolitionist colleagues who saw office acquisition and legislation as a valuable route to the emancipation of slaves. Garrison refused to vote while the government sanctioned slavery. His opposition to political activity fostered a split in abolitionist ranks in 1840 which eventually led to the nomination of Abraham Lincoln for President in 1860 by those who favored political activity. Garrison did not support the Civil War until Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation.

It was Garrison who discovered the young and newly escaped slave Frederick Douglass in Massachusetts in 1841, and encouraged Douglass to speak and share his experiences.

​It was Douglass who pointed out in 1874, that the continued discrimination against African-Americans following emancipation reflected the lack of moral commitment on the part of most Americans to the process of achieving equality among the races - a fact which exonerated Garrison's long-term emphasis on the need for moral persuasion of the public mind before equality between the races could be achieved.

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Born in Massachusetts in 1805, William Lloyd Garrison was an untiring reformer who worked for women's right to vote, civil rights, and prohibition, but he is best know for his "fierce opposition to slavery." He led the moral crusade for abolition of slavery in the United States.

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William Lloyd Garrison (U.S. National Park Service)

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A printer, newspaper publisher, radical abolitionist, suffragist, civil rights activist William Lloyd Garrison spent his life disturbing the peace of the nation in the cause of justice.

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Who Was Frederick Douglass?

Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in or around 1818 in Talbot County, Maryland. Douglass himself was never sure of his exact birth date.

His mother was an enslaved Black women and his father was white and of European descent. He was actually born Frederick Bailey (his mother's name), and took the name Douglass only after he escaped. His full name at birth was "Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey."

After he was separated from his mother as an infant, Douglass lived for a time with his maternal grandmother, Betty Bailey. However, at the age of six, he was moved away from her to live and work on the Wye House plantation in Maryland.

From there, Douglass was "given" to Lucretia Auld, whose husband, Thomas, sent him to work with his brother Hugh in Baltimore. Douglass credits Hugh's wife Sophia with first teaching him the alphabet. With that foundation, Douglass then taught himself to read and write. By the time he was hired out to work under William Freeland, he was teaching other enslaved people to read using the Bible.

As word spread of his efforts to educate fellow enslaved people, Thomas Auld took him back and transferred him to Edward Covey, a farmer who was known for his brutal treatment of the enslaved people in his charge. Roughly 16 at this time, Douglass was regularly whipped by Covey.

Frederick Douglass Escapes from Slavery

After several failed attempts at escape, Douglass finally left Covey's farm in 1838, first boarding a train to Havre de Grace, Maryland. From there he traveled through Delaware, another slave state, before arriving in New York and the safe house of abolitionist David Ruggles.

Once settled in New York, he sent for Anna Murray, a free Black woman from Baltimore he met while in captivity with the Aulds. She joined him, and the two were married in September 1838. They had five children together.

From Slavery to Abolitionist Leader

After their marriage, the young couple moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where they met Nathan and Mary Johnson, a married couple who were born "free persons of color." It was the Johnsons who inspired the couple to take the surname Douglass, after the character in the Sir Walter Scott poem, "The Lady of the Lake."

In New Bedford, Douglass began attending meetings of the abolitionist movement. During these meetings, he was exposed to the writings of abolitionist and journalist William Lloyd Garrison.

The two men eventually met when both were asked to speak at an abolitionist meeting, during which Douglass shared his story of slavery and escape. It was Garrison who encouraged Douglass to become a speaker and leader in the abolitionist movement.

By 1843, Douglass had become part of the American Anti-Slavery Society's "Hundred Conventions" project, a six-month tour through the United States. Douglass was physically assaulted several times during the tour by those opposed to the abolitionist movement.

In one particularly brutal attack, in Pendleton, Indiana, Douglass' hand was broken. The injuries never fully healed, and he never regained full use of his hand.

In 1858, radical abolitionist John Brown stayed with Frederick Douglass in Rochester, New York, as he planned his raid on the U.S. military arsenal at Harper's Ferry, part of his attempt to establish a stronghold of formerly enslaved people in the mountains of Maryland and Virginia. Brown was caught and hanged for masterminding the attack, offering the following prophetic words as his final statement: "I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood."

'Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass'

Two years later, Douglass published the first and most famous of his autobiographies, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. (He also authored My Bondage and My Freedom and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass).

In it Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, he wrote: "From my earliest recollection, I date the entertainment of a deep conviction that slavery would not always be able to hold me within its foul embrace; and in the darkest hours of my career in slavery, this living word of faith and spirit of hope departed not from me, but remained like ministering angels to cheer me through the gloom."

He also noted, "Thus is slavery the enemy of both the slave and the slaveholder."

Frederick Douglass in Ireland and Great Britain

Later that same year, Douglass would travel to Ireland and Great Britain. At the time, the former country was just entering the early stages of the Irish Potato Famine, or the Great Hunger.

While overseas, he was impressed by the relative freedom he had as a man of color, compared to what he had experienced in the United States. During his time in Ireland, he met the Irish nationalist Daniel O'Connell, who became an inspiration for his later work.

In England, Douglass also delivered what would later be viewed as one of his most famous speeches, the so-called "London Reception Speech."

In the speech, he said, "What is to be thought of a nation boasting of its liberty, boasting of its humanity, boasting of its Christianity, boasting of its love of justice and purity, and yet having within its own borders three millions of persons denied by law the right of marriage?... I need not lift up the veil by giving you any experience of my own. Every one that can put two ideas together, must see the most fearful results from such a state of things..."

Frederick Douglass' Abolitionist Paper

When he returned to the United States in 1847, Douglass began publishing his own abolitionist newsletter, the North Star. He also became involved in the movement for women's rights.

He was the only African American to attend the Seneca Falls Convention, a gathering of women's rights activists in New York, in 1848.

He spoke forcefully during the meeting and said, "In this denial of the right to participate in government, not merely the degradation of woman and the perpetuation of a great injustice happens, but the maiming and repudiation of one-half of the moral and intellectual power of the government of the world."

He later included coverage of women's rights issues in the pages of the North Star. The newsletter's name was changed to Frederick Douglass' Paper in 1851, and was published until 1860, just before the start of the Civil War.

Frederick Douglass Quotes

In 1852, he delivered another of his more famous speeches, one that later came to be called "What to a slave is the 4th of July?"

In one section of the speech, Douglass noted, "What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages."

For the 24th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, in 1886, Douglass delivered a rousing address in Washington, D.C., during which he said, "where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe."

Frederick Douglass During the Civil War

During the brutal conflict that divided the still-young United States, Douglass continued to speak and worked tirelessly for the end of slavery and the right of newly freed Black Americans to vote.

Although he supported President Abraham Lincoln in the early years of the Civil War, Douglass fell into disagreement with the politician after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, which effectively ended the practice of slavery. Douglass was disappointed that Lincoln didn't use the proclamation to grant formerly enslaved people the right to vote, particularly after they had fought bravely alongside soldiers for the Union army.

It is said, though, that Douglass and Lincoln later reconciled and, following Lincoln's assassination in 1865, and the passage of the 13th amendment, 14th amendment, and 15th amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which, respectively, outlawed slavery, granted formerly enslaved people citizenship and equal protection under the law, and protected all citizens from racial discrimination in voting), Douglass was asked to speak at the dedication of the Emancipation Memorial in Washington, D.C.'s Lincoln Park in 1876.

Historians, in fact, suggest that Lincoln's widow, Mary Todd Lincoln, bequeathed the late-president's favorite walking stick to Douglass after that speech.

In the post-war Reconstruction era, Douglass served in many official positions in government, including as an ambassador to the Dominican Republic, thereby becoming the first Black man to hold high office. He also continued speaking and advocating for African American and women's rights.

In the 1868 presidential election, he supported the candidacy of former Union general Ulysses S. Grant, who promised to take a hard line against white supremacist-led insurgencies in the post-war South. Grant notably also oversaw passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, which was designed to suppress the growing Ku Klux Klan movement.

Frederick Douglass: Later Life and Death

In 1877, Douglass met with Thomas Auld, the man who once "owned" him, and the two reportedly reconciled.

Douglass' wife Anna died in 1882, and he married white activist Helen Pitts in 1884.

In 1888, he became the first African American to receive a vote for President of the United States, during the Republican National Convention. Ultimately, though, Benjamin Harrison received the party nomination.

Douglass remained an active speaker, writer and activist until his death in 1895. He died after suffering a heart attack at home after arriving back from a meeting of the National Council of Women, a women's rights group still in its infancy at the time, in Washington, D.C.

His life's work still serves as an inspiration to those who seek equality and a more just society.

Sources

Frederick Douglas, PBS.org.
Frederick Douglas, National Parks Service, nps.gov.
Frederick Douglas, 1818-1895, Documenting the South, University of North Carolina, docsouth.unc.edu.
Frederick Douglass Quotes, brainyquote.com.
"Reception Speech. At Finsbury Chapel, Moorfields, England, May 12, 1846." USF.edu.
"What to the slave is the 4th of July?" TeachingAmericanHistory.org.
Graham, D.A. (2017). "Donald Trump's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass." The Atlantic.

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Frederick Douglass - Narrative, Quotes & Facts | HISTORY

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Frederick Douglass was an escaped slave who became a prominent activist, author and public speaker. He became a leader in the abolitionist movement, which sought to end the practice of slavery, before and during the Civil War.

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Frederick Douglass stood at the podium, trembling with nervousness. Before him sat abolitionists who had travelled to the Massachusetts island of Nantucket. Only 23 years old at the time, Douglass overcame his nervousness and gave a stirring, eloquent speech about his life as a slave. Douglass would continue to give speeches for the rest of his life and would become a leading spokesperson for the abolition of slavery and for racial equality.

The son of a slave woman and an unknown white man, "Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey" was born in February of 1818 on Maryland's eastern shore. He spent his early years with his grandparents and with an aunt, seeing his mother only four or five times before her death when he was seven. (All Douglass knew of his father was that he was white.) During this time he was exposed to the degradations of slavery, witnessing firsthand brutal whippings and spending much time cold and hungry. When he was eight he was sent to Baltimore to live with a ship carpenter named Hugh Auld. There he learned to read and first heard the words abolition and abolitionists. "Going to live at Baltimore," Douglass would later say, "laid the foundation, and opened the gateway, to all my subsequent prosperity."

Douglass spent seven relatively comfortable years in Baltimore before being sent back to the country, where he was hired out to a farm run by a notoriously brutal "slavebreaker" named Edward Covey. And the treatment he received was indeed brutal. Whipped daily and barely fed, Douglass was "broken in body, soul, and spirit."

On January 1, 1836, Douglass made a resolution that he would be free by the end of the year. He planned an escape. But early in April he was jailed after his plan was discovered. Two years later, while living in Baltimore and working at a shipyard, Douglass would finally realize his dream: he fled the city on September 3, 1838. Travelling by train, then steamboat, then train, he arrived in New York City the following day. Several weeks later he had settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts, living with his newlywed bride (whom he met in Baltimore and married in New York) under his new name, Frederick Douglass.

Always striving to educate himself, Douglass continued his reading. He joined various organizations in New Bedford, including a black church. He attended Abolitionists' meetings. He subscribed to William Lloyd Garrison's weekly journal, the Liberator. In 1841, he saw Garrison speak at the Bristol Anti-Slavery Society's annual meeting. Douglass was inspired by the speaker, later stating, "no face and form ever impressed me with such sentiments [the hatred of slavery] as did those of William Lloyd Garrison." Garrison, too, was impressed with Douglass, mentioning him in the Liberator. Several days later Douglass gave his speech at the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society's annual convention in Nantucket-- the speech described at the top of this page. Of the speech, one correspondent reported, "Flinty hearts were pierced, and cold ones melted by his eloquence." Before leaving the island, Douglass was asked to become a lecturer for the Society for three years. It was the launch of a career that would continue throughout Douglass' long life.

Despite apprehensions that the information might endanger his freedom, Douglass published his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written By Himself. The year was 1845. Three years later, after a speaking tour of England, Ireland, and Scotland, Douglass published the first issue of the North Star, a four-page weekly, out of Rochester, New York.

Ever since he first met Garrison in 1841, the white abolitionist leader had been Douglass' mentor. But the views of Garrison and Douglass ultimately diverged. Garrison represented the radical end of the abolitionist spectrum. He denounced churches, political parties, even voting. He believed in the dissolution (break up) of the Union. He also believed that the U.S. Constitution was a pro-slavery document. After his tour of Europe and the establishment of his paper, Douglass' views began to change; he was becoming more of an independent thinker, more pragmatic. In 1851 Douglass announced at a meeting in Syracuse, New York, that he did not assume the Constitution was a pro-slavery document, and that it could even "be wielded in behalf of emancipation," especially where the federal government had exclusive jurisdiction. Douglass also did not advocate the dissolution of the Union, since it would isolate slaves in the South. This led to a bitter dispute between Garrison and Douglass that, despite the efforts of others such as Harriet Beecher Stowe to reconcile the two, would last into the Civil War.

Frederick Douglass would continue his active involvement to better the lives of African Americans. He conferred with Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War and recruited northern blacks for the Union Army. After the War he fought for the rights of women and African Americans alike.

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Frederick Douglass stood at the podium, trembling with nervousness. Before him sat abolitionists who had travelled to the Massachusetts island of Nantucket. Only 23 years old at the time, Douglass overcame his nervousness and gave a stirring, eloquent speech about his life as a slave.

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Frederick Douglass as a young man.
NPS / FRDO 2169

In his journey from captive slave to internationally renowned activist, Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) has been a source of inspiration and hope for millions. His brilliant words and brave actions continue to shape the ways that we think about race, democracy, and the meaning of freedom.

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born into slavery on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in February 1818. He had a difficult family life. He barely knew his mother, who lived on a different plantation and died when he was a young child. He never discovered the identity of his father. At the age of six, he was separated from his grandmother and sent to Wye House Plantation in Maryland.[1] When he turned eight years old, his slaveowner hired him out to work as a body servant in Baltimore.

At an early age, Frederick realized there was a connection between literacy and freedom. Not allowed to attend school, he taught himself to read and write in the streets of Baltimore. At twelve, he bought a book called The Columbian Orator. It was a collection of revolutionary speeches, debates, and writings on natural rights.

When Frederick was fifteen, his slaveowner sent him back to the Eastern Shore to labor as a fieldhand. Frederick rebelled intensely. He educated other slaves, physically fought back against a "slave-breaker," and plotted an unsuccessful escape.

Frustrated, his slaveowner returned him to Baltimore. This time, Frederick met a young free Black woman named Anna Murray , who agreed to help him escape. On September 3, 1838, he disguised himself as a sailor and boarded a northbound train, using money from Anna to pay for his ticket. In less than 24 hours, after traveling by train, ferry boat, and on foot, Frederick arrived in New York City and declared himself free. He had successfully escaped from slavery.

The Abolitionist Movement

After escaping from slavery, Frederick married Anna. They decided that New York City was not a safe place for Frederick to remain as a fugitive, so they settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts. There, they adopted the last name "Douglass" and they started their family, which would eventually grow to include five children: Rosetta, Lewis, Frederick Jr., Charles, and Annie.

After finding employment as a laborer, Douglass began to attend abolitionist meetings and speak about his experiences in slavery. He soon gained a reputation as an orator, landing a job as an agent for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. The job took him on speaking tours across the North and Midwest.

Douglass's fame as an orator increased as he traveled. Still, some of his audiences suspected he was not truly a fugitive slave. In 1845, he published his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, to lay those doubts to rest. The narrative gave a clear record of names and places from his enslavement.

To avoid being captured and re-enslaved, Douglass traveled overseas. For almost two years, he gave speeches and sold copies of his narrative in England, Ireland, and Scotland. When abolitionists offered to purchase his freedom, Douglass accepted and returned home to the United States legally free. He relocated Anna and their children to Rochester, New York.

In Rochester, Douglass took his work in new directions. He embraced the women's rights movement, helped people on the Underground Railroad, and supported anti-slavery political parties. Once an ally of William Lloyd Garrison and his followers, Douglass started to work more closely with Gerrit Smith and . He bought a printing press and ran his own newspaper, John Brown The North Star. In 1855, he published his second autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom, which expanded on his first autobiography and challenged racial segregation in the North.

