The first decade of the twentieth century is often referred to as the Progressive Era. A quick glance at the situation for women, African-Americans, and other minorities throughout the decade shows that while some progress was indeed made, by 1910 there was still much to be done.
Restraining Styles
Women were bound politically, and their dress reflected this. Many wore tight corsets, light kid gloves, and shoes that were usually a size too small. Tiny women were the epitome of style. Many women crushed their twenty to twenty-four inch waists down to ten or fifteen inches.
Women ordered their clothing from Sears Roebuck and Co. catalogues or sewed them at home on sewing machines powered by foot treadle. In the cities, some enjoyed the luxury of shopping in department stores. Men wore derby hats and stiffly laundered collars and cuffs, which women pressed with irons heated on wood-burning stoves.
Only wealthy city dwellers gave much attention to fashion. For most people clothing was durable, heavyweight, and made to last. Though a few women dared to shorten their skirts for bicycle safety, to many showing even an ankle was considered grossly indecent. The population of San Francisco was shocked when, on August 31, 1902, Mrs. Adolph Ladenburg was reported by the city newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner, to be seen riding cross-saddle, wearing skintight riding breeches and a split skirt.
Women processed and preserved their own food each season. They made their own sausage, ground their own coffee, and bought sugar and flour from bins at the local grocer’s store. Laundry was scrubbed in metal tubs with hand-turned paddles and hung on lines to dry. In the evenings, homes were lit with kerosene or gas lamps, though electricity was being wired into some homes in the cities.
Oppressed Women
Only a few states, including Wyoming (as a territory in 1869), Utah (as a territory in 1870), Colorado (1893), and Idaho (1896), gave women the right to vote. In all states, a woman’s possessions became her husband’s upon marriage.
Women’s battle for recognition, which had begun the previous century, continued on many fronts. Women who suffered torment at the hands of drunken husbands looked to prohibition as a weapon to fight oppression. The right to vote (which would also have allowed women to vote to prohibit alcohol) was another way to gain recognition and power. Their campaign suffered many reversals and false starts. On May 1, 1903, New Hampshire replaced a forty-eight year old policy of prohibition with a licensing system, which allowed tavern owners who purchased a liquor license from the government to buy and sell liquor. In the same year, the state also rejected women’s suffrage.
Women refused to give up the fight, however. In November 1903, after being denied access to the White House, Carry Nation, a temperance advocate who had gained her reputation ripping apart taverns with a hatchet, went to the Senate Gallery and sold miniature hatchets while enumerating the evils of alcohol.
Drinkers found creative ways to "legitimize" their habit. In August 1904, the Subway Tavern was opened by reformers at Mulberry and Bleecker Streets in New York. "Only the purest" forms of liquor were sold there as a way to discourage drunkenness while promoting "spirituality." Patrons of the Subway Tavern imbibed their whiskey, brandy, or Scotch but paid dearly — each drink cost a nickel, and they had to listen to a sermon conducted by various ministers who supported prohibition.
On December 16, 1903, one small gain was made in women’s employment when the Majestic Theater in New York hired the first female usher. But, on the whole, little headway was made in the women’s fight during this decade, though they fought their valiant battles and had their imaginative supporters. In 1904 in New York, the Rainy Day Club organized to give moral support to women who wore "rainy day skirts" that reached their shoe tops. "The short skirt," said Charles R. Lamb, the club’s vice president, "is the symbol of the emancipation of women."
Other women’s clubs were founded, and existing clubs changed their focus. While clubs in Victorian times had often centered on cultural pursuits, many of the clubs of the early 1900s reflected women’s interest in reform and politics. If women chose, they could join service-oriented clubs, which focused on helping the poor, sick, and homeless, as easily as they could join clubs dedicated to cultural studies, women’s suffrage, or temperance.
The active roles some women took to gain their independence in the 1900s were a drastic reversal of the earlier roles of Victorian middle-class women. Placed on a pedestal, Victorian women were considered the "weaker sex" and were pampered and fawned over. These middle-class women were not expected to work except to oversee household servants. By 1900, many of these women were growing increasingly restless with this passive life. Clubs that had been formed to study the classics (a respectable pastime for the Victorian woman) were now taking on issues of social reform and suffrage.
But attitudes toward women, their political and social interests, and their clubs were far from those of today. The April 1905 issue of Ladies Home Journal contained an article written by ex-President Grover Cleveland suggesting that a woman should refrain from joining clubs. "Her best and safest club is her home," recommended the statesman. He followed this with the suggestion, in the magazine’s October issue, that "sensible and responsible women do not want to vote." Women had a long way to go to be equal.
