Separate Spheres In America

Separate Spheres or “Cult of Domesticity”, was the idea that women and men were polar opposites by biological factors in 19th century America. Women were expected to stay at home and perform housework such as cooking, cleaning, maintaining the fire and caring for the children. Men were the financial providers of the family, outside of the home doing “dirty” work in factories or other means of employment. The Great Depression was the economic stock market crash beginning in 1929 that affects all classes of people in American due to loss of jobs, savings, and bank trusts. The Great Depression largely impacted all aspects of society due to its impact on lower, middle and upper class. The rise of birth control was one key outcome from this era
However, birth control was illegal during this time as well as abortions due to the idea of separate spheres. For example, the society believed that it was a women’s duty to bear children, not work. Also, the fear that women would start to have sex for pleasure versus reproduction led to the idea that it would enhance promiscuity and outside of marriage sex. In “When Abortion Was a Crime: Reproduction and Economy in the Great Depression,” Leslie J. Reagan displayed how all classes of women participated in abortion as well as all races due to the desperate needs of financial stability and other
Poor health, crammed and hot working spaces, dangerous conditions, and long work hours took place in the Lowell Mills. Both Hemmingway and Bagley exhibited in their testimonies on the working conditions of early factories that the primary issue was health and their short meal times allotted during the work day. The case of Muller V. Oregon, in 1908, following Lochner Vs. New York just three years before, ruled in the favor of women regarding working conditions; regardless of similar circumstances in Lochner V. New York. The Brandeis Brief was used by the lawyer at hand in appealing to women’s domestic spheres and “scientific” data displaying their need for shorter work hours and more care and comfort than men need. The women in the Muller workplace were treated unfairly with very long work hours just as the Lowell Mill Girls were. However, the appeals to feminism used in the Muller V. Oregon case caused a decision to upgrade women’s workplace circumstances during the labor reform movement versus the Lowell Mill girls idea that women and men should be treated equally at work. Yet, the appeal to feminism was arguably taking a step towards women’s rights in the opposite direction, proving their role in the “domestic sphere.” Brandeis Brief, from Muller v. Oregon, 208 U.S. 412