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M4 Assignment 2 Submission
Assignment Due January 31 at 11:59 PM
Assignment 2: Gender Equality in America
For this assignment, compare one of the texts that we read for this module with a contemporary description of women struggling for equal rights in America. Choose a recent article from a newspaper, magazine, or journal, which describes an instance of gender inequality in America. This article should be no more than one year old (but the more recent the better).
For instance, you might choose a newspaper article describing the wage gap between males and females doing similar work, a journal article describing recent legislation geared specifically toward women, a magazine article describing unequal funding for women’s college athletics, and so on.
Once you have found your article, choose one of the Historical Documents we read in this module. You should choose a historical document that you think resonates most with the contemporary article you selected—this could mean that the article and document describe the same problem, or that the article shows that a problem in the document has been solved, or that the article shows new ways old problems manifest, and so on.
Write a 2–3 page analysis paper in Word format (not counting title and reference page) that describes the ways the historical document relates to the article you have chosen. You should describe ways the two texts are similar, ways they are different, and what these similarities and differences demonstrate about the changing—or non-changing—place of women in American society and culture. Include an APA formatted title page and reference page.
By the due date assigned, deliver your assignment to the Submissions Area.
All written assignments and responses should follow APA rules for attributing sources.
Assignment 2 Grading Criteria Maximum Points Choose an appropriate contemporary article from the last year.12 Presented a comparison with a relevant Historical Document that described similarities and differences between the two texts and their discussion of gender inequality.32 Presented interesting and challenging conclusions about the changing or non-changing position of women in American society and culture from the time of the Historical Document to the time of the contemporary article.32 Wrote in a clear, concise, and organized manner; demonstrated ethical scholarship in accurate representation and attribution of sources, displayed accurate spelling, grammar, and punctuation.24 Total:100
Introduction to Documents 9–13
Critics of the Jacksonian Vision
Because most of the original states limited suffrage to male property owners or taxpayers, in the early years of the republic only about one-half of white males were eligible to vote. Later states, including Vermont, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, either opened suffrage to all white males over 21 or lowered the taxpayer qualifications to levels that allowed almost all white adult males in these states to vote. Meanwhile, during the early decades of the nineteenth century, some of the original states, including New Jersey, Maryland, and New York, also adopted the practices of the newer states by eliminating voter property qualifications. Unfortunately, this movement toward universal white manhood suffrage stymied or reversed the fortunes of free blacks and propertied women, citizens who had enjoyed voting privileges in some of the original states before “white manhood” replaced property as the determining suffrage qualification. Although a few states (Rhode Island, Virginia, and Louisiana) maintained property qualifications, by 1840, more than 90 percent of the adult white men in the United States could vote, but few other Americans had this privilege.
Some Americans opposed the trend toward an electorate of all white males because of who it left out, while others opposed it because it opened government too broadly.
Documents 9
and
10
, each published in 1829 when the commonwealth of Virginia was considering the issue of revising its suffrage qualifications, present arguments for each of these positions.
Documents 11
and
12
are examples of anti-Democratic campaign pieces. The final selection,
Document 13
, is an excerpt from a longer article that equates Jacksonianism with radicalism. According to the arguments in these selections, who opposed Jackson and what were the defects and dangers inherent in this vision for America? What did Jacksonianism threaten?
DOCUMENT 9
Headline: Rights of Women
… Why are we denied the privilege of voting? Why are we eternally to be kept in the bondage of a despotic government? ‘Have we not eyes? have we not hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons,—subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a man is? if you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us,’ shall we not, (no not revenge!) but assert our rights, and expose your gross injustice.
Aye: injustice; gross, flagrant injustice? You are born stronger than we are; and that is the only advantage you have over us. Nature has endowed you with more physical, brute strength, and upon that foundation, you raise up all your boasted pretensions. You can beat us, and therefore you make us your slaves. All your pretended right revolves itself into might. It is the law of tyrants; the triumph of the strong over the weak—and upon this honorable basis, you raise the standard of your power.—Having conquered us, you shut us out of the great means of improvement. You are acting the party of the other discreet conquerors. You first subdue us by force; and then by keeping us in ignorance, you attempt to perpetuate your own power and make us your slaves. This is the history of all despotism; and upon this wise and noble hint you have justly acted?—Have you any better reasons for your usurped dominion?
