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on new techniques for home management for the most part. More women could be found in non-traditional roles, such as Nellie Bly, who became a journalist, or Elizabeth Blackwell, the first American woman to graduate from medical school. The nineteenth century also saw the entry of women into social and political movements. The drive to abolish slavery included many women, some of whom held leadership positions. The Temperance Movement, designed to alleviate the effect of alcoholism on families, was similarly driven by women. Women who became involved in these movements began to see firsthand how they could become involved in political causes far beyond their traditional homemaking sphere. By the late nineteenth century, these woman became activists for suffrage and other social causes. “The end of the nineteenth century was a time of tumult and change, and tensions showed in the lives of women,” notes Dr. Warder. “New opportunities in education, employment and social protest caused many women to question the role society cast for them. Involvement in any of these activities often led to unanticipated results and actions that defined new roles for women in the decades that followed.” 4 THE WOMEN’S RIGHTS MOVEMENT In 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott invited a group of abolitionists to meet in Seneca Falls, New York, and discuss the issue of women’s rights. Stanton and Mott

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Contemporary Issues: Gender Equality