Douglass was active with the Western New York Anti-Slavery Society, and it was through this organization that he met Elizabeth M'Clintock. In July of 1848, M'Clintock invited Douglass to attend the . Douglass readily accepted, and his participation at the convention revealed his commitment to woman suffrage. He was the only African American to attend. In an issue of the First Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York North Star published shortly after the convention, Douglass wrote,
In respect to political rights, we hold woman to be justly entitled to all we claim for man. We go farther, and express our conviction that all political rights which it is expedient for man to exercise, it is equally so for women. All that distinguishes man as an intelligent and accountable being, is equally true of woman; and if that government is only just which governs by the free consent of the governed, there can be no reason in the world for denying to woman the exercise of the elective franchise, or a hand in making and administering the laws of the land. Our doctrine is, that "Right is of no sex."
Douglass continued to support the cause of women after the 1848 convention. In 1866 Douglass, along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, founded the American Equal Rights Association, an organization that demanded universal suffrage. Though the group disbanded just three years later due to , Douglass remained influential in both movements, championing the cause of equal rights until his death in 1895. (ratified in 1870) stated nobody could be denied voting rights on the basis of race, skin color, or previous servitude. growing tension between women's rights activists and Africa-American rights activists

Civil War and Reconstruction
15th Amendment

Post-Reconstruction and Death
Helen Pitts , an activist and the daughter of former abolitionists. The marriage stirred controversy, as Helen was white and twenty years younger than him. Part of their married life was spent abroad. They traveled to Europe and Africa in 1886-1887, and they took up temporary residence in Haiti during Douglass's service there in 1889-1891. in the late afternoon and was preparing to give a speech at a local church when he suffered a heart attack and passed away.[2] Douglass was 77. He had remained a central figure in the fight for equality and justice for his entire life.
Frederick Douglass' funeral was held at the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in DC. He was buried next to his wife Anna in Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York. His second wife, Helen, joined them in the Douglass family plot after her death in 1903.[3]

Notes:
[1] Wye House Plantation was designated a National Historic Landmark on April 15, 1970.

[2] Frederick and Anna moved into their DC home in 1877, naming it Cedar Hill. The home and the surrounding estate make up the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, a unit of the National Park Service.

[3] The Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, 1518 M Street NW, Washington, DC was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 26, 1973. Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester, New York was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 30, 2018.

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Frederick Douglass (U.S. National Park Service)

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In his journey from captive slave to internationally renowned activist, Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) has been a source of inspiration and hope for millions. His brilliant words and brave actions continue to shape the ways that we think about race, democracy, and the meaning of freedom.

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The papers of nineteenth-century African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), who escaped from slavery and then risked his freedom by becoming an outspoken antislavery lecturer, writer, and publisher, consist of approximately 7,400 items (38,000 images), most of which were digitized from 34 reels of previously produced microfilm. The collection spans the years 1841-1964, with the bulk of the material dating from 1862 to 1895. Many of Douglass's earlier writings were destroyed when his house in Rochester, New York, burned in 1872.

For a fuller overview of the collection, please consult the Scope and Content Note in the collection finding aid to the Frederick Douglass Papers, which is available online ( PDF and HTML) with links to the digital content on this site. Also see the essay on this site titled Provenance, Publication History, and Scope and Contents.

The collection is organized in the following series:

Diary, 1886-1894 (Reel 1): A single diary that Douglass kept during his tour of Europe and Africa, 1886-1887, with notes made in later years.

Family Papers, 1859-1903 (Reel 1): Diary, speeches, writings, and miscellaneous papers of Frederick Douglass's second wife, Helen Pitts Douglass, but also includes a biographical sketch of Douglass's wife of forty-four years, Anna Murray Douglass, written by their daughter, Rosetta Douglass Sprague.

General Correspondence, 1841-1912 (Reels 1-9): General and family letters received and drafts and copies of letters sent with miscellaneous attachments. Includes letters Douglass received from prominent reformers and politicians, including Susan B. Anthony, Grover Cleveland, William Lloyd Garrison, Benjamin Harrison, Russell Lant, Gerrit Smith, and Ida B. Wells. Arranged chronologically. An index to the names in this series (PDF), created in 1974 before the original finding aid was published by the Library of Congress in 1976, is available online in PDF form.

Subject File, 1845-1939 (Reels 9-13): Newspaper clippings, notes, prayers, plats, architectural drawings, printed and near-print material, and reports, which reveals Douglass's interests in diverse subjects such as politics, racial prejudice, and prison reform. Arranged alphabetically by subject.

Speech, Article, and Book File, 1846-1894 (Reels 13-27): Contains the writings of Douglass and his contemporaries in the abolitionist and women's rights movements and includes autographed copies of editorials and opinion pieces from Douglass' antislavery weekly, North Star, and a partial handwritten draft of Douglass's third autobiography, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass.

Speeches and Articles by Douglass, 1846-1894 (Reels 13-19): Manuscripts, typescripts, and near-print and printed copies of Douglass's speeches, articles, and related material. Arranged chronologically. Undated items organized by titled and untitled and arranged alphabetically thereunder by title or supplied title.

Speeches, Articles, and Other Writings Attributed to Frederick or Helen Pitts Douglass, 1881-1887 (Reels 20-21): Manuscripts, typescripts, notes, photocopies, and fragments. Arranged alphabetically by topic or title when possible.

Book File, undated (Reel 21): Fragments of various drafts of Douglass's autobiography. Arranged by page number according to Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (Rev. ed. Boston: De Wolfe, Fiske. 1893.)

Speeches and Articles by Others (Reels 21-27): Primarily printed copies. Arranged alphabetically by name of author with miscellaneous material at the end of the file.

Financial Papers, 1847-1928 (Reels 27-30): Bank books, bills, receipts, canceled checks, contracts, insurance policies, ledger books, promissory notes, lists, stocks and bonds, and tax bills. Arranged alphabetically by type of material.

Legal File, 1843-1900(Reel 30): Abstracts of titles, agreements, copyrights, deeds, depositions, mortgages, suits, articles of incorporation, wills, and miscellaneous legal documents. Arranged alphabetically by type of material.

Miscellany, 1870-1924 (Reel 31): Invitation file (includes calling cards, programs, menus, announcements, and other related material), newspaper clippings, memorabilia, maps, photographs, printed matter, and miscellany. Arranged alphabetically by type of material and chronologically therein.

Addition I, 1851-1964 (Reels 32-34): Correspondence, speeches, account books, printed matter, and miscellaneous material. Includes scrapbooks that document Douglass's role as minister to Haiti and the controversy surrounding his interracial second marriage. Arranged by type of material and chronologically therein.

Addition II, 1846-1967 (Box 53; not filmed; not yet digitized): Clippings, correspondence, deeds, memorabilia, photographs, newspapers, printed matter, and speeches. Arranged alphabetically by type of material.

Addition III, 1880-1934 (Box 53; not filmed; not yet digitized): Correspondence and programs. Arranged alphabetically by type of material.

Brief History of the Papers

The Frederick Douglass Papers were originally in the library at Cedar Hill, Douglass's home in Anacostia, Washington, D.C., from 1878 until his death in 1895. In 1900 Helen Pitts Douglass, Douglass's second wife, established the Frederick Douglass Memorial and Historical Association so that the home and its contents might be maintained after her death. The association held the property from 1903 until 1916, when it joined forces with the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs. In 1962 Congress declared Cedar Hill a national historical site, and ownership of the home and its contents was transferred to the National Park Service.

The National Park Service transferred the Frederick Douglass Papers to the Library of Congress between 1972 and 1974 to ensure their proper custodial care and to make them more readily accessible to researchers. In 1975 additional Douglass materials were acquired by the Library of Congress and added to the Frederick Douglass Papers as the Addition I Series. The papers were microfilmed and made available to the public. The online Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress has been digitally scanned from a thirty-four-reel microfilm set. Since the microfilming was performed, additional materials have been received; they are currently contained in the Addition II and Addition III series. These new materials have not been microfilmed and are not included yet in this online collection. For more history of the collection, see the essay on this site titled Provenance, Publication History, and Scope and Contents.

Frederick Douglass documented many instances of racial prejudice and violence in his papers. Therefore, some of the materials in this online historical collection contain language or negative stereotypes that may be offensive to some readers.

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About this Collection | Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress | Digital Collections | Library of Congress

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The papers of nineteenth-century African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), who escaped from slavery and then risked his freedom by becoming an outspoken antislavery lecturer, writer, and publisher, consist of approximately 7,400 items (38,000 images), most of which were digitized from 34 reels of previously produced microfilm.

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Sojourner Truth, "I Sell the Shadow to Support the Substance". Library of Congress.

. After the Association disbanded in 1846, Truth remained in western Massachusetts and began dictating her memoirs to her friend Olive Gilbert. In 1850 her book, Frederick Douglass The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: a Northern Slave was published by Garrison; she bought a house in Northampton, and spoke at the first National Women's Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts. She paid off her home just three years later, in part by selling photographs of herself captioned, "I sell the shadow to support the substance."

Notes:
[1] The only surviving building of the Northampton Association of Education and Industry is Ross Farm at 123 Meadow Street, Northampton, Massachusetts. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 8, 2008.

[2] Sojourner Truth spoke extemporaneously at the meeting in Akron; she did not have a written speech to read from. Therefore, her words survive as written by others. There are many variations of what Truth said; the first record of her full speech, published within a month of her giving it, does not include the phrase, "Ain't I a Woman." Twelve years later, in 1863, another version was published by Frances Dana Barker Gage, a suffragist and abolitionist who worked with Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and others. In her version, Truth's words have the stereotypical characteristics of Southern slaves (even though Truth grew up in New York speaking Dutch), included the phrase "Ain't I a Woman," and included embellishments about her life. It is Gage's version of Truth's speech, which was republished in 1875, 1881, and 1889, that has become the version most people are familiar with.

[3] The White House was designated a National Historic Landmark on December 19, 1960.

[4] The United States Capitol building was designated a National Historic Landmark on December 19, 1960.

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Sojourner Truth (U.S. National Park Service)

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After the Association disbanded in 1846, Truth remained in western Massachusetts and began dictating her memoirs to her friend Olive Gilbert. In 1850 her book, Frederick Douglass The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: a Northern Slave was published by Garrison; she bought a house in Northampton, and spoke at the first National Women's Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts.

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African American History Month

The monthly portals highlights the Library's own collections and events, they also represent a collaboration with other federal cultural heritage institutions to feature relevant materials from their institutions. Partners in the past have included the National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Historic Newspapers

A selection of articles about Sojourner Truth includes:

Legislative Information

A selection of highlights from this website includes:

Library of Congress Blogs

Selected blog posts include compelling stories and fascinating facts written by Library of Congress curators and librarians

Online Exhibitions

African-American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship

This exhibition showcases the incomparable African-American collections of the Library of Congress. It displays more than 240 items, including books, government documents, manuscripts, maps, musical scores, plays, films, and recordings.

A selection of highlights from this exhibition includes:

Shall Not Be Denied: Women Fight for the Vote

The exhibition tells the story of the long campaign for women's suffrage - considered the largest reform movement in American history - which lasted more than seven decades. The struggle was not for the fainthearted. For years, determined women organized, lobbied, paraded, petitioned, lectured, picketed and faced imprisonment.

Selected highlight from this exhibition:

Prints and Photographs Division

Related Research Guides

Teachers Page

The Library of Congress offers classroom materials and professional development to help teachers effectively use primary sources from the Library's vast digital collections in their teaching. Find Library of Congress lesson plans and more that meet Common Core standards, state content standards, and the standards of national organizations.

Features and Activities

Lesson Plan

Today in History

Today in History is a Library of Congress presentation of historic events illuminated by items from the Library's Digital Collections. Each essay offers search tips and links selected to encourage users to dive more deeply into the Library's growing digital collections.

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Research Guides: Sojourner Truth: A Resource Guide: Digital Resources

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The monthly portals highlights the Library's own collections and events, they also represent a collaboration with other federal cultural heritage institutions to feature relevant materials from their institutions. Partners in the past have included the National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

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Sojourner Truth - Civil Rights Activist | Mini Bio | BIO

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MLA - Michals, Debra. "Harriet Tubman." National Women's History Museum. National Women's History Museum, 2015. Date accessed.

Chicago - Michals, Debra. "Harriet Tubman." National Women's History Museum. 2015. www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/harriet-tubman.

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Known as the "Moses of her people," Harriet Tubman was enslaved, escaped, and helped others gain their freedom as a "conductor" of the Underground Railroad. Discover more about her on womenshistory.org.

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Tubman was born a slave in Maryland’s Dorchester County around 1820. At age five or six, she began to work as a house servant. Seven years later she was sent to work in the fields. While she was still in her early teens, she suffered an injury that would follow her for the rest of her life. Always ready to stand up for someone else, Tubman blocked a doorway to protect another field hand from an angry overseer. The overseer picked up and threw a two-pound weight at the field hand. It fell short, striking Tubman on the head. She never fully recovered from the blow, which subjected her to spells in which she would fall into a deep sleep.

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Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Beacher Stowe

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Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Beacher Stowe

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Anti-slavery writings were significant in the abolitionists' fight against slavery. Using books, newspapers, pamphlets, poetry, published sermons, and other forms of literature, abolitionists spread their message. David Walker's Appeal, William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberator, and Frederick Douglass' The North Star were among the most important abolitionist writings. And then there were the slave narratives -- personal accounts of what it was like to live in bondage. These would give northerers their closest look at slavery and provide an undeniable counter to the pro-slavery arguments and idyllic pictures of slavery described by slaveholders.

The slave narratives were immensely popular with the public. Frederick Douglass' Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass sold 30,000 copies between 1845 and 1860, William Wells Brown's Narrative went through four editions in its first year, and Solomon Northups' Twelve Years a Slave sold 27,000 copies during its first two years in print. Many narratives were translated into French, German, Dutch and Russian.

In addition to publishing their narratives, former slaves became anti-slavery lecturers and went on tour. They told their stories to audiences throughout the North and in Europe. Frederick Douglass was the most famous, but he was joined by others such as Sojourner Truth and William Wells Brown. Others, such as Ellen and William Craft -- a couple who had escaped together using ingenious disguises -- lectured but did not create a written narrative. For white audiences who had perhaps never seen an African American man or woman, the effects of these articulate people telling their stories was electrifying and won many to the abolitionist cause.

Some former slaves, such as Douglass and Brown, wrote their narratives themselves. But many were illiterate, and so dictated their stories to abolitionists.

The slave narratives provided the most powerful voices contradicting the slaveholders' favorable claims concerning slavery. By their very existence, the narratives demonstrated that African Americans were people with mastery of language and the ability to write their own history. The narratives told of the horrors of family separation, the sexual abuse of black women, and the inhuman workload. They told of free blacks being kidnapped and sold into slavery. They described the frequency and brutality of flogging and the severe living conditions of slave life. They also told exciting tales of escape, heroism, betrayal, and tragedy. The narratives captivated readers, portraying the fugitives as sympathetic, fascinating characters.

The narratives also gave Northerners a glimpse into the life of slave communities: the love between family members, the respect for elders, the bonds between friends. They described an enduring, truly African American culture, which was expressed through music, folktales, and religion. Then, as now, the narratives of ex-slaves provided the world with the closest look at the lives of enslaved African American men, women and children. They were the abolitionist movement's voice of reality.

Though the slave narratives were immensely popular, the anti-slavery document which would reach the broadest audience was written by a white woman named Harriet Beecher Stowe. Stowe was less threatening to white audiences than were black ex-slaves. Her anti-slavery message came in the form of a novel, which was even more accessible to a wide audience. It was called Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Stowe, though not an active abolitionist herself, had strong anti-slavery feelings. She had grown up in an abolitionist household and had harbored fugitive slaves. She had also spent time observing slavery first-hand on visits to Kentucky, across the river from her Cincinnati home. With the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, Stowe decided to make a strong statement against the institution of slavery. She had been working as a freelance journalist to supplement her husband's small income and help support their six children. In June 1851 Stowe began publishing Uncle Tom's Cabin in serialized form in the National Era.

The response was enthusiastic, and people clamored for Stowe to publish the work in book form. It was risky business to write or publish an anti-slavery novel in those days, but after a great deal of effort she found a reluctant publisher. Only 5,000 copies of the first edition were printed. They were sold in two days. By the end of the first year, 300,000 copies had been sold in America alone; in England 200,000 copies were sold. The book was translated into numerous languages and was adapted for the theater in many different versions, which played to enthusiastic audiences throughout the world.

Uncle Tom's Cabin had a tremendous impact. The character Uncle Tom is an African American who retains his integrity and refuses to betray his fellow slaves at the cost of his life. His firm Christian principles in the face of his brutal treatment made him a hero to whites. In contrast, his tormenter Simon Legree, the Northern slave-dealer turned plantation owner, enraged them with his cruelty. Stowe convinced readers that the institution of slavery itself was evil, because it supported people like Legree and enslaved people like Uncle Tom. Because of her work, thousands rallied to the anti-slavery cause.

