Gender Roles (CHI Featured Topics)Connecticut History Illustrated (CHI) collection may include items from CSL Archives.
Connecticut History Illustrated (CHI) : "From colonial times and into the twentieth century, significant differences characterized what were considered the appropriate respective roles of men and women. Before the effects of the Industrial Revolution were felt in Connecticut in the early nineteenth century, the primarily agricultural economy encouraged a division of labor that fell along traditional lines. Women managed the household, but were also active contributors to the economic well-being of the family. Depending on their social, educational and economic status, men had access to a range of work and professional opportunities; they retained most legal rights, and had exclusive access to political participation and public office. Over the course of the nineteenth and into the early twentieth centuries, industrialization and a shift from family farms to cultivation of more specialized crops, such as tobacco, drew women of lesser means as well as immigrants to factory and agricultural work. Middle- and upper-class women were generally relegated to the “domestic sphere,” but many pursued careers in education and some became pioneers in other fields. Women were active in social causes such as abolition, temperance, and movements that promoted the advancement of their own political and legal rights, such as suffrage. Attitudes about what were the appropriate roles and activities of men and women, and to what extent to maintain separation of the sexes in certain areas of life, changed over the course of the twentieth century, with two world wars and the civil and women’s rights movements accelerating the process. To find more resources about gender roles as evidenced in Connecticut history, use the topic headings and other keywords within records to extend your searches--terms such as “coeducation,” “masculin*,” “women’s rights,” (enclosing phrases in quotes, and using an * to allow for singular, plural or other forms), and the names of individuals, groups, or organizations. Exploring the collections to which individual items belong can be another way to find more items of interest."