The Women of Today are Thankful for the Women of Our Past
Student Name
HIST 204
Naomi Rendina
September 3, 2012

The Women of Today are Thankful for the Women of Our Past

The American Women started out as the basic homemaker since coming to the New World. They were seen as nothing but a person that should stay home with the children, tend to the land and their husbands. As the world began to change, so did the view point and the rights of women. This change did not happen overnight and it was not an easy battle. The women of our past paved the road so that the women today can play a major role in the military, politics and on the home front of America.
The first battle for women’s rights came in the mid to late 1800’s, prior to the Civil War at the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848. The movement came to a sudden halt, just as it started to begin, due to the Civil War. In 1869 the proposed 15th Amendment, which gave black men the right to vote, fueled the women’s right movement even more (Bowles 2011). Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton played a major role in the early part of this movement.
In May 1869, the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) was formed by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton; an organization made up primarily of women. Their object was to secure an amendment to the Constitution in favor of women's suffrage, and they opposed passage of the Fifteenth Amendment unless it was changed to guarantee to women the right to vote. They continued work on The Revolution which included radical feminist challenges to traditional female roles (Ward 1999). Lucy Stone reorganized her Association in late 1869 to launch the much larger and more moderate American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). The AWSA included both men and women as members and they supported the 15th Amendment as it was written. They knew that if they