You say, we have not intellect enough to vote, and assist in the government. Where are the proofs of your superiority? You keep us in ignorance—and then you boast of your superior attainments. You make us embroider for you; thrum upon the guitar or piano; draw sketches of your lordly faces; convert us into spinsters and seamstresses, to make your garments but you exclude us from your best schools.—You prevent us from cultivating science, studying politics, improving our understanding; and then you insist upon our ignorance as the evidence of our menial incapacity—forgetting that we rank among our sex the De Staels and Daciers of France, and the Moors and Edgeworths of England and Ireland.—Thank you, that we have not as much native strength of mind to give our votes properly, as more than half of your sovereign sex! And that with a little advantage of education, we could select fit officers, as well as you can?
You boast too, of your superior independence of mind.—You say, that you alone can exercise the right ofsuffrage, firmly and freely. Indeed! and what say the disfranchised non-freeholders to this arrogant assumption—and what ought we say to it! That it is not founded in truth—that if we enjoyed greater opportunities of improvement, we too, who know how to make you Lords of the Creation tremble at our feet, could think, and feel and act for ourselves, in matters of government, with as much independence as you do. Make us feel our consequence more, and we shall know better how to value and assert it.’
DOCUMENT 10
Virginia Convention
Benj. Watkins Leigh, one of the most able members of that Convention, is a strenuous advocate ofexcluding all but Freeholders from the right of suffrage. His concluding remark in the following speech is sound and worthy of remembrance.…
Now, Mr. L said, he was against any rule whose natural tendency was to work corruption. But if one man, through the interposition of property, shall possess the power of completely controlling another, to give that other the power of voting, was, in effect, to invite corruption. Now if a landlord can, at will, seize at quarter day, or at the end of the year, on any other fixed term of payment, distrain the property of his tenant, seize every particle of personal property he owns in the world, sell the bed from under his sick wife, and sell the cradle on which his infant reposes, he holds that man by the very strings of his heart. The landlord can do this, and more; he can thereby deprive his tenant voter of the very thing on which his power to vote wholly depends; and therefore he exercises over him, through the possession of property, the most absolute and irresistible influence which one man can exercise over another. He had no idea that any attempt would at this time be made, nor for many years to come, to bring this power directly and openly to bear, for the avowed purpose of controlling the vote of any citizen of this Commonwealth. No man would dare to do it, either now or for a long time to come. But, said Mr. L., let gentlemen remember that this nation is in a state of progress; of progress toward corruption.… It has been the case in all other nations, all the world over: our nation is in its infancy,—and it is with nations as with children, they are ever purest at their birth.…
Sir, said Mr. L. to the Chairman, I am for a property qualification that will act directly, openly, and not by corruption. Yet, here, it is proposed to us, at the first hop, (if I may be pardoned to use a very vulgar expression) to give the right of suffrage to a mere tenant, a lessee for a single year, to a man who is directly and entirely within the influence of another man.
In North Carolina they have approached pretty nearly to the exercise of universal suffrage—(I believe there is the payment of some tax required,) and what is the consequence? Why, sir, I am told that it is a part of the regular system of electioneering to pay the tax for the poor man that he may be qualified. I do not vouch for this statement—but I have it from respectable sources—remember, sir, I do not say the poor man is corrupted—he honestly means to vote, but his tax is paid merely to put it in his power to do so.…
Mr. Chairman, if the general principle I have laid down be a correct one, then the principle of this amendment ought not to be sustained. If you are to have a property qualification at all, it must be in such a shape that its effect can be guarded from corruption: but by the measure proposed, corruption, instead of being guarded against, is rendered all but inevitable. As to universal suffrage, it is a plan for which I believe no gentleman here is disposed to contend: but certainly, sir, some gentlemen here are steering very near the wind.
The gentleman talks about a minority ruling the majority, but I say, that a majority, however great, have no right to take the property of the minority. I do contend, that if I stood alone, the sole possessor ofproperty in a society however large, that society would have no right whatever to take my property away. Such is not the purpose of Government. The purpose, and the only purpose of Government, is to prevent men from doing injustice to each other. All government is negative in its principle: it is a system ofrestraints.
DOCUMENT 11
Why, What Evil Hath He Done?
‘Why, what evil hath he done?’—is an inquiry which a Jackson press, (and but one in the country, has ever) had the temerity to make with respect to the present executive. We will again answer it, in the words of truth and soberness, drawn from various sources and unimpeachable in point of fact.
