Women's changing role in American society

Female suffrage became a reality just as the United States was emerging from the First World War. The Equal Rights Amendment was passed in January 1918, although strong opposition from a variety of vested interests delayed the actual enfranchisement of 26 million women until 26 August 1920. Women's contribution to the war effort no doubt strengthened their claim to the vote, but the matter must be seen in a broader economic context. Eleanor Flexner has shown that the number of women gainfully employed rose from 4 million in 1890, to 5.3 million in 1900, to 7.4 million in 1910. Women who were contributing thus to the wealth of the country could not long be denied voting rights. It was, however, conflict in the industrial context that soon produced the fragmentation of the feminist movement. Equal rights feminists opposed the introduction of protective legislation for women at work, which other feminists believed was necessary to safeguard the health and dignity of working women. The years of the Depression saw a downturn in the fortunes of women at work, while Franklin D. Roosevelt's ‘New Deal’ of 1932 made into a matter of social policy much that the welfare feminists had been seeking, thus depriving them of a cause.

As in Britain, a war-weary population sought meaning and security in the bosom of the nuclear family in the decade following the Second World War.