Essay

Primary Sources

"Womans Rights" Sheet Music (1853) Loom and Spindle or Life Among the Early Mill Girls (1898) "Why Sit Here and Die?" Speech (1832)

Equal Rights Party Platform (1872)

Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism (1842)

Annotated Bibliography

Primary Sources
Secondary Sources

About the Author

Ronald Walters is a Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University with a special interest in radicalism, reform, race, and popular culture.

Women's Reform Movement

"Womans Rights" Sheet Music (1853)

Annotation

Sheet music was popular in middle-class families and it sometimes addressed issues of the day. This 1853 song by a woman composer, Kate Horn, expresses a different view of Women's Rights from the Seneca Falls one. Minstrel shows, catering to a working-class white male audience, likewise featured parodies of Women's Rights advocates. The "Mrs. Oakwood Smith" in the dedication was a minstrel show character who did such parodies. What is the significance of the other dedication to Amelia Bloomer?