Organizations

The 19th and Early 20th Centuries

The early organization of American women and mothers began in the late 18th century as a voluntary social and community-based phenomenon. Many of these early organizations had a religious foundation, as women banded together within their churches to promote community aid projects such as relief for the poor and orphan care. Others were social groups that formed around women's issues or cultural interests. These women's clubs provided an acceptable public outlet for women and provided members with valuable organizational and leadership experience. Jane Cunningham Croly organized such clubs under the umbrella organization the General Federation of Women's Clubs in 1890, and the women's club movement would remain active in future generations. Women soon began participating in small numbers in organizations with a political agenda despite the controversial nature of such behavior.

Slavery, Temperance, and Medical Care

Key societal and political issues included the abolition of slavery, temperance, and the prohibition of alcohol, and improved medical care. Key organizations included the Anti-Slavery Society, National Women's Christian Temperance Union, and the National Association of Colored Women. Mothers participated in these organizations in part to improve society for their children. Key leaders included Sojourner Truth, Lucy Stone, Angelina and Sarah Grimke, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. By the 1830s, women were beginning to give public lectures. Some notable women soon began to transfer their growing organizational [Page 951]and leadership experience to the newly developing women's rights movement, including the right to vote (suffrage). Notable women's rights organizations of the time included the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Key leaders included Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Lucretia Coffin Mott. They used the leadership abilities gained from earlier organizational work to plan the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention devoted to women's rights.

Many observers criticized the women active in these organizations, as their participation violated the social and cultural constraints placed on women, whose proper sphere was the domestic life of the private family home. Mothers received additional criticism due to the public perception that they were neglecting their childrearing duties for their organizational activities. Alice Stone Blackwell, who grew up to become an activist herself, claimed that as a child she had to share her mother Lucy Stone's attention with her activist causes. Some mothers participated in organizations opposed to women's rights, such as the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage. Some mothers sought to use the 19th-century ideal of the “cult of domesticity,” which elevated mothers as the teachers of the next generation of citizens, to add moral authority to their organizational work, while others used their activism to challenge such cultural stereotypes.

...