Quest For Rights And Women’s Rights.: A Sample Essay For Inspiration & Mimicking

The nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century have brought some dramatic changes in all aspects of human life. Technological advances, industrial development, new political and social movements have changed the common perception of the social structure, the rights of the different social groups, and the wealth distribution paradigm. In the United States, the period is known as the Progressive Era, where positive changes, improvements in all aspects of life were embraced by the majority of the population and, most of all, by the emerging middle class. Labor movement, socialist ideas and women’s suffrage were all products of the same global tendency for positive changes. They had many common features and trends. At the same time, each of the movements had its specific goals and leaders that make them stand out as independent historical phenomena.
Among the most important innovations of the 19th century that changed human life and shifted the paradigm of the civilizational advance, two stand out as the most important: electricity and steam power. Both of these innovations have created the foundation for industrial revolution and mass production. Transformation from predominantly manual labor to machine production have significantly increased the capacity of the manufacturing facilities. Industrial revolution brought centralization of capital and concentration of production facilities in the hands of the few rich families. Rapid development of the railroad system and mass production has signified the beginning of the global market and promotion of international trade that was unachievable before. Industrial progress has created several new social groups – industrial workers, middle class and wealthy owners of plants and factories.
Mass production was based on the idea of segregating the manufacturing process into separate segments and incorporating human labor as part of such segmentation. A laborer was supposed to perform repetitive tasks and become highly efficient in one segment of the process, thus maximizing the output of the manufacturing facility. Large plants and factories required a lot of human labor and attracted the country population with the lowest level of income to the cities. Working at a factory was the only source of income for such groups.
At the same time, industrial revolution has created a growing demand for more skilled employees with wages that were enough to support a decent way of life. This process signified the creation of the new middle class. People that were not preoccupied with just providing for the most basic necessities for themselves and their families paid more attention to improvement in every aspect of their life, for social justice and equal rights of various social groups. Fight for better labor conditions, emergence of the theory of socialism and women’s suffrage were direct derivatives of the industrial revolution and the emergence of new social classes.
All of the progressive movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century had one basic common goal – elimination of inequality and discrimination in certain aspects of human life, or in other words, they wanted to make life better for the discriminated social group they represented. This basic progressive goal was a common feature of the nineteenth century. Labor movements fought for better working conditions for laborers and fair distribution of generated profits. Socialists of various kinds fought against the unfair distribution of wealth generated by the growing industrial potential and strived for a fair society, where such wealth would be distributed equally among all the members. Various women’s rights groups tried to win equal legal and social status for women that were traditionally discriminated when compared to men.
These movements for equal rights were not isolated cases that fell out of the context of the era. Besides labor, women’s suffrage and social movements there were also various movements that promoted freedom of spirit and religious convictions and freedom of speech. A strong abolitionism movement fought for freedom of black slaves in the United States. Less important, but never the less popular movements were targeting alcohol abuse, improvements in educational system, and penitentiary system reform.
The goals that were declared by various groups and movements that participated in the quest for rights were common, but the ways to achieve them were different. The early groups of fighters for equal rights shared utopian theories and approaches to achievement of their goals. Utopian communities of various kinds were created in an attempt to isolate the community members from the rest of the world and create a new social order. Many utopian communities had mixed religious and social rules that governed their existence. Shakers, for example, declared the total equality of men and women, abolished the institute of marriage and totally did away with private property. The most famous secular community organized by a British factory owner, Robert Owen featured all of the characteristics of the socialist society that was later promoted by socialist leaders such as Marx and Engels. There was no private property, the value generated by the members were distributed equally, men and women had equal rights, including equal education and divorce rights. Owen’s New Harmony didn’t last very long because the theoretical harmony did not pass the reality test, but it had a significant impact on the labor, socialist and women’s suffrage movements.
In the same utopian way of thinking early women suffragists believed that the domesticity theory, where women were perceived as dedicated to home keeping was not entirely wrong. Even though they recognized that women should take more active part in political and social life, their role in correcting the vices of the society they lived in should concentrate on upbringing their children in “the right way”, so that they can later build a more just social system.
