As Warren notes, "In the American Dream, woman figures not as the dreamer but as an object in the dream" (6). It was strictly for their usefulness to men that women were valued. .
Postwar economic changes in the late nineteenth century resulted in women beginning to work outside the home in increasing numbers. Women began to realize their potential in society. Increasingly, they questioned the conventional role they had unwittingly been placed in. Women began to organize and participate in a great variety of reform movements to improve educational rights as well as individual liberties. The first women's rights convention took place in July 1848. The declaration that emerged was modeled after the Declaration of Independence. It claimed that all men and women are created equal and that the history of mankind was a history of repeated injuries and injustices by men toward women (Wheeler "The History"). Women occupied a position less than free. It was a strange time, full of ungratified aspirations. The majority of women longed to be of some use in the world, but social pressures held them back. .
At the time, it was not considered respectable for women to speak before mixed audience of men and women but women boldly spoke out and people listened. The view of equality began taking hold of the public mind. Many fundamental assumptions were being questioned and cast aside. With the end of the Civil War, women of the Movement had hoped their hard work would see results for women as well as blacks. Their hopes were dashed with the passing of the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution that granted citizenship and suffrage to blacks but not to women. .
The traditional role of woman as the ideal of Southern virtue, compassionate and charitable, was however, in danger from the influence of the outspoken women of the North. The preservers of the old south put the southern lady on a pedestal where she would act as preserver of southern religion and morality and as an inspiration to her husband and children.