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star_australis) wrote2016-05-09 11:22 am
Biography: History
Note: I’m not going to go into political history and the like here very much, because I already did that on my other blog. Instead, I’m going to be focusing on women’s history in the U.S. and Ally’s own role in history. Like Aaron up there, Alice was “born” as nations are in the early 1500s, in what would later become South Carolina, in the general vicinity of Charleston. And, also like Aaron, this left her a bit out of the loop when it comes to Europeans fighting over the New World and trying to gobble up land. Also, much like her sibling, Alice had previously simply roamed the area she was born in, interacting with Native peoples and later the settlers that began appearing.Though her skin was dark, her eyes and hair were far more foreign in color and this unusual appearance combined with the arrival of the Europeans seemed to mark the child as a bad omen. She spent much of her time around the Tsalagi or Aniyunwiya peoples in the area of present-day South Carolina; both names the Cherokee used to refer to themselves, and because of her odd appearance, she was initially called ka-li-ni-ge-sv-na a-yu-le (ᎧᎵᏂᎨᏒᎾ ᎠᏳᎴ) (and being in the area of the Lower Dialect, the l was pronounced with a rolling r), which translates to something like “abnormal child.” When they began noticing that this odd youth wasn’t aging at all despite the passing years, this name changed to a-do-nv-do (ᎠᏙᏅᏙ), meaning spirit or soul. Now, early on in the colonies, there were few if any women; it was mainly men who traveled to the Americas, but that changed in 1619 when the first women began arriving to the colonies to join their husbands or other family members, for the most part. Thanks to indentured servitude, few women lived past 40 and few men past 50, and thanks to this they also tended to marry late, which resulted in slow population growth. Plus, women were legally and economically dependent on their husbands, though Alice herself was a child at the time and spent much of these days in lessons learning things like etiquette and how to run a household, along with funner pursuits such as horse riding. Though most women weren’t taught much in the way of reading, writing, foreign languages, or mathematics, thanks to being an embodiment, she was taught these as well; besides, mathematics come in handy when you’re trying to balance a budget. But, by the 1770’s, things had gotten pretty tense with the British Empire and the colonies declare their independence; during the Revolutionary War, women tagged along with the armies and fulfilled support functions such as nurses, and Alice likewise tagged along as well; she was one of the who would run aid the seamstresses, cooks, and would also function as a water bearer. The war also helped elevate women’s status since they were the ones left at home while their husbands went off to war, but besides New Jersey’s state constitution allowing suffrage to anyone “worth fifty pounds”, the Revolutionary War didn’t change too much for women. Fortunately for men, by the 1820s, most white men were able to vote without having to own land, but women and minorities were left out, much to Alice’s frustration. She also experienced a bit of a religious revival thanks to the Second Great Awakening, which converted twice as many women as men. Up in New England, the Waltham System was taking root, which hired unmarried women to work jobs in the textiles industry, but down South, Alice had experienced her first growth spurt thanks to the Louisiana Purchase, but was still stuck helping to manage the property rather than out working in a job. Still, as reform efforts in the early 1800’s sifted from the poor to women as more got involved, and Ally was certainly one of them. The American Female Moral Reform Society attacked rules that benefited men over women, but many suffered backlash as some saw it as religions attempting to force their beliefs on others In New York in 1848, the Seneca Falls Convention met, which was the first convention for women’s equality in legal rights; this convention passed the Declaration of Sentiments, which called for full female equality including the right to vote and despite the sectionalism and slavery causing the North and South to clash time and time again, Alice didn’t care that these were Northerners; she fully supported their cause. But, her early feminist sentiments had to be put on hold a bit as the American Civil War broke out, and by this point, Alice had aged to look about sixteen years old. She began working as a nurse, following the army and stationing herself at field hospitals where she helped to tend to the wounded soldiers coming in off the battlefield. Before the war, she only had a general knowledge of medical procedures, mainly from being exposed to them during the Revolution, but she quickly realized more of her people were dying of disease and infections than they were on the battlefield, and she quickly found her calling in learning all she could to treat the wounded. Plus, it proved mighty useful when the tide of the war began turning against the South and she began having to use this knowledge to treat her own injuries