Caitlin's Corner

250 Years of Women and Money in America

America turns 250 this week. I have to admit that I struggle to feel celebratory when I think that after 250 years, several wars, and the movements of Civil Rights, Indigenous Rights, LBGTQ+ Rights, Labor Rights, and Women's Suffrage, our country is still far from every man, let alone every human, having "unalienable rights" to "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness".

And yet, our country still has made a lot of progress in those 250 years. Without dismissing our need to continue pushing barriers and fighting for equality, I'd like to focus on some of the progress that has been made, specifically in the scope of women and money in our country. So, let's take a look at a high-level history.

1776: America Declares Independence, but Women Are Financially Invisible

In the year America was born, women had virtually no independent financial rights under English common law. Under a legal doctrine called "coverture," a married woman's legal identity was absorbed into her husband's. She generally could not own property, sign contracts, control earnings, or participate in government. For women, financial dependence was built into the legal system.

It was even worse for women of color:​
Enslaved Black women were legally treated as property rather than property owners, making financial autonomy impossible.

Abigail Adams Warns the Founders

While the nation was being formed, Abigail Adams famously urged her husband, John, to "remember the ladies" when creating the new government. Oops, I guess he forgot.

This is one of the earliest recorded calls for women's political and economic inclusion. This week, let's pour one out for Abby!

1837: Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women in New York City

While the Seneca Falls Convention is often credited for launching the Women's Rights movements in the US, the Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women in New York City was the event that more likely kick-started women's activism in the 19th century. Among other things, this event exemplified how for so many African American suffragists, the fight for women's rights was inseparable from the fight for racial justice.

1848: Married Women's Property Acts Begin Changing Everything

Beginning in the 1830s and accelerating with New York's landmark 1848 law, states started passing Married Women's Property Acts. These laws allowed married women to own property separately from their husbands and, eventually, keep earnings in their own names. This was huge! For the first time, married women began to have a legal financial identity.

Let's be real though:​
Rights varied dramatically by state and even in states where these rights were honored on paper, women had to fight their husbands, families, and judges to realize these rights (and most of the time- they lost).

At the time that this Act was gaining momentum, Black women still were considered property, so although the Act was not written in a race-specific way, Black women were inherently excluded. Even following emancipation, Black women had major barriers to earning wealth at all, making the property act less effective.

1865–1870: Freedom Arrives, But Financial Equality Does Not

The abolition of slavery created opportunities for millions of formerly enslaved Black Americans to build wealth. Yet discriminatory laws, violence, sharecropping systems, and exclusion from financial institutions severely limited economic advancement. Legal freedom did not translate into equal access to wealth-building.

1920: Women Win the Right to Vote

The ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibited denying voting rights on the basis of sex. This mattered financially because political power influences tax policy, labor laws, education, banking regulation, and economic opportunity.

BUT, there was a pretty big caveat: Many Black women in the South remained effectively disenfranchised through literacy tests, poll taxes, intimidation, and segregation for another 45 years. Indigenous women and many Asian American women also faced significant barriers.

1930s–1960s: Redlining Restricts Wealth Building

Federal housing and lending practices often denied mortgages and business loans to communities of color. Homeownership, the primary wealth-building engine for many American families, became significantly harder to access.

This effectively reinforced generational wealth gaps through housing policy.

Women of color faced both racial and gender barriers in lending and homeownership.

1963: Equal Pay Act

The Equal Pay Act of 1963 prohibited paying women less than men for substantially equal work. In theory, this is a major foundation in the fight for women's financial freedom, because: income is the foundation of investing, saving, and wealth creation!

But alas... We know that this act did not make pay gaps disappear then, or even multiple generations later.

And worse: At the time, many Black women were relegated to jobs historically closed to white women, meaning there was no same-job male counterpart to compare their wages to.

1964: Civil Rights Act

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited employment discrimination based on race and sex. This hard-fought act was instrumental in helping to expand access to jobs, promotions, and economic opportunity, especially for women of Color: the Act addressed barriers that many white women no longer faced.

1965: Voting Rights Act

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 finally gave federal enforcement power to protect voting rights from racial discrimination.

45 YEARS! Black women remained disenfranchised for nearly half a century after women's suffrage in America. And I think we can all recognize how delicate this still is today, as voter rights are being suppressed as we speak.

1974: The Financial Independence Revolution

The Equal Credit Opportunity Act prohibited discrimination in lending based on sex or marital status. Before this, many women were routinely denied credit cards, mortgages, or loans without a husband or male co-signer.

This might have been the single most important financial milestone for modern American women. It meant women could finally:

• Build credit histories
• Obtain loans
• Start businesses
• Buy homes
• Establish financial means to forge their own independence (from abusive relationships, homes, jobs, etc.)

This was practically yesterday. If you're reading this, you likely have a mother or grandmother who was an adult when this act passed. Despite how startling that is, the rich part of it is that we have first-hand accounts of what that felt like to so many women. Here are some, if you want to be inspired.

1978: Pregnancy Discrimination Act

Employers could no longer legally discriminate because of pregnancy or childbirth. This began protecting women's ability to earn income and advance professionally. We're still not where we need to be, but this was a start.

1988: Women-Owned Businesses Gain Recognition

The Women's Business Ownership Act removed many barriers preventing women entrepreneurs from obtaining business loans and support. Women gained greater ability to create wealth through business ownership. Today, women are receiving historic lows in business funding, and founding women of color receive even less capital.

1990s–2000s: Women Become a Major Economic Force

Thanks in some part to a lingering legacy from world wars (when women were called into the labor force due to a lack of working-aged men in our country), and also to decades of activism and increasing political representation of women, the '90s and early 2000s saw a dramatic increase in progress. Walk the short road back to Nirvana, Cranberries, and Green Day times and we were finally seeing a spike in women's labor force participation, educational attainment, and professional leadership. Women began controlling a growing share of household wealth and investment assets.

This was the first time that the objective for women's financial independence shifted from access to wealth to ownership of wealth.

2010s–2020s: Women Become the Fastest-Growing Wealth Segment

Women increasingly are becoming primary earners, business owners, investors, and inheritors of wealth. Women now control or influence a substantial portion of household financial decisions and are expected to oversee an even larger share of wealth in coming decades.

For the first time in America's 250 years as a nation, we are positioned to shape wealth creation, not just participate in it.

What I'm trying to say is: you, like me, may be taking this time to acknowledge the vast changes we need to make as a country. But I hope together we can also reflect on the progress of America, and the people who committed so much to the fight to bring us that progress. We own more wealth in this country than women ever have. Let's take an active role in building, understanding, and directing that wealth. Let's use it to reshape our economic systems that have never worked for everyone, so that those who come after us inherit something more equitable than what we did.

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