The Rapid Changes in Women’s Roles from 1900 to 1920
At the turn of the century the United States was changing rapidly and the roles of women were not different. As industrialization and immigration changed the face of most cities, women were slowly changing from homebound producers to wage-earning consumers. In Amy Peiss’ book Cheap Amusements this facet of new women’s roles is discussed in detail. Peiss points out that, “By 1900 important changes in the social organization of labor and expanding job opportunitiesâÂ?¦ created new work experiences for women” . These new work experiences took them out of the home and gave them a new independence and freedom from their previously male and home dominated lives. It also gave them a new world within which to explore and succeed. While so many married women barely left the house this new breed of women left the house for work and leisure as Peiss points out, saying, “many mothers went out no more than twice a week.” With incomes of their own, even if they gave most or all of their paychecks to their family, women found a new niche in society as workers and indirectly then as consumers. With money of their own, aside from that spent on family, they were free to buy things that had before been traditionally made at home, such as clothes. As workers, they became more influenced by the society around them, not just influence from family or neighbors and, in turn, led them to realize a change needed to be made in society. This expansion of world brought reform minded women to the front of society.
With this new independence in women’s roles, women began to explore activeness in society. Women soon became social and even political reformers, dedicated to the Progressive movement and other reform movements that sought to help the good of society. In realizing these new roles expanded women’s roles beyond just the local scheme, Kathryn Sklar writes, “Thus although their own communities were essential to their social strength, women were able to realize the full potential of their collective power by reaching outside those boundaries.” The women now had interests outside the home and realized that society not only needed to be reformed, but that if it were to be reformed to their standards it was their responsibility to join together and work to accomplish their goals. Maureen Flanagan supplements this by stating, “the women were asserting their right to involve themselves in every decision made by the Chicago city government, even to restructure that government.” Women were developing into political and social activists who worked through public means to reform what they could of society. They did a lot of this through various groups, usually strictly female groups, which worked through the community to better the standard of living where they could. Sklar points out that, “it [social settlement movement] provided them [women] with access to the male political arena while preserving their independence from male-dominated institutions.” Women’s groups kept independent from men’s groups showing not only their independence but also their worth and ability to work without working through men. These reformers worked to change the face of social and political interaction, widening their role from caretakers of the home and neighborhood, to caretakers of society, striving to better various communities, all the while doing the best they could to separate themselves from the influence of men in order to accomplish their own goals.
Despite the rise in women’s importance on the economic, social, and political scene, many men still did not see them as strong, productive, or politically active members of society. A leading politician of these two decades, Theodore Roosevelt, on more than one occasion belittled the woman’s standing in society. Many men who might have believed that a woman’s only role was within the family, it can be assumed, shared Roosevelt’s view. Roosevelt is quoted as saying “I am more and more convinced that the great field, the indispensable field for usefulness of woman is as mother of the family. It is her work in the household, in the home, her work in bearing and rearing the childrenâÂ?¦which should be normally the woman’s special work.” Though he tries to make it sound like a noble cause, and in some ways it is, he completely ignores and/or neglects the possibility that women can be anything useful except mothers. His thought, it can be construed, that women in the political arena searching for reform were only a weakness, as politics was a man’s role. This viewpoint from such a prominent politician was not an isolated opinion. Many reformers became historical figures of great significance, such as Jane Adams. Also, drawbacks such as political disapproval did nothing to stop the evolution or movement of the role of women.
Women’s roles were constantly changing, whether men saw it or not. These changes continue today as women’s roles continually change. Women’s roles, in this period, had evolved into outside the home and active members of society, not just community. Despite many obstacles, such as men’s popular disbelief and disapproval in their ability to succeed in these roles, women’s roles evolved from local to widespread, from producer to consumer, and from homebound to community oriented. Though not all changes in the woman’s role in society was a direct product of their changing surroundings, many of the changes can be traced back to the changes in society, economy, and politics during the two decades between 1900 and 1920.
Amy Peiss, Cheap Amusements (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986). Kathryn Kish Sklar, Hull House in the 1890s, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985). Maureen A. Flanagan, “Gender and Political Reform: The City Club and the Woman’s City Club of Chicago in the Progressive Era,” Who Were the Progressives?, (2002). John Milton Cooper, Pivotal Decades, (New York: W. W Norton & Company, 1990).
