Ferment of Reform & Culture “Remember the Ladies”

Outline “Republican Motherhood” “Separate spheres” Advice & education for women Participation in reform movements

“Republican Motherhood” Abigail Adams Women as teachers of moral virtue Some political and economic knowledge needed to teach others

April 4 [1815] It appears to me that three simple rules...would make children's tempers much more amiable than we generally see them. First. Never to give them any thing improper for them, because they strongly and passionately desire it: and even to withhold proper things, until they manifest a right spirit. Second. Always to gratify every reasonable desire, when a child is pleasant in its request; that your children may see that you love to make them happy. Third. Never to become impatient and fretful yourself, but proportion your displeasure exactly to the offence. If parents become angry, and speak loud and harsh, upon every slight failure of duty, they may bid a final adieu to domestic subordination, unless the grace of God interposes to snatch the little victims of severity from destruction. I feel confident...that although more children are injured by excessive indulgence than by the opposite fault, yet the effects of extreme rigor are the most hopeless. And the reason is, associations of a disagreeable nature...are the strongest.... For my own part, I find myself falling so far short, that I am, sometimes, overwhelmed with the distressing apprehension of erroring fatally. Dear children! I tremble for you, when I reflect how dangerous is the path in which you are to treat, and how difficult the task of directing you in safety. From Benjamin B. Wisner, ed, Memoirs of the Late Mrs. Susan Mansfield Huntington (Boston: Crocker and Brewster, 1826),

“Separate Spheres” Men’s place = in public – In charge of politics, economics, family decisions – The head of the household Women’s place = at home – Moral center of family – In charge of home & children – Not tainted by outside world – Subservient to husband

Advice & Education Advice literature – Advice on practice homemaking – Glorified women’s role at home Education – Important to teach democratic ideals/values – Factory work bad – Some, but not too much, education

THERE are some reasons, why American women should feel an interest in, the support of the democratic institutions of their Country, which it is important that they should consider. The great maxim, which is the basis of all our civil and political institutions, is, that “all men are created equal,” and that they are equally entitled to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." But it can readily be seen, that this is only another mode of expressing the fundamental principle which the Great Ruler of the Universe has established, as the law of His eternal government. “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”… The principles of democracy, then, are identical with the principles of Christianity… In this Country, it is established, both by opinion and by practice, that woman has an equal interest in all social and civil concerns; and that no domestic, civil, or political, institution, is right, which sacrifices her interest to promote that of the other sex. But in order to secure her the more firmly in all these privileges, it is decided, that, in the domestic relation, she take a subordinate station, and that, in civil and political concerns, her interests be intrusted to the other sex, without her taking any part in voting, or in making and administering laws. From Catherine Beecher, Treatise on Domestic Economy (Boston: T. H. Webb, & Co.1842).

Unintended Consequences

Reform Movements Moral reform – New York Moral Reform Society – End prostitution Temperance – Excessive drinking harmed families – Women were moral compass

Reform Movements Abolitionism – American Anti-Slavery Society – Women or men in charge? – The Grimke sisters

Reform Movements Women’s Rights – Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott – NY Married Women’s Property Act (1848) – Seneca Falls Convention (1848) Declaration of Rights & Sentiments Abolitionism or Women’s Rights?

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to such a course. We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed. Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these rights, it is the right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon the institution of a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed, but when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of the women under this government, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to demand the equal station to which they are entitled. The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpation on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.