Women in the 19th Century - Kathryn Gleadle (Essay Date 1995)
KATHRYN GLEADLE (ESSAY DATE 1995)
SOURCE: Gleadle, Kathryn. Introduction to The Early Feminists: Radical Unitarians and the Emergence of The Women’s Rights Movement, 1831-51, pp. 1-7. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995.
In the following excerpt, Gleadle argues that the roots of the women’s rights movement preceded the Seneca Falls Convention by at least two decades, and that its principles were initially articulated and embraced by feminist activity inspired by radical unitarianism.
The nineteenth-century woman has been subject to exhaustive historical scrutiny over the past two decades. The dichotomy between the realities of her iniquitous legal and social standing on the one hand, and the cultural worship of the womanly nature by contemporaries on the other, has made her a fascinating object of study. Moreover, it was during that century that women first began to organise themselves into...
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- Introduction
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Primary Sources
- Charles Fourier (Essay Date 1808)
- Nellie Weeton (Journal/Letter Dates 26 January 1810 And 15 September 1810)
- Emma Willard (Address Date 1819)
- Parisian Garment Workers (Petition Date August 1848)
- Elizabeth Cady Stanton (Speech Date 1848)
- The Sibyl (Letter Date February 1857)
- Louisa Bastian, Mary Hamelton, And Anna Long (Petition Date July 1862)
- Harriet H. Robinson (Report Date 1883)
- Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (Essay Date 1893)
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- Early Feminists
- Representations Of Women In Literature And Art In The 19Th Century
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