Southerners were outraged, and declared the work to be criminal, slanderous, and utterly false. A bookseller in Mobile, Alabama, was forced out of town for selling copies. Stowe received threatening letters and a package containing the dismembered ear of a black person. Southerners also reacted by writing their own novels. These depicted the happy lives of slaves, and often contrasted them with the miserable existences of Northern white workers.

Most black Americans responded enthusiastically to Uncle Tom's Cabin. Frederick Douglass was a friend of Stowe's; she had consulted him on some sections of the book, and he praised the book in his writings. Most black abolitionists saw it as a tremendous help to their cause. Some, however, opposed the book, seeing Uncle Tom's character as being too submissive and criticized Stowe for having her strongest black characters emigrate to Liberia.

It is ironic that the book which contributed most to the anti-slavery cause should have gained the reputation it has today as a racist work. Uncle Tom, though he defies white authority to save his fellow slaves, is the model of Christian humility. He is forgiving in the face of absolute brutality and suffers countless indignities with patience. Though this endeared him to whites and helped them see the evils of slavery, it also encouraged the image of the submissive, childlike black man -- an idea exaggerated in theatrical productions of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Many of these showed Uncle Tom as a groveling, subservient character, and included blackface mistrel shows between scenes.

Like most white writers of her day, Harriet Beecher Stowe could not escape the racism of the time. Because of this, her work has some serious flaws, which in turn have helped perpetuate damaging images of African Americans. However, the book, within its genre of romance, was enormously complex in character and in its plots. The book outraged the South, and in the long run, that is its significance.

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Anti-slavery writings were significant in the abolitionists' fight against slavery. Using books, newspapers, pamphlets, poetry, published sermons, and other forms of literature, abolitionists spread their message. David Walker's Appeal, William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberator, and Frederick Douglass' The North Star were among the most important abolitionist writings.

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Harriet Tubman/Other Reformers to Explore

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Harriet Tubman/Other Reformers to Explore

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Harriet Tubman |America’s Library - Library of Congress

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Harriet Tubman was a runaway slave from Maryland who at great personal risk, led hundreds of slaves to freedom along the Underground Railroad.

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Harriet Tubman: Rescued Over 300 Slaves through Underground Railroad | Biography

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Fact #1: Tubman was born into slavery in Eastern Maryland sometime between 1820 and 1821.

Because of the cruelty of her various masters, she desired to somehow escape from bondage from a very early age, and free others as well. She would later recall, "I had seen their tears and sighs, and I had heard their groans, and would give every drop of blood in my veins to free them."

Fact #2: As a child, she received a severe head injury.

As she was doing errands, an overseer tried to stop a runaway slave by throwing a two-pound weight at him. He hit Tubman instead, who was standing nearby the runaway, and caused her skull to crack, which affected her health for the rest of her life, often in the form of seizures.

Fact #3: After escaping from slavery, she returned to Maryland in 1850 as an Underground Railroad "conductor."

She chose to do so after hearing her niece was soon to be auctioned off. She would go on to rescue over 70 other slaves until the outbreak of the Civil War, and did not fail a single rescue. It was during this time she acquired her nickname "Moses."

Fact #4: She employed numerous disguises on her first successful attempt to escape from slavery.

She often would pretend to be a field hand by walking around with chickens, or as a house-servant when she stayed at the home of an abolitionist couple. One notable disguise she used was pretending to read a newspaper to allay suspicion, as she was known to be illiterate. She employed spirituals and songs as coded messages to her followers.

Fact #5: Tubman joined the Union army as a nurse, but also acted as a scout and spy behind enemy lines.

Despite her efforts and general fame, she was only able to acquire a nurse's pension after the war ended.

Fact #6: One of the most famous missions she took part in was the raid on Combahee Ferry in South Carolina.

During this raid, she worked with Union Colonel James Montgomery to free over 700 slaves at once.

Fact #7: At one point after the war, her financial situation became so dire, she fell prey to a gold smuggling con.

The incident and cause surrounding it provoked outrage and many of her friends and acquaintances rallied to support her in response.

Fact #8: Like many other high-profile women of her time, she became heavily involved with promoting women's suffrage with figures like Susan B. Anthony.

Though it may have sunk her further into poverty, she frequently traveled to give speeches on the topic in Washington D.C. and New York City.

Fact #9: She underwent brain surgery in the 1890's to alleviate the headaches she had suffered for most of her life.

Inspired by soldiers she had seen going through surgery during the war, she refused anesthesia for the operation.

Fact #10: Tubman died in the Home for the Aged she herself had founded.

Harriet Tubman died on March 10, 1913 at the rest home named in her honor in Auburn, New York. She was buried with military honors in the Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn, which also included such figures as Secretary of State William Seward.

Learn More: Harriet Tubman

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Fact #1: Tubman was born into slavery in Eastern Maryland sometime between 1820 and 1821. Because of the cruelty of her various masters, she desired to somehow escape from bondage from a very early age, and free others as well.

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Quaker Abolitionists

The Quakers are considered the first organized group to actively help escaped enslaved people. George Washington complained in 1786 that Quakers had attempted to "liberate" one of his enslaved workers.

In the early 1800s, Quaker abolitionist Isaac T. Hopper set up a network in Philadelphia that helped enslaved people on the run. At the same time, Quakers in North Carolina established abolitionist groups that laid the groundwork for routes and shelters for escapees.

The African Methodist Episcopal Church, established in 1816, was another proactive religious group helping fugitive enslaved people.

What Was the Underground Railroad?

The earliest mention of the Underground Railroad came in 1831 when enslaved man Tice Davids escaped from Kentucky into Ohio and his owner blamed an "underground railroad" for helping Davids to freedom.

In 1839, a Washington newspaper reported an escaped enslaved man named Jim had revealed, under torture, his plan to go north following an "underground railroad to Boston."

Vigilance Committees-created to protect escaped enslaved people from bounty hunters in New York in 1835 and Philadelphia in 1838-soon expanded their activities to guide enslaved people on the run. By the 1840s, the term Underground Railroad was part of the American vernacular.

How the Underground Railroad Worked

Most of the enslaved people helped by the Underground Railroad escaped border states such as Kentucky, Virginia and Maryland.

In the deep South, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 made capturing escaped enslaved people a lucrative business, and there were fewer hiding places for them. Fugitive enslaved people were typically on their own until they got to certain points farther north.

People known as "conductors" guided the fugitive enslaved people. Hiding places included private homes, churches and schoolhouses. These were called "stations," "safe houses," and "depots." The people operating them were called "stationmasters."

There were many well-used routes stretching west through Ohio to Indiana and Iowa. Others headed north through Pennsylvania and into New England or through Detroit on their way to Canada.

Fugitive Slave Acts

The reason many escapees headed for Canada was the Fugitive Slave Acts. The first act, passed in 1793, allowed local governments to apprehend and extradite escaped enslaved people from within the borders of free states back to their point of origin, and to punish anyone helping the fugitives. Some Northern states tried to combat this with Personal Liberty Laws, which were struck down by the Supreme Court in 1842.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was designed to strengthen the previous law, which was felt by southern states to be inadequately enforced. This update created harsher penalties and set up a system of commissioners that promoted favoritism towards owners of enslaved people and led to some formerly enslaved people being recaptured. For an escaped person, the northern states were still considered a risk.

Meanwhile, Canada offered Black people the freedom to live where they wanted, sit on juries, run for public office and more, and efforts at extradition had largely failed. Some Underground Railroad operators based themselves in Canada and worked to help the arriving fugitives settle in.

Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman was the most famous conductor for the Underground Railroad.

Born an enslaved woman named Araminta Ross, she took the name Harriet (Tubman was her married name) when, in 1849, she escaped a plantation in Maryland with two of her brothers. They returned a couple of weeks later, but Tubman left again on her own shortly after, making her way to Pennsylvania.

Tubman later returned to the plantation on several occasions to rescue family members and others. On her third trip, she tried to rescue her husband, but he had remarried and refused to leave.

Distraught, Tubman reported a vision of God, after which she joined the Underground Railroad and began guiding other escaped slaves to Maryland. Tubman regularly took groups of escapees to Canada, distrusting the United States to treat them well.

Frederick Douglass

Formerly enslaved person and famed writer Frederick Douglass hid fugitives in his home in Rochester, New York, helping 400 escapees make their way to Canada. Former fugitive Reverend Jermain Loguen, who lived in neighboring Syracuse, helped 1,500 escapees go north.

Robert Purvis, an escaped enslaved person turned Philadelphia merchant, formed the Vigilance Committee there in 1838. Former enslaved person and railroad operator Josiah Henson created the Dawn Institute in 1842 in Ontario to help escapees who made their way to Canada learn needed work skills.

New York City-based escapee Louis Napoleon's occupation as listed on his death certificate was "Underground R.R. Agent." He was a key figure guiding fugitives he found at the docks and train stations.

John Parker was a free Black man in Ohio, a foundry owner who took a rowboat across the Ohio River to help fugitives cross. He was also known to make his way into Kentucky and enter plantations to help enslaved people escape.

William Still was a prominent Philadelphia citizen who had been born to fugitive enslaved parents in New Jersey. An associate of Tubman's, Still also kept a record of his activities in the Underground Railroad and was able to keep it safely hidden until after the Civil War, when he published them, offering one of the clearest accounts of Underground Railroad activity at the time.

Who Ran the Underground Railroad?

Most Underground Railroad operators were ordinary people, farmers and business owners, as well as ministers. Some wealthy people were involved, such as Gerrit Smith, a millionaire who twice ran for president. In 1841, Smith purchased an entire family of enslaved people from Kentucky and set them free.

One of the earliest known people to help fugitive enslaved people was Levi Coffin, a Quaker from North Carolina. He started around 1813 when he was 15 years old.

Coffin said that he learned their hiding places and sought them out to help them move along. Eventually, they began to find their way to him. Coffin later moved to Indiana and then Ohio, and continued to help escaped enslaved people wherever he lived.

John Brown

Abolitionist John Brown was a conductor on the Underground Railroad, during which time he established the League of Gileadites, devoted to helping fugitive enslaved people get to Canada.

Brown would play many roles in the abolition movement, most famously leading a raid on Harper's Ferry to create an armed force to make its way into the deep south and free enslaved people by gunpoint. Brown's men were defeated, and Brown hanged for treason in 1859.

By 1837 Reverend Calvin Fairbank was helping enslaved people escape from Kentucky into Ohio. In 1844 he partnered with Vermont schoolteacher Delia Webster and was arrested for helping an escaped enslaved woman and her child. He was pardoned in 1849, but was arrested again and spent another 12 years in jail.

Charles Torrey was sent to prison for six years in Maryland for helping an enslaved family escape through Virginia. He operated out of Washington, D.C., and had previously worked as an abolitionist newspaper editor in Albany, New York.

Massachusetts sea captain Jonathan Walker was arrested in 1844 after he was caught with a boatload of escaped enslaved people that he was trying to help get north. Walker was fined and jailed for a year, and branded on his right hand the letters "SS" for Slave Stealer.

John Fairfield of Virginia rejected his slave-holding family to help rescue the left-behind families of enslaved people who made it north. Fairfield's method was to travel in the south posing as a slave trader. He broke out of jail twice. He died in 1860 in Tennessee during a rebellion.

End of the Line

The Underground Railroad ceased operations about 1863, during the Civil War. In reality, its work moved aboveground as part of the Union effort against the Confederacy.

Harriet Tubman once again played a significant part by leading intelligence operations and fulfilling a command role in Union Army operations to rescue the emancipated enslaved people.

Sources

Bound for Canaan: The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad. Fergus Bordewich.
Harriet Tubman: The Road To Freedom. Catherine Clinton.
Who Really Ran the Underground Railroad? Henry Louis Gates.
The Little Known History of the Underground Railroad in New York. Smithsonian Magazine.
The Perilous Lure of the Underground Railroad. The New Yorker.

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Underground Railroad - Definition, Background & Leaders | HISTORY

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The Underground Railroad was a network of people, African American as well as white, offering shelter and aid to escaped enslaved people from the South. The exact dates of its existence are not known, but it operated from the late 18th century to the Civil War, at which point its efforts continued to undermine the Confederacy.

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MLA - Michals, Debra. "Harriet Beecher Stowe." National Women's History Museum, 2017. Date accessed.

Chicago - Michals, Debra "Harriet Beecher Stowe." National Women's History Museum. 2017. www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/harriet-beecher-stowe.

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Abolitionist author, Harriet Beecher Stowe rose to fame in 1851 with the publication of her best-selling book, Uncle Tom's Cabin, which highlighted the evils of slavery, angered the slaveholding South.

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PBS Online: Only A Teacher: Schoolhouse Pioneers

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Mann’s commitment to the Common School sprang from his belief that political stability and social harmony depended on education: a basic level of literacy and the inculcation of common public ideals. He declared, “Without undervaluing any other human agency, it may be safely affirmed that the Common…

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Going to School

Could you imagine never going to school? Well, for many years in the United States, there was no such thing as public school. Kids typically learned to read and write from their parents. If you came from a wealthy family, you might have a tutor or attend a private academy. One of the first people to propose a public-school system was Horace Mann. His ideas on education led Massachusetts to create the first public education system in the country.

Humble Beginnings

Horace Mann was just the kind of person who would be interested in public education because he himself grew up with few opportunities to attend schooling. Born in 1796, he was the son of a poor farmer in Franklin, Massachusetts. As a boy, he could rarely attend school because his father expected his help on their farm. Instead, he would often go to the town library and read books. A local minister also helped him study languages, like Latin, that were important if one wanted to go to college. At the age of 20, he was accepted to Brown University. Due to his hard work, he graduated first in his class just three years later!

Secretary of the Board of Education

After graduation, Horace earned his law degree and then successfully ran for a seat in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He went on to the Massachusetts State Senate. Throughout his political career, he supported using taxes for improvements in the state. In 1837, Massachusetts created the first state board of public education in the United States and appointed Horace its secretary (meaning its leader). As such, he tirelessly fought to improve the quality of education in the state, as well as working to make education available to all children.

Mann's Six Principles

Horace used six main principles to guide his decisions and actions:

1. The general public should not remain uneducated.

2. The public should pay for and maintain an education system.

3. Schools should provide educations to children of all backgrounds.

4. Schools should not reflect a particular set of religious beliefs.

5. Schools should reflect the ideals of a free society.

6. Schools should have well-trained, professional teachers.

These six principles became the framework for everything he did as secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education. Can you see these principles in our schools today?

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horace mann lesson for kids: biography & facts | study.com

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Horace Mann Lesson for Kids: Biography & Facts | Study.com

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Could you imagine never going to school? Well, for many years in the United States, there was no such thing as public school. Kids typically learned to read and write from their parents. If you came from a wealthy family, you might have a tutor or attend a private academy.

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Horace Mann was an American politician and education reformer, best known for promoting universal public education and teacher training in "normal schools."

Who Was Horace Mann?

Born in 1796 in Massachusetts, Horace Mann practiced law before serving in the state Legislature and Senate. Named secretary of the new Massachusetts board of education in 1837, he overhauled the state's public-education system and established a series of schools to train teachers. Mann later was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, and served as president of Antioch College in Ohio until his death in 1859. Mann is recognized today for his leadership in transforming the country's public-education system and many schools across the U.S. are named after him.

Early Years & Education

Horace Mann was born into poverty in Franklin, Massachusetts, in 1796. Chiefly self-taught, Mann was 20 years old when he was admitted to the sophomore class at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

At Brown, Mann took an interest in politics, education and social reform. Upon graduation, he delivered a speech on the advancement of the human race through which education, philanthropy and republicanism could combine to benefit mankind.

State Politics

After Brown, Mann practiced law before winning a seat in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, serving from 1827 to 1833. He then won election to the state Senate in 1835, and was named its president the following year. During these years, Mann aimed his sights at infrastructure improvements via the construction of railroads and canals, and established an asylum for the insane at Worcester.

Educational Reform

Meanwhile, the Massachusetts education system, with a history going back to 1647, was sputtering. A vigorous reform movement arose, and in 1837 the state created its board of education, one of the first in the country, with Mann assuming stewardship as its secretary.

With funds for the board's activities at a minimum, the position required more moral leadership than anything else, and Horace Mann proved himself up to the role. He started a biweekly journal, Common School Journal, in 1838 for teachers and lectured on education to all who would listen. Additionally, he visited Europe to learn more about established educational principles, and came away particularly impressed with the Prussian school system.

What Did Horace Mann Believe In?

Principles of Education

Mann developed his hugely influential - although at the time controversial - main principles regarding public education and its troubles: (1) citizens cannot maintain both ignorance and freedom; (2) this education should be paid for, controlled and maintained by the public; (3) this education should be provided in schools that embrace children from varying backgrounds; (4) this education must be nonsectarian; (5) this education must be taught using tenets of a free society; and (6) this education must be provided by well-trained, professional teachers.

The importance of the final principle prompted the development of "normal schools" to train teachers to follow Mann's guidelines. As such, the first of several Massachusetts state-sponsored normal schools was established in Lexington in 1839.

Mann's methods angered groups across the social and political spectrum; clergymen objected to the diminished role of religion in the classroom, and politicians balked at the overreach of authority into local school systems. Ultimately, Mann's ideas prevailed, and he is recognized today for his efforts in transforming the country's public-education system.

Late Career

Mann served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1848 to 1853, and then became president of Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. A commencement speech he gave two months before his death in 1859 served as a clarion call, asking students to embrace his influential worldview: "I beseech you to treasure up in your hearts these my parting words: Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity."

Fact Check

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Horace Mann was an American politician and education reformer, best known for promoting universal public education and teacher training in "normal schools." Born in 1796 in Massachusetts, Horace Mann practiced law before serving in the state Legislature and Senate.

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To print the story please do so via the link in the story toolbar.

In the 19th century, education underwent a reform. Regular people were able to go to school in common schools, African Americans got more options to go to school and the mentally ill got better treatment and educations

Horace Mann became the secretary for the new Massachusetts Board of Education in 1837. Mann had an idea for a "common school", a school where regular kids could get an education. The common school movement would make sure that every kid got an education, the schools would be paid for with taxes from the public.

Mann believed that education was key in socializing, being involved in the government, and being a good citizen.

Normal School- Also known as a teachers college and teachers in training college, were schools where people went to get training to teach in common schools

The first Normal School was in Paris, it was made in 1794

The first public normal school in America was opened in 1839, in Lexington Massachusetts

Throughout the years normal schools were made into boards of education and schools of education at universities

Quiz

Which groups faced challenges in education?

Women

African Americans

The poor

This is a picture of Lincoln University, which used to be the Ashmun Institute. The Ashmun Institute was one of the first African American colleges in the US.

African Americans had few opportunities to be educated but, at the Ashmun Institute African Americans got the opportunity to be educated, hear lectures, and get visited by abolitionist groups.

In 1814 Thomas Gallaudet met a nine year old deaf girl named Alice Cogswell. Alice's dad asked Gallaudet to go to Europe to study the methods of deaf education.

Gallaudet went to Europe and met with one of the prominent dead educators, they refused to share their secrets with him. While Gallaudet was still in Europe he met Abbe Sicard. Sicard worked at the Institut Royal des Sourds-Muets in Paris.

Gallaudet learned about deaf education there and in 1817 he convinced Sicard to come to America and start a school with him.

Together they created the American School for the Deaf.

Quiz

What ailment did Alice Cogswell have?

blindness

deafness

Crippled

This is a picture of Dr. Samuel Gridley. Dr. Gridley was an educator of the blind, a physician, an abolitionist, and the founding director of the New-England Institution for the Education of the Blind.. He is known most for teaching Laura Bridgman, a blind and deaf student, the alphabet.

In 1829 Gridley was sent by the New-England Institution for the Education of the Blind to Europe to get special blind teachers for the school. Gridley wasn't blind and didn't know much about blindness. He learned a lot while he was overseas. He believed that the blind shouldn't be known for being "doomed to inequality," and becoming only "objects of pity."

In 1840 he travelled to 15 states and made schools in Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia.

Gridley created the braille alphabet/language that blind people still use today.

This is the braille alphabet

Quiz

How old was Dorothea DIx when she moved in with her grandmother?

As a result of her findings the state saved money for a mental hospital in Worcester. Dix then went to New York, Rhode Island, and Europe to get more hospitals or asylums.

Quiz

What was Dorothea's job in the civil war?

The educational reform of the 19th century helped a lot of people get equal education and the reform of the treatment of the mentally ill helped mentally ill people get treated better!

Horace Mann became the secretary for the new Massachusetts Board of Education in 1837. Mann had an idea for a "common school", a school where regular kids could get an education. The common school movement would make sure that every kid got an education, the schools would be paid for with taxes from the public.

Mann believed that education was key in socializing, being involved in the government, and being a good citizen.

Normal School- Also known as a teachers college and teachers in training college, were schools where people went to get training to teach in common schools

The first Normal School was in Paris, it was made in 1794

The first public normal school in America was opened in 1839, in Lexington Massachusetts

Throughout the years normal schools were made into boards of education and schools of education at universities

Quiz

Which groups faced challenges in education?

Women

African Americans

The poor

This is a picture of Lincoln University, which used to be the Ashmun Institute. The Ashmun Institute was one of the first African American colleges in the US.

African Americans had few opportunities to be educated but, at the Ashmun Institute African Americans got the opportunity to be educated, hear lectures, and get visited by abolitionist groups.

In 1814 Thomas Gallaudet met a nine year old deaf girl named Alice Cogswell. Alice's dad asked Gallaudet to go to Europe to study the methods of deaf education.

Gallaudet went to Europe and met with one of the prominent dead educators, they refused to share their secrets with him. While Gallaudet was still in Europe he met Abbe Sicard. Sicard worked at the Institut Royal des Sourds-Muets in Paris.

Gallaudet learned about deaf education there and in 1817 he convinced Sicard to come to America and start a school with him.

Together they created the American School for the Deaf.

Quiz

What ailment did Alice Cogswell have?

blindness

deafness

Crippled

This is a picture of Dr. Samuel Gridley. Dr. Gridley was an educator of the blind, a physician, an abolitionist, and the founding director of the New-England Institution for the Education of the Blind.. He is known most for teaching Laura Bridgman, a blind and deaf student, the alphabet.

In 1829 Gridley was sent by the New-England Institution for the Education of the Blind to Europe to get special blind teachers for the school. Gridley wasn't blind and didn't know much about blindness. He learned a lot while he was overseas. He believed that the blind shouldn't be known for being "doomed to inequality," and becoming only "objects of pity."

In 1840 he travelled to 15 states and made schools in Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia.

Gridley created the braille alphabet/language that blind people still use today.

This is the braille alphabet

Quiz

How old was Dorothea DIx when she moved in with her grandmother?

As a result of her findings the state saved money for a mental hospital in Worcester. Dix then went to New York, Rhode Island, and Europe to get more hospitals or asylums.

Quiz

What was Dorothea's job in the civil war?

The educational reform of the 19th century helped a lot of people get equal education and the reform of the treatment of the mentally ill helped mentally ill people get treated better!

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In the 19th century, education underwent a reform. Regular people were able to go to school in common schools, African Americans got more options to go to school and the mentally ill got better treatment and educations Dix stopped working with her asylums during the war.

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Education reform is often at the heart of all great reform struggles.[1]

By the 1820s Americans were experiencing exhilarating as well as unsettling social and economic changes. In the North, the familiar rural and agrarian life was slowly being transformed with the rise of factories, the emergence of a market economy, and the growth of towns and cities. The government-primarily state governments-and private individuals were investing in roads, turnpikes, bridges, canals, and railroads, linking the distant parts of the expanding republic. The new world of industry was transforming the rhythms of work, discipline, and social relations. Young men and women were leaving the farms for factory life, changing forever traditional family forms. Skilled craft workers were being replaced by machines and age-old crafts began to disappear.

The emergence of manufacturing and the growth of cities and towns led to new social problems: the deterioration of working and living conditions; the rise of poverty and indebtedness; and the increasing disparity between rich and poor. Meanwhile, periodic economic slumps created greater hardships and uncertainty. The Protestant ruling elite expressed alarm at these developing social conditions, concerned that poverty would lead to prostitution, gangs, drunkenness, crime, and other manifestations of social decline and disorder. Increased immigration after 1830, especially of the impoverished, unskilled, Catholic, and non-English-speaking Irish, further threatened the Protestant middle class.

Political changes accompanied the economic and social changes. In particular, suffrage was expanded to all white male citizens, which resulted in the emergence of new popular political activity. This increased political activity brought about labor strife and labor organization in response to the growth of waged labor and increasing social stratification. That, along with other changes brought about as a result of industrialization and the growing difference between the North and South over slavery, combined with a genuine concern for the plight of the poor, led to the development of reform movements in the areas of temperance, prison, mental health, land ownership and development, women's rights, and abolition.

A desire to reform and expand education accompanied and informed many of the political, social, and economic impulses toward reform. Three particularly important core components of education reform developed in the antebellum period: education for the common man and woman, greater access to higher education for women, and schooling for free blacks.

At the heart of the common school movement was the belief that free common schooling dedicated to good citizenship and moral education would ensure the alleviation of problems facing the new republic. The "common school movement" was a description of a particular type of formal education, one that would become available to all citizens, developed and managed through increased governmental activity at the state level and supported by local property taxes. Common schooling was free and "universal"; that is, it was to be available to all children regardless of class (although African Americans or Irish Catholics were marginalized or excluded). The main purpose of the common school was to provide a more centralized and efficient school system, one that would assimilate, train, and discipline the emerging working classes and prepare them for a successful life in an industrial society.

The person most identified with the common school movement was Horace Mann (1796-1859), a member of the Massachusetts state legislature, and then secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education. Mann's ideology was based upon a strong sense of Protestant Republicanism that was rooted in a secular, non-sectarian morality. He believed that education was a child's "natural right," and that moral education should be the heart of the curriculum. In order to accomplish education reform, Mann advocated state-controlled boards of education, a more uniform curriculum, and greater state involvement in teacher training. Mann was firmly convinced that public education had the power to become a stabilizing as well as an equalizing force in American society-as he put it, "Education . . . is the great equalizer of the conditions of men-the balance-wheel of the social machinery."[2]

Mann and the common school movement had critics then, as well as now. The common school movement failed to address the issue of racial exclusion and segregation. Only when African American parents and their political allies challenged the whites-only schools and school districts would there be partial, but not lasting reforms. Catholics in Massachusetts and New York opposed Mann's Protestant Republicanism in the common schools. Fearing religious and anti-immigrant discrimination, Catholics set up their own system of parochial schools. Historians such as Michael Katz have challenged the widely held assumption that the common school movement was an enlightened liberal reform movement designed to ameliorate the social divisions in American society. Rather, Katz and others argue that the common school movement was a deliberate attempt by the Protestant elite to control the lower classes, force assimilation of immigrants and non-Protestants, and prepare the working classes to acquire the "virtues" necessary to factory life-in particular, respect for discipline and authority. All of the criticisms of Mann and the common school system-racial segregation, religious (or lack thereof) bias, centralized school boards, and a curriculum designed for conformity were left unresolved, and are recurrent themes in the history of education and the subsequent movements for meaningful educational reform.

The struggle for greater educational opportunities for women was clearly linked to the antebellum reform movement, and in particular the campaign for women's rights. The demand for greater educational opportunities has always been a cornerstone demand of feminists. While young women were admitted into the public or common schools, the majority of women in the United States were denied educational opportunities at every level. In 1830, women's literacy was but half of men's. Just as Horace Mann defined the common school movement, Emma Willard (1787-1870), Catharine Beecher (1800-1878), and Mary Lyon (1797-1849) were three leading figures in the advancement of women's education. However, unlike Mann and the common school movement, woman reformers themselves had to struggle for education as outsiders and as second-class citizens.

Emma Willard started teaching when she was seventeen; in 1814 she founded the Troy Female Seminary, the first recognized institution for educating young women. It was later renamed the Emma Willard School. An advocate of a rigorous curriculum for girls, she addressed the New York State legislature in 1819 and challenged Thomas Jefferson's disparaging views about women's mental capacities. Her entire life was devoted to women's education, and many of the graduates of the Emma Willard School joined the ranks of the women's rights movement.

Catharine Beecher was born into a prominent family; her father, Lyman Beecher, was the well-known religious reformer; her sister was Harriet Beecher Stowe, abolitionist and author of the anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. Dissatisfied with her limited education at private school, Beecher was determined to provide greater opportunities for women. In 1823 she founded the Hartford Female Seminary, and offered her students a rigorous academic curriculum with an emphasis on women's physical education. Like Mann, Beecher believed that women were natural teachers; teaching was the extension of women's domestic labor into the schools. Furthermore the purpose of women's education was to prepare them to be better mothers and teachers. Not a feminist, Beecher opposed women's suffrage.

A few women combined their passion for abolition, racial equality, and education. One of the most courageous of these reformers was Prudence Crandall (1803-1890), who in 1831 founded the Canterbury (Connecticut) Female Boarding School. The next year she admitted Sarah Harris, an African American student. Almost immediately white parents protested and took their daughters out of the school. In response Crandall reopened her school as an academy for African American girls. The town retaliated with racist laws and violence. In spite of support from prominent abolitionists, Crandall was forced to close the school in 1834.

The struggle for women's education was also epitomized by the founding of Mt. Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, Massachusetts, the first institution of higher education for women. It was established in 1837 by Mary Lyon, who served as its first president. Her vision for higher education included bringing in women from all socio-economic levels to study a demanding curriculum with a clear moral vision. Mt. Holyoke's success was followed by the founding of other women's colleges, such as Wellesley, Smith, and Vassar.

Feminist and educational reformers also struggled for coeducation in higher education. Oberlin College in Ohio was the first to admit women; Antioch College (founded by Horace Mann) was the first college to allow women to publicly accept their graduation diplomas as well as the first college to hire woman professors and pay them equally with men. Both colleges were "stations" on the Underground Railroad and graduated generations of leading education reformers as well as social justice activists throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Reform struggles did not sweep through the American South as they did in the North. The institution of slavery militated against the emergence of manufacturing and urbanization, two critical factors that led to educational reform in the North. White southerners relied primarily on voluntary, parental, and church schooling. Wealthy planters sent their sons (and sometimes their daughters) to private academies in the North and South and to England. Education for poor white southerners was provided by charity schools and some religious institutions.

Education for black slaves was forbidden, especially after Nat Turner's slave insurrection in 1831. The abolitionist movement provided educational opportunities for African Americans. Quakers were in the forefront of this movement, establishing racially integrated schools in cities like New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. There were a tiny handful of schools for African Americans in the South. One exceptional effort to educate free blacks in the South involved the work of John Chavis, a well-educated free African American. In 1831 he conducted classes in a school in Raleigh, North Carolina, for whites during the day and for free blacks in the evenings. Sunday Schools, which were founded in part to provide literary, religious, and moral instruction to working class and poor rural children, also educated some slaves. Whatever limited educational progress existed in the slave south, it was not connected to the larger movements for social reform.

The struggle to expand educational opportunities continued after the Civil War. Freedom Schools were created by abolitionists to educate the newly emancipated slaves; historic black colleges, such as Howard University were founded. Not all efforts were benign; in particular the Indian schools such as Carlisle were racist attempts to destroy Native American cultures. In the early years of the twentieth century, Chinese Americans successfully sued to desegregate the public school system; women's educational opportunities continued to flourish, and finally the influx of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean, as well as African Americans from the south, changed the face of public education in America. The issues of the purpose of public education as well as its accessibility and curriculum originally faced by Mann, Crandall, Beecher, and Chavis, continue to be a part of the national debate.

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Education reform is often at the heart of all great reform struggles.[1] By the 1820s Americans were experiencing exhilarating as well as unsettling social and economic changes. In the North, the familiar rural and agrarian life was slowly being transformed with the rise of factories, the emergence of a market economy, and the growth of towns and cities.

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Access on-demand teaching strategies, interactive professional development courses, and membership to the Discovery Educator Network-one of the largest professional networks of educators in the world.

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Social Reform in the Early United States

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Emphasizes that democratic movements of the early 1800s expanded far beyond the ballot box, and focuses on the Second Great Awakening. The segment discusses ways that Americans organized to combat societal ills through charities, public education, temperance, criminal-justice reform, insane-asylum reform, the women's movement, abolition, and other efforts.

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Education Reform Movement Reading Passage

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Education Reform Movement Reading Passage

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The public school system is a significant part of the American landscape, an institution that many people take for granted. It's difficult to imagine a time in history when education was a privilege, not a right, a time when only the children of the wealthy received an education. But in the United States as recently as the mid-1800s, the idea of free, publicly funded education for all children was considered extremely radical. Due to the efforts of nineteenth-century reformers such as Horace Mann (1796-1859), the public school system became a reality. Although the American public school system is far from perfect, and undergoes nearly continuous reform, it remains one of the great democratic institutions of the nation. It holds the promise of equal educational opportunity for all children.

The colonial era

During the early years of the American colonial era, the opportunity for education depended primarily on a family's income level and place of residence. Colonial governments did not require any sort of education, and schools existed only in communities where the residents or the local church established them. Some communities valued education more highly than others, offering even poor children the opportunity for some learning.