General Jackson, since his election, has broken every promise, forfeited every pledge, and departed from every principle, which, before his election he professed to hold as sacred or regard as important.—He has gone upon the avowed principle of ‘rewarding his friends and punishing his enemies;’ of turning out those who had voted against him, and putting in those who had voted for him.—He has compelled all who enjoy office, as a compensation for their appointments, and under the penalty of instant ejection, to support his measures, whether right or wrong, and to submit to exactions upon their salaries for the support of new presses and extra publications, and hired election minions.—He has re-appointed men to office whom the Senate have twice rejected, thereby entirely destroying the share of the Senate in the appointing power, and the weight which the constitution gives it as a body of advice and of restraint upon the executive.
He has cruelly and wantonly refused to execute treaties made with Indian nations, which have been ratified by the Senate, approved by every President, and adjudged valid by the Supreme Court.—He has claimed and exercised supreme power over the people, congress and courts of the United States in his late veto message, and advanced doctrines subversive of the foundations of the government, connected with the disgraceful and dishonest appeals of a demagogue, for the purpose of prejudicing the different parts ofthe community against each other.—He has made frequent and illegal use of the veto power, without any reference to principle in its use; for he has applied it in some cases, and not in others which were of a precisely similar character. He has applied it in capricious and wanton attempts to ruin the internal improvements of the country, to break down industry and destroy its profits, to introduce an unsettled currency, and depreciate to a great amount the value of property.…
He has enacted in time of peace greater taxes for the people than any previous President, and squandered them on profligate favorites, for idle and totally useless purposes. He has threatened to beat Senators, and rejoiced because Representatives were cudgeled for the free expression of their opinions. He has threatened to shoot fellow citizens while in the peaceable pursuit of their business; invited ministers ofthe gospel to his house under the pretence of cordial intercourse, and then driven them into corners and bullied them; approved of schemes to cheat the public treasury of its funds, and appropriated those funds to a great extent in bribery and corruption.
Will any of our fellow-citizens, after a proper consideration of these charges, every one of which has been substantiated by irrefutable proof, bestow their suffrages to continue the elevation of a man, whose character is thus ‘marked by every act which may define a tyrant?’
DOCUMENT 12
Reasons for Not Supporting the Democrats: A Satire.
FOR THE
NEW-HAMPSHIRE SENTINEL.
Roman Catholics.
Those who are in fear of Roman Catholics getting too much power, let them unite with the Catholics at the polls, and support such men as wish to put the government into the hands of one man; for they can do but little harm while the government is in the hands of the whole people.
Slavery.
Those who are opposed to slavery, let them send such men to Congress as will unite and assist in putting the government of the U. States under the control of the slave-holding States.
Intemperance.
Those who are opposed to intemperance, let them send such men to the Legislature to make laws, as are in the habit of using ardent spirit themselves; also of selling it to the drunkard, whose wives and children are suffering for want of victuals and clothing.
Sin and Wickedness.
Those who are opposed to sin and wicked men; let them encourage such, by rewarding them with the highest offices of honor and profit.
Taxes.
Those who are opposed to paying large taxes, let them condemn such men as were in office previous to 1829, for their extravagant and wasteful expenditures, and support such men as will expend and squander away nearly double the amount; also send such men to Congress as are opposed to dividing the proceeds of the PUBLIC LANDS among the States; whereas New-Hampshire would probably receive yearly about sixty thousand dollars; also such men as will unite with, and support a President who has promised to give this land away to the States wherein it is situated!!
Laborers’ Wages.
Those who have complained of the laborers’ wages being so low, and of the rich grinding the poor; let them send such men to Congresses as are opposed to encouraging our own industry; such men as are in favor of destroying our own manufactories, by reducing the duties of foreign goods, or taking them off altogether, as in the article of silk brought from Europe, and compete the laboring class of this country to enter into competition with the paupers of Europe. By destroying our own manufactories, you will release perhaps 10,000 females in New-England alone, who are now at work for high wages in the factories, and who will come home and soon reduce the wages of those who are now otherwise employed.—The same with the men.
Party Spirit.
Which has been the cause of civil wars, and of destroying the lives of hundreds of thousands of men, if not millions, and brought distress upon women and children: let all those who are opposed to it, support a man for President who will turn out of office every man that did not vote or hurrah for him, and put in such as will hurrah for him.
Educating Children While Young.
