The Significance of Women during the 1700-1800's in America

Women's roles during the 1700-1800's are vastly underrated. Without women, there might not have been an economic revolution because of all the job positions they filled. Factory owners were having a hard time finding laborers. Along with children, women were some of the biggest losers considering this. Women were good for businesses because they weren't paid nearly as much. People were being forced to change their views, slowly. Women were being transformed from the pure protestant mothers, to independent humans who can not only work, but think. Instead of staying home to make sure the husband is happy and close to God, unmarried women were starting to be gone all day in factories or owning saloons.

A lot of women started seeing them selves as more than moral stability for men, but as equals to men. If women were equal to men, don't they have the same God given rights? That's the question that troubled the new Americans. Most politicians were scared that women were totally different than men, therefore would vote for different kinds of politicians. But when election time came, they voted their class. Just like men.

I think women were mostly just trying to escape the views of being inferior. They wanted the opportunity to do what they liked, but didn't want to actually do it. Women were more comfortable with the life style they had been living in. They were asking for equal rights, like voting. They were sick of being dependants of men, and relying on them to live. Once they obtained the rights they were asking for, most returned to domesticity. They didn't really know anything else, because they had been socialized to do those things. When you get right down to it, they were scared of change. It seams to be human nature when you look at the history of mankind.

Women did have a significant role during the economic revolution. They filled job positions when labor was very scarce, they started to redefine what a 'Real Woman' and a 'Real Man' were. Getting voting rights widened the political participation.