REFORMERS

By: Jennifer Garst (Leader)
Zenna Hubbard (Asst. Group Leader)

The Progressive Era (1890’s – 1920’s) was a time of reform in the United States. There were many great people who helped to change the face of this country, and this was one of the first times in American history that you begin to see woman as great leaders and those who brought about change. The main goal of this time was to fight corruption in politics and strive to provide equality to all regardless of sex, race, ethnicity or creed. This was lead primarily by the middle class Americans comprised of lawyers, teachers and business people.

There were many women who helped shape our country and many of them were during the Progressive Era. Though Sojourner Truth wasn’t in the Progressive Era she was a strong woman who fought for the freedom of slaves and the rights of women. Sojourner was the reason that women reformers of the Progressive Era such as Jane Addams and
Anne Clay Crenshaw felt their voices would be heard and their demands would be met. Anne Clay Crenshaw was a reformer who experienced time before and during the Progressive Era. This helped her to perfect her strategies on fighting for women’s suffrage. Shortly after was Jane Addams, who was not content with the chaos of America and fought for peace in all dimensions. Also, Clara Barton’s mark will be forever seen in America’s past, present, and future as the organizer of the American Red Cross. Susan B. Anthony was another extraordinary Reformer. She was active in the anti-slavery movement. Susan also organized a Women’s National Loyal League to support and petition for the Thirteen Amendment outlawing slavery. She also asked for passage of a suffrage Amendment. Finally, all American women got the vote with the Nineteenth Amendment, also known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment in 1920.

These phenomenal women reformers have helped change America and continue to have an effect on our lives even today. It is because of these women that we have moved forward from slavery and broken the racial and gender biases that liter our history and continue to grow as a nation on the ideals of acceptance with opportunities for all.

Susan B. Anthony

By: Maribel Graham

Susan B. Anthony was born February 15, 1820 in Adams Massachusetts. She was brought up in a Quaker family with long activist traditions. Early in her life she developed a sense of justice and moral zeal. After teaching for fifteen years, she became active in temperance. Because she was a woman, she was not allowed to speak at temperance rallies. This experience, and her acquaintance with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, led her to join the women's rights movement in 1852. Soon after she dedicated her life to woman suffrage. Ignoring opposition and abuse, Anthony traveled, lectured and canvassed across the nation for the vote. She also campaigned for the abolition of slavery, women's rights to their own property and earnings, and women's labor organizations. In 1900, Anthony persuaded the University of Rochester to admit women. Anthony, who never married, was aggressive and compassionate by nature. She had a keen mind and a great ability to inspire. She remained active until her death on March 13, 1906.


ABOLITIONIST

After they moved to Rochester in 1845 members of the Anthony family were active in the anti-slavery movement. Anti-slavery Quakers met at their farm almost every Sunday, where they were sometimes joined by Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison. Anthony's brothers Daniel and Merritt were anti-slavery activists in Kansas. In 1856 Anthony became an agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society, arranging meetings, making speeches, putting up posters, and distributing leaflets. She encountered hostile mobs, armed threats, and things thrown at her. She was hung in effigy, and in Syracuse her image was dragged through the streets. In 1863 Anthony and Stanton organized a Women's National Loyal League to support and petition for the Thirteenth Amendment outlawing slavery. They went on to campaign for Black and women's full citizenship, including the right to vote, in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. They were bitterly disappointed and disillusioned when women were excluded. Anthony continued to campaign for equal rights for all American citizens, including ex- slaves, in her newspaper The Revolution, which she began publishing in Rochester in 1868. Anthony attacked lynchings and racial prejudice in the Rochester newspapers in the 1890s.


EDUCATIONAL REFORMER

In 1846, at age 26, Susan B. Anthony took the position of head of the girls' department at Canajoharie Academy, her first paid position. She taught there for two years, earning $110 a year. In 1853 at the state teachers' convention Anthony called for women to be admitted to the professions and for better pay for women teachers. She also asked for women to have a voice at the convention and to assume committee positions. In 1859 Anthony spoke before the state teachers' convention at Troy, N.Y. and at the Massachusetts teachers' convention, arguing for coeducation and claiming there were no differences between the minds of men and women. Anthony called for equal educational opportunities for all regardless of race, and for all schools, colleges, and universities to open their doors to women and ex-slaves. She also campaigned for the right of children of ex-slaves to attend public schools. In the 1890s Anthony served on the board of trustees of Rochester's State Industrial School, campaigning for coeducation and equal treatment of boys and girls. In the 1890s Anthony raised $50,000 in pledges to ensure the admittance of women to the University of Rochester. In a last-minute effort to meet the deadline she put up the cash value of her life insurance policy. The University was forced to make good its promise and women were admitted for the first time in 1900.

