In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century there were reformers all over, such as the populists, progressives, and women. They all had huge impacts in shaping the centuries, but of them all I find the women reformers the most interesting. In their efforts to receive change they fought hard, it was a very steep uphill battle for them. Many different women founded some huge organizations that had a major impact on women reformers, women also really wanted change in the work days, work conditions and pay, Theodore Roosevelt also had a huge impact on the women reformers.
There wasn’t just one single women running the show and receiving changes for what she believed in. We’ll start with Ida B. Wells, a black editor that launched …show more content…
The woman reformers had mainly one big adversary, they were men, especially white men. Not only did they enjoy bars, so they didn’t agree with the Temperance movement, but they didn’t think women should be paid as well as men and they didn’t care if women had shitty working conditions or long days. As the book states, “one workingwoman confided, ‘The men think that the girls should not get as good work as the men and should not make half as much money as a man.’” (621-2) The Irish, Italians, and Germans did not support the women’s temperance movement, they felt it was their right to spend there one day off drinking alcohol. (621) As said before men didn’t support women working. When World War I began the women changed their focus a bit, they decided to enter the movement as peace groups. (McDonough par 33) In 1919 “the Women’s Peace Policy became the American Section of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), the first feminist peace organization of the modern era.” (McDonough par …show more content…
Roosevelt was the very first president to accept women into his ranks, “[including] female suffrage and social reform in its platform, and used masculine rhetoric in its electoral campaign. (Testi par 6) Roosevelt valued the separate spheres between men and women, he felt there were necessary and defined the opposition of femininity. (Testi par 19) Roosevelt wasn’t against women suffrage, but it’s somewhat unclear if he supported it eighter, he once wrote in 1899: “The man must be glad to do a man 's work, to dare and endure and to labor; to keep himself, and to keep those dependent upon him. The woman must be the house-wife, the helpmeet of the homemaker, the wise and fearless mother of many healthy children....When men fear work or fear righteous war, when women fear motherhood, they tremble on the brink of doom.” (Testi par 19) He claims he wasn’t against suffrage, he actually supported it greatly, and however at times he changed his views. When Roosevelt welcomed women into the electoral arena he also had to consider the changes in the relationships between the sexes as well as the class structure and definition of politics. (Testi par 20) As I had mentioned above eventually the Nineteenth Amendment was passed and women had to right to vote, however it wasn’t passed while Roosevelt was in