tus and the larger historical and cultural reasons behind these changes. WomenÆs status has changed along at least three major axes û political rights, employment and health care, and cultural perceptions of the female body.
As Benson notes, womenÆs political status remained remarkably consistent from Colonial times through the Revolution and on through the last decades of the 19th century. The tenets of English common law that saw women as belonging to their husbands (or fathers or sons) were not fundamentally challenged until the agitation for broad political rights in the late 19th century .
Why women a century ago should have wanted equal political rights is in some ways an easy question to answer, for it makes good common sense that all groups (and individuals) in a representative democracy should wish to be represented û a point perhaps most eloquently argued by Abigail Adams, who would live to see few enough reforms in her day. But the specific instigating forces towards political reform in the late 19th century are more complex.
The increasing urbanization of the country along with the increasing participation of women in the paid work force were elements of the call for increased political rights, for as women began to be freer of their families (which happened with urbanization) and more economically independent (which accompanied waged work), they sought to have the same political rights as their co-workers and neighbors. Women had also participated in great numbers in the anti-slavery movement before the Civil War, and this taste of political engagement was to the liking of many.
Women made legal gains during the 19th century in terms of property rights, divorce laws and child custody , but to make a substantial change in their political status they required the vote. Of course, not all women (and certainly not all men) supported womenÆs suffrage. Amelia Barr, writing in 1896, argued that women should stay i...