SUFFRAGIST



Susan B. Anthony was convinced by her work for temperance that women needed the vote if they were to influence public affairs. She was introduced by Amelia Bloomer to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, one of the leaders of the women's rights movement, in 1851 and attended her first women's rights convention in Syracuse in 1852. In 1866 Anthony and Stanton founded the American Equal Rights Association and in 1868 they started publishing the newspaper The Revolution in Rochester, with the masthead "Men their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less," and the aim of establishing "justice for all." In 1869 the suffrage movement split, with Anthony and Stanton's National Association continuing to campaign for a constitutional amendment, and the American Woman Suffrage Association adopting a strategy of getting the vote for women on a state-by-state basis. Wyoming became the first territory to give women the vote in 1869. In the 1870s Anthony campaigned vigorously for women's suffrage on speaking tours in the West. Anthony, three of her sisters, and other women were arrested in Rochester in 1872 for voting. Anthony refused to pay her streetcar fare to the police station because she was "traveling under protest at the government's expense." She was arraigned with other women and election inspectors in Rochester Common Council chambers. She refused to pay bail and applied for habeas corpus, but her lawyer paid the bail, keeping the case from the Supreme Court. She was indicted in Albany, and the Rochester District Attorney asked for a change of venue because a jury might be prejudiced in her favor. At her trial in Canandaigua in 1873 the judge instructed the jury to find her guilty without discussion. He fined her $100 and made her pay courtroom fees, but did not imprison her when she refused to pay, therefore denying her the chance to appeal.



In 1877 she gathered petitions from 26 states with 10,000 signatures, but Congress laughed at them. She appeared before every congress from 1869 to 1906 to ask for passage of a suffrage amendment. Between 1881 and 1885 Anthony, Stanton and Matilda Joslin Gage collaborated on and published the History of Woman Suffrage. Susan B. Anthony died in 1906 at her home on Madison Street in Rochester. All American adult women finally got the vote with the Nineteenth Amendment, also known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, in 1920.

References:
http://susanbanthonyhouse.org/biography.shtml
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=susan+b.+anthony+pictures&FORM=IGRE#focal=93bd1c982abf726da0c3a8b0817c8e87&furl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kwantlen.ca%2F__shared%2Fassets%2Fsusan_b_anthony10393.bmp

Clara Barton

By: Tiffany Gipson
Clara Barton was born on December 25 1821 in North Oxford, Massachusetts. In her
beginning years she was a teacher at the age of 15. In 1850 she went to teach at
Bordentown, N.J. where the schooling was paid for and so few students attended. She
later established the first free school in New Jersey. She later resigned due to the fact
when town officials decided to appoint a male administrator over her. In 1853 she got a
job as a copyist in the U.S Patent Office in Washington, D.C., becoming the first woman
in America to hold government position. She continued this work until April 1861, when
the Civil War began and she left to serve the Federal troops as a nurse. This is where
she earned the nickname “the angel of the battlefield” and in 1864 was named the
superintendent of all Union nurses.
After the war, Clara Barton settled in Danville, N.Y., where for several years she was a
semi-invalid. In 1877 she became the founder of the International Red Cross, leading the
American branch. In 1881 Barton incorporated the American Red Cross, with herself as
president. A year later her extraordinary efforts brought about United States ratification
of the Geneva Convention. Barton ended up leading the American Red Cross for its first
26 years.
She was a figure of international renown; she retired to Glen Echo, Maryland, where she
died on April 12, 1912 of natural causes.

Clara Barton's Place of Birth





"Clara Barton." Who2? Biographies. Who2?, 2008. Answers.com 18 Feb. 2010.
http://www.answers.com/topic/clara-barton

"Clara Barton." Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 1994-
2009. Answers.com 18 Feb. 2010. http://www.answers.com/topic/clara-barton

Anne Clay Crenshaw

By Cinthia Haros.

Anne was born in 1859 in Richmond, KY to Cassius Marcellus Clay, an advisor to President Lincoln and to Mary Jane Warfield Clay, a homemaker. Anne was part of a big family, she had five sisters and four brothers. Her father was absent quite a bit due to his work, therefore Anne and her siblings did not have a very good relationship with him. Anne's parents, Cassius and Mary Jane, divorced when Anne was 19 years old. It did not matter that while they were married Mary managed and took good care of their large state, after the divorce she was left with nothing. Back then there were no laws to help Mary in obtaining a fair division of the property the couple obtained while they were married or any laws requiring ex husbands to provide monetary support for the former wives or children. This unfortunate situation was a wake up call for Anne and her sisters, it opened their eyes to the unfair treatment of women. After seeing the suffering of her mother, all five sisters became very involved in the Kentucky suffrage movement.
In 1886, Anne at the age of 27, married a wealthy man named Spottswood Dabney Crenshaw. After their marriage they moved to Richmond, Va. Even though she was not as active as before, Anne continued to be a part of the movement for women’s rights throughout her marriage. She had four children and the Crenshaws moved at least three times until finally in 1899 the Crenshaw family moved to a beautiful home in 919 West Franklin Street. A very trendy neighborhood known for its wealthy inhabitants. It was in this home were the first two meetings of the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia (ESL) were held. The first meeting was held in on November 20, 1909. After a few meetings Anne’s involvement with the ESL was limited but she took every chance she had to help them. She registered to vote as soon as it was possible and she also insisted in raising her children in an "atmosphere of freedom and distinct individuality."

