American Women In History: 19Th Century

Throughout the 19th century, life had been transformed through revolutions in industries both in the united states and some countries in Europe. Therefore, life for most women was becoming more comfortable. In the 19th century, 80 percent of the United States population had jobs. For one to be considered as a middle class, a person had to have at least a servant working for them hence most women had to do services throughout the century for employment. Most working class women had hard times to work and labor. As soon as they were old enough, women were working in factories and farms. Nonetheless, at their marriage life managing children and housework was a challenge in cases where electricity was not available.

However, in the 19th century for instance 1842, some reforms were made that banned women and young boys from working in farms. And in the year 1847, all children under 8years were forbidden from working in the factory act that indicated that both women and children were to work for 10 hours every day. Hence, these saw the extension of the law to all factories. In these article, the discussion of women in the west is put into consideration and various western women are discussed on their roles in fighting for the rights of women. Nation expansion. In the 1840s, among the American settlers, the westward movers had mapped a route across the Rocky Mountains, and for the next decade, around 350,000 Americans had crossed over to North America. However, most of these immigrants were generally young American families among then were men who were responsible for financial obligations and women with the responsibilities of motherhood. The discovery of gold in California in the 1848 led to some immigrants in changing their minds on what purpose they had through their migration. These made some men and women move to California in search of wealth rather than permanent settlement. Throughout the migration period, conflicts erupted within different women both from the west and Mexico.

Hence, Mexican women from the southwest were dislocated by the American women who came to settle in their lands. These saw the evolution of prostitution in the region. The Indian women were considered to be servants for the rich, and when an outbreak of civil war came about, the American women were being labored by the Mexican women. Mary Ellen pleasant. Pleasant became one of the most important women in the underground western terminus of San Francisco during the 1850s. Her roles were to place housemaids and servants within the homes of the rich thus she claimed power among San Francisco leaders. In her early years, pleasant was named after her mother’s plantation, and her mother disclosed that she had descended from the succession of the Santo Domingo’s queens “voodoo”. After that, she had been sold to a man in the New Orleans named as Americus Pride who decided to educate her and she was eventually freed. She was sent to leave by the man’s friends in Cincinnati as she would not stay with the educated people in the antebellum South.

In her life, Mary Ellen had been taken in and out of a variety of families within Virginia and New England. She was then married to James W. Smith who was an abolitionist and owned a plantation. In the 1830s and 1840s, Mr. and Mrs. Smith rustled slaves to Canada who worked as underground railroad couriers. The death of Mr. Smith in 1844 made Pleasant to give a helping hand in the escape of slaves. When things got out of hand, Mary Ellen earned her first ways to New Orleans where she was impressed by the voodoo Queen Mary Laveau through her social power among the New Orleans society. She stays in New Orleans. Her stay in New Orleans made her copy Laveau's voodoo practices although she did not intend to copy her practices exactly.

In 1852, Mary pleasant was being searched by the Louisiana planters in the fight against underground smuggling of slaves. In the Geneva cottage, a young woman died mysteriously, and these led to the consolidation of Mary Pleasants influence through the collection of blackmails from the attendees who wanted to keep quiet over the matter. However, some associates of Marry Ellen also died, and some people tried to turn the miseries against her, but she was never accused.