In the city this doesn’t happen, ladies went to dances, shops, etc on their own without parental supervision. The concept of dating begins during this time as opposed to what was happening before with courtship- when the young man would ask the father to “court” the daughter and that would eventually lead to marriage. Now while living in the city there is a new sense of independence and a male chaperone is no longer welcome.
Prior to this women weren’t allowed to go anywhere unchaperoned. This is a significant shift in cultural norms. Young women left their homes in the countryside and moved to the cities for opportunities to make their own money and way in the world. This meant changes in a variety of areas- social and cultural norms, fashion, environmental, educational and political to name a few. By the end of the 1800s and the start of the 1900s the world was on the precipice of significant change, the Industrial Revolution had taken hold and as the cities became industrialized the population shifted from the rural areas into the cities. This story is based on a true event of a young 20 something woman who moved from Kansas to New York City to work in a newly industrialized city in the 1900s. Another big bump and he now puts his arm around her! That’s it! She reaches up to her hat and pulls out her only defense, the one thing she knows that will make this man back off- her hat pin! A 9 inch pointed at one end and ornate at the other pin and she jabs him with it in the arm! The masher- as men like this one would be called in the early 1900s would have been called- screams in pain and backs off. The coach goes over a bump and the man next her gets a little closer- she doesn’t think too much of it another big bump and now they are hip to hip- he makes no move to separate- that’s odd. It’s a warm summer day and an older gentleman has just sat next to her in the cramped stagecoach. Imagine a young woman has just left work for the day and she is on her way home. Hatpins- A Woman’s Tool For Independence and Self-Defense
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