America's Women By Gail Collins Analysis

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In 'america's Women' Gail Collins writes: 'In the first half of the nineteenth century, American women changed from colonial goodwives to people with more modern concerns. They went to school, and they knew a great deal more about what was going on in the world outside their own neighbourhoods. They were still religious, but they wanted to be happy in this earthly life as well as the next. They thought about marriage in terms of romance and companionship rather than a simple economic partnership. They believed their children were special individuals, in need of constant care and supervision, and they hoped to see them rise higher in the world than their parents did. They wanted their homes to be attractive, and comfort was becoming a priority. The development of the publishing industry offered women one of the first opportunities to exercise their clout as the nation's premier consumers. In the years after the REvolutionary War, girls were taught to read and write…show more content…
The new industrial economy was creating unheard-of opportunities for making money, but it was unstable, with booms and panics and get-rich-quick schemes and bankruptcies. In the bust of 1818, land values fell as much as 75 percent almost overnight, and when the panic of 1837hit New York, more than a third of the city's workers lost their jobs. nervous businessmen embraced the idea of the family as a little nest detached from the outside world. the whole country was like the nation's transportation system, which had improved so fast that it was possible for people to travel to places they would not have dreamed of a few decades earlier - but at a price. The railroads kept having wrecks and steamships blew up - there were at least 150 major explosions between 1825 and 1850. It was a giddy, frightening time, and many women liked the idea of being protected by strict
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