Question

Explain how the industrial revolution change the role of American women in society contributed to the emergence of early women’s movement in the 1840s

Answer 1

The Industrial Revolution had different effects according to what women we are talking about. However, despite how different they were, these effects contributed every woman being potentially able to see herself as a subject in a political dispute.

For white and middle-class women Industrial Revolution caused their work to become redundant. They no longer made any productive work. Their spinning wheel had become unnecessary, as other tools they used in their homework, and it arised an ideology that said real women should stay home and be good wives.

For white and poor women, who had to work in factories to survive, the industrial revolution meant a violent increase in their exploration. Women were the majority of workers in textile factories in the mid-nineteenth century because they were cheaper to keep.

For black slave women, this meant an even larger increase in their exploration. Industrials men who had slaves put them to work in their factories. In other words, slave women in the industrial revolution had their exploration doubled.

All these changes prompted women to act on their own, be it recognizing themselves as doubly explored, be it refusing to live an empty life. The women's movement fight to have a greater presence in politics was their way of fighting against these new conditions brought about or intensified by the Industrial Revolution.