18001900[edit]

Sacagawea[edit]
During the Lewis and Clark Expedition (18041806), which was the first overland expedition undertaken by Americans to the Pacific coast and back, the Shoshone woman Sacagawea was the only woman to accompany the 33 members of the permanent party to the Pacific Ocean and back.[70] She joined the expedition in November 1804, after the explorers (Lewis and Clark) made winter camp at Fort Mandan in present-day North Dakota.[71] The two captains hired her husband, the French-Canadian fur trapper Toussaint Charbonneau, as an interpreter, with the understanding that she would come along to interpret the Shoshone language, which she did. Sacagawea was only about 16 and was pregnant at the time.[71]

Midwestern pioneers[edit]
Clear-cut gender norms prevailed among the farm families who settled in the Midwestern region between 1800 and 1840. Men were the breadwinners who considered the profitability of farming in a particular location or "market-minded agrarianism" and worked hard to provide for their families. They had an almost exclusive voice regarding public matters, such as voting and handling the money. During the migration westward, women's diaries show little interest in and financial problems, but great concern with the threat of separation from family and friends. Furthermore, women experienced a physical toll because they were expected to have babies, supervise the domestic chores, care for the sick, and take control of the garden crops and poultry. Outside the German American community, women rarely did fieldwork on the farm. The women set up neighborhood social organizations, often revolving around church membership, or quilting parties. They exchanged information and tips on child-rearing, and helped each other in childbirth.[72]

Cult of domesticity[edit]
The "Cult of Domesticity" was a new ideal of womanhood that emerged at this time.[73] This ideal rose from the reality that a 19th-century middle-class family did not have to make what it needed in order to survive, as previous families had to, and therefore men could now work in jobs that produced goods or services while their wives and children stayed at home.[73] The ideal woman became one who stayed at home and taught children how to be proper citizens.[73] Nevertheless, many women of the time did work outside the home; for example, in the War of 1812 (18121815) Mary Marshall and Mary Allen worked as nurses aboard American commodore Stephen Decatur's ship United States.[61] Furthermore, during the War of 1812, in 1814 when the British army was advancing to the White House, First Lady Dolley Madison insisted on staying until the Gilbert Stuart painting of George Washington was rescued, and personally took the Declaration of Independence with her before leaving.[74] With the help of volunteers and a wagon, she also took with her President Madisons working papers from his desk, his books, some paintings, and the White House silver and china.[75]

Reform movements[edit]
Many women in the 19th century were involved in reform movements, particularly abolitionism.[76] In 1831, Maria W. Stewart (who was African-American) began to write essays and make speeches against slavery, promoting educational and economic self-sufficiency for African Americans. The first woman of any color to speak on political issues in public, Stewart gave her last public speech in 1833 before retiring from public speaking to work in women's organizations.[77] Although her career was short, it set the stage for the African-American women speakers who followed; Frances Ellen Watkins Harper,Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Tubman, among others.[77] Since more direct participation in the public arena was fraught with difficulties and danger, many women assisted the movement by boycotting slave-produced goods and organizing fairs and food sales to raise money for the cause.[77] To take one example of the danger, Pennsylvania Hall was the site in 1838 of the Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women, and as 3,000 white and black women gathered to hear prominent abolitionists such as Maria Weston Chapman, the speakers' voices were drowned out by the mob which had gathered outside.[77] When the women emerged, arms linked in solidarity, they were stoned and insulted.[77] The mob returned the following day and burned the hall, which had been inaugurated only three days earlier, to the ground.[77] Furthermore, the Grimke sisters from South Carolina (Angelina and Sarah Grimke), received much abuse and ridicule for their abolitionist activity, which consisted of traveling throughout the North, lecturing about their first-hand experiences with slavery on their family plantation.[78] Even so, many women's anti-slavery societies were active before the Civil War, the first one having been created in 1832 by free black women from Salem, Massachusetts[79] Fiery abolitionist, Abby Kelley Foster, was an ultra-abolitionist, who also led Lucy Stone, andSusan B. Anthony into the anti-slavery movement.