Women’s Rights in the 1930s in the United States

In the 1930s, women’s equality was not as flashy an issue as in some previous and subsequent eras. The decade did, however, bring slow and steady progress, even as new challenges—especially economic and cultural ones—emerged that actually reversed some earlier advances. Context: Womens Roles in 1900–1929 Women in the first decades of the 20th century saw an increased opportunity and public presence, including a strong role in union organizing. During World War I, many women whod been stay-at-home mothers and wives entered the workforce for the first time. Women activists agitated for more than the vote, which was finally won in 1920, but also for workplace fairness and safety, minimum wages, and the abolition of child labor. African American women became central to the cultural flowering of the Harlem Renaissance that followed World War I. In many urban black communities, these same courageous women were also standing up for equal rights and beginning the long fight to end the horrific practice of lynching. During the Roaring Twenties, information on contraceptives became increasingly widespread, allowing women the freedom to engage in sexual activity without the often inevitable consequences of pregnancy. Other factors that led to greater sexual freedom included more relaxed clothing styles and societal attitudes that were less restrictive. 1930s—The Great Depression Minnesota Historical Society/Getty Images While the new phenomenon of the airplane drew some elite women, including Ruth Nichols, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Beryl Markham, and Amelia Earhart (whose career spanned the late 1920s through 1937 when she and her navigator were lost over the Pacific) to become pilots, with the 1929 market crash and the onset of the Great Depression, for most women, the cultural pendulum swung backward.   With fewer jobs available, employers generally preferred to award those they had to men whod traditionally worn the mantle of the family breadwinner. As fewer and fewer women were able to find employment, the societal ideals that had embraced increasing female freedoms did an about-face. Domesticity, motherhood, and homemaking once again became regarded as the only truly proper and fulfilling roles for women. But some women still needed to work, and work they did. While the economy was losing some jobs, in newer fields, such as the radio and telephone industries, job opportunities for women were actually expanding. One of the main reasons women were hired for many of these new jobs that resulted from emerging technology was that they could be paid considerably less than men (and often still are). Again, the wage gap was justified by the stereotype of the male breadwinner needing earnings that would support not just himself, but a traditional family—whether he was married or not. Another place where women were thriving in the workplace was the growing film industry whose ranks included many powerful female stars. Ironically, even as many female stars hauled in hefty salaries and outearned their male co-stars, the majority of 1930s film fare consisted of movies aimed at selling the idea that a woman’s place was in the home. Even those onscreen characters who were strong, charismatic career women usually gave it all up for the love, marriage, and the husband that were requisite for a traditional Hollywood happy ending—or were punished for not doing so. The New Deal When Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president in 1932, working men and women were still reeling from the effects of the Great Depression. Under Roosevelts influence, a 1938 key women’s rights and labor rights decision by the Supreme Court, West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, found that minimum wage legislation was constitutional. Along with his progressive policies, Roosevelt also brought a new breed of First Lady, in the person of Eleanor Roosevelt, to the White House. Thanks to an assertive, capable, and active personality paired with an impressive intellect, former settlement house worker Eleanor Roosevelt was more than just a helpmate to her husband. While Eleanor Roosevelt did provide stalwart support with regard to FDRs physical limitations (he suffered lingering effects of his bout with polio), she was also a very visible and vocal part of her husbands administration. Eleanor Roosevelt and the remarkable circle of women with which she surrounded herself took on active and important public roles that likely would not have been possible had another candidate been in office. Women in Government and the Workplace Arrival of American Mission in Rotterdam on board SS Noordam for the Peace Congress at the Hague. Jane Adams is in the center. Bettmann/Getty Images   The issue of women’s rights was less dramatic and widespread in the 1930s than it had been at the height of earlier suffrage battles—or would be again during the subsequent second-wave feminism of the 1960s and 1970s.  Still, some very prominent women affected big changes through government organizations at the time. Florence Kelley, active in the first three decades of the century, was a mentor to many of the women who were activists in the 1930s.  She died in 1932.When she was appointed to be Secretary of Labor by Franklin D. Roosevelt in his first year in office, Frances Perkins became the first woman cabinet official. She served until 1945.  Historically referenced as the woman behind the New Deal,  Perkins was a major force in the creation of the social safety net that included unemployment insurance, minimum wage laws, and the Social Security system.Molly Dewson worked with refugees during World War I and then went on to focus her efforts on labor reform. She championed minimum wage laws for women and children, as well as limiting working hours for women and children to a 48-hour week.  Dewson was an advocate for women working in the Democratic Party and became an ambassador for The New Deal.  Jane Addams continued her Hull House project in the ’30s, serving the poor and im migrant population in Chicago.  Other settlement houses, which were often led by women, also helped provide necessary social services during the Great Depression.  Grace Abbott, who had been head of the Children’s Bureau in the 1920s, taught at the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration in the 1930s, where her sister, Edith Abbot, served as dean.  Abbott was a U.S. delegate to the International Labor Organization in 1935 and 1937.Mary McLeod Bethune had served on Presidential commissions under Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover but had a larger role in FDRs administration. Bethune often spoke alongside Eleanor Roosevelt, who became a friend, and she was part of FDR’s â€Å"kitchen cabinet,† advising him on matters involving African Americans. She was involved with establishing the Federal Committee on Fair Employment Practice which worked to end exclusion and wage discrimination for African Americans in the defense industry. From 1936 to 1944, she headed the Division of Negro Affairs within the National Youth Administration.  Bethune also helped bring together several black women’s organizations into the National Council of Negro Women, for which she served as president from 1935 to 1949.

