Abolition and Women
The mid 19th century is called "the Age of Jackson" because it was as revolutionary as its namesake, Andrew Jackson, seventh United States president and developer of the Democratic Party. The Jacksonian Period was an era of change. The Industrial Revolution of the century began taking its toll on the US. Since the average man was a laborer, people began to move to cities. These growing cities became centers of filth and poverty while small agricultural regions began to decline. The Transportation Revolution connected the continent with a web of railroads, allowing the migration westward and boosting the economy. The invention of the cotton gin impacted southern agriculture by speeding up the harvest of cotton and, in turn, revamped slavery in the south. People began distrusting industry and the capitalist way of life. Some people turned to religion for the answers, others to reform movements. Reformers fought for causes, spanning from improved conditions and wages for laborers to temperance. Throughout this period, however, two social reforms stood out among the rest. Since the beginning of the United States, the abolition of slavery had been an issue. Although slavery was not directly discussed in it, the Constitut
Suffrage was a movement for reform of social enslavement, so activists used less aggressive tactics and applyied their forces to other causes they saw as important. The abolitionist movement came to a head with the Civil War, after which slavery ended. Weld, like Walker, appeals to moral judgment. Both were fighting for emancipation, but abolition was a battle for the actual freedom of a people thought of as property while suffrage was fought for political and social freedom. To accomplish this, abolitionists used a variety of tactics, including literature, conventions and revolts. Abolition laws were passed in all of the northern states, but it remained in the South, which depended on slave labor for their economy. Very few women worked, and the jobs they could hold were limited. One example of abolition literature is Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, by David Walker, a free black man. Abolition was the first to achieve its goals because suffrage took a back seat to it during the Civil War, which was slavery's ultimate demise. The rebellion led by John Brown at Harper's Ferry and the Nat Turner revolt are two prominent examples. Conventions and revolts were other forms of expressing the abolitionist views. In the 1830's, many abolitionists began to voice their opinion that the only solution was complete abolishment. " Associations of women teamed together to hold conventions, provide charity and back other reforms.
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