{"id":52,"date":"2023-03-10T23:48:07","date_gmt":"2023-03-10T23:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppschis1220ushistsincecivilwar\/chapter\/module-1-4\/"},"modified":"2023-04-27T19:24:16","modified_gmt":"2023-04-27T19:24:16","slug":"module-1-4","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppschis1220ushistsincecivilwar\/chapter\/module-1-4\/","title":{"raw":"1.4 Women During Reconstruction","rendered":"1.4 Women During Reconstruction"},"content":{"raw":"<div>[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"432\"]<img class=\"responsive\" style=\"text-align: initial;font-size: 1em\" src=\"https:\/\/media.ccconline.org\/ccco\/2019Master\/HIS122\/eText\/Sections\/Section1\/..\/..\/Images\/susan.jpg#fixme\" alt=\"Elizabeth Cady Stanton, seated, and Susan B. Anthony, standing, three-quarter length portrait, between 1880 and 1902\" width=\"432\" height=\"601\" \/> Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton maintained a strong and productive relationship for nearly half a century as they sought to secure political rights for women. While the fight for women\u2019s rights stalled during the war, it sprung back to life as Anthony, Stanton, and others formed the American Equal Rights Association. [Elizabeth Cady Stanton, seated, and Susan B. Anthony, standing, three-quarter length portrait], between 1880 and 1902. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.loc.gov\/pictures\/item\/97500087\/\">Library of Congress<\/a>.[\/caption]<span style=\"text-align: initial;font-size: 1em\">Reconstruction involved more than the meaning of emancipation. Women also sought to redefine their roles within the nation and in their local communities. The abolitionist and women\u2019s rights movements simultaneously converged and began to clash. In the South, both black and white women struggled to make sense of a world of death and change. In Reconstruction, leading women\u2019s rights advocate Elizabeth Cady Stanton saw an unprecedented opportunity for disenfranchised groups. Women as well as black Americans, North and South, could seize political rights. Stanton formed the Women\u2019s Loyal National League in 1863, which petitioned Congress for a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery.<\/span><a style=\"text-align: initial;font-size: 1em\" href=\"#Sup1\"><sup id=\"1\">1<\/sup><\/a><span style=\"text-align: initial;font-size: 1em\"> The Thirteenth Amendment marked a victory not only for the antislavery cause but also for the Loyal League, proving women\u2019s political efficacy and the possibility for radical change. Now, as Congress debated the meanings of freedom, equality, and citizenship for former slaves, women\u2019s rights leaders saw an opening to advance transformations in women\u2019s status, too. On May 10, 1866, just one year after the war, the Eleventh National Women\u2019s Rights Convention met in New York City to discuss what many agreed was an extraordinary moment, full of promise for fundamental social change. Elizabeth Cady Stanton presided over the meeting. Also in attendance were prominent abolitionists with whom Stanton and other women\u2019s rights leaders had joined forces in the years leading up to the war. Addressing this crowd of social reformers, Stanton captured the radical spirit of the hour: \u201cnow in the reconstruction,\u201d she declared, \u201cis the opportunity, perhaps for the century, to base our government on the broad principle of equal rights for all.\u201d<\/span><a style=\"text-align: initial;font-size: 1em\" href=\"#Sup2\"><sup id=\"2\">2<\/sup><\/a><span style=\"text-align: initial;font-size: 1em\"> Stanton chose her universal language\u2014\u201cequal rights for all\u201d\u2014with intention, setting an agenda of universal suffrage. Thus, in 1866, the National Women\u2019s Rights Convention officially merged with the American Anti-Slavery Society to form the American Equal Rights Association (AERA). This union marked the culmination of the long-standing partnership between abolitionists and women\u2019s rights advocates.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<div class=\"container\">\r\n\r\nThe AERA was split over whether black male suffrage should take precedence over universal suffrage, given the political climate of the South. Some worried that political support for freedmen would be undermined by the pursuit of women\u2019s suffrage. For example, AERA member Frederick Douglass insisted that the ballot was literally a \u201cquestion of life and death\u201d for southern black men, but not for women.<a href=\"#Sup3\"><sup id=\"3\">3<\/sup><\/a> Some African American women challenged white suffragists in other ways. Frances Harper, for example, a freeborn black woman living in Ohio, urged them to consider their own privilege as white and middle class. Universal suffrage, she argued, would not so clearly address the complex difficulties posed by racial, economic, and gender inequality.