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More than 250 academies for girls opened in North Carolina. These institutions were open for white students, but helped to start education for girls and women in North Carolina. -
After New York abolishes slavery, Isabella Baumfree changes her name and begins crusading for abolition, temperance, prison reform, women’s suffrage, and better working conditions. As Sojourner Truth, she becomes a famous figure at anti slavery meetings. -
The first African American to receive a B.A. Degree in the United States is born in Raleigh, Mary Jane Patterson. -
The world’s first women’s rights convention was held in Seneca falls, New York. A Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions is debated and ultimately signed by 68 women and 32 men. This sets the agenda for the women’s rights movement that follows. -
The North Carolina legislature passes a new constitution that grants women the right to own property and businesses, to work for their own wages, to sue in courts, to make wills, and to make contracts without their husbands' consent. The National Labor Union supports equal pay for equal work. -
The Fifteenth Amendment receives final ratification. By its text, women are not specifically excluded from the vote. During the next two years, approximately 150 women attempt to vote in almost a dozen different jurisdictions from Delaware to California. In South Carolina, a few black women, protected by Reconstruction officials, cast ballots. -
During World War 1 women begin to move into many jobs. They were beginning to work in heavy industries, mining, chemical manufacturing, and automobile and railway plants. Women also could now work running streetcars, conducting trains, directing traffic and delivering mail. This was huge because women were now able to make money and work a job if they wanted too. -
The numbers of women and men voting are approximately equal for the first time.