Period 4: 1800–1848 unit test

Monroe Doctrine (1823)

Nullification Crisis (1832–33)

Manifest Destiny

Second Bank of the United States

Force Bill (1833)

Dorothea Dix

American System

Specie Circular (1836)

Internal slave trade

William Lloyd Garrison

Era of Good Feelings

Compromise Tariff of 1833

DOCUMENT-BASED QUESTION. Evaluate the extent to which women's participation in public life in the United States changed from 1783 to 1855. Document 1 — Hannah Adams, Women Invited to War: Or a Friendly Address to the Honourable Women of the United States, written with the encouragement of religious leaders in Boston, 1787: another "powerful enemy...threatens our destruction.... we are in great danger of being overcome and destroyed by SIN.... this should no way discourage or hinder the women from going forward in their spiritual warfare.... The male is in [political] respects to be considered as the superior sex. But still, in the rights of religion and conscience, and in point of [Christian] salvation, there is neither male or female.... Therefore the superiority of the Male can be no bar to hinder the Female from being either the first engaged, or more zealous and courageous in proceeding in this spiritual warfare." Document 2 — The Female Advocate, anonymously published pamphlet, 1801: "Much and often has the world exclaimed against masculine women.... If by the word 'Masculine,' be meant a person of reading and letters, a person of science and information, one who can properly answer a question,...or one who is capable of doing business,...this I believe to be a glory to the one sex, equally with the other. The sole reason why the [term] is disgraceful...is because custom, which is not infallible, has gradually introduced the habits of seeing an imaginary propriety, that all science, all public utility, all superiority...should be engrossed exclusively by the male half of mankind." Document 3 — Maria W. Stewart, African American lecturer, Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality, pamphlet published 1831 and later delivered in public speeches in New England: "O ye daughters of Africa, awake! awake! arise!... Let every female heart become united, and let us raise a fund ourselves; and at the end of the one year and a half, we might be able to lay the corner-stone for the building of a High School.... How long shall the fair daughters of Africa be compelled to bury their minds and talents beneath a load of iron pots and kettles?... Possess the spirit of independence.... Possess the spirit of men, bold and enterprising, fearless and undaunted. Sue for your rights and privileges." Document 4 — Harriet H. Robinson, former factory worker in Massachusetts, recollection of events in the 1830s and 1840s: "We can hardly realize what a change the cotton factory made in the status of the working women. Hitherto woman had always been a money saving rather than a money earning member of the community.... In Massachusetts, before 1840, a woman could not, legally, be treasurer of her own sewing society, unless some man were responsible for her.... The cotton factory was a great opening to these...dependent women.... They could earn money and spend it as they pleased.... For the first time in this country the labor of woman, as a class, had a money value. She had become...a recognized factor in the political economy of her time." Document 5 — Dorothea Dix, petition to the Massachusetts state legislature, 1843: "duty prompted me to visit several prisons and alms-houses.... I found, near Boston, in the Jails and Asylums for the poor, a numerous class brought into unsuitable connection with criminals.... I refer to [mentally ill people].... it is only by decided, prompt, and vigorous legislation the evils to which I refer...can be remedied. I shall be obliged to speak with great plainness...and from which my woman's nature shrinks with peculiar sensitiveness. But truth is the highest consideration. I tell what I have seen...[so] you may feel more deeply the imperative obligation...to prevent the...continuance of such outrages upon humanity." Document 6 — "The Sphere of Woman," engraving published in the magazine Godey's Lady Book, 1850: a domestic parlor scene — a mother seated at home holding an infant while her other children read a book together at her knee beside the family dog; heavy curtains frame the room. The image presents home and child-rearing as woman's proper realm. Document 7 — Elizabeth Cady Stanton, address to the New York state legislature, 1854: "we, the daughters of the revolutionary heroes of '76, demand at your hands the redress of our grievances—a revision of your state constitution—a new code of laws.... We are persons; native, free-born citizens; property-holders, tax-payers; yet are we denied the exercise of our right to the elective franchise.... We have every qualification required by the constitution, necessary to the legal voter, but the one of sex.... Can it be...that you, who have declared that all men were created equal..., would willingly build up an aristocracy...that would raise the sons above the mothers that bore them?" In your response you should: state a historically defensible thesis; describe broader historical context; support an argument using at least four documents; use at least one additional piece of specific evidence beyond the documents; for at least two documents explain how point of view, purpose, situation or audience is relevant; and demonstrate complex understanding.