A thorough education, however, was the privilege of upper-class children, primarily boys, who were sent to private schools in preparation for a university education. Children in private schools were likely to focus on studying the Bible, Latin, English, and Greek. Although some schools only allowed boys to attend, others allowed girls as well. In some communities, boys attended school during the winter, leaving them free to work on family farms during the summer; girls attended school during the summer, allowing them to focus on indoor chores during the winter months.

In many communities, young children whose families could afford to pay modest sums attended "dame schools," which were run by women in their homes. The students in dame schools memorized Bible passages and learned basic reading, writing, and math skills. In areas that were sparsely populated, including much of the South, families that could afford to educate their children hired tutors to come to their homes. Some sent their children to one-room schoolhouses, where students of all ages learned together. On occasion, privileged children were sent away from home to live at boarding schools and receive a broad education.

Religious groups were instrumental in creating schools in the American colonies. For some children, Sunday school was the only type of education they received. Religion was a prominent subject in the teaching program of nearly every school. Puritan (English Protestant) leaders in colonial America advocated literacy so that all children could read the Bible and keep the devil at bay. Education was highly valued by the Quakers, a Protestant sect that promoted equality and tolerance. The Dutch Reformed Church, along with the Dutch West India Company, opened schools in Dutch communities such as New Amsterdam, which was later renamed New York. Even among the very poor, many children learned to read, tutored by their parents at home, so that they could study the Bible.

WORDS TO KNOW

common school:

A public school, free and available to all children; term used during the nineteenth century.

dame school:

Schools conducted by women in their homes during the colonial era; also known as "petty schools."

integration:

The mixing together of racial or ethnic groups that had formerly been separated.

parochial school:

A privately funded religious school.

private school:

A school controlled by private agencies and funded through private means, including student tuition and donations, rather than by the government.

public school:

A school supported by taxes that is free and available to all students and run by an elected school board.

secondary school:

A school attended between elementary and college.

secular:

Not religious.

segregation:

The separation of groups based on racial or cultural differences.

Educational opportunities for African American and Native American children were extremely limited. Most schools did not allow white children to be taught together with American Indian and black children. In some communities, however, Quakers and other groups established schools open to all children, or schools specifically for nonwhite pupils. Many educators who sought to teach Native American and African American children did so because they wanted to convert them to Christianity.

In 1642 Massachusetts passed the first law requiring schooling for every child. The law dictated that every town establish a school. The type of school depended on the town's population and would be funded by the families in that community. In many towns, the citizens believed it was not the government's place to make such laws, and they opted to pay a fine rather than establish a school. The residents of the town of Dedham, Massachusetts, however, took their duty seriously. They set up a school in 1645 that was available for free to all children, making it one of the first public schools in the nation. The following year, in 1646, lawmakers in Virginia voted to set aside public money to establish schools. Such schools, however, were only available to white children.

Young students in the colonial years had minimal school supplies. They were often given hornbooks, which were paddle-shaped pieces of wood with a piece of paper attached. Printed on the paper was usually the alphabet and a religious verse, such as the Lord's Prayer. The paper was covered by a plastic-like transparent sheet made from an animal's horn. Students also learned with the aid of primers, or introductory reading books.

From the late 1600s through the 1700s, many colonial schoolchildren used The New England Primer in addition to the Bible. The primer contained lessons on spelling, reading, and religious verses. Students learned primarily by rote, memorizing the verses in their primer and reciting them back for the teacher. The teacher maintained strict discipline in the classroom, using physical punishments, like a rap on the wrist with a ruler, to keep students in line.

A new nation

As the borders of America expanded throughout the 1700s, the needs of its citizens also grew. More and more people felt that a child's education should go beyond religious instruction, reading, and writing. They thought school should include science, mathematics, and other practical subjects. Some citizens went so far as to suggest that Bible study and secular, or non-religious, education should be completely separate. They believed that churches' roles in education should be limited to Sunday school.

During the 1700s, a number of important universities and colleges were founded, including Yale, Princeton, and Columbia. American scholar and statesman Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was instrumental in forming the University of Pennsylvania, which became the first American university that was established without a church affiliation and for the express purpose of secular higher education.

Many colonial communities also began to resist British influence on their schools, wishing to forge a unique American identity. Renowned man of letters Noah Webster (1758-1843) played a significant role in that arena, publishing a textbook in 1783 known as The Blue-back Speller. This book, widely used and hugely influential for more than a century, helped establish American English as distinct from British English. The Speller outlined different spellings and pronunciations for English words. For example, it suggested that "theatre" should be spelled "theater" and "plough" should be spelled "plow." Many years later, Webster published his American Dictionary of the English Language. A groundbreaking work, it served as the model for American dictionaries for many generations.

In the aftermath of the American Revolution (1775-83), leaders of the newly established United States promoted the idea of broad education for the nation's citizens, or at least for the white males. During this era, education for African Americans was regarded as unnecessary and, where slaves were concerned, dangerous. Most slave owners believed an education would only make slaves more inclined to rebel or escape. Thus, teaching slaves to read and write was outlawed in many southern states. Many felt the same way about educating girls, though some disagreed, noting that teaching girls was critical in building a strong democracy. Most girls would grow up to be mothers, and mothers were regarded as a great moral and intellectual influence on their children. If mothers were educated and enlightened, they would likely raise educated and democratically inclined children. This would help to strengthen the principles of the new republic.

Using the same argument, America's founding fathers, particularly President Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826; served 1801-09), contended that publicly funded education was a critical part of building and sustaining a democracy. Jefferson pointed out that it was a government's obligation, and in the government's best interest, to produce future generations of educated, enlightened potential leaders and voters. If the people could not read and write, then they could not vote. As a result, the democracy would collapse. Jefferson also explained that a public school system in which local communities maintained control was an excellent way for citizens to practice self-rule.

In 1778 Jefferson proposed to the Virginia Assembly a program offering three years of public school to all children (with the exception of black children). The outstanding male students would then have the opportunity to continue their schooling, eventually earning scholarships to universities. Citizens strongly resisted the idea of publicly funded education, objecting to the increased government involvement and the higher taxes necessary to pay for public schooling. Jefferson's proposal was rejected by the assembly. Jefferson submitted his proposal two more times during the next few decades and each time it failed to pass. Although his efforts did lead to the creation of the University of Virginia and laid the groundwork for future public school systems, Jefferson died several years before public education became a reality.

Growing pains in the early 1800s

The transition to independent nationhood and a new century did not immediately result in changes to the existing methods of educating children. Sophisticated schooling continued to be available only to children of the wealthy at private academies. In some communities, churches sponsored schools, paying part of students' tuition. Charity schools were funded by private donations, offering inexpensive or free education to lower-income families. Conditions in schools other than private academies were usually poor. Class sizes were very large and included students of all ages. Schools struggled to heat the building in winter and to keep the facilities clean. As in earlier generations, Sunday school was the only source of learning for many children. For others, education came in the form of an apprenticeship, a period of learning a particular trade, such as carpentry, from a master of that trade.

During the early decades of the 1800s, dramatic change was brewing in the United States due to the Industrial Revolution, which had started in England in the mid-1700s and had begun trickling into the United States by the late 1700s. The Industrial Revolution was characterized by numerous inventions and innovations that transformed American society from a loosely connected group of agrarian, or farming, states to an economically powerful nation based in urban manufacturing. Abundant factory jobs drew people to cities in the American Northeast, many from nearby family farms and others from European countries. As the cities grew, so did social ills such as poverty, crime, overcrowding, and disease. Searching for solutions to these problems, more and more citizens began calling for a public school system.

Among the most determined supporters of public schools were those most likely to benefit from them: members of the working class. In the absence of free education, the working classes saw a future where they were unable to improve their lives, stuck in low-income jobs and tenement housing while the wealthy few became richer and more powerful. As stated by Leonard Everett Fisher in his The Schools, "The result would be a virtual economic slavery that would undermine the course of political freedom envisioned by the Founding Fathers and in the end destroy the very meaning of a free America." For this reason, publicly funded education became one of the major issues of the early labor unions. Workers understood that a just society requires all children to be educated, not just those of the wealthy. As quoted on the Digital History Web site, a union organization known as the Philadelphia Workingmen's Committee declared in an 1830 document: "The original element of a despotism [a government possessing absolute power] is a monopoly of talent, which consigns [relegates] the multitude to comparative ignorance, and secures the balance of knowledge on the side of the rich and the rulers."

Working people understood that even free schools might not be accessible to the poorest working families, who needed their children's wages in order to survive. As a solution, some proposed manual labor schools that would combine wage-earning with study, allowing even children from desperately poor families to be educated. For families with children too young to work, a free school system would relieve them of the need to pay someone to care for their children while the parents worked.

Workers, and other citizens as well, argued that public education was an essential tool for competing in an increasingly industrialized world. A sophisticated and broad-based school system would produce a more highly skilled workforce. Better schooling would also lead to more inventions and innovations, critical to the continued growth of American manufacturing.

In addition to those in the working class, a number of middle-class citizens also supported the notion of public education. Some advocated universal schooling, or free education for all children, out of a moral obligation to improve others' lives. Many considered it a necessity for imposing control on a rapidly changing nation. With the explosive population growth in cities, ever-increasing numbers of young people spent their days wandering the streets, looking for ways to fill their time. Public schools would get children off the streets, instilling obedience and discipline. In addition, schools were seen as a valuable tool for deali0ng with the numerous immigrants moving to

Massachusetts: Educational Pioneer

Massachusetts played a critical role in early American history and in many respects led the way in the development of a public school system.

During the early colonial era, Massachusetts was the center of cultural and intellectual activity in the New World. The city of Boston was home to the nation's first secondary school, a private academy known as Boston Latin, which was established by Puritans in 1635. The following year, Harvard College was founded, the first institute of higher education in the colonies. The first class consisted of nine students. In its earliest years, Harvard's mission was to educate graduates of Boston Latin for the ministry. In 1639 the Mather School was founded in Dorchester, becoming the first free American school. In 1642 Massachusetts passed the first law in the colonies mandating that all children be educated. The government gave no indication of how such a task would be accomplished. It only indicated that it was the duty of each town to establish some type of school to be paid for by the families in that community.

Just as it had been during the colonial era, Massachusetts was an education pioneer of the nineteenth century. In 1821 the city of Boston opened the English Classical School (later known as the English School), the nation's first public high school. Unlike the public schools of the modern era, the English School charged tuition. What made it different from the private academies of that era was that some of its funding came from the government. A few years later, in 1827, Massachusetts passed a law stating that all towns with five hundred or more families had to establish at least two high schools, one for girls and one for boys. In 1837 Mary Lyon (1797-1849) founded Mount Holyoke Seminary, which was not actually a seminary but in fact the first non-religious institute of higher learning created just for women. Forty years later, Helen Magill White (1853-1944), having studied at Boston University, became the first woman in American history to earn a Ph.D.

Much of Massachusetts' prominence as a leader in school reform is due to Horace Mann, the champion of the common, or public, school in the mid-1800s. Mann was a Massachusetts state legislator before becoming the secretary of the state's first board of education in 1837. As part of his campaign to establish quality education for all children, Mann played a key role in the founding of the nation's first teacher training institute, which opened in Lexington in 1839. More than a decade later, in 1852, thanks to Mann's tireless lobbying, Massachusetts became the first state to require every child to get an education. In 1855, the state again became a leader for the nation as the first state to admit all students to public schools, regardless of religion, race, or ethnicity.

American cities. Enrollment in public school would help immigrants assimilate, or blend into American culture, by teaching them American values and practices.

Some Americans, particularly business owners and other elite members of the upper classes, strongly opposed the idea of a public school system. One reason for this opposition was fear that they would bear an undue burden in the tax-based funding of schools. In addition, they worried that educating the working classes would, in the future, deprive owners of their needed workers. They felt that once all citizens had the opportunity of education, few would choose to perform manual labor. If large numbers from the working classes could rise to the middle class, the social structure on which the wealthy elites had built their fortunes would collapse. Many religious leaders also objected to the establishment of a public school system. They were concerned that such schools would not teach religious doctrine and would reduce the importance of religion in citizens' lives.

Horace Mann and the common-school era

Beginning in the late 1830s, Massachusetts reformer Horace Mann led the charge for the nation's first statewide public-school system. As a member of the Massachusetts state legislature, Mann fought for the separation of church and state. He also worked to make many changes to his state's criminal justice system. He fought for the separation of the mentally ill from general prison populations, abolished the practice of public hangings, and established more appropriate punishments for petty crimes, many of which had formerly been punished by hanging. Mann also addressed the issue of public education, embarking on a lifelong quest to establish free, mandatory schooling for American children. He convinced the Massachusetts legislature to establish a board of education for the purpose of building a statewide school system, the nation's first. In 1837 Mann became the first secretary of Massachusetts' newly formed board of education.

As the head of the board of education, Mann traveled throughout Massachusetts, inspecting schools and persuading the citizens to support public education. Over the course of six years, Mann inspected hundreds of schools. However, his findings troubled him. Many of the schools were in terrible condition, with inadequate lighting and heating, structural problems, and minimal textbooks and other supplies for the students. During his travels, Mann held town meetings to discuss the terrible state of the existing schools and to propose the establishment of a statewide network of free public schools, which he referred to as common schools.

Mann's vision for common schools involved high-quality education with professionally trained teachers. School would be mandatory and free for all children, funded completely by tax dollars. The state board of education would impose standards that all schools in the state would follow, including the use of standardized textbooks. Mann went so far as to outline details of school life such as the use of bells and blackboards, the practice of dividing children by age and ability, and the tradition of midmorning recess for younger students.

Mann encountered strong opposition wherever he went. People resented the idea of the government getting involved in local matters, and they objected intensely to paying higher taxes. Particularly offensive was the notion that even the people who did not have children would have to pay taxes to educate the children of others. Factory owners also protested the loss of child workers, the cheapest segment of their workforce. Parents worried about meeting expenses without their older children's income. Mann ultimately persuaded people that quality education was necessary not only for the welfare of the children but for the survival of democracy in the United States.

Having won the support of the people, Mann went on to victory in the legislature, which dedicated a large sum of money to building a statewide school system. By the early 1850s, the Massachusetts legislature passed a law requiring all children to attend school and also mandated that the school year be at least six months long, the first such laws in the nation. A significant part of Mann's proposal involved teacher training. He obtained funding from the Massachusetts legislature to create the country's first teacher training college, built in Lexington in 1839. Mann's influence extended far beyond Massachusetts. His reports on school reform were widely read in the United States and in other nations as well. He traveled throughout the Northeast to lobby for common schools in those states. His efforts led directly to statewide school systems throughout the region, and his tireless efforts laid the groundwork for the entire nation's public school systems.

Discrimination in common schools

Although common schools were to provide a quality education to all children, the reality was that many children were excluded. In the northeastern United States, the number of European immigrants continued to grow. Many from Ireland were Catholic, and they encountered resentment and discrimination from the largely Protestant populations of American cities. Such discrimination was readily apparent in schools and became a particular source of tension in the New York City schools. Education reformers spoke of common schools as nonsectarian, or not favoring one religion or denomination over another. But in practice, New York public schools used the Protestant version of the Bible and Protestant hymn books. In addition, many textbooks contained anti-Irish and anti-Catholic references. In School: The Story of American Public Education, historian Carl Kaestle recalled one such offensive reference. It read: "The Irish immigration has emptied out the common sewers of Ireland into our waters." Many teachers encouraged anti-Catholic stereotypes, suggesting that Catholicism was in opposition to democratic values.

In response to such teachings, many Catholic parents in New York prevented their children from attending public schools. Catholic religious and community leaders voiced objections to paying taxes for schools where their children faced discrimination. They demanded that the government designate tax dollars for the construction of Catholic schools. Opponents feared that this demand would soon be echoed by Jewish leaders and by other Christian denominations, resulting in a greatly diminished school fund.

Thus began a debate in New York City about government funding of religious schools that has continued throughout the nation into the twenty-first century. Rather than award each religion its own share of public funding, New York officials made an effort to eliminate anti-Catholic bias in public schools. As a result, more Catholics did enroll in public schools. At the same time, however, the Catholic Church began establishing an extensive system of parochial schools, which are privately funded religious schools. An 1841 New York law officially prohibited all religious teaching in public schools, but the law was widely ignored in classrooms.

In addition to discrimination against Irish immigrants, many non-English-speaking immigrants were treated unfairly or excluded from public schools. Girls also faced discrimination. Many people considered it unnecessary to educate girls. The children most routinely and systematically denied educational opportunities, however, were African Americans. In the South, most black children were slaves, and very few were allowed to learn basic skills like reading and writing. Attending school was not an option. In the free states, black children were either prevented from attending public schools or, in cities like Boston and New York, were sent to all-black schools that were highly inferior to the white schools.

