Women's Role in The Mid-1800s

Women’s Role in the Mid-1800’s From 1820 to 1850, a different kind of work signaled an important historical development for many working men and women: the movement of production from the home to the factory. During this period, Americans, in general, held highly stereotypical notions about women’s and men’s roles in the society. Women had to restrict their individual liberty after marriage to home and the family, and they were denied economic opportunity …

…individual rights, and by working in textile mills, their economic opportunities were taken advantage of. Despite all the limits set upon them, women actively participated in all the important reform movements of the 19th century. They demonstrated their ability to challenge men, especially when Margaret Fuller published Woman in the Nineteenth Century, she argued that a woman needed “not as a man to act or rule but [ . . . ] as a soul to live free and unimpeded.”