<a href=\"#Su4\"><sup id=\"4\">4<\/sup><\/a>\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"517\"]<img class=\"responsive\" src=\"https:\/\/media.ccconline.org\/ccco\/2019Master\/HIS122\/eText\/Sections\/Section1\/..\/..\/Images\/petition.jpg#fixme\" alt=\"Photograph of petition to extend suffrage to all regardless of sex, which was presented to Congress on January 29, 1866.\" width=\"517\" height=\"847\" \/> Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the great women\u2019s rights and abolition activist, was one of the strongest forces in the universal suffrage movement. Her name can be seen at the top of this petition to extend suffrage to all regardless of sex, which was presented to Congress on January 29, 1866. It did not pass, and women would not gain the vote for more than half a century after Stanton and others signed this petition. Petition of E. Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, and Others Asking for an Amendment of the Constitution that Shall Prohibit the Several States from Disfranchising Any of Their Citizens on the Ground of Sex, 1865. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.archives.gov\/historical-docs\/todays-doc\/index.html?dod-date=1112\">National Archives and Records Administration<\/a>.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nThese divisions came to a head early in 1867, as the AERA organized a campaign in Kansas to determine the fate of black and woman suffrage. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her partner in the movement, Susan B. Anthony, made the journey to advocate universal suffrage. Yet they soon realized that their allies were distancing themselves from women\u2019s suffrage in order to advance black enfranchisement. Disheartened, Stanton and Anthony allied instead with white supremacists who supported women\u2019s equality. Many fellow activists were dismayed by Stanton\u2019s and Anthony\u2019s willingness to appeal to racism to advance their cause.<a href=\"#Sup5\"><sup id=\"5\">5<\/sup><\/a>\r\n\r\nThese tensions finally erupted over conflicting views of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Women\u2019s rights leaders vigorously protested the Fourteenth Amendment. Although it established national citizenship for all persons born or naturalized in the United States, the amendment also introduced the word male into the Constitution for the first time. After the Fifteenth Amendment ignored sex as an unlawful barrier to suffrage, an omission that appalled Stanton, the AERA officially dissolved. Stanton and Anthony formed the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), while suffragists who supported the Fifteenth Amendment, regardless of its limitations, founded the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA).\r\n\r\nThe NWSA soon rallied around a new strategy: the New Departure. This new approach interpreted the Constitution as <em>already<\/em> guaranteeing women the right to vote. They argued that by nationalizing citizenship for all people and protecting all rights of citizens\u2014including the right to vote\u2014the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments guaranteed women\u2019s suffrage. Broadcasting the New Departure, the NWSA encouraged women to register to vote, which roughly seven hundred did between 1868 and 1872. Susan B. Anthony was one of them and was arrested but then acquitted in trial. In 1875, the Supreme Court addressed this constitutional argument: acknowledging women\u2019s citizenship but arguing that suffrage was not a right guaranteed to all citizens. This ruling not only defeated the New Departure but also coincided with the Court\u2019s broader reactionary interpretation of the Reconstruction amendments that significantly limited freedmen\u2019s rights. Following this defeat, many suffragists like Stanton increasingly replaced the ideal of universal suffrage with arguments about the virtue that white women would bring to the polls. These new arguments often hinged on racism and declared the necessity of white women voters to keep black men in check.<a href=\"#Sup6\"><sup id=\"6\">6<\/sup><\/a>\r\n\r\nAdvocates for women\u2019s suffrage were largely confined to the North, but southern women were experiencing social transformations as well. The lines between refined white womanhood and degraded enslaved black femaleness were no longer so clearly defined. Moreover, during the war, southern white women had been called on to do traditional men\u2019s work, chopping wood and managing businesses. While white southern women decided whether and how to return to their prior status, African American women embraced new freedoms and a redefinition of womanhood.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"553\"]<img class=\"responsive\" src=\"https:\/\/media.ccconline.org\/ccco\/2019Master\/HIS122\/eText\/Sections\/Section1\/..\/..