Woman's Rights and the Politics of Aging in the Antebellum United States
In the antebellum United States, law and public opinion defined
adult independence as a stage of life specific to white men,
while classifying white women as perpetual dependents. In response,
woman's rights activists used age-based schedules of human development
to challenge laws and social customs that treated women like minors, and
to claim rights and opportunities for women as they entered adulthood
and grew old. This analysis of antebellum political discourse revises
the history of aging in two ways. First, it demonstrates that, while
the ages at which people left school, married, and began work remained
widely variable, age twenty-one nonetheless was defined as a
significant transition to independence for white men, though not for
white women. Second, it shows that state governments used chronological
age to regulate the transition to independent citizenship long before
the development of other age-based programs such as child labor laws
and social security.