Women’s Fight Equality by Emily Melograna During the pre-civil war period of 1820-1860, vast changes in society were occurring. Conflicts between the North and South were increasing in number and intensity, and many advocators of abolition and women’s rights began to gain recognition and supporters. This was a period of great change in the United States, particularly for women. In fact, this is when women began to actively give their support to a wide-range of reforms. Many supported the abolition movement and the temperance movement. With the majority of women advocating for the highly visible abolition and temperance movements, disunity fell upon the women’s right movement. Though the women’s rights movement was not generally considered to be greatly successful, women gained the knowledge, experience, and contacts needed for meetings yet to come by being involved with these movements. The women’s rights movement as a whole is a complex historical event and many happenings are interrelated and uncharacteristically interlinked socially, economically, and politically. Socially, much progress was made in the areas of educational equality, contraception awareness, and the anti-slavery and temperance movements. Women were also somewhat successful economically by gaining more equality in the workplace. Politically, however, they were not so fortunate. Women did not get the right to hold property or divorce until well after the civil war, nor did they gain the right to vote until 1920. Ideas like these were considered by most to be too radical to take on at the time. As a result, overall the women’s movement for equality was not greatly successful from 1820-1860.One of their more successful endeavors was obtaining equal education for women. In 1833, the first co-educational college was founded in Oberlin, Ohio. Oberlin was not only for...
