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Campaign to Raise the Legal Age of Consent, 1885-1914, Lesson Plan
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Introduction
In the late nineteenth century,"Age of consent" referred to the legal age at
which a girl could consent to sexual relations. Men who engaged in sexual
relations with girls who had not reached the age of consent could be criminally
prosecuted. American reformers were shocked to discover that the laws of most
states set the age of consent at the age of ten or twelve, and in one state,
Delaware, the age of consent was only seven. Women reformers and
advocates of social purity initiated a campaign in 1885 to petition legislators to
raise the legal age of consent to at least sixteen, although their ultimate goal
was to raise the age to eighteen. The campaign was eventually quite
successful; by 1920, almost all states had raised the age of consent to sixteen
or eighteen.
Objectives
To understand the class, gender, and racial tensions within the age-of-consent
campaign of the late nineteenth century; to investigate the differences in the
views of diverse supporters of the campaign; to understand the broad appeal of
the campaign to many groups of women; to see how reformers' solutions to the
problem of the sexual exploitation of wage-earning women changed over time.
Lesson Ideas
http://womhist.binghamton.edu/teacher/aoc.htm (1 of 3) [6/5/2005 8:52:28 PM]
Begin by reading Aaron M. Powell, "The Moral Elevation of Girls," February
1886; and "Protection of Girlhood," October 1886. Why did reformers believe
the age of consent needed to be raised? Who did these reformers hope to
protect? What attitudes did the middle-class women who ran the working girls'
clubs have about wage-earning women? How did they feel about women's
sexuality?
Continue to explore women reformers' views toward the relationship
between men and women by reading the English reformer Josephine E. Butler,
"The Double Standard of Morality," October 1886. What was the "double
standard?" How did Butler propose to eliminate the double standard? How did
she propose to change the nature of the relationship between men and
women? Why did she believe these changes were necessary?