Women and Progressive Reform

Women were involved in most aspects of Progressive reform, but they were especially important in the areas of social welfare such as child labor reform, settlement house work, and prohibition. In order to gain a stronger voice, many women supported the passage of female suffrage. Jane Addams was the most visible woman reformer of her era. Read about her and then choose one of the following subjects listed below and consider why women were especially important to these reform efforts.

Female Suffrage    
    What lobbying tactics did suffragists use to obtain congressional approval of a woman suffrage amendment to the U.S. constitution? 

Three important women in the suffrage movement between 1917 and 1920, Mary Garrett Hay, Maud Wood Park, and Carrie Chapman Catt, used tactics men had been using for years to lobby Congress for support. They made personal appointments with legislators, gave them questionnaires to see who needed to be targeted most, and used the men who favored suffrage to try to persuade others. These documents illustrate how these three suffrage activists influenced Senators, Congressmen, and Assemblymen to fight for national enfranchisement.

Women's International League for Peace and Freedom

            A wave of protest followed the use of poison gas in Belgium in 1915.  Women reformers became very active in protesting for peace and efforts to outlaw the use of chemical weapons. Jane Addams and other American women reformers worked with women in Europe on this effort. Addams won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work.

Workplace Regulation
    What role did Florence Kelley and other women play in the effort against sweatshops in Chicago?

With her arrival at Hull House in Chicago in 1891 Florence Kelley spearheaded a campaign to regulate garment sweatshops and limit the hours of labor of women and children. The documents in this project depict this reform effort and some of the opposition it generated. Kelley served four years as Illinois's first Factory Inspector, though her work was constrained by a ruling of the Illinois Supreme Court that declared the eight-hour provision of the law unconstitutional.