Condition of Women

Vocabulary

Women's Suffrage

While not as uniformly horrific and degrading as the condition of slaves, the condition of women during the late 1800s and early 1900s was not ideal. Women had very few rights at the time. Women were expected to get married, have children, and take care of the home. Few jobs were available for women to work outside of the home, making supporting oneself without the help and protection of a husband or male relation nearly impossible. Any jobs available to women outside the home were limited to positions in textile factories and seamstress shops.

Women were considered property: initially the property and responsibility of their fathers and later of their husbands. Women were not allowed to own property, enter into legal documents, vote, and in some states, earn a salary. Slowly throughout the middle and late 1800s, due to increasing pressure to protect familial assets, states began passing Married Women's Property Acts. It is important to note that these acts were not initially enacted as a means to grant women rights but to protect families from economic crisis. Eventually, the Married Women's Property Acts allowed women to inherit and own property, then to keep their own income, and finally, to engage in business, such as writing wills and entering into contracts. Women's suffrage, or the right to vote, was much slower in coming and was not granted until the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1920.

Just as Frederick Douglass wrote about the conditions of American slaves during the Realist era, many authors wrote about the plight of women. Writers like Kate Chopin, Willa Cather, Edith Wharton, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman published novels, short stories, poems, critical essays, and nonfiction pieces. In their writings, they laid bare the inequity of women within the United States.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

A frequently cited writer of feminism is Charlotte Perkins Gilman. She was born in 1860 and spent a lot of her early years with aunts from her father's side who were among the most influential suffragists, such as Harriet Beecher Stowe (the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin). Gilman taught herself to read and write because her mother was very ill and otherwise unaffectionate. She married her first husband and soon after gave birth to a daughter, Katharine. Gilman then experienced a period of postpartum depression and was prescribed a treatment of "rest" by a doctor. She was forbidden from doing anything even remotely stimulating since women at that time were considered delicate, nervous beings, so her depression did not subside until she left her husband and returned to intellectual pursuits. Her most well-known work, "The Yellow Wallpaper," was written based on her personal experience with depression and the devastating results of starving women of intellectual stimulation.

Kate Chopin

In 1899, it was inconceivable for a woman to abandon her husband and family to follow her own dreams. Additionally, it was probably just as inconceivable for most to imagine that women had dreams that did not involve a husband or children. Chopin was one of the first female writers to challenge the portrayal of women in literature, fueling the women's suffrage movement. She has been considered one of the frontrunners in feminist literature and is taught prolifically in schools today.

Kate Chopin was born Catherine O'Flaherty in St. Louis in 1850. She attended a parochial school as a child and grew up immersed in both American and French culture. After marrying Oscar Chopin, Kate traveled to various cities in America and Europe before settling in New Orleans, Louisiana, a region rich in French culture. Within the first eight years of marriage, Kate gave birth to six children. Then, in 1883, Oscar died, leaving Kate a widow with six children and a large financial debt. Eventually, Kate sought refuge and support from her family in St. Louis. One year after returning home, her mother died, leaving her alone yet again.

After encouragement from a family friend, Chopin's literary career began with short stories that were widely published in magazines. She found a great deal of success as a writer and was able to support her children as a result. Chopin's literature focuses on female protagonists and uses the French culture and language as a backdrop for most of her stories. However, after her publication of The Awakening, her most famous novel, she received such a significant amount of criticism that she wrote very little. Five years after the release of The Awakening, Chopin died of a brain hemorrhage.

Kate Chopin was a woman ahead of her time who challenged social norms. It was not until the 1950s that her writing was rediscovered and viewed as an important work of feminist literature. Today, Chopin is widely respected for her portrayal of the psychology of women and her ability to infuse her writing with local color. As you read another one of her short stories, notice how she uses irony to reveal the status and perceptions of women during the late 19th century.

The Condition of Women Review

Now that you have explored the condition of women in the late 1800s and early 1900s, review your knowledge in this non-graded activity. Read each statement and decide whether it is true or false. Click on the player button to get started.

 

Grammar: Verbal Phrases

Phrases are used all the time in everyday speech. A phrase is a group of words missing a subject, predicate, or both. You are likely most familiar with prepositional phrases. However, there are other types of phrases, like verbal phrases and absolute phrases. A verbal phrase is a phrase containing a verb form that functions as a noun, adjective, or adverb. There are three types of verbal phrases: gerund phrases, participial phrases, and infinitive phrases. In this interactivity, click on each of the tabs to explore different types of verbal phrases and view examples of each.

View a printable version of the interactivity.

Absolute Phrases

An absolute phrase does not modify a word in a sentence. Absolute phrases modify the whole sentence, not just one part of it. Think of an absolute phrase as a phrase that provides background, setting, or context for the rest of the sentence. Typically, an absolute phrase is comprised of a noun, a participle, and other modifiers or objects.

Take a look at the example below:

"His dream of international stardom crushed, Peter took his final bow on stage as the curtain closed."

In this sentence, his dream is a noun, of international stardom is a modifier, and crushed is a participle. The phrase his dream of international stardom crushed is an absolute phrase that cannot be said to modify any one word of the main clause.

Grammar Review

Now that you have explored verbal and absolute phrases, review your knowledge in this non-graded activity. Read each sentence and identify the underlined phrase as participial, gerund, infinitive, or absolute. Click on the player button to get started.