Another, much more radical, way of addressing the social injustice was promoted by the revolutionary wing of the fighters for justice. The most famous and obvious example of the revolutionary theory is the socialist movement, Karl Marx’s theory of the war between classes and the First International. According to Marx’s views, society is divided into antagonistic classes that are differentiated by the ownership of the production facilities. The owners, or the capitalists, enjoy the benefits of the additional value, created by the labor of proletariat, or working class. The proceeds of such labor are not distributed fairly. The capitalists will not give up their privileges in a voluntary manner, therefore, the only way to build a new society is to change the capitalist social order by the socialist revolution, where the proletariat will gain the power by force and distribute the labor results in a fair way.
Example of radical approach can be found in women’s rights movement as well. Emmeline Pankhurst in her addresses called the fight for women voting rights “a civil war” and herself “a soldier”. In support of her radical approach, she referred to the women’s suffrage as “a revolution” and saw only two alternatives – either provide women with the voting rights, or kill them. Emmeline Pankhurst was not alone. The Silent Sentinels movement in the United States, dissatisfied with the authorities’ reaction to the mild tactics of the National American Women’s Suffrage Association (NAWSA), picketed the White House for almost two years. The radical protesters, including their leader, Alice Paul, were arrested, went on a hunger strike and even were force-fed to save their lives by prison guards.
However, not all of the movements for social equality shared the views of their radical members. There was a third method of achieving desired reforms – evolutionary change. The idea behind it was that violence and total destruction cannot be viewed as legitimate means of the social transformation. Denial of violence as the instrument of achieving political power is most evident in the socialist and labor movements. First International, an organization that was created by the leading European trade union leaders to defend and promote the interests of the working class was split between the supporters of the two opposing views on the socialist theory. Marx’s followers were confronted by the supporters of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who believed in the evolutionary change of capitalism, also known as revisionism. Edouard Bernstein, one of the supporters of the evolutionary socialism denounced Marx and Engels’ theory of the crisis of capitalism and inevitable social collapse. He claimed that evident growth of wealth among the members of the middle class and widening base of capitalist owners proved that the catastrophe was not anywhere near in sight. With the benefit of the historical hindsight, it is clear now which theory was correct.
Quest for social rights had some differences as well. Such differences were based on the diversity of the target social groups that each movement defended. Each group had its specific agenda and specific issues that determined the tactics employed to achieve them.
Labor movement of the nineteenth and early twentieth century had improvement of the conditions of labor, fair wages and shorter workday as their major goals. In view of such goals, the major instrument of furthering these objectives was a strike, as a way to push the factory owners to the negotiating table. Even though, at later stages, the labor movement embraced the idea of socialism and departed from its initial goal of immediate improvement of the working conditions, strikes were still the main weapon of the struggle against capitalists. The labor force also used trade-unions as an effective mean of furthering their goals and succeeded in creating a powerful labor movement, that is present in the modern world.
Women’s rights defenders, due to the specific nature of the social group, could not use strikes as their weapon. Before the suffrage movement gained momentum, women were mostly limited to their household existence, sometimes by use of physical force. Going on strike in each individual family would make very little sense. Since the main goal of suffragists was to give women a right to vote, this objective was pursued by trying to swing the popular opinion and the opinion of the leading politicians towards the change in legislation. This was achieved by what would be called a propaganda campaign in modern terms. In United States, the Silent Sentinels scandal finally convinced President Woodrow Wilson to support the constitutional voting rights of American women.
Women Suffrage movement never had such powerful international organizations as the labor movement. The women’s rights organizations were mostly country-specific and even in one country there were usually several groups with a varying degree of radicalism.
Equal rights movements of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries emerged as a result of the civilizational progress. Industrial revolution created the basis for various rights groups by changing the social composition and emergence of new social classes. Quest for rights movements share many common features, because they all have the same fundamental goal of achieving social justice and better way of life. At the same time, due to the fact that they had different targets and defended specific social groups, they had used different tactics to achieve their goals.