Some black citizens felt that their best option was to improve the quality of black schools. However, most believed that segregation (the separation of the races) was wrong, and that they had to fight for their children to be allowed to enroll in the all-white public schools. In the mid-1840s, one African American parent began a fight with the Boston school district. He wanted his daughter to be able to attend an all-white school near their home rather than travel a great distance to an all-black school. Benjamin Roberts sued the City of Boston and lost, then pleaded his case to the Massachusetts legislature. In 1855 Massachusetts became the first state in the nation to pass a law prohibiting segregation in schools.

Reconstruction and westward expansion

Problems faced by the growing network of public schools soon faded into the background as the nation split in two over the issues of slavery and states' rights. Tensions between the North and South escalated throughout the mid-1800s, culminating in the American Civil War (1861-65). After the war, the federal government began a program known as Reconstruction, designed to rebuild the South and unify the war-torn nation. With the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1865, slavery was abolished throughout the United States. Constitutional amendments and civil rights acts followed which further expanded the legal rights of African Americans. They were granted citizenship, equal protection under the law, and the right to vote, among other rights.

For a brief period, until the Reconstruction Era (1865-77) ended, African Americans were able to exercise some rights in American society. Finally being able to receive an education was among their most treasured goals. For most southern blacks, the post- Civil War period was their first opportunity to attend any kind of school. The Freedman's Bureau, an agency designed to help former slaves find jobs and homes after emancipation, or freedom from slavery, built numerous schools for African American children during Reconstruction. Once Reconstruction had ended, and the federal government no longer had any control in the South, most southern states dramatically cut their education budgets, with black schools hit the hardest. For the next several generations, southern schools were the poorest in the nation, with black schools being deprived the most.

Elsewhere in the nation, public schools experienced tremendous growth in the last decades of the 1800s. While many citizens continued to oppose the practice of taxing all citizens' property to pay for some citizens' children to go to school, more and more cities successfully established public school systems. For many newly established states in the West, education was seen as a critical way to build communities and attract settlers. Government officials saw public schools as an effective way to tame the Wild West, teaching pioneer children proper American values and behavior.

A series of books known as the McGuffey readers played a significant role in that campaign. Used by millions of schoolchildren during the 1800s, the McGuffey readers served as standardized textbooks teaching children how to read, write, and spell. Those textbooks intended for older students also contained instruction in history, science, and philosophy. Equally important to parents and teachers, the McGuffey readers, named for their authors, William Holmes McGuffey (1800-1873) and his brother Alexander (1816-1896), taught religious, patriotic, and moral values. The McGuffey readers, through their teachings about the importance of hard work and the divine blessings of the United States, are credited with spreading the American value system to the entire nation.

To meet the rapidly growing demand, schools in the western states were established quickly, in whatever space was available. Numerous women, trained as teachers in the Northeast, made the long journey west to teach pioneer children. Thanks to the efforts of women's rights advocate Catharine Beecher (1800-1878), teaching had become a respected and popular profession for women. As such, many women felt it was their duty to travel far from home to bring enlightenment to the frontier. The conditions of most of the pioneer schools were shocking to the newly arrived teachers, with some schools little more

Catharine Beecher

Catharine Beecher, a member of a prominent family in nineteenth-century New England, devoted her life to expanding women's rights. She particularly promoted the right of girls to receive a broad education and the right of women to deliver that education as teachers. Beecher's outlook was not radical. She advocated an education for women so that they could excel in their traditional role as wives and mothers, not so they could break free of the barriers that society placed on them. She believed women would be excellent teachers because of their nurturing skills and their ability to serve as moral guides.

Beecher was born in New York in 1800, the eldest of nine children born to Lyman and Roxana Beecher. Lyman Beecher was a well-known and influential minister. Catharine's sister Harriet, writing as Harriet Beecher Stowe, later became famous as the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, a novel depicting the horrors and humiliation of slavery. The Beecher family moved to Litchfield, Connecticut, in 1809. Catharine Beecher entered a private school for girls, learning about manners and morals as well as painting and music. At the age of sixteen, Beecher had to leave the school when her mother died. She spent the next few years helping to care for her siblings and run the family home.

At the age of eighteen Beecher took a job as a teacher at a private girls' school in New London, Connecticut. In 1824 she opened her own school in Hartford called the Hartford Female Seminary. She rapidly gained a reputation for providing young women with a quality education, a rare experience in that era. Her students studied the usual female topics of morals and religion, but Beecher also featured courses in algebra, chemistry, physics, history, Latin, and other subjects. When her father moved to Cincinnati in 1832, Beecher went with him, opening another school there, the Western Female Institute.

Around that time Beecher had begun a quest to educate women for the teaching profession. She believed it was an appropriate job for respectable women. She also felt women could play an important role in the nation's growth by educating children in the expanding western territories. At her Western Female Institute, Beecher trained women to become teachers, hoping to inspire the founding of numerous teacher training schools.

Beecher's mission to civilize the Wild West and protect the nation from ignorance began to gain widespread support. Her Central Committee for Promoting National Education trained hundreds of women as teachers and sent them west to educate pioneer children. Beecher became a well-known figure, and her fame increased dramatically with the 1841 publication of her book A Treatise on Domestic Economy for the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School. In this work, Beecher gave practical advice on running a household while also praising the importance of so-called women's work. Her book was extremely popular and only served to increase her influence on American society. Many historians credit Beecher with opening the profession of teaching to women. During her lifetime she brought about a shift in the nation's perceptions, making teaching a respectable option for women.

than shacks hastily built on the prairie. Western society was rougher and less civilized than that of the Northeast, and many of the adults were barely able to read and write. The emergence of women teachers during that era, in the West and elsewhere, changed the tone in American classrooms. As historian Kathryn Kish Sklar stated in School, women teachers "created a new ethic in schools ... in which the teacher cared for the students."

Reforms of the Progressive Era

The Progressive Era, which roughly covers the first three decades of the 1900s, was a period of widespread social activism. The United States had been growing at a rapid rate, both in terms of population increases due to massive numbers of immigrants and in terms of industrial expansion. Reformers, also known as progressives, tackled numerous aspects of society, hoping to improve living and working conditions for all Americans. Some addressed women's rights, others fought against government corruption. Still others sought to improve working conditions in plants and factories. Many progressives devoted their time to helping the poor, while others dedicated themselves to outlawing alcohol. A significant number of reformers addressed the educational system. They used varying approaches and applied different methods, but all sought alternatives to traditional schooling.

One of the goals of reformers was to make sure every child could go to school. A significant number of children in the early twentieth century went to the factory to work each day rather than going to school. Progressives sought to end the practice of child labor and make attendance at school mandatory. Reformers also placed high importance on dealing with the massive influx of immigrants. In the forty years between 1890 and 1930, more than twenty million immigrants from dozens of different countries came to the United States. Most were poor and many could not speak English. The public school system faced a tremendous challenge in trying to educate such a diverse population. In spite of such challenges, the goal for the American school system was a lofty one. Schools were seen as the most effective way to help immigrant children assimilate, learning not just the English language but the American way of life.

During the 1870s, American educator Francis W. Parker (1837-1902), having spent three years in Europe studying educational theory, introduced a radical new method of teaching to the school system in Quincy, Illinois. Most classrooms at that time were run in a strict, authoritarian fashion, with students learning all subjects by memorizing passages of books and reciting them back. Parker brought an alternative approach that led directly to the progressive education movement of the early 1900s and permanently altered the state of American education. Basing his theories on those he learned in Europe, Parker introduced a style of teaching that relied less on discipline and more on creativity, free expression, and learning through experience.

Known as the Quincy Movement, these methods promoted child-centered education, theorizing that children would learn better if lessons incorporated their experience and interests. Parker's approach met with immediate success. The students thrived and Parker was asked to take the Quincy Movement to the public schools of Boston. Parker also played a significant role in training teachers in his methods. He opened a teacher training school in Chicago that, in 1901, became the School of Education at the University of Chicago.

While Parker laid the foundation for progressive education, renowned educator John Dewey (1859-1952) expanded on Parker's theories and spread them throughout the country. Dewey established the Laboratory School at the University of Chicago in 1896 as a way to implement his theories, many of which echoed those of Parker. Dewey emphasized the notion of school as a means to teach children to be good democratic citizens. He noted that lessons should be tailored to best meet the needs and appeal to the curiosity and interests of each individual. Promoting a hands-on, interactive approach over conventional teaching methods, Dewey believed that going to school should involve far more than sitting at a desk and reciting memorized lessons.

In addition to teaching children the educational basics, Dewey advocated physical exercise and field trips outside the classroom. Many people misinterpreted Dewey's program, believing that he was suggesting a lax, undisciplined environment. But while Dewey rejected the strict control and physical punishments of earlier generations of teachers, he did not support the idea of an uncontrolled classroom. Rather, he believed teachers should closely supervise students, giving them guidance and encouragement.

Another facet of Progressive Era education reforms had less to do with child-centered teaching and more to do with school administration. This group of reformers sought to make school systems more efficient. They centralized school administration and brought in experts to run schools. A new generation of administrators had been trained to take a scientific approach to managing schools. A commonly held belief among such administrators was that children should be evaluated early on and placed on an educational path appropriate to their intellectual abilities. Those children who performed well in school early on were placed on a scholarly track, headed for high school and college. Those who performed poorly in academics were given what was called vocational education. Such students were placed on an industrial track, taking courses that would teach them a trade or vocation.

To help them determine which track each student should take, administrators turned to a new type of analysis known as "intelligence quotient (IQ)" tests. These tests were developed during World War I (1914-18) to determine which soldiers qualified as officers. After the war, psychologists specializing in education convinced school administrators that the IQ tests would effectively determine the path each child should take in school. Rather than measuring what the children had learned, experts claimed IQ tests measured a child's natural intelligence. These tests were promoted as the most accurate, efficient, scientific way to determine children's needs and set their course for the future.

Critics warned against relying on IQ tests. They suggested that such tests were slanted in favor of children who had received more opportunities in life. For example, a child whose parents spoke English, were well educated, and had been actively involved in their children's education would score far better than a child whose parents did not speak English and had to work long hours at their jobs. For such reasons, children from low-income minority families generally scored lower on IQ tests. A low IQ score could restrict a child's opportunities for the rest of his or her life. Many educators believed that such tests were another way for society to discriminate against ethnic and racial minorities.

Protests about intelligence testing, however, were largely ignored. Soon, the tests became a regular part of the American education system. IQ tests served as the model for another widely administered exam: the Scholastic Aptitude Test, or SAT. Later known as the Scholastic Assessment Test, the SAT was developed in the 1940s as a screening device for college admissions. The test is still in widespread use today.

Mid-century changes

During the middle of the twentieth century, American schools underwent dramatic changes, many of which stemmed from new laws offering unprecedented educational opportunities. One of the most significant of such laws was the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, better known as the GI Bill of Rights or, simply, the GI Bill. "GI," which means "government issue," is a term commonly used to refer to any member of the American armed forces. The GI Bill offered all military personnel who had served during World War II (1939-45) federal funds to pay for college tuition, books, and even some living expenses during college.

Numerous veterans took advantage of the GI Bill. Many came from poor families and would not have been able to receive a higher education otherwise. The nation saw these veterans succeed in college, graduate, and secure high-paying jobs. At that point, the notion of college as something reserved for the elite members of society changed. More and more people began to see a college education not only as an attainable goal, but as the necessary path to career success. The GI Bill was eventually expanded to cover all members of the military, whether or not they had served during wartime.

After World War II, the United States became deeply involved in the Cold War (1945-91) with the Soviet Union. It was a conflict marked not by physical battles but by intense political tension and a fierce nuclear arms race. Fear of nuclear warfare and domination by the Communist Soviet Union guided American culture and policy during this era. The education system did not escape this influence. Many people began to feel that U.S. schools needed to improve their academic program in order to compete with Soviet-educated children.

In addition, some educators and citizens had come to believe that progressive education had gone too far, and that American schools had strayed from an emphasis on core subjects. Such critics felt that students needed to spend more time studying math and science and developing critical thinking skills and less time on art, home economics, and hygiene. A 1958 law designated $100 million of federal funds to be spent to improve schools, with a focus on developing more advanced math and science classes to better prepare students for global competition.

Over the course of a few decades, high school attendance had increased dramatically. By mid-century, vast numbers of American students were graduating from high school. According to the Digest of Education Statistics, 2004, only 6.4 percent of seventeen-year-olds in the 1899-1900 school year had graduated from high school. That number jumped to 59 percent by 1949-1950. The number would rise even higher, reaching 77.1 percent in 1968-1969.

But while many American children enjoyed expanded educational opportunities, others were being held back by systematic, institutional racism. In the southern states, segregation laws prevented African American children from attending school with white children. Black students were forced to attend all-black schools, most of which were far inferior to white schools in terms of the conditions of the facilities, the available supplies, and the courses offered. With the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas in 1954, school segregation was declared illegal. Although the Brown decision marked a giant step forward, the battle for truly equal opportunity continued for many decades and had yet to be won at the start of the twenty-first century.

Much of the progress made toward the goal of educational opportunity during the 1960s and beyond was the result of laws passed during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973; served 1963-69). Becoming president following the assassination of John F. Kennedy (1917-1963; served 1961-63), Johnson brought about the passage of a wide-ranging civil rights law initiated by Kennedy. Called the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it allowed for legal fights to be waged against schools that failed to integrate. It also denied federal funds to any institution that practiced racial discrimination. This law forced reluctant school administrators to end discriminatory practices and to offer educational opportunity to all Americans.

Johnson also began a far-reaching program to aid the poor, known as the War on Poverty. He worked to gain passage of several economic bills that had a major impact on education. The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 created several programs to bring educational opportunities to the disadvantaged. One of the best known and most successful of these programs was Head Start, a federally funded program to offer poor children the advantage of a preschool education. Studies showed that underprivileged children who did not attend preschool before kindergarten lagged behind their more advantaged classmates. Such students did not catch up even with tutoring and other assistance. Experts believed that early intellectual stimulation-such as being read to, playing games, singing songs, and taking field trips-was a critical factor in a child's development. The Head Start program was hugely successful from the beginning and continues to enroll millions of children.

Two 1965 laws further aided the disadvantaged in the quest for an education. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act set aside federal funds for school districts in poverty-stricken areas. The Higher Education Act created a program that offered grants and low-interest loans to help low-income students pay for college tuition. The law also took several steps to improve the quality of teaching, including establishing the National Teacher Corps to train educators working in low-income districts. The Higher Education Act made it possible for millions of low-income young people to attend college. It also benefited colleges by increasing enrollment. In addition, any school that accepted students who had received federal grants or loans was forced to comply with federal anti-discrimination laws. Eager for a larger student body, many colleges accepted federal loan recipients and ended admission policies that discriminated against racial and ethnic minorities and women.

Expanding students' rights

The gains made for African Americans during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s inspired other minority groups to organize and protest unfair treatment in areas like the workplace and the schools. Hispanic American students, particularly newcomers to the country who spoke primarily Spanish, experienced widespread discrimination. In many schools, Hispanic students were forbidden to speak Spanish. Even in communities where the vast majority of students were Hispanic, the curriculum offered no information about Hispanic culture and history. Many teachers in such schools sent clear messages to the Hispanic students that little was expected of them academically and that they should give up any hope of going to college.

During the late 1960s, Hispanic American students began to rebel, fed up with being discriminated against by white teachers and white school boards. In numerous schools, the Hispanic students presented a list of demands, including the hiring of some Hispanic teachers, the addition of courses and textbooks that included Hispanic history, and an overall improvement in the selection of courses and the treatment of Hispanic students. In many districts, Hispanic students went on strike, refusing to go to school and conducting protest marches. Such activism helped reshape a number of school districts, opening up opportunities for Hispanic students.

One of the more controversial changes from that period arose from the Bilingual Education Act, part of President Johnson's War on Poverty. Bilingual education meant that some schools would offer courses taught in a language other than English, gradually teaching enough English so that students could take all their classes in that language. The program has been controversial since its beginning, with some critics suggesting that it hurts non-English-speaking students by allowing them to spend years in American public schools without learning English. Advocates of the program say it is invaluable for new immigrants to be able to learn in their native language. They contend that it helps them academically and it shows respect for their culture and ethnicity.

