Women's rights

What was the relationship between the abolitionist and women’s rights movements?
During the Colonial era and the first decades of the Republic, there were always women who strove to secure equalrights for themselves. Some assumed the business interests of a husband after his death. A few women challenged male domination of religious life, though they met with criticism from their communities.Women were also active in the fight against the Crown and organized boycotts of British goods. During the struggle for independence, prominent females such as Abigail Adams wrote and spoke privatelyabout the need for male leaders to rectify the inferior position of women, promising rebellion if their words were not heeded. But only later, over the course of the nineteenth century, did women'sdemands for equal rights change from a series of isolated incidents to an organized movement. This movement was far from unified, however; strife and division often arose as activists faced thedifficulties of meeting the diverse needs and priorities of the women of America.
Enormous changes swept through the United States in the nineteenth century, altering the lives of women at all levels ofsociety. The country moved away from an agrarian, home-based economy and became increasingly industrialized. Beginning in the 1820s, many white single women found work in the mills that opened across theNortheast, where they often lived in boarding houses owned by their employers. As working-class women and men of all classes began to work outside the home, middle-class women were increasinglyassociated with, and confined to, the domestic sphere. Prescriptive literature defined the ideal middle-class wife as pious, pure, and submissive. Her main responsibilities consisted of creating a haven awayfrom the harsh workplace in which her husband toiled and raising virtuous, productive citizens of the Republic.
The changing nature of women's lives helped create the circumstances that allowed...