\/Images\/15th-amendment-celebration-1870[1].png#fixme\" alt=\"ThPrint depicting a huge parade held in Baltimore, Maryland, on May 19, 1870, surrounded by portraits of abolitionists and scenes of African Americans exercising their rights. Thomas Kelly after James C. Beard, The 15th Amendment. Celebrated May 19th 1870, 1870\" width=\"553\" height=\"450\" \/> The Fifteenth Amendment prohibited discrimination in voting rights on the basis of race, color, or previous status (i.e. slavery). While the amendment was not all encompassing in that women were not included, it was an extremely significant ruling in affirming the liberties of African American men. This print depicts a huge parade held in Baltimore, Maryland, on May 19, 1870, surrounded by portraits of abolitionists and scenes of African Americans exercising their rights. Thomas Kelly after James C. Beard, The 15th Amendment. Celebrated May 19th 1870, 1870. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.loc.gov\/item\/2003690776\/\">Library of Congress<\/a>.[\/caption]\r\n<div><\/div>\r\nThe Civil War showed white women, especially upper-class women, life without their husbands\u2019 protection. Many did not like what they saw, especially given the possibility of racial equality. Formerly wealthy women hoped to maintain their social status by rebuilding the prewar social hierarchy. Through Ladies\u2019 Memorial Associations and other civic groups, southern women led the efforts to bury and memorialize the dead, praising and bolstering their men\u2019s masculinity through nationalist speeches and memorials. Ladies\u2019 Memorial Associations (LMAs) grew out of the Soldiers\u2019 Aid Society and became the precursor and custodian of the Lost Cause narrative. Proponents of the Lost Cause tried to rewrite the history of the antebellum South to deemphasize the brutality of slavery. They also created the myth that the Civil War was fought over states\u2019 rights instead of slavery, which was the actual cause. LMAs and their ceremonies created new holidays during which white southerners could reaffirm their allegiance to the Confederacy and express their opposition to black rights. For instance, some LMAs celebrated the anniversary of Stonewall Jackson\u2019s death on May 10.<a href=\"#Sup7\"><sup id=\"7\">7<\/sup><\/a> Through these activities, southern women took on political roles in the South.\r\n\r\nSouthern black women also sought to redefine their public and private lives. Their efforts to control their labor met the immediate opposition of southern white women. Gertrude Clanton, a plantation mistress before the war, disliked cooking and washing dishes, so she hired an African American woman to do the washing. A misunderstanding quickly developed. The laundress, nameless in Gertrude\u2019s records, performed her job and returned home. Gertrude believed that her money had purchased a day\u2019s labor, not just the load of washing, and she became quite frustrated. Meanwhile, this washerwoman and others like her set wages and hours for themselves, and in many cases began to take washing into their own homes in order to avoid the surveillance of white women and the sexual threat posed by white men.<a href=\"#Sup8\"><sup id=\"8\">8<\/sup><\/a>\r\n\r\nSimilar conflicts raged across the South. White southerners demanded that African American women work in the plantation home and instituted apprenticeship systems to place African American children in unpaid labor positions. African American women combated these attempts by refusing to work at jobs without fair pay or fair conditions and by clinging tightly to their children.\r\n\r\nLike white LMA members, African American women formed clubs to bury their dead, to celebrate African American masculinity, and to provide aid to their communities. On May 1, 1865, African Americans in Charleston created the precursor to the modern Memorial Day by mourning the Union dead buried hastily on a race track turned prison.<a href=\"#Sup9\"><sup id=\"9\">9<\/sup><\/a> Like their white counterparts, the three hundred African American women who participated had been members of the local Patriotic Association, which aided freedpeople during the war. African American women continued participating in federal Decoration Day ceremonies and, later, formed their own club organizations. Racial violence, whether city riots or rural vigilantes, continued to threaten these vulnerable households. Nevertheless, the formation and preservation of African American households became a paramount goal for African American women.\r\n\r\nFor all of their differences, white and black southern women faced a similar challenge during Reconstruction. Southern women celebrated the return of their brothers, husbands, and sons, but couples separated for many years struggled to adjust. To make matters worse, many of these former soldiers returned with physical or mental wounds. For white families, suicide and divorce became more acceptable, while the opposite occurred for black families. Since the entire South suffered from economic devastation, many families were impoverished and sank into debt. All southern women faced economic devastation, lasting wartime trauma, and enduring racial tensions.