Breaking New Ground: American Women 1800-1848

At the beginning of the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution lured many Americans from farms to the cities, creating new opportunities and new limitations for women. Some women were forced to look for work in the few occupations open to them, while others became full-time homemakers. Americans constructed new ways of thinking about the "proper roles" of women and men, with women as the moral educators in the private sphere of home and church while men participated in the public sphere of b…