Slave Oppression - 3341 Words

Slave Oppression During the 19th century, slavery was an extremely dehumanizing period. The complete control over another human being’s life brought many hardships and disappointments. Families were separated and, for African-Americans, the slave era was extremely depressing. Slaves were often beaten, or killed for the simple incompletion of a task. Women had no rights and were used for cooking, for cleaning, and for the creation and nurturing of babies. There were often instances of lynching and burnings of African-Americans simply because of their skin color. Slavery is uniquely American because it plays a major role of the formation of The United States today. During this time period, slave masters had the complete control over a†¦show more content†¦Mr. Norton is putting pressure on the Invisible Man by explaining the significance of the Invisible Man’s success. Ralph Ellison uses the IM to demonstrate the difficulty of equal treatment, even though the IM is a college stude nt. There is no leniency or respect for the Invisible Man because he is African American. The IM experiences many struggles, but Ernest Gaines demonstrated the same idea of struggle in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. Similar to the IM, Jane Pittman faces the struggle of freedom when the Proclamation was passed freeing slaves. Unc Isom, a man that is considered an advisor to the other slaves on the plantation. He asks, â€Å"What’s we to do?†(Gaines 13) as a result of the blacks not knowing how to live a life of freedom. Jane Pittman attempts to go to Ohio with Ned, but she soon realizes they did not have anywhere to stay, nor was she able to provide for Ned or herself. As a result, she decides to stay at the plantation. Earnest Gaines is demonstrating the immediate struggle of free African Americans because they do not know how to operate outside of an oppressive society as he â€Å"becomes increasingly concerned with black history and black community† (Hicks). He uses Unc Isom early in the book to capture the reader’s attention to the robotic mindset the blacks carry. Unc Isom is a man in his eighty’s that knew only the life of a slave. He is trapped in the sla ve mentalityShow MoreRelatedAmerican South And German Imperialism Essay1257 Words   |  6 Pageswere considered free, after abolition, they were not. After the Civil War, the government created alternatives to free labor. The first choice was previous slaves becoming farmers, who were internally colonized. Sharecropping was another idea, where the farmers had to sign contracts. They were voluntarily oppressing themselves. Previous slaves were free in the sense that they were able to choose who oppressed them. This idea was similar in Germany, where the Polish had to sign contracts and pay mortgageRead MoreAnalysis Of The Article Simultaneity Of Oppression 1364 Words   |  6 PagesMidterm Response Discuss and critically analyze the â€Å"simultaneity of oppression† if one group is oppressed, can anybody be free? In the schematic hierarchy of race and sex, is the dominant group â€Å"free,† at the expense of the oppressed groups, or unfree, even if materially empowered? Does it make sense to argue that â€Å"white women† are freer, or less free, than â€Å"black men†? The concept of the â€Å"simultaneity of oppression† is relatively unknown, even within today’s modern society. While there are surelyRead MoreThe Charity Bowery By Lydia Maria Child1650 Words   |  7 PagesAlthough slaves were able to obtain religious agency, they were still oppressed due to the different kinds of abuse they experienced such as emotional abuse. In Charity Bowery by Lydia Maria Child, Child is retelling a story of an aged colored woman, Charity Bowery, from New York. In Bowery’s story she says, â€Å"Sixteen children I’ve had, first and last; and twelve I’ve nursed for my mistress. From the time my first baby was born, I always set my heart upon buying freedom for some of my children. IRead MoreEssay Acquiescence: Employment and School Schedule1146 Words   |  5 PagesAcquiescence In Martin Luther King Jr.’s â€Å"Three Ways of Meeting Oppression† Dr. King gives us three ways in which oppressed people such as African Americans dealt with their oppression. The first one is acquiescence in which individuals let themselves get dragged into their own oppression. If one accepts their oppression it simply means that they are proving to the oppressor that one is inferior. The second way that oppression is dealt with is violence. 