1824Women and men conduct the first labor strike in the textile mills of Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
1827The slave, Isabella Van Wagener, later known as Sojourner Truth, escapes from her master and joins a Quaker household. She becomes a crusader for African Americans and women.
1828Sarah and Angelina Grimké, members of a South Carolina slave-owning family, begin working in the abolition movement in the Northeast.
1830The moral reform social movement in the United States begins and consists primarily of women. Moral reform was a campaign in the 1830s and 1840s to abolish sexually immoral behavior (licentiousness), prostitution, and the sexual double standard, and to promote sexual abstinence among the young as they entered the marriage market.
1831William Lloyd Garrison publishes “The Liberator,” the newspaper of the militant abolition movement.
1833The founding meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS) is held.
1833Oberlin College, the first racially integrated and co-educational college, opens in Ohio.
1834Phillis Wheatley’s 18th century poems are re-published and are believed to be the first African American’s poems published in the United States.
1835The first State Anti-Slavery Convention is held in Utica, New York.
1836Angelina Grimké begins working as a lecturer for the American Anti-Slavery Society.
1836Rochester, New York establishes an anti-slavery society.
1837Two hundred women attend the Women’s Anti-Slavery Convention in New York City, the first national political meeting of women.
1837Mary Lyon founds Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (later Mount Holyoke College) in Massachusetts, the first school to offer a college education for women.
1839Abby Kelly begins travelling and lecturing against slavery.
1839The American Anti-Slavery Society splits when a woman, Abby Kelley Foster is elected to the business committee.
1840World Anti-Slavery Convention is held in London, England.
1840The Rochester, New York newspaper, Workingmen’s Advocate promotes public education for children.
1844The Lowell, Massachusetts Female Labor Reform Association, one of the first labor associations for working women, is organized by female textile workers.
1846Amelia Bloomer begins publishing The Lily, a newspaper promoting temperance.
1847Frederick Douglass begins publishing The North Star in Rochester, New York.
1848The first Woman’s Rights Convention is held in Seneca Falls, New York. The adjourned meeting is held in Rochester, New York. The Declaration of Sentiments, based on the Declaration of Independence is adopted.
1848The Oneida Community is formed in New York. Property is held in common, women have equal rights with men, and childcare is shared.
1848A convention of seamstresses meets to organize the Women’s Political Union to fight for equal rights for women, reduction in their fifteen-hour workday, and a raise in minimum wages.
1848The American Academy of Arts and Sciences votes Maria Mitchell as the first woman member after her discovery of a comet in 1847.
1849In Seneca Falls, New York, Elizabeth Smith Miller begins wearing the outfit that will become known as “bloomers.”
1850Workers are killed by police in a labor dispute during a strike of New York City tailors.
1850Harriet Tubman begins helping slaves escape. At times, the slaves use the Underground Railroad.
1851Myrtilla Minder opens the first school to train black women as teachers in Washington, D.C.
1852Susan B. Anthony organizes the first Women’s State Temperance Society in New York.
1852Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes the novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which is given credit for inciting Northerners against slavery.
1853Rochester, New York seamstresses form the first clothing workers union in the city.
1853The first strike by African-American union members is staged by waiters in New York City. Their success inspires white waiters to establish a union.
1853Florence Nightingale organizes wartime nursing during the Crimean War in Europe.
1853World’s Temperance Convention in New York City is held.
1855Elmira (Female) College is founded in Elmira, New York, the first woman’s institution to grant degrees.
1855Iowa is the first state to admit women to its public university.
1857Elizabeth Blackwell opens the hospital, the New York Infirmary for Women and Children.
1860Susan B. Anthony and Samuel J. May are burned in effigy in Syracuse, New York by mobs opposed to abolition.
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