Family preparing holiday dinner about 1940. Although the national life-style has become more hectic, American families have continued to anticipate with great excitement celebration of holidays which provide an opportunity for reunions. (Library of Congress)

Women's rights grow with country

     Women...sisters...where to now?
     Women now have greater equality with men. Women now are working outside the home. Women are now carving new niches in the world.
     Perhaps one way to view what's next for women is to look back at what American women have done in the last 200 years. Women's rights have grown with the country, but the process has been one of turtle - slowness and long-lasting discrimination.

Scorned and idolized

     Women have been alternately scorned and idolized, looked upon as conveniences and necessities, treated as slaves and goddesses. Women have fought in wars and have stayed home to run the country.
     Consider the colonial period. For most women, their place was in the home. Betrothal in the early South involved purchasing a bride, much as a man would purchase a piece of furniture.
      Tobacco planters purchased brides for the going rate of one pound of tobacco for each pound of bride. These brides were young English women who had indentured themselves in order to defray their shipboard fare to the colonies.

Start of southern families

     These purchase arrangements marked the beginnings of some of the nation's outstanding southern families.
     Wives tended the home, reared children, listened to "laws" expressed by their husbands.
     Wealthy families lived in mansions, and servants took care of many of the women's chores.
     Women in lower-class families were not as lucky. Women and children played an important part in the work. Poor families needed all available hands for work at home and on the farm.
     A report described the day's work of Abigail Foote, and educated, young girl of Colchester, Conn., apparently of the middle class. She wrote the following diary in 1775:
     "Fix'd gown for Prude, - Men Mother's Riding-hood, - Spun short thread, - Fix'd two gowns for Welsh's girls, - Hatchel'd flax with Hannah, we did 51 lbs a piece, - Pleated and ironed, - Read a Sermon of Dodridge's, - Spooled a piece, - Milked the cows, - Spun linen, did 50 knots, - Made a Broom of Guinea wheat straw, - Spun thread to whiten, - Set a red dye, - Had two Scholars from Mrs. Taylor's, - I carded two lbs of wool, - Spun harness twine, - Scoured the pewter."
     A poorer family might not have had pewter to scour, but it had all the other chores to do.
     The most urgent task of any day was preparing meals. If the menu was large enough, the preparation of dinner, usually eaten in early afternoon, might have begun even before breakfast.
     Such a simple task as washing cooking pots was back-breaking work. Many of the larger iron kettles weighed more than 30 pounds empty and sometimes had to be carried to a stream to be washed.
     History does not record how many women were burned because flames and sparks set fire to their long petticoats. But this was a danger of cooking over an open hearth.
     Spinning occupied much time. To spin enough thread for a wool petticoat, or skirt, one person had to work constantly from breakfast until bedtime for four days.
     One chore that wasn't as common then as today was washing. Particularly in poorer families, where each member had only one set of clothes, it might have been a month or more before laundry was done.

Women did share of work

     In the fall, food had to be dried and preserved for the winter, and animals had to be butchered.
     Yes, women did their share of the work. And some even broke into the business world.
     Eliza Pinckney, daughter of a British army officer, founded a multi-million dollar indigo dye industry in South Carolina. Mrs. Martha Smith succeeded her husband as head of a group of Long Island whalers.
     Mrs. Sueton Grant, of Newport, R.I., became a merchant princess in command of a sizable fleet of ships left to her by her husband.
     In New York, widows were accustomed to opening saloons.

Shared war burdens

     When the Revolutionary War began, women shared burdens with men. Besides carrying buckets of water for thirsty fighting men, women often served as nurses on the battlefield and sometimes served as soldiers.
     Margaret "Captain Molly" Corbin fought beside her husband and took over when he was wounded. During the Battle of Ft. Washington on Manhattan, grapeshot shattered her shoulder, and she never regained the use of her arm.
     The famous "Molly Pitcher," Marry Hays, is reported to have remained calm when a cannon shot passed between her legs, clipping off part of her petticoat, during the Battle of Monmouth, N. J.
     Deborah Sampson made herself a suit of men's clothes and joined a Massachusetts regiment, using the name Robert Shurtleff. She treated her own wounds, to avoid detection, but a doctor discovered her secret when she contracted a fever while serving in Philadelphia. She was dishonorably discharged.

Made mark in Eau Claire, too

     Throughout history, women showed their importance. They made their mark in the Eau Claire area, too.
     Mrs. M. J. Lanphear, who was born in New York in 1836 and moved to Eau Claire in 1882, conducted a business college for 20 years and then had an institute of healing for 10 years.
     She was the author of several books of magnetic healing and treated morphine addicts and mentally ill persons, as well as others.
     Harriet A. Clark, born in Eau Claire, was a portrait painter who studied art in Minneapolis and Paris, winning fame in her field in 1913.

Called self reformer

     And there was Cora Pond, who moved to Eau Claire with her family in 1858, when she was two years old. her father was a lumberman. She called herself a "born reformer."
     Her first reform came when she was 16. She refused to wear corsets, because they were uncomfortable. Instead, she wore bloomers, and legend has it local ministers preached about the infamy of her clothes.
     In 1877, she became one of the first women admitted to the University of Wisconsin. She spent three studying theater at Madison and finished her studies at New England Conservatory.

Joined suffrage league

     But a stage career didn't appeal to her, so she moved to Boston and joined the Women's Suffrage League. She helped start 85 local unions of the league, including one in Eau Claire.
     Perhaps the "Roaring Twenties" and World War I helped American women along the road to equality. "Shamless" flappers danced until dawn, and the novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald list female characters among other members of the "Lost Generation."
     World War II brought many women into factories. It was these workers who kept industrial plants operating while the men were fighting.
     Between 1950 and 1974, the number of working women nearly doubled, while the number of working men increased by one-fourth. But the median earnings of women in 1974 was $6,772, low compared to the $11,835 median for men.
     There are 7.2 million mothers in America rearing children alone because of divorce, separation or death. The Census Bureau says 13 percent of all U. S. families are headed by women, a 73 percent increase since 1960.
     Women have it an all-time low in fertility in recent years, as women under 30 increasingly favor the two-child family.

Woman's life style changes

     Life is changing for many women in America. They are putting up with less unhappiness. An increasing divorce rate indicates they are less afraid to end a marriage. Women are opting not to marry, preferring their individual lifestyles.
     And more women are furthering their education. The Census Bureau found, among people ages 25-29, about 77 women had completed four years of college for every 100 men.
     Few, if any, professions remain the sole abode of men.
     More and more women prefer the title Ms. to Miss or Mrs. And some women are keeping their own surnames after marriage.
     So, what's ahead for women?
     Equal pay for equal work is not yet a reality in all jobs, although legislation is aiding that goal.
     Double standards, judging women one way and men another, still exist. The assertive woman is many times looked down upon. And established ideas of "femininity" and "masculinity" continue.

Homemaker seek recognition

     The homemaker is also seeking equality. Now an unpaid position, many homemakers are seeking recognition of the importance of their role.
     Better day care facilities for children of working parents has also become an issue.
     Women may have come a long way, but they haven't yet run out of goals to reach for and fight for.

-- Monica Stauber and Wendy Awe

Extracted from the Eau Claire Leader Telegram
Special Publication, Our Story 'The Chippewa Valley and Beyond', published 1976
Used with permission.