Women and the Fight for Reform :: essays papers

Women and the Fight for ReformWomen in the late 19th century, except in the few western stateswhere they could vote, were denied much of a role in the governing process.Nonetheless, educated the middle-class women saw themselves as a morallyuplifting force and went on to be reformers.Jane Addams opened the well-disposed settlement of Hull House in 1889. Itoffered an array of services to help the poor deal with slum housing,disease, crowding, jobless, infant mortality, and environmental hazards.For women who held jobs, Hull House ran a day-car center and aboardinghouse. Addams was only one of many early reformers to take upsocial work. Jane Porter Barrett, an African American, founded the LocustStreet Social result in Hampton, Virginia, in 1890. Her settlementoffered black women zippy instruction in child care and in skills of abeing a homemaker.Lillian Wald, a little girl of Jewish immigrants from New York City,began a visiting- nurse service to reach those too poor to pay fo r doctorsand hospitals. Her Henry Street Settlement offered a host of vitalservices for immigrants and the poor. Wald suggested the formation of aFederal Childrens Bureau.By the end of the 19th century, many women reformers focused on theneed for state laws to restrict child labor. new-fashioned children from poorfamilies had to work late hours in mines and mills and were exploited byplant managers. No state laws prevented the children from being overworkedor abused.One of the first to scrap the exploitation of orphaned ordependent children was Sophie Loeb, a Jewish immigrant from Russia Onceher father was deceased, she watched the desperation of her mother as thefamily slipped into poverty. As a journalist, Loeb campaigned for windowspensions when this was still a new idea.Helen Stuart Campbell, born in 1839 in New York, began her publiccareer as an author of childrens books. Then she used novels to exposeslim lifes damaging consequence on women. In 1859 she wrote a nov el about twowomen who break from their dependence on men and chart new lives. Campbellalso wrote how easy it was fir womens lives to be ruined by poverty anddespair. Some women went beyond advocating reform to promoting revolution.There are many other famous women who helped lead the fight toreform. kindred Florence Kelley. In 1891 Kelley worked with Addams at HullHouse and became an investigator for the Illinois Bureau of Labor, and thenwas appointed the U.