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According to Martin Luther King’s Three Ways of Meeting Oppression, he reveals how we can deal with our oppression in three characteristic ways – non-violent resistance, violent resistance and acquiescence. He believes that these three ways are indispensable, which he must organize himself into a militant, nonviolent and mass movementRead MoreAnalysis Of The Movie The Band Played On 1261 Words   |  6 Pagescommunity experienced, the plight of the medical community in investigating the disease and the issue of government response to it. The movie contains various forms of oppression, especially to the gay community. The US government did not support the gay community and, as a result, AIDs was associated with them which brought about oppression against sexual orientation (Curran, 56). When AIDs has discovered the gay community suffered at the hands of social alienation, the name AIDs singled out the gay communityRead MoreOvercoming Oppression and Exploitation - Langston Hughes Poems and James Camerons Avatar1566 Words   |  7 PagesOppression and exploitation has been present in our world as far back as one can remember. The dictionary definition states that ‘Oppression is the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner. It can also be defined as an act or instance of oppressing, the state of being oppressed, and the feeling of being heavily burdened, mentally or physically, by troubles, adverse conditions, and anxiety.’ People who feel oppressed can react in very diverse and opposing ways. SomeRead MoreAnalysis Of The Film The Novel Fat Girl 1405 Words   |  6 Pageswomen exist on earth to serve man’s needs, whether sexual, social, marital, or domestic. Being a man, that is â€Å"having a penis is certainly a privileged† (Beauvoir 294). 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Database Visual Querying Free Essays

Based on Claudio Cerullo and Marco Porta visual approaches is a system use to have correct query formulations in computer operations. Cerullo and Porta noted that the inherently linear structure of SQL (Structured Query Language) sometimes hinder correct query formulation so visual approaches were developed â€Å"to take advantage of the greater bandwidth of the human vision channel† (Cerullo Porta 2007, p. 1). We will write a custom essay sample on Database Visual Querying or any similar topic only for you Order Now While visual approaches are prominent both in the airline industry and the military, however, Cerullo and Porta introduces visual approaches as a better way of graphically building queries by composing Graph SQL elements. Cerullo and Porta stated, â€Å"The spatial arrangement of graphic objects can in fact highlight the structure of queries, providing a global outlook which can rarely be obtained with a textual description† (p. 1). Speaking of the visual approach in the computer use, Reese (1999) stated, â€Å"The visual approach can give you a sense of actually using the program (p. 41). The visual approaches therefore which was affirmed by Cerullo and Porta as useful for both inexperienced and experts users for understanding the basics of relational database interaction, and for defining complex interrelations among sub queries in visual manner, is very important as it also provides answer to the problem posed by the strict syntax use to construct request which lead to a non ambiguous semantic. Jaco and Stephanidis pointed out that their disadvantages â€Å"is the training needed for their use making them in adequate for end users who are not database or GIs experts† (p. 964). The asserted that Visual approaches â€Å"offer an easy and intuitive mean for spatial configuration expression† (p. 964) Reference Cerullo, C. Porta, M. (2007) A System for Database Visual Querying and Query Visualization: Complementing Text and Graphics to Increase Expressiveness IEEE Computer Society Jacko, J. A. Stephanidis, C. (2003) Human-Computer Interaction New Jersey: Lawrence Earlbaum Associates, Inc. Reese, J. (999) Internet Books for Educators, Parents, and Students USA: Libraries Unlimited How to cite Database Visual Querying, Papers