Title IX

From the beginning of the nation's history, girls had been discriminated against in schools. As late as the 1970s, institutional discrimination against girls was extremely common and extended from elementary school through the university level and beyond. Textbooks for young children routinely showed starkly different images of boys and girls, as pointed out by Leslie Wolfe in School: "Boys were strong, boys were masters, boys were active. Girls were sweet, girls were passive, girls watched, girls helped." In the older grades, girls were discouraged from pursuing advanced classes in math or science and from participating in sports. Girls' athletics programs at junior high and high schools were minimal or nonexistent. Colleges and professional schools, such as law or medical school, could legally reject applicants based on gender. According to School, in 1970 less than 1 percent of medical and law degrees were awarded to women, and only 1 percent of high school athletes were girls.

In 1972 the U.S. Congress passed a law that made such discrimination illegal. In that year, a series of amendments to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 included one known as Title IX. With the passage of Title IX, schools at all levels that received funding from the federal government were forbidden from excluding or otherwise discriminating against any student based on his or her sex. Athletic programs at all schools, including colleges and universities, must provide equal opportunities to female athletes and equal access to sports facilities. Colleges and professional schools receiving federal funding cannot bar students because of gender, a policy that protects men as well as women. Textbooks that used gender stereotypes or showed gender bias had to be removed from classrooms.

It has taken numerous lawsuits and many years to achieve enforcement of Title IX, and the battle continues today. But such efforts have yielded dramatic changes in educational opportunities for girls. According to the Title IX Web site, the number of girls participating in high school athletics jumped from just under 300,000 in 1971 to 1972 to nearly three million in 2000 to 2001. The gains in college athletics have been more modest but are still significant. By the end of the twentieth century the number of women earning undergraduate degrees had risen to become roughly equal to that of men. Women still lagged behind men in earning professional degrees, though far more women received such degrees at the century's end than they had thirty years earlier.

Disabled students

Students with disabilities also derived enormous benefit from civil rights legislation in the 1970s. A 1975 law known as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, which has since been renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), ordered schools to provide opportunities to mentally and physically disabled students. Prior to the passage of that law, most disabled students either received no education or were sent to residential facilities, many of which were in poor condition. The 1975 law gave disabled children the right to attend public schools and receive special education, a process known as "main-streaming." The government began providing schools with funding to pay for this program, which included transportation to and from school and structural changes to make schools accessible to those with physical disabilities.

The practice of mainstreaming has been controversial. Critics object to the inclusion of severely disabled students, citing high costs and the inability of teachers to give sufficient attention to nondisabled students. Overall, however, the 1975 law formed the basis for significant improvements in the treatment of the disabled in the United States.

A late-century wave of reform

When the U.S. economy took a downward turn during the 1970s, many government officials and business leaders blamed the nation's schools. They believed that standards were too low and that too many students graduated from high school ill-equipped to contribute to the nation's economic growth. In 1983 a panel of experts convened by the U.S. Department of Education delivered a report called "A Nation at Risk." The report, with its strongly worded condemnation of the American public school system, came as a shock to many people. It stated that the educational system was in the midst of a crisis and that the welfare of the nation would be in jeopardy if dramatic reforms were not implemented.

According to the report: "It is important, of course, to recognize that the average citizen today is better educated and more knowledgeable than the average citizen of a generation ago-more literate, and exposed to more mathematics, literature, and science. The positive impact of this fact on the well-being of our country and the lives of our people cannot be overstated. Nevertheless, the average graduate of our schools and colleges today is not as well-educated as the average graduate of 25 or 35 years ago, when a much smaller proportion of our population completed high school and college. The negative impact of this fact likewise cannot be overstated." The report writers added that "education should be at the top of the Nation's agenda."

Many educational experts, while acknowledging that public schools needed some reform, claimed that "A Nation at Risk" grossly overstated the problem. Such experts noted that, rather than experiencing a sharp decline, American schools had been steadily improving. Nonetheless, the report caught the attention of the American public and had the vigorous support of President Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; served 1981-89). A wave of new school reforms began.

Reformers suggested such changes as lengthening the school day and the school year, raising the standards that students had to meet in order to graduate, assigning more homework, and improving and increasing standardized tests. Ten years after these reforms had been implemented, educators found that academic achievement had improved only minimally. Some said the reforms were ineffective, while others suggested that the reforms were working but other factors combined to bring down the overall level of achievement. Such factors included a rise in the number of poor students during that same ten-year period and the underfunding and overcrowding of schools in poor, usually urban, districts.

School choice

During the 1980s, a new approach to fixing the problems of inner-city schools took shape. Many reformers believed that the principles behind a free-market economy could be applied to public school systems: consumers would have the ability to choose the school their children attended, and schools would have to compete with each other to win new students. Supporters of this practice, known as school choice, asserted that poorly performing schools would suffer a drop in enrollment, forcing them to either improve or shut down.

School choice, implemented in many school districts across the nation, has sparked heated debate. Supporters believe that competition is healthy for schools and will ultimately benefit all students. Critics state that school choice can be exercised primarily by white, middle-class families. Disadvantaged families are less able to take advantage of school choice. Therefore the poorest students stay at underperforming schools that have been abandoned by more privileged students. Drops in enrollment mean decreases in government funding. Thus, with a loss of funding, inner-city schools cannot afford to make the necessary improvements.

Some school-choice programs have resulted in noticeable improvements in educational quality. An experiment begun in East Harlem in 1974 resulted in numerous smaller, alternative high schools that achieved significant academic success. The more traditional schools in the district began to improve in order to compete, and the standards of the entire district were lifted. One reason for the success in East Harlem, however, was extra federal funding designed to encourage innovation. Where such funding was unavailable, school choice programs proved less successful. For example, in Minnesota, the first state to offer statewide school choice, the program resulted in little or no improvement in the quality of education and the performance of the students.

The most controversial aspect of school choice has been the movement to offer vouchers for use at private schools. The government gives a fixed dollar amount to a public school for each student attending that school in a given academic year. Many parents have argued that they should be able to use that money to pay for private-school tuition. In 1990, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, became the first city to offer school vouchers. Those who wished to participate in the program received funds that could be applied to the tuition of a nonreligious private school. Opponents expressed concern that a voucher program would drain much-needed funds from public schools, but advocates argued that such a program would, like other school choice programs, force public schools to improve in order to remain competitive. Another criticism of voucher programs concerns the difficulty in determining the quality of education received at private schools, which are not subject to the same oversight as public schools.

In some areas of the country, voucher proponents have pushed to include private religious schools in voucher programs. This proposal has aroused vigorous opposition, with critics asserting that it amounts to the government and taxpayers financially supporting religious institutions, which is a violation of the U.S. Constitution's requirement to keep church and state separate. In spite of strong opposition, some school districts, notably in Cleveland, Ohio, and in Milwaukee, have gone forward with voucher programs for all types of private schools.

Charter schools

Another controversial school reform that arose during the 1990s was the establishment of a new type of public school known as the charter school. Charter schools are free and open to all students. They receive per-pupil government funding comparable to a conventional public school. However, charter schools are run not by school boards but by groups of parents or teachers, by organizations, or, in some cases, by private companies. Any group that secures the approval of local or state school officials can open a charter school. That school must then demonstrate within a certain period of time that it has met its goals for academic achievement.

Often, charter schools focus on a particular program or a specific group of students. For example, some charter schools focus on the performing arts, science, or mathematics. Others serve at-risk students who have not functioned well in regular public schools. The first charter school was opened in Minnesota in 1991. In 1997 the U.S. Congress allocated $80 million for the construction of new charter schools. Within seven years, there were more than 3,000 charter schools throughout the nation.

The hope of charter-school supporters, as with other types of school-choice programs, is that offering more options to students will foster healthy competition and improve all public schools, charter and otherwise. Critics raise concerns about the level of quality at some charter schools, which are not subject to the same rigorous oversight as traditional public schools. In addition, as with aspects of school choice, many people fear that charter schools will drain much-needed funds from regular public schools, which still serve the vast majority of American students.

Corporations and schools

Beginning in the early 1990s, some troubled school districts have turned to outside help, hiring private companies to manage public schools. Most school districts are operated by school boards, which are composed of elected officials. In a few cases, corporations have taken over administrative duties, accepting as their fee the exact amount the school or district would receive from the government. Such companies assert that they can reduce expenses and streamline procedures so effectively that they can improve academic performance and upgrade school facilities while still making a profit. In 1992 the first of these companies, the Minnesota-based Education Alternatives Inc., or EAI, began operating an elementary school in Dade County, Florida. Soon after, EAI took over the administration of twelve public schools in Baltimore, Maryland, and then the entire district of Hartford, Connecticut.

EAI claimed that it saved money by eliminating waste and requiring contractors, from building maintenance companies to computer manufacturers, to compete for business. EAI also stated that it raised test scores and overall academic performance, though such claims were disputed by local school boards. Critics of EAI pointed out that the company had made cuts in special education and art and music programs. In School, Irene Dandridge, former president of the Baltimore Teachers Union, pointed out the basic problem with trying to run public schools for a profit: "There is just not enough money in public school education, particularly in urban centers, to have a profit and a good education, too." The school boards in Dade County, Baltimore, and Hartford all decided to terminate their relationship with EAI.

Aside from experiments with school management companies, many districts have initiated relationships with corporations as a way to boost school funding. As increasing emphasis is placed on standardized test scores, many schools have hired for-profit companies to assist in test preparation by tutoring students. A significant number of schools have accepted equipment from corporations in exchange for distributing certain materials to students. For example, a number of schools beginning in the early 1990s received free televisions, satellite dishes, and other media equipment from a company called Whittle Communications. In exchange, the schools had to broadcast twelve minutes per day of Channel One, a program consisting of ten minutes of news and two minutes of commercials. Numerous parents and educators objected to tax-supported public schools exposing students daily to commercials, many of which advertised products like gum, candy, and unhealthy snacks. Others suggested that such arrangements with corporations allow financially burdened school districts to acquire needed equipment that they otherwise could not afford.

Standardized testing

A fundamental part of the education reforms implemented in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries was a renewed emphasis on standardized testing as a way of measuring academic achievement. With standardized testing, all students in a given state, or, in some cases, the entire country, are given the exact same test, administered according to strict guidelines. Students had been taking standardized tests for many years, but such exams assumed a position of increasing importance during the 1990s.

In 2002 the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, promoted and signed into law by President George W. Bush (1946-; served 2001-), took standardized testing to a new level. Among other provisions, NCLB mandated that each state had to immediately develop grade-appropriate standards for math and reading, with science standards to be developed soon after. To measure the extent to which students meet expectations in reading, math, and science, standardized tests developed by each state must be given to students every year from third grade through eighth grade. The results of the tests are made public, allowing parents to judge the effectiveness of each school in meeting its goals. Schools that fail, over a period of years, to make progress toward the state standards, are in jeopardy of losing funding from the federal government.

From its inception, NCLB has been a controversial law. Supporters describe it as sweeping legislation that finally makes schools responsible for helping every student reach academic goals. They also assert that NCLB gives states and local school districts more freedom to determine how federal funding is spent and gives parents more choices about where to send their children. A growing opposition movement, however, criticizes the increased focus on standardized tests. Proponents assert that such exams are not an accurate reflection of students' academic and intellectual development.

For the affected students, critics note, preparation for the annual standardized tests consumes a significant part of each school year. This means that teachers spend a great deal of time readying students for taking a test rather than exploring the most innovative, effective ways to help each individual learn. Many reformers have also expressed concern that standardized tests reflect a social and cultural bias toward white, middle-class students. In addition, the fact that each state can devise its own standards has raised the question of whether some states might deliberately make standardized tests easier to avoid the risk of losing funding.

Educational experts often disagree on the best methods of reforming the nation's school system, though most do agree that the system is in need of reform. For all of its flaws, however, the American public school system performs an extraordinary function. At the start of the twenty-first century, nearly 90 percent of the nation's children attended public schools. One hundred years earlier, that figure was closer to 50 percent, and most children only stayed in school for an average of five years. And yet, at that time, the public school system was viewed as one of the nation's greatest treasures, offering every child the chance to achieve the American dream.

The present-day American public school system may have disappointed millions of underprivileged and at-risk children. However, it still holds the potential for being an instrument of universal equality and excellence.

For More Information

BOOKS

Fisher, Leonard Everett. The Schools. New York: Holiday House, 1983.

Mondale, Sarah, and Sarah B. Patton, eds. School: The Story of American Public Education. Boston: Beacon Press, 2001.

Unger, Harlow G. Encyclopedia of American Education, 3 vols. New York: Facts on File, 1996.

WEB SITES

"Guided Readings: The Struggle for Public Schools." Digital History. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?TitleID=23 (accessed on May 23, 2006).

"A Nation at Risk" (April 1983). U.S. Department of Education. http://www.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/risk.html (accessed on May 23, 2006).

National Center for Education Statistics. "High School Graduates Compared with Population 17 Years of Age, by Sex and Control of School: Selected Years, 1869-70 and 2004-05." Digest of Education Statistics, 2004. http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d04/tables/dt04_102.asp (accessed on May 23, 2006).

"Overview of No Child Left Behind." Pennsylvania Department of Education. http://www.pde.state.pa.us/nclb/cwp/view.asp?a=3&Q=77815&nclbNav=%7C5483%7C (accessed on May 23, 2006).

Title IX. http://www.titleix.info/index.jsp (accessed on May 23, 2006).

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4: the education reform movementthe public school system is a significant part of the american landscape

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an institution that many people take for granted. it's difficult to imagine a time in history when education was a privilege

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a time when only the children of the wealthy received an education.

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4: The Education Reform MovementThe public school system is a significant part of the American landscape, an institution that many people take for granted. It's difficult to imagine a time in history when education was a privilege, not a right, a time when only the children of the wealthy received an education.

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Prior to the First and Second Industrial Revolutions, education in the 13 colonies during the 17th and 18th centuries varied considerably depending on one's location, race, gender, and social class. Basic education in literacy and numeracy was widely available, especially to white males residing in the northern and middle colonies, and the literacy rate was relatively high among these people. Educational opportunities were much sparser in the rural South.

Education in the United States had long been a local affair, with schools governed by locally elected school boards. Public education was common in New England, although it was often class-based with the working class receiving few benefits. Instruction and curriculum were all locally determined, and teachers were expected to meet rigorous demands of strict moral behavior. Schools taught religious values and applied Calvinist philosophies of discipline, which included corporal punishment and public humiliation.

The public education system was less organized in the South. Public schools were rare, and most education took place in the home with the family acting as instructors. The wealthier planter families were able to bring in tutors for instruction in the Classics, but many yeoman farming families had little access to education outside of the family unit.

Education reform, championed by Horace Mann, helped to bring about state sponsored public education, including a statewide curriculum and a local property tax to finance public education. By the year 1870, all states had free elementary schools and the U.S. population boasted one of the highest literacy rates at the time. Private academies flourished in towns across the country, but rural areas (where most people lived) had few schools before the 1880s. By the close of the 1800s, public secondary schools began to outnumber private ones.

Horace Mann

The reform movement began in Massachusetts when Mann started the common school movement. Horace Mann (May 4, 1796 - August 2, 1859) was an American education reformer who served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1827-1833 and the Massachusetts Senate from 1834-1837. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1848 after serving as Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education since its creation. He is often called "the father of American public education."

Arguing that universal public education was the best way to turn the nation's unruly children into disciplined, judicious republican citizens, Mann won widespread approval from modernizers, especially in his Whig Party, for building public schools. Most states adopted one version or another of the system he established in Massachusetts, especially the program for "normal schools" to train professional teachers.

Common Schools

A "common school" was a public, often one-roomed school in the United States or Canada in the 1800s. The term was coined by Horace Mann and refers to the school's aim to serve individuals of all social classes and religions. Students often went to the common school from ages six to fourteen (predecessor of grades 1-8). The duration of the school year was often dictated by the agricultural needs of particular communities, with children on vacation from school when they needed to work on the family farm. Common schools were funded by local taxes, did not charge tuition, and were open to all white children. Each district was typically controlled by an elected local school board; a county school superintendent or regional director was usually elected to supervise day-to-day activities of several common school districts.

Mann's work revolutionized the approach of the common school system of Massachusetts, which in turn influenced the direction of other states. In 1838, he founded and edited The Common School Journal. In this journal, Mann targeted the problems of public schools. Mann hoped that by bringing children of all classes together, they could share a common learning experience. This would also give the less fortunate an opportunity to advance in society. Mann met with bitter opposition by some Boston schoolmasters who strongly disapproved of his innovative pedagogical ideas and by various religious sectarians who contended against the exclusion of all sectarian instruction from the schools.

