Thufferin' Thufferagetts From the Lowell Girls to Prohibition

An Integrated study of women, abolition, and citizenship This unit on women is important because history books typically ignore the contributions and impact of women on history. Beginning with the Lowell girls and the factory system, as young women moved out of the home to help support their families, the battle for equality has escalated. Women abolitionists were some of the most powerful speakers. Sarah an Angelina Grimke, from South Carolina, caused a split not only in the abolitionist movement but in the Society of Friends as well, over the issue of whether women could address " mixed audiences," crowds with both men and women present. On several occasions the buildings in which they were speaking were torched, not because of anti-abolitionists sentiment, but because women were addressing audiences with men present. Elizabeth Cady Stanton argued with Frederick Douglas that if women's rights were not included in the abolitionist movement, it would be another fifty years before women would receive their due recognition. The Women's Christian Temperance Union, sill in existence today, played a major role in enacting Prohibition. All students need to understand that even those without the vote can make a major contribution in a democracy and that all people deserve the right to be heard.