as well as her sibling’s. After the war, Alice had fled further South, wanting to keep away from Congress and its Reconstruction. Specifically, she fled to New Orleans, Louisiana. In the years following the war, despite white Southerners viewing suffrage as a threat, Alice—like many other women—began to use town life to put themselves in the public area, and the church was a particularly popular avenue, creating societies and social programs that women would be involved in, giving small pushes for more freedom and involvement in both society and government at large. Once she was better recovered from the war, Alice finally moved into the workforce properly, and from 1870 to 1920, the number of women and children in the workforce more than doubled, thanks to the low wages of male unskilled workers. While Alice herself kept her focus on her ever growing medical expertise, many women were in the garment and textiles industries, with the result being working for less wages in equally harsh conditions. New technologies were coming about as well, such as typewriters, and at several points in history, Alice worked as a secretary or other clerical position; it was believed women’s fingers were the only ones dexterous enough, and so many women filled these roles. There was also a large increase in the number of women attending college, going from 20% in 1870 to 40% in 1910, though it took quite some time for Alice to ever be able to afford it; her medical knowledge came from experience rather than a professor, though that isn’t to say she never simply snuck into a lesson. With the harsh conditions prevalent in industry, workers union’s began to spring up such as the AFL, though it did discriminate based on gender and race, and Alice never joined. By 1900, the number of women in immigrant populations began to equal men, due to the men sending for their families which more than once set off a chain migration; when one family immigrated, so too would their neighbors, and their neighbors, and so on. The result was the formation of communities in which immigrants kept their own languages and customs, such as China Towns. Women immigrants tended to not work however, unless they were single, with the exception being Japanese women who usually helped on family farms. Still, the lack of good paying jobs resulted in a majority of non-immigrant families working, with black married women five times more likely to work than white married women. Facing hostility in the South, blacks began the Great Migration up North, where they found that people were just as racist so things weren’t that much better. Out west, the settling of the west was taking place, first with mining camps; populations were mostly men, since there were few opportunities for women, but those that did find jobs were hotel owners, cooks, or prostitutes. In the next phase, which was home on the range, everyone in the family worked on the farm, including women and children. Under the Homestead Act, women were actually allowed to own land of their own, and many took advantage of it; many also suffered from isolation thanks to there being so few people, but this lessened as more and more people went west and towns sprang up, with the local church as the social center. Alice herself was mighty tempted to go west, but she remained in New Orleans; goodness knows she’d put her medical and clerical skills to better use there. By around the turn of the century, political involvement was at its highest and women got involved by giving speeches and supporting organizations or politicians, while the National American Woman Suffrage Association was formed to help get women the right to vote, which did succeed in four states: Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, and Utah. Needless to say, Alice was thrilled, but was still impatient for the rest of the states to do the same. The temperance movement also sprang up as well, as well as social service organizations, which Alice was a little more hit or miss with; for example, she believed alcohol should be controlled, but didn’t believe trying to get rid of it would do much good With President Garfield’s assassination, the Pendleton Civil Service Act was passed, which prohibited federal employees from trying to get or accepting political contributions from government workers, and created the Civil Service Commission, and it was this act that helped women start to get their foot in the door when it comes to federal government jobs, and Alice quickly took the opportunity to start trying to be more active as an embodiment herself, namely in the governmental and political sphere. In time, Unions for women and immigrants began to form, such as as the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and by 1910, 25% of all workers were women, which began challenging the idea that a woman’s place is in the home. As women began increasing their involvement in unions, some began demanding fair treatment and equal civil rights, and Alice soon joined them. By 1917, 39 states had enacted laws limiting the number of hours women could be forced to work, along with other laws about women in the work place. Very few intended to challenge traditional gender roles however, though those few attempted