Mann advocated a statewide curriculum and instituted school financing through local property taxes. Mann also fought protracted battles against the Calvinist influence on discipline, preferring positive reinforcement to physical punishment. Most children during that time learned to read, write, and spell from Noah Webster's Blue Backed Speller and later the McGuffey Readers. The readings inculcated moral values as well as literacy. Kindergartens and the gymnasium were introduced by German immigrants, while Yankee orators sponsored the Lyceum movement that provided popular education via lectures for hundreds of towns and small cities. Mann later advocated the Prussian model of schooling, which included the technique of age grading-students were assigned by age to different grades and progressed through them. Some students progressed with their grade and completed all courses the secondary school had to offer. These were "graduated," and were awarded a certificate of completion.

From 1750-1870, American Catholic parochial schools appeared as ad hoc efforts by parishes, and most Catholic children attended public schools. In addition to Catholics, German Lutherans, the Calvinist Dutch, and Orthodox Jews also began parochial schools. Starting from about 1876, 39 states (out of 50) passed a constitutional amendment to their state constitutions called the "Blaine Amendments" forbidding tax money to be used to fund parochial schools. In 2002, the United States Supreme Court upheld an Ohio law allowing aid under specific circumstances.

The Morrill Land-Grant Acts are United States statutes signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on July 2, 1862 that allowed for the creation of land-grant colleges. For 20 years prior to the first introduction of the bill in 1857, there was a political movement calling for the creation of agriculture colleges. The movement was led by Professor Jonathan Baldwin Turner of Illinois College. On February 8, 1853, the Illinois Legislature adopted a resolution, drafted by Turner, calling for the Illinois congressional delegation to work to enact a land-grant bill to fund a system of industrial colleges - one in each state.

Under the act, each eligible state received a total of 30,000 acres of federal land, either within or contiguous with its boundaries, for each member of congress held by the state. This land, or the proceeds from its sale, was to be used toward establishing and funding educational institutions. The land-grant college system produced the agricultural scientists and industrial engineers who constituted the critical human resources of the managerial revolution in government and business of 1862-1917, laying the foundation of the world's preeminent educational infrastructure that supported the world's foremost technology-based economy.

In the era of reconstruction after the Civil War, the Freedmen's Bureau opened 1000 schools across the South for black children. Schooling was a high priority for the Freedmen, and enrollment was high and enthusiastic. Overall, the Bureau spent $5 million to set up schools for African Americans. By the end of 1865, more than 90,000 Freedmen were enrolled as students in public schools. The school curriculum resembled that of schools in the North.

A second Morrill Act was later introduced in 1890 that required each state to show that race was not an admissions criterion, or else to designate a separate land-grant institution for persons of color. Among the 70 colleges and universities which eventually evolved from the Morrill Acts are several of today's historically black colleges and universities.

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Prior to the First and Second Industrial Revolutions, education in the 13 colonies during the 17th and 18th centuries varied considerably depending on one's location, race, gender, and social class. Basic education in literacy and numeracy was widely available, especially to white males residing in the northern and middle colonies, and the literacy rate was relatively high among these people.

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Meet Horace Mann

In 1796, Horace Mann was born into a poor farming family in Massachusetts. His experiences growing up in this environment greatly impacted his future approach to education. Because his family was poor, some of his educational opportunities were limited. Like many kids in rural America during this time period, Mann was educated in a one-room schoolhouse. These one-room schoolhouses often lacked the funding necessary for even physical maintenance, much less academic resources. This often resulted in an unorganized approach to schooling.

Mann, however, had an advantage. He was not only intelligent, he was also determined. Through a dedicated effort, Mann was able to gain admittance to Brown University at the age of 20. While at Brown, Mann began to hone the skills that would be necessary for his future as a social reformer. At Brown, Mann focused on law and politics. He increased his interest and spoke out on the importance of education as a vehicle for social advancement.

He preached the importance of philanthropy and the importance of a government that truly represented the needs of the people. It is these values that thrust Mann headfirst into fighting for education. For Mann, education was a means of social justice.

After graduating from Brown, Mann would go on to serve the government in many ways. He would be elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1827 and would serve until 1833. He would join the Massachusetts Senate in 1835 and serve until 1837. In 1837, he became the secretary of the newly formed Massachusetts State Board of Education.

He would go on and serve at a national level as a member of the House of Representatives in the late 1840s and early 1850s. Much more could be said of Mann's political power, but this video will focus on his impact on education. His newly found platform as a member of the State Board of Education would help him project his ideas into a public space.

The Common School Movement

While there are many important contributions to society made by Horace Mann, perhaps none are more significant than his contribution to the Common School Movement. The Common School Movement was a movement beginning in the 1830s that involved a push for a tax-funded, well-developed, state public education system.

In 1837, when Mann was the secretary of the State Board of Education in Massachusetts, education was in about the same shape it was when he was a child. Poor farm children still found themselves in one-room schoolhouses with little governance or organizational structure. Mann knew this had to change.

Mann's approach to changing education focused largely on changing the professional conversation regarding education and in changing the way teachers were trained. In 1838, he founded a biweekly journal called the Common School Journal. This was Mann's way of getting his ideas to those teachers who were already in the field. He promoted democratic ideals and the necessity for academic rigor.

As another part of Mann's approach to reform education, he also founded what were known as normal schools. Normal schools were schools attended by teachers in order to establish pedagogical norms and standards. Mann believed that better teachers would result in a better schooling experience. He also believed that teacher training was lacking and that a more unified approach should be used. The normal schools were his approach to improve teacher education. These schools were rooted in what is commonly described as Mann's six guiding principles of education.

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horace mann's impact on education - video & lesson transcript | study.com

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Horace Mann's Impact on Education - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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In 1796, Horace Mann was born into a poor farming family in Massachusetts. His experiences growing up in this environment greatly impacted his future approach to education. Because his family was poor, some of his educational opportunities were limited. Like many kids in rural America during this time period, Mann was educated in a one-room schoolhouse.

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Education and Training, Career and Contribution

Principal advocate of the nineteenth-century common school movement, Horace Mann became the catalyst for tuition-free public education and established the concept of state-sponsored free schools. The zeal with which Mann executed his plan for free schools was in keeping with the intellectual climate of Boston in the early days of the republic. The Mann contribution, state government sponsored education unfettered by sectarian control, made possible a democratic society rather than a government by elites. The atmosphere of early-nineteenth-century Boston stimulated keen minds to correct social disharmonies caused by ignorance, intemperance, and human bondage. Reform that emanated from the Lockean notion that human nature may be improved by the actions of government motivated these New Englanders, who shaped social and political thought for generations.

Horace Mann was born in Franklin, Massachusetts, to Thomas Mann and Rebecca Stanley Mann. His parents lacked the means to educate their children beyond rudimentary ciphering and elementary reading. Therefore Mann's education consisted of no more than eight or ten weeks a year of sitting in tight rows on slab benches, learning from a schoolmaster barely out of his teens. Of his early schooling, Mann recalled, "Of all our faculties, the memory for words was the only one specially appealed to." A small lending library in Franklin circulated such books as John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress. School days were minimal as the majority of the year was spent in haying, planting, and plowing. When Horace's father died of tuberculosis in 1809, the farm was left to an older son, Stanley Mann. The modest sum of $200 was left to each child. Horace saved tuition by teaching his sister, Lydia, to read and write, instead of her attending school.

Education and Training

Part of the bequest of Thomas Mann to Horace was spent on his tuition at Barrett's school. Horace was twenty in 1816, and his education to that point amounted to several dozen weeks scattered over nine years. At Barrett School under an exacting but sometimes intemperate schoolmaster, Mann first conjugated Latin verbs.

A half year at Barrett School fitted Mann for admission to the sophomore class at Brown University, where penury remained a constant problem for Mann. Mann graduated first in his class (1819) two years after arriving at the university. His oration, entitled "The Gradual Advancement of the Human Species in Dignity and Happiness," linked the success of the American political experiment directly to the development of its educational system. No valedictory speech has ever been more prophetic. Brown University president Asa Messer honored Mann by making him an instructor soon after his graduation. From 1820 until 1822 he taught Latin classics. Nine years later, Mann married Messer's daughter, Charlotte.

Mann's ambition was to train in the law at Judge Tapping Reeve's prestigious law school in Litchfield, Connecticut. At the time there was no better preparation for legal and political careers than Reeve's plain, free-standing law library located in the yard of his stately home in Litchfield. Meanwhile, Mann clerked in the office of Judge Fiske for thirteen months to earn tuition money. Mann arrived in Litchfield in 1822 for the course of study that took a year and a half and cost $160. Then Mann became a clerk for Judge James Richardson in Dedham, Massachusetts, for several months until he was admitted to practice before the bar of the State of Massachusetts in 1823.

Career and Contribution

Intemperance and the humane treatment of criminals were topics debated in polite society around Dedham, and Mann championed reforms ranging from temperance to religious toleration. He realized that through proper educating of the public, lasting change could be effected.

The positions of trust Mann achieved in Dedham in the 1820s made him confident to offer for the legislature in Massachusetts. The same year he was elected to the Dedham School Commission, he was also elected to the state's general assembly. Mann added the title legal counsel to the state supreme court, as well as commissioner to the new mental hospital, to his growing list of responsibilities.

After the death of his wife Charlotte in 1832, Mann liquidated his estate and resigned all offices, including his seat in the legislature. To those around him, it was apparent he planned to immerse himself in his work. Taking lodging at a boarding house in Boston, Mann joined the law firm of his old friend, Edward Loring. Boarders there were Boston notables such as Elizabeth Peabody, social crusader, and Reverend William Ellery Channing, the voice of Unitarianism in Boston. Elizabeth Peabody's sister, Mary, was there as well.

Friends persuaded him that he should stand for the Massachusetts senate in 1834 as a Whig. Mann had never competed politically at this level, and campaigns for senate races brought vitriolic debates not seen in his career before. As he celebrated his forty-first birthday, he contemplated his newest responsibility, president of the Massachusetts senate. This honor as a junior senator typifies the trust and respect colleagues placed in his judgment. One issue that the senate wrestled with for several years prior to Mann's election was how public education could better prepare people for citizenship in this expanding young republic. As senate president, Horace signed into law the bill creating the Massachusetts State Board of Education, unique for its time and designed to disseminate education information statewide and to improve curriculum, method, and facilities.

Educating the masses was also the concern of James G. Carter of Boston, and he published in 1825 the Outline for an Institute for the Education of Teachers. He wrote on the necessity of training teachers in the art of teaching. Normal schools were an outgrowth of this important early work in educational thought. Carter, a legislator, and Mann, president of the senate, maneuvered a revolutionary bill through both houses and to the desk of Governor Edward Everett.

The members of the board of the newly created State Department of Education selected Mann as its first secretary. Mann resigned his seat in the state senate. Mann, like many Bostonians, believed that the emphasis on public education held more promise than either government or religion for yielding lasting social reform. He accepted a 50 percent cut in pay, from $3,000 a year to $1,500. His personal journal records, "I have faith in the improvability of the race, in their accelerating improvability.... "

The struggle for common schools in Massachusetts defined the parameters of the free school movement for decades to come. Though Mann engaged in reforms such as temperance and the treatment of the insane, the perfection of the common school concept occupied his waking hours for the rest of his life. Mann argued that all citizens, regardless of race or economic status, should have equal access to a tuition-free, tax-supported public school system. Such a system must be responsive to all races and nonsectarian if society is to achieve the unshackled status of a true democracy.

Mann knew he had to convince the entire state that the common school system was desirable and worth the increased tax revenue. He conducted town meetings across the state, giving a speech "The Means and Objects of Common School Education." The obstacle was a populace that did not care whether more schooling was offered.

Mann's tour of the state's schools concluded with Salem, the town where Mary Peabody was teaching. Once more, he pleaded for a statewide system of tuition-free education that would, he claimed, break down the troubling hierarchy of class in American society. Mann had spent months on tour, and much of what he had encountered discouraged him. Revenue would have to be raised to build adequate schools and staff them with learned teachers. There was the problem of poor versus wealthy districts; and that of the poor counties' being able to offer an education comparable to that of wealthy counties. Inadequate instruction troubled Mann as much as broken-down school buildings. He contemplated teacher training academies, called normal schools, as a solution.

Required by state law to make an annual report to the legislature on the condition of the state's school districts and programs, Mann turned the legal mandate into a yearly treatise on educational philosophy and methods. His annual reports became his platform for launching new programs and educating the public on new ideas in pedagogy. He explored new ideas in school design and the teaching of reading by words rather than by alphabet letters. Simple instruction in daily hygiene was emphasized along with more interesting ways of teaching science. Mann saw education as the uniting force to bring understanding and toleration between factions of the populace, as well as between the various states themselves. One novel idea Mann put forth was that teachers should gather together periodically to share ideas.

Mann developed the special teacher training colleges that he called normal schools. Instruction expertise rose yearly because the normal schools graduated capable teachers and eliminated the unfit. With teaching skills garnered from the normal school programs, teachers looked forward to a higher pay scale. Horace Mann was certain that better schools coupled with compulsory education would cure the ills of society. Traditional education did not vanish quickly in Massachusetts, however. Many found that curriculum and instruction varied little from content and materials of their grandparents' time.

Mann recalled the small library he had known while growing up. He believed that every child should have that advantage, so he set up a library expansion program. Mann also liked the German kindergarten idea that his confidant, Mary Peabody, espoused. Horace married Mary Peabody in 1843 in the bookstore that her sister, Elizabeth, ran on West Street, a store that was a gathering place for William Ellery Channing, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau. Mary's sister, Sophia, had wed Nathaniel Hawthorne there a few months earlier. Horace wished to take a trip to Europe to visit common schools, so they settled upon that idea as their honeymoon.

One person Mann wanted to meet in England was Charles Dickens, the social reformer and novelist. Dickens gave Mann and his wife a tour of London's wretched east side. The squalor was worse by far than anything Mann had seen in America. The English schools did not impress Mann, either. Recitation and Anglican dogma dulled the student's appetite for intellectual stimulation. He was amazed that teachers talked in monotone voices and stood transfixed during lecture. The Manns traveled widely in England and on the continent. While touring the University of Berlin, Horace learned that Alexander von Humboldt had implemented a state certification process and written examinations for teachers. Horace realized that this is what he must do in Massachusetts to eliminate the problem of incompetent teachers.

Mann's seventh annual report to the board was written partly on the voyage home. The comparisons he made with European schools, especially German schools, offended school administrators. Critics questioned Mann's credentials to lead school reform. Mann stood his ground for five more years and continued to bring uniformity to programs and quality of instruction.

Mann saw revenue for education rise precipitously over the twelve years of his tenure (1836-1848). He popularized the idea of a centralized bureaucracy to manage primary and secondary education. He advised the legislature on fiscal responsibility in implementing equal programs throughout the state. He standardized the requirements for the diploma.

When the eighth congressional seat became vacant due to the death of John Quincy Adams, Mann ran for the office and was successful in his first federal election. The two terms he spent in Washington were neither satisfactory nor productive. He had disagreements with his loyal political friends Daniel Webster and Charles Sumner. Against a backdrop of the rising tension over slavery, Horace sought a way out after his second term.

In 1852 Mann heard of a new college being built in Yellow Springs, Ohio, with support from a liberal Christian denomination. He decided that if the college presidency were offered, he would accept and resign from Congress. The post was offered, and Mann became the first president of Antioch College. The Ohio churchmen were so liberal in their doctrinal beliefs that they accepted Mann, a Unitarian. Antioch was a sectarian foundation and chapel attendance was not compulsory. Antioch College opened its doors to eight young men in 1850.

The Ohio frontier proved a different world from the East. Money was a problem from the start, grand illusions in the minds of the trustees never bore fruit, and paydays were missed regularly. Mann never compromised his expectations in scholarship. The financial problems at Antioch began before the buildings went up, and they steadily got worse.

The curriculum and methodology had all been Mann's development, and it was a creditable program. A preparatory school was added to accept the less qualified and was open to all no matter what race or gender. The mood of the populace, however, turned against Mann due to his Unitarian belief.

Mann turned his attention to the idea of publicly funded universities. He believed that church-sponsored colleges and universities undid the work of the free-school movement. The fight for the publicly funded university would be someone else's battle as Mann had developed a form of debilitating cancer. Mann's last educational act was to salvage the bankrupt Antioch College with a syndicate of New England investors. Mann died August 2, 1859. He could not have realized that he would become part of the legend of democracy built upon the foundation of a tuition-free public school system. Mann's last professional statement concluded the commencement address at Antioch College: "I beseech you to treasure up in your hearts these my parting words: Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity."

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Horace Mann (1796-1859) - Education and Training, Career and Contribution

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Education and Training, Career and Contribution Principal advocate of the nineteenth-century common school movement, Horace Mann became the catalyst for tuition-free public education and established the concept of state-sponsored free schools. The zeal with which Mann executed his plan for free schools was in keeping with the intellectual climate of Boston in the early days of the republic.