Women in the late 19th century, except in the few western states where they could vote, were denied much of a role in the governing process. Nonetheless, educated the middle-class women saw themselves as a morally uplifting force and went on to be reformers. Jane Addams opened the social settlement of Hull House in 1889. It offered an array of services to help the poor deal with slum housing, disease, crowding, jobless, infant mortality, and environmental …showed first 75 words of 520 total…

…showed last 75 words of 520 total…More than anyone else, Ida B. Wells exposed lynchings as a crime against humanity. er 40 years of unrelenting effort failed to stop the crime and did not produce a federal anti lynching law. However, lynchings decreased by 80 percent after her campaign began, and her documented evidence on the crime of lynching and her commitment to justice roused the world's conscience. By the time Wells died in 1931, other women and men had picked up her touch.