it. Charlotte Gilman wrote Women and Economics, which attacked the traditional house wife model, while Emma Goldman attacked marriage as legal prostitution. While Alice did support Gilman’s argument, she did find Goldman’s a little extreme. She was a fan of Margaret Sanger however, who was a crusader for reproductive rights, arguing that these rights were essential if women were to gain equality. Alice is still a big supporter of pro-choice movements and reproductive rights due to Sanger’s influence; how much freedom could someone really have if they didn’t have the right to their own body? Meanwhile, women’s suffrage had slowly but steadily been gaining more and more support as more states allowed women the right to vote, until the passing of the 19th Amendment in 1920. When World War One broke out, labor shortages arose due to the draft, and women and minorities began to fill these positions, however, they were both forced out as soldiers returned after the war, especially with many states passing laws that forced women out of jobs men once held, much to Alice’s fury. In the 1920s, the League of Women Voters was formed in order to promote equal pay and other rights for women, while Congress passed the Sheppard-Towner Maternity and Infancy Act which provided federal funds for infant and maternity care. but little reform efforts really got done thanks to big business. It was also in the 1920s that Alice took to cutting her hair short, and she’s done so ever since. During the Great Depression, most women kept their jobs due to having lower paying ones, but the rates of suicide increased as families fell apart and children died of starvation. Alice spend much of her time doing what she could for her people, working in soup kitchens and opening up her home so they’d at least have a roof over their heads and a blanket to sleep under. In the New Deal, policy was meant to be that women received equal treatment, but that was pretty much ignored and women only gained about 19% of jobs despite being a quarter of the labor force. Still, women did gain some political influence, with Frances Perkins becoming Secretary of Labor, the first female Cabinet member, and Alice took quite a liking to Elanor Roosevelt, who headed women’s political movement, helping her get more of a say in what was going on and making sure Alice’s thoughts were heard. During the Second World War, women were enlisted as nurses and in clerical positions, which Alice was happy to fulfill. Back home, women and minorities began filling in positions left behind by soldiers who had went off to war, though many women also left the workforce once the war was over. The result was the rate of marriages skyrocketing, which led to the Baby Boom as well as a boom in housing and development. Despite many leaving the work force, women still made up 35%, which included 7.5 million mothers. By the 1960’s, various groups attempted to create utopias, and the feminist movement also began here with the creation of the National Organization for Women in 1966. Then, in 1973, Roe v. Wade established that no state could prohibit abortion during the first three months of pregnancy, leading to the nationwide debate continuing to this day. Meanwhile, the rise of the AIDS epidemic and increasing acceptance of gay culture continued the culture war, causing the political parties to lurch in opposite directions. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 gave some more rights to pregnant women in the work place, such as making it illegal to be paid less on account of it, or forced to go on pregnancy leave when unwilling to. To Alice’s relief, more laws were passed to protect women through the new couple decades. Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson found sexual harassment a form of job discrimination, Planned Parenthood v. Casey re-affirmed Roe v. Wade, the Violence Against Women Act tightened federal penalties for sex offenders, funded services for victims of rape and domestic violence, and provided for special training of police officers. In United States v. Virginia, the court ruled that the all-male Virginia Military School had to accept women if it was to continue receiving public funding, Kolstad v. American Dental Association ruled that women could sue over violation of the discrimination law even if the results weren’t very severe, while Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs ruled that states could be brought to court over violations of the Family Leave Medical Act. President Obama signed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, which allows victims of pay discrimination to file a complaint with the government against their employer within 180 days of their last paycheck, and in 2013 Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced that the ban on women serving in combat roles would be lifted. She knows, however, that there’s still a long way to go; after all, Women’s Suffrage was introduced to Congress every year since 1878 and yet never passed until 1920. Still, she’s happy for how far her country has come over the years (quite a long way from being totally dependent on husbands!) and hopes it will continue. | ||||||
| BRIEF. BASIC. APPEARANCE. HISTORY. CREDIT. | ||||||