Emancipation of Slaves: Gradual or Immediate?

• Gradual– freeing children as

born or at adulthood

– freeing old people as they stop work

– permitting people to ‘buy’ their freedom

– freeing slaves when master dies

• Immediate– political emancipation:

Emancipation Proclamation, 1863

– slave rebellion or revolution

Reconstructing the Labor System

• Compensation?

– To slaveowners for loss of property?

– To slaves for historical oppression? “Forty Acres and a Mule”

• Political Emancipation: “Nothing but Freedom”– Freedmen’s Bureau– Wartime Amendments:

• 13th Amendment ends slavery

• 14th provides citizenship, due process and equal protection of the law

• 15th provides right to vote

Women’s Emancipation

• Property Rights: to own property, work

• Political Rights: vote, hold office, serve on juries, participate in political activity

• Reproductive Rights: birth control

• Social & Cultural Rights: to travel, speak in public, dress, attend cultural or educational institutions…

Women’s Emancipation• Right to own property: Married Women’s Property Acts

(1850s on); Married Women’s Earnings Laws (1870s on)

• Right to Education: Women’s Colleges, and Coeducational Higher Education (1850s - on)

• Divorce and Custody Laws changed to give women custody of children (late 19th century)

• Reproductive rights: voluntary motherhood (ca. 1880s) ; birth control (ca 1920); planned parenthood (ca 1950s); reproductive rights (1970s+)

• Right to Vote: 19th Amendment: 1920

But between 1890s and 1960s for the Freed Population and Women

• Separate but Equal…(Plessy v. Ferguson)– segregated jobs,

schools, public accommodations

– “white” primary

– “grandfather” clauses, poll taxes

• Separate Spheres…– Separate education:

e.g., home economics

– Protective legislation

– Separate economic roles which mesh with ‘home responsibilities’

Civil Rights Revolution

• First the courts: Brown v. Board of Education (1954); Roe v. Wade (1973)

• Equal Pay Act of 1963

• Civil Rights Act of 1964

• Voting Rights Act of 1965

• Housing Act of 1968

• Title IX of education amendments of 1972