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Ragtime: Marriage and Father

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Ragtime: Marriage and Father
Ragtime By E.L. Doctorow
The setting of the book takes place in New Rochelle, New York in the 1902 during what is known as the progressive era. The two main characters are Mother and Father. They own a family business that sells fireworks and patriotic items. When Father goes off on the first expedition to the North Pole times change, women become very active in the society. When he returns he see how independent is wife and son has become leaving him feeling depressed and helpless. They are married until the death of Father during WWI she then marries Tateh.
During this time period more and more women start working outside the home. They begin to promote feminism, equal rights and freedom for women. Women could be found working in factories and a lot of women begin to start attending college. Many women come together to push many policies and institutions such as fire codes for office buildings and child labor laws. This was the time period when women really made their present in society. Towards the end of this time period women gained their right to vote by government passing the 19th amendment. Also women wanted to inform other women of their options on sex and marriage.
How Mother changes from the beginning to the end really show how feminism shaped her. She started out just a house wife taking care of the kids. As it progressed she becomes more and more independent. Taking care of Sarah’s baby also help change her and allowed her to recognize what she was capable of doing on her own.
In the book and real life Evelyn Nesbit is a sex symbol and model. She unlike most women in this time period did not make a statement against feminism. She excluded herself from this. If she would have changed her ways and been against promoting prostitution and women as a sex symbol, she would not have been as popular as she was. Modeling and her beauty is what she is known for not for a role played in society. Some women still believed the workplace was not a place for a

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