Sаrаh Grimké Cаlls fоr Wоmen's Rights, 1838In this dоcument, Sarah Moore Grimké calls for equality between men and women. . . . Woman has been placed by John Quincy Adams, side by side with the slave, whilst he was contending for the right side of petition. I thank him for ranking us with the oppressed; for I shall not find it difficult to show, that 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, and the glory of God as the end of her creation… Man almost always addresses himself to the weakness of woman. By flattery, by an appeal to her passions, he seeks access to her heart; and when he has gained her affections, he uses her as the instrument of his pleasure—the minister of his temporal comfort. He furnishes himself with a housekeeper, whose chief business is in the kitchen, or the nursery. And whilst he goes abroad and enjoys the means of improvement afforded by collision of intellect with cultivated minds, 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 believe it will be found that men, in the exercise of their usurped dominion over women, have almost invariably done one of two things. They have either made slaves of the creatures whom God designed to be their companions and their coadjutors in every moral and intellectual improvement, or they have dressed them like dolls, and used them as toys to amuse their hours of recreation… I maintain that they [men and women] are equal, and that God never invested fallen man with unlimited power over his fellow man; and I rejoice that circumstances have prevented woman from being more deeply involved in the guilt which appears to be inseparable from political affairs. If woman had not almost universally been depressed and degraded, the page of history would have exhibited as many eminent statesmen and politicians among women as men. We are much in the situation of the slave. Man has asserted and assumed authority over us… Now a new and vast sphere of usefulness is opened to her, and she is pressed by surrounding circumstances to come up to the help of the Lord against the giant sins which desolate our beloved country. Shall woman shrink from duty…and forget her brethren and sisters in bondage…whose husbands and wives are torn from them by relentless tyrants, and whose children are snatched from their arms by their unfeeling task-masters?… Shall she, because ‘her house is her home, ’ refuse her aid and her sympathy to the down trodden slave?…Did God give her those blessings to steel her heart to the sufferings of her fellow creatures?… The page of history teems with women’s wrongs, and it is wet with women’s tears.—For the sake of my degraded sex every where, and for the sake of my brethren, who suffer just in proportion as they place woman lower in the scale of creation than man…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 Sarah Moore Grimké, Letters on the equality of the sexes, and the condition of woman (Boston: 1838), 11-12, 23, 27, 33, 40-41, 45. TASK: Offer your analysis of this source. Think about the source analysis activities you have done with the history labs. You can use these questions to guide you but you can go in your own direction as well. Who may have been the intended audience for this source? What do you suspect was the primary purpose for the author in creating this account (why do you think it was written)? What inferences can you make about Sarah Grimké from this account? What does this source not tell us? What other sources might you seek out to help you learn more? What questions does this source lead you to ask?