\r\n<h4>Notes<\/h4>\r\n<ol>\r\n \t<li id=\"Sup1\">\u201cTo the Women of the Republic,\u201d address from the Women\u2019s Loyal National League supporting the abolition of slavery, January 25, 1864, SEN 38A-H20 (Kansas folder); RG 46, Records of the U.S. Senate, <em>National Archives<\/em>, https:\/\/www.senate.gov\/artandhistory\/history\/resources\/pdf\/WomensLoyalNationalLeague.pdf.<a href=\"#1\"><img src=\"https:\/\/media.ccconline.org\/ccco\/2019Master\/HIS122\/eText\/Sections\/Section1\/..\/..\/Images\/redirect.png#fixme\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/a><\/li>\r\n \t<li id=\"Sup2\"><em> Proceedings of the Eleventh National Women\u2019s Rights Convention, Held at the Church of the Puritans, New York, May 10, 1866 (New York: Johnston, 1866). <\/em><a href=\"#2\"><img src=\"https:\/\/media.ccconline.org\/ccco\/2019Master\/HIS122\/eText\/Sections\/Section1\/..\/..\/Images\/redirect.png#fixme\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/a><\/li>\r\n \t<li id=\"Sup3\">Frederick Douglass, \"We Welcome the Fifteenth Amendment: Addresses Delivered in New York, on 13 May 1869\",\u009d <em>The Frederick Douglass Papers. Series One, Speeches, Debates, and Interviews<\/em>, eds. John W. Blassingame and John R. McKivigan (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991), 213-219. <a href=\"#3\"><img src=\"https:\/\/media.ccconline.org\/ccco\/2019Master\/HIS122\/eText\/Sections\/Section1\/..\/..\/Images\/redirect.png#fixme\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/a><\/li>\r\n \t<li id=\"Sup4\">Faye E. Dudden, <em>Fighting Chance: The Struggle over Woman Suffrage and Black Suffrage in Reconstruction America<\/em> (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). <a href=\"#4\"><img src=\"https:\/\/media.ccconline.org\/ccco\/2019Master\/HIS122\/eText\/Sections\/Section1\/..\/..\/Images\/redirect.png#fixme\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/a><\/li>\r\n \t<li id=\"Sup5\">Louise Michele Newman, <em>White Women's Rights: The Racial Origins of Feminism in the United States<\/em> (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 3-8. <a href=\"#5\"><img src=\"https:\/\/media.ccconline.org\/ccco\/2019Master\/HIS122\/eText\/Sections\/Section1\/..\/..\/Images\/redirect.png#fixme\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/a><\/li>\r\n \t<li id=\"Sup6\">Sue Davis, <em>The Political Thought of Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Women's Rights and the American Political Traditions<\/em> (New York: New York University Press, 2008), 158. <a href=\"#6\"><img src=\"https:\/\/media.ccconline.org\/ccco\/2019Master\/HIS122\/eText\/Sections\/Section1\/..\/..\/Images\/redirect.png#fixme\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/a><\/li>\r\n \t<li id=\"Sup7\">Caroline E. Janney, <em>Remembering the Civil War: Reunion and the Limits of Reconciliation<\/em> (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013), 94. <a href=\"#7\"><img src=\"https:\/\/media.ccconline.org\/ccco\/2019Master\/HIS122\/eText\/Sections\/Section1\/..\/..\/Images\/redirect.png#fixme\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/a><\/li>\r\n \t<li id=\"Sup8\">Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas, <i>The Secret Eye: The Journal of Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas, 1848\u20131889<\/i>, ed. Virginia Ingraham Burr (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990), 272\u2013273. <a href=\"#8\"><img src=\"https:\/\/media.ccconline.org\/ccco\/2019Master\/HIS122\/eText\/Sections\/Section1\/..\/..\/Images\/redirect.png#fixme\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/a><\/li>\r\n \t<li id=\"Sup9\">David Blight, <em>Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory<\/em> (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 65\u201371. <a href=\"#9\"><img src=\"https:\/\/media.ccconline.org\/ccco\/2019Master\/HIS122\/eText\/Sections\/Section1\/..\/..\/Images\/redirect.png#fixme\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/a><\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<\/div>","rendered":"<div>\n<figure style=\"width: 432px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive\" style=\"text-align: initial;font-size: 1em\" src=\"https:\/\/media.ccconline.org\/ccco\/2019Master\/HIS122\/eText\/Sections\/Section1\/..\/..\/Images\/susan.jpg#fixme\" alt=\"Elizabeth Cady Stanton, seated, and Susan B. Anthony, standing, three-quarter length portrait, between 1880 and 1902\" width=\"432\" height=\"601\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton maintained a strong and productive relationship for nearly half a century as they sought to secure political rights for women. While the fight for women\u2019s rights stalled during the war, it sprung back to life as Anthony, Stanton, and others formed the American Equal Rights Association. [Elizabeth Cady Stanton, seated, and Susan B. Anthony, standing, three-quarter length portrait], between 1880 and 1902. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.loc.gov\/pictures\/item\/97500087\/\">Library of Congress<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"text-align: initial;font-size: 1em\">Reconstruction involved more than the meaning of emancipation. Women also sought to redefine their roles within the nation and in their local communities. The abolitionist and women\u2019s rights movements simultaneously converged and began to clash. In the South, both black and white women struggled to make sense of a world of death and change. In Reconstruction, leading women\u2019s rights advocate Elizabeth Cady Stanton saw an unprecedented opportunity for disenfranchised groups. Women as well as black Americans, North and South, could seize political rights. Stanton formed the Women\u2019s Loyal National League in 1863, which petitioned Congress for a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery.<\/span><a style=\"text-align: initial;font-size: 1em\" href=\"#Sup1\"><sup id=\"1\">1<\/sup><\/a><span style=\"text-align: initial;font-size: 1em\"> The Thirteenth Amendment marked a victory not only for the antislavery cause but also for the Loyal League, proving women\u2019s political efficacy and the possibility for radical change. Now, as Congress debated the meanings of freedom, equality, and citizenship for former slaves, women\u2019s rights leaders saw an opening to advance transformations in women\u2019s status, too. On May 10, 1866, just one year after the war, the Eleventh National Women\u2019s Rights Convention met in New York City to discuss what many agreed was an extraordinary moment, full of promise for fundamental social change. Elizabeth Cady Stanton presided over the meeting. Also in attendance were prominent abolitionists with whom Stanton and other women\u2019s rights leaders had joined forces in the years leading up to the war. Addressing this crowd of social reformers, Stanton captured the radical spirit of the hour: \u201cnow in the reconstruction,\u201d she declared, \u201cis the opportunity, perhaps for the century, to base our government on the broad principle of equal rights for all.\u201d<\/span><a style=\"text-align: initial;font-size: 1em\" href=\"#Sup2\"><sup id=\"2\">2<\/sup><\/a><span style=\"text-align: initial;font-size: 1em\"> Stanton chose her universal language\u2014\u201cequal rights for all\u201d\u2014with intention, setting an agenda of universal suffrage. Thus, in 1866, the National Women\u2019s Rights Convention officially merged with the American Anti-Slavery Society to form the American Equal Rights Association (AERA). This union marked the culmination of the long-standing partnership between abolitionists and women\u2019s rights advocates.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"container\">\n<p>The AERA was split over whether black male suffrage should take precedence over universal suffrage, given the political climate of the South. Some worried that political support for freedmen would be undermined by the pursuit of women\u2019s suffrage. For example, AERA member Frederick Douglass insisted that the ballot was literally a \u201cquestion of life and death\u201d for southern black men, but not for women.<a href=\"#Sup3\"><sup id=\"3\">3<\/sup><\/a> Some African American women challenged white suffragists in other ways. Frances Harper, for example, a freeborn black woman living in Ohio, urged them to consider their own privilege as white and middle class. Universal suffrage, she argued, would not so clearly address the complex difficulties posed by racial, economic, and gender inequality.<a href=\"#Su4\"><sup id=\"4\">4<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 517px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive\" src=\"https:\/\/media.ccconline.org\/ccco\/2019Master\/HIS122\/eText\/Sections\/Section1\/..\/..\/Images\/petition.jpg#fixme\" alt=\"Photograph of petition to extend suffrage to all regardless of sex, which was presented to Congress on January 29, 1866.\" width=\"517\" height=\"847\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the great women\u2019s rights and abolition activist, was one of the strongest forces in the universal suffrage movement. Her name can be seen at the top of this petition to extend suffrage to all regardless of sex, which was presented to Congress on January 29, 1866. It did not pass, and women would not gain the vote for more than half a century after Stanton and others signed this petition. Petition of E. Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, and Others Asking for an Amendment of the Constitution that Shall Prohibit the Several States from Disfranchising Any of Their Citizens on the Ground of Sex, 1865. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.archives.gov\/historical-docs\/todays-doc\/index.html?dod-date=1112\">National Archives and Records Administration<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>These divisions came to a head early in 1867, as the AERA organized a campaign in Kansas to determine the fate of black and woman suffrage. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her partner in the movement, Susan B. Anthony, made the journey to advocate universal suffrage. Yet they soon realized that their allies were distancing themselves from women\u2019s suffrage in order to advance black enfranchisement. Disheartened, Stanton and Anthony allied instead with white supremacists who supported women\u2019s equality. Many fellow activists were dismayed by Stanton\u2019s and Anthony\u2019s willingness to appeal to racism to advance their cause.<a href=\"#Sup5\"><sup id=\"5\">5<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>These tensions finally erupted over conflicting views of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Women\u2019s rights leaders vigorously protested the Fourteenth Amendment. Although it established national citizenship for all persons born or naturalized in the United States, the amendment also introduced the word male into the Constitution for the first time. After the Fifteenth Amendment ignored sex as an unlawful barrier to suffrage, an omission that appalled Stanton, the AERA officially dissolved. Stanton and Anthony formed the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), while suffragists who supported the Fifteenth Amendment, regardless of its limitations, founded the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA).<\/p>\n<p>The NWSA soon rallied around a new strategy: the New Departure. This new approach interpreted the Constitution as <em>already<\/em> guaranteeing women the right to vote. They argued that by nationalizing citizenship for all people and protecting all rights of citizens\u2014including the right to vote\u2014the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments guaranteed women\u2019s suffrage. Broadcasting the New Departure, the NWSA encouraged women to register to vote, which roughly seven hundred did between 1868 and 1872. Susan B. Anthony was one of them and was arrested but then acquitted in trial. In 1875, the Supreme Court addressed this constitutional argument: acknowledging women\u2019s citizenship but arguing that suffrage was not a right guaranteed to all citizens. This ruling not only defeated the New Departure but also coincided with the Court\u2019s broader reactionary interpretation of the Reconstruction amendments that significantly limited freedmen\u2019s rights. Following this defeat, many suffragists like Stanton increasingly replaced the ideal of universal suffrage with arguments about the virtue that white women would bring to the polls. These new arguments often hinged on racism and declared the necessity of white women voters to keep black men in check.<a href=\"#Sup6\"><sup id=\"6\">6<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Advocates for women\u2019s suffrage were largely confined to the North, but southern women were experiencing social transformations as well. The lines between refined white womanhood and degraded enslaved black femaleness were no longer so clearly defined. Moreover, during the war, southern white women had been called on to do traditional men\u2019s work, chopping wood and managing businesses. While white southern women decided whether and how to return to their prior status, African American women embraced new freedoms and a redefinition of womanhood.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 553px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive\" src=\"https:\/\/media.ccconline.org\/ccco\/2019Master\/HIS122\/eText\/Sections\/Section1\/..\/..\/Images\/15th-amendment-celebration-1870[1].png#fixme\" alt=\"ThPrint depicting a huge parade held in Baltimore, Maryland, on May 19, 1870, surrounded by portraits of abolitionists and scenes of African Americans exercising their rights. Thomas Kelly after James C. Beard, The 15th Amendment. Celebrated May 19th 1870, 1870\" width=\"553\" height=\"450\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Fifteenth Amendment prohibited discrimination in voting rights on the basis of race, color, or previous status (i.e. slavery). While the amendment was not all encompassing in that women were not included, it was an extremely significant ruling in affirming the liberties of African American men. This print depicts a huge parade held in Baltimore, Maryland, on May 19, 1870, surrounded by portraits of abolitionists and scenes of African Americans exercising their rights. Thomas Kelly after James C. Beard, The 15th Amendment. Celebrated May 19th 1870, 1870. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.loc.gov\/item\/2003690776\/\">Library of Congress<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>The Civil War showed white women, especially upper-class women, life without their husbands\u2019 protection. Many did not like what they saw, especially given the possibility of racial equality. Formerly wealthy women hoped to maintain their social status by rebuilding the prewar social hierarchy. Through Ladies\u2019 Memorial Associations and other civic groups, southern women led the efforts to bury and memorialize the dead, praising and bolstering their men\u2019s masculinity through nationalist speeches and memorials. Ladies\u2019 Memorial Associations (LMAs) grew out of the Soldiers\u2019 Aid Society and became the precursor and custodian of the Lost Cause narrative. Proponents of the Lost Cause tried to rewrite the history of the antebellum South to deemphasize the brutality of slavery. They also created the myth that the Civil War was fought over states\u2019 rights instead of slavery, which was the actual cause. LMAs and their ceremonies created new holidays during which white southerners could reaffirm their allegiance to the Confederacy and express their opposition to black rights. For instance, some LMAs celebrated the anniversary of Stonewall Jackson\u2019s death on May 10.<a href=\"#Sup7\"><sup id=\"7\">7<\/sup><\/a> Through these activities, southern women took on political roles in the South.<\/p>\n<p>Southern black women also sought to redefine their public and private lives. Their efforts to control their labor met the immediate opposition of southern white women. Gertrude Clanton, a plantation mistress before the war, disliked cooking and washing dishes, so she hired an African American woman to do the washing. A misunderstanding quickly developed. The laundress, nameless in Gertrude\u2019s records, performed her job and returned home. Gertrude believed that her money had purchased a day\u2019s labor, not just the load of washing, and she became quite frustrated. Meanwhile, this washerwoman and others like her set wages and hours for themselves, and in many cases began to take washing into their own homes in order to avoid the surveillance of white women and the sexual threat posed by white men.<a href=\"#Sup8\"><sup id=\"8\">8<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Similar conflicts raged across the South. White southerners demanded that African American women work in the plantation home and instituted apprenticeship systems to place African American children in unpaid labor positions. African American women combated these attempts by refusing to work at jobs without fair pay or fair conditions and by clinging tightly to their children.<\/p>\n<p>Like white LMA members, African American women formed clubs to bury their dead, to celebrate African American masculinity, and to provide aid to their communities. On May 1, 1865, African Americans in Charleston created the precursor to the modern Memorial Day by mourning the Union dead buried hastily on a race track turned prison.<a href=\"#Sup9\"><sup id=\"9\">9<\/sup><\/a> Like their white counterparts, the three hundred African American women who participated had been members of the local Patriotic Association, which aided freedpeople during the war. African American women continued participating in federal Decoration Day ceremonies and, later, formed their own club organizations. Racial violence, whether city riots or rural vigilantes, continued to threaten these vulnerable households. Nevertheless, the formation and preservation of African American households became a paramount goal for African American women.<\/p>\n<p>For all of their differences, white and black southern women faced a similar challenge during Reconstruction. Southern women celebrated the return of their brothers, husbands, and sons, but couples separated for many years struggled to adjust. To make matters worse, many of these former soldiers returned with physical or mental wounds. For white families, suicide and divorce became more acceptable, while the opposite occurred for black families. Since the entire South suffered from economic devastation, many families were impoverished and sank into debt. All southern women faced economic devastation, lasting wartime trauma, and enduring racial tensions.<\/p>\n<h4>Notes<\/h4>\n<ol>\n<li id=\"Sup1\">\u201cTo the Women of the Republic,\u201d address from the Women\u2019s Loyal National League supporting the abolition of slavery, January 25, 1864, SEN 38A-H20 (Kansas folder); RG 46, Records of the U.S. Senate, <em>National Archives<\/em>, https:\/\/www.senate.gov\/artandhistory\/history\/resources\/pdf\/WomensLoyalNationalLeague.pdf.<a href=\"#1\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.ccconline.org\/ccco\/2019Master\/HIS122\/eText\/Sections\/Section1\/..\/..\/Images\/redirect.png#fixme\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li id=\"Sup2\"><em> Proceedings of the Eleventh National Women\u2019s Rights Convention, Held at the Church of the Puritans, New York, May 10, 1866 (New York: Johnston, 1866). <\/em><a href=\"#2\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.ccconline.org\/ccco\/2019Master\/HIS122\/eText\/Sections\/Section1\/..