ch as a compromise. What accounts for the failure of this strike can be summed up in two words: inexperience and disorganization. However, the fight for equality in the workplace was not entirely unsuccessful, at least it was now acceptable for women to work in the public eye. Plus, the Lowell Mill girls went on strike again in 1846, this time with a little more discipline and determination, and even achieved some of their limited goals reached.(Millstein 136-141) The Lowell Mill girls are prime exemplar of women finally speaking against injustices against them. It is hard to argue that the political fight for equality was successful but many of the ideas that are common place today were considered too radical at the time. For women to even thinking about pushing for the right to vote was an incomprehensible idea before the civil war and for sometime after it. Though many women desperately wanted the right to hold land and to divorce, the historical circumstances did not allow for these desires to be realized. Women were smart by striving to gain equality a little bit at a time. Attempting something so controversial in that time as women holding property or being able to divorce would have cursed whatever platform they rested on. These ideals were discussed at the women’s rights convention at Seneca Falls, with leaders Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucy Mott who had previously met at the anti-slavery convention in London. Though the political goals were not reached by 1860, this convention was the beginning of a nation-wide campaign supported both by men and women for equality. Politically women were just beginning to mobilize by 1860, but they had all the knowledge and experience behind them when they did eventually begin.(Franck 147-151)Purposely or not, women strategically climbed the ladder to equality step bystep. By involving themselves in the temperance and abolition movements they gained knowledge and experience. As a whole...