Ray Bonnis in a document from the Virginia Commonwealth University writes about Anne Crenshaw and he states that “Anne Clay Crenshaw is symbolic of the many quiet yet determined Virginia women who for at least two centuries have fought to advance the opportunities for themselves and their children.”


The house at 919 West Franklin St now houses the Virginia Commonwealth University ,VCU's, Center for Public Policy. It was renamed the "Crenshaw House" on November 20, 2009, 100 years to the day that the first ESL meeting took place.




References:
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0886827.html
http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0886827.html
http://www.library.vcu.edu/jbc/speccoll/exhibit/crenshaw.html

Sojourner Truth

By: Tammie Gaines

Sojourner Truth was born in Hurley, New York, 1797 to the name Isabella Baumfree. She was one of thirteen children who was born into slavery. She was sold many times until she escaped with her infant daughter in 1827. In 1843, she changed her name to Sojourner Truth due to religious feelings in which she was convinced that she heard heavenly voices. Sojourner means traveler and truth means being real or genuine. Sojourner stood nearly six feet tall and she was a brilliant speaker who spoke out against slavery and women rights. Her voice was low, so low that listeners termed it masculine and her singing voice was very beautiful. Whenever she spoke in public, she sang. She was a civil rights activist who helped many slaves escaped from plantation owners. She is known for her famous speech “Ain’t I A Woman” that was given 1851 at a woman’s convention in Akron, Ohio in which she challenged the notion that men are superior to women. During the Civil War she worked to support black Union soldiers, and after the war she continued to travel and preach on spiritual topics. Also, she continued to be an advocate for the rights of blacks and women. Sojourner was active until 1875, when her grandson and companion fell ill and died. She returned to Michigan where her health deteriorated and she later died at the age of 84 in 1883 of infected leg ulcers.
Sojourner Truth was a unique woman who fought the hard battle for the rights of blacks and women. She spoke in public spreading the word in order to achieve equality for the rights of these two groups. She was a brilliant speaker and activist who chose to help two minority groups of people gain equality.


Picture of Sojourner Truth retrieved from: http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0768462.html and http://library.thinkquest.org/J0112391/sojourner_truth.htm
"http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/.html." The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia.
© 1994, 2000-2006, on Fact Monster. © 2000–2007 Pearson Education, publishing as Fact Monster. 17 Feb. 2010 .

Jane Addams

By: Shani Hagelberger.



Jane Addeams was born in Cedarville, Illinois in 1860. She was the eighth child in a family of nine. Her mother passed away when she was two years old and she succumbed to tuberculosis that left her with a deformed spine. Some say these two experiences in her life made her compassionate to the disadvantaged. After receiving a bachelor’s degree from Rockford College for Women, Jane pondered her future---she studied medicine, reading and writing and traveled. While touring Europe with her friend, Ellen Starr, she came to realize her vision after visiting a settlement house, Toynbee Hall, in London’s East End. Toynbee Hall offered recreation and educational programs to the poor. They decided to lease a house, built by Charles Hull, in an underprivileged area of Chicago that would serve “as a center for a higher civic and social life; to institute and maintain educational and philanthropic enterprises and to investigate and improve the conditions in the industrial districts of Chicago”. There were kindergarten classes, club meetings for older children, and adult courses at night that mimicked night school. As time went on, buildings were added, such as a coffee house, gym, pool, art studio, library—to name just a few. She held many titles throughout her lifetime. She was appointed to Chicago’s Board of Education, and the School Management Committee; she was one founder of the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy and became the first woman president of the National Conference of Charities and Corrections. She was against America entering the war and was attacked publicly for her views. She used this hostility to fuel her humanitarian ways and assisted Herbert Hoover in bringing relief supplies to women and children of enemy nations. She missed the presentation of her Nobel Peace Prize as she was hospitalized the same day. She died in 1935 of cancer and her funeral was held in the courtyard of the Hull House.


Jane Addams was a feminist. She believed that women should make their voices heard and women should have aspirations and search out opportunities to accomplish them.

Jane Addams: The Nobel Peace Prize 1931 retrieved from www.Nobelprize.org
Addams, Jane. Twenty years at Hull- House: With Autobiographical Notes. New York, Macmillan, 1910.