\/..\/Images\/redirect.png#fixme\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li id=\"Sup3\">Frederick Douglass, &#8220;We Welcome the Fifteenth Amendment: Addresses Delivered in New York, on 13 May 1869&#8221;,\u009d <em>The Frederick Douglass Papers. Series One, Speeches, Debates, and Interviews<\/em>, eds. John W. Blassingame and John R. McKivigan (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991), 213-219. <a href=\"#3\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.ccconline.org\/ccco\/2019Master\/HIS122\/eText\/Sections\/Section1\/..\/..\/Images\/redirect.png#fixme\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li id=\"Sup4\">Faye E. Dudden, <em>Fighting Chance: The Struggle over Woman Suffrage and Black Suffrage in Reconstruction America<\/em> (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). <a href=\"#4\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.ccconline.org\/ccco\/2019Master\/HIS122\/eText\/Sections\/Section1\/..\/..\/Images\/redirect.png#fixme\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li id=\"Sup5\">Louise Michele Newman, <em>White Women&#8217;s Rights: The Racial Origins of Feminism in the United States<\/em> (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 3-8. <a href=\"#5\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.ccconline.org\/ccco\/2019Master\/HIS122\/eText\/Sections\/Section1\/..\/..\/Images\/redirect.png#fixme\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li id=\"Sup6\">Sue Davis, <em>The Political Thought of Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Women&#8217;s Rights and the American Political Traditions<\/em> (New York: New York University Press, 2008), 158. <a href=\"#6\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.ccconline.org\/ccco\/2019Master\/HIS122\/eText\/Sections\/Section1\/..\/..\/Images\/redirect.png#fixme\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li id=\"Sup7\">Caroline E. Janney, <em>Remembering the Civil War: Reunion and the Limits of Reconciliation<\/em> (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013), 94. <a href=\"#7\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.ccconline.org\/ccco\/2019Master\/HIS122\/eText\/Sections\/Section1\/..\/..\/Images\/redirect.png#fixme\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li id=\"Sup8\">Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas, <i>The Secret Eye: The Journal of Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas, 1848\u20131889<\/i>, ed. Virginia Ingraham Burr (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990), 272\u2013273. <a href=\"#8\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.ccconline.org\/ccco\/2019Master\/HIS122\/eText\/Sections\/Section1\/..\/..\/Images\/redirect.png#fixme\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li id=\"Sup9\">David Blight, <em>Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory<\/em> (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 65\u201371. <a href=\"#9\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.ccconline.org\/ccco\/2019Master\/HIS122\/eText\/Sections\/Section1\/..\/..\/Images\/redirect.png#fixme\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"menu_order":4,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-52","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":25,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppschis1220ushistsincecivilwar\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/52","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppschis1220ushistsincecivilwar\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppschis1220ushistsincecivilwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppschis1220ushistsincecivilwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppschis1220ushistsincecivilwar\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/52\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":309,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppschis1220ushistsincecivilwar\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/52\/revisions\/309"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppschis1220ushistsincecivilwar\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/25"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppschis1220ushistsincecivilwar\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/52\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppschis1220ushistsincecivilwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppschis1220ushistsincecivilwar\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=52"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppschis1220ushistsincecivilwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=52"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/ppschis1220ushistsincecivilwar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}