Those who are in favor of public schools and of educating children when young, and when they are incapable of doing much business, instead of being obliged to go to school at the age of 19 or 20, to get an education sufficient to do the common business of life, as is the case with many for want of sufficient funds; let them support such men as Mr Isaac Hill, who made such a hue and cry about Mr Bell, when Governor, for recommending that $60,000 literary fund money to be distributed among the towns in the State for the benefit of common schools; when Mr Isaac Hill wanted the same to be appropriated to the building of a College in his own town. However to the credit of Mr Bell and his friends in the Legislature, and to the mortification of Mr Hill and many of his friends, the money was distributed among the towns for the benefit of common schools.
Internal Improvement.
Those who are opposed to the appropriation of the public money for internal improvements, as the Legislature of New-Hampshire did a few years ago; let them support a President who signed a bill appropriating—thousand dollars toward the improvement of the Cumberland river in his own State; also many other similar bills, and refusing to sign the Wabash bill, and many others of a similar kind.
BOOK WORM
DOCUMENT 13
Selections from
“
Radicalism
”
· ‘Order is Heaven’s first law, and, this confessed,
· Some are, and must be, greater than the rest.’
Nothing is good, great, or high, but by comparison. The genius of a republican government does not forbid the existence of different grades in society—as that would be the simplicity of a state of nature simplified. When there were but two living souls, Adam was master, and Eve dependent. Among the most unsophisticated savages, distinctions in rank have always existed. In a Republic, the doctrine of equality is recognized so far that no respectable employment is, in itself, a disqualification for any office or honor or profit, and certain privileges common to all, are inseparable from the name of citizen. Starting thus on an equality, every man is architect of his own fortune, and generally finds himself, at forty or earlier, in that place in society for which he is fitted—if he be not, the disappointment is generally the fault of nobody but himself.… Why have we, among our people, anything of Radicalism? Why is the system of leveling down preached and attempted to be practiced? Is it because there are classes of men in higher standing than belongs to them by right of purchase of their own exertions? Or because there are those who live in the enjoyment of privileges conferred by birth, which abridge those of persons less fortunate in their parentage? Or, because the high standing, however obtained, of any class, is a disadvantage to others? None of these abuses exist here. Whence, then, have we Radicalism?
It is an imported exotic—and one, which we trust will never thrive, for any length of time, in our country. Though the ultra-radicals, by establishing newspaper-organs, feeing lectures, proposing strikes for wages, undertaking to make the producer accomplish what is the consumer’s province, the regulation of the market, and other movements, have endeavored to keep themselves in a party distinct from all others; their treacherous Jackson friends, by commending their measures and slighting their candidates, have so far stinted their growth.…Jacksonism and Radicalism amount…to about the same thing; it is only in the names, that there is any difference. The policy of the leaders of both parties is the same—or appeals to ignorance—or, where ignorance is less, to prejudice—and where the subject is tolerably well-informed, to his vanity.…
The demagogue, having his aggrandizement in view, is heartlessly blind to all the mischief his maneuvering may occasion. What cares he, that inflammatory speeches guide the mob against the dwelling of a citizen, whose opinions may not be agreeable to the sovereign people?—that the torch is applied to Protestant and Romish church?—that about the ballot-boxes are the scenes of tumult and murder?—that, in furtherance of his disorganizing policy, the temple of God is deserted for the ‘cathedral,’ where nonentity is worshipped? That the laws, binding man and wife together are denounced as onerous and unnecessary, and that a community of property is more than hinted? All these and more ill effects are fairly traceable to Radicalism.
Heaven speed the time, when each man shall think and act for himself, dispassionately and calmly. There must be different standings in society—if those who fill one which they dislike would better it, let each individual act for himself—or if they will combine, let it be for their own improvement—to raise themselves, instead of wasting time and means in futile endeavors to pull others down with them. Such a course is as foolish as his would be, who should spend his life in leveling a hill which he had but once to cross. Universal education is nominally one of the working-men’s measures—let them put it in effect, and practically carried out, it will make them not only what they desire to be, but what everybody would have them. We speak of those who style themselves as workingmen, for political purposes. As they gain in knowledge, their discontent will diminish—and they will throw off the self-assumed inferiority which their leaders have taught them to put on for effect; and feel, as they ought, that in this country all men are born ‘free and equal’—and that dogmas or doctrines to the contrary are not for American citizens.
QUESTIONS
Defining Terms
Identify in the context of the chapter each of the following:
Old Hickory
Martin Van Buren
“spoils system”
George Bancroft universal white manhood suffrage
Radicalism
Probing the Sources
· 1. