AP Success - AP US History: Sarah Grimke on the Treatment and Politics of Women

Sarah Grimke was an American abolitionist and women's rights activist who lived during the 19th century. She was born into a slave-owning family in South Carolina but became an advocate for the abolition of slavery and the equality of women.

Source 1

…All history attests that man has subjected woman to his will, used her as a means to promote his selfish gratification, to minister to his sensual pleasures, to be instrumental in promoting his comfort; but never has he desired to elevate her to that rank she was created to fill…Woman has been placed by John Quincy Adams, side by side with the slave…in all ages and countries, not even excepting enlightened republican America, woman has more or less been made a means to promote the welfare of man, without due regard to her own happiness…Man almost always addresses himself to the weakness of woman…he uses her as the instrument of his pleasure—the minister of his temporal comfort…his wife is condemned to draw nearly all her instruction from books, if she has time to pursue them; and if not, from her meditations, whilst engaged in those domestic duties, which are necessary for the comfort of her lord and master…I maintain that they [men and women] are equal, and that God never invested fallen man with unlimited power over his fellow man…The page of history teems with women’s wrongs, and it is wet with women’s tears…I entreat my sisters to arise…in all the dignity of immortal beings, and plant themselves, side by side, on the platform of human rights, with man to whom they were designed to be companions, equals and helpers in every good word and work…Thine in the bonds of womanhood, SARAH M. GRIMKÉ

Grimke, Sarah. "Letters on the equality of the sexes, and the condition of woman," 1838.

Question 1

Short answer

Briefly identify one perspective about inequailty expressed in the passage.

Question 2

Short answer

Briefly explain one historical development in early 19th-century America that influenced the opinions expressed in the passage.

Question 3

Short answer

Briefly explain one way the opinions expressed in the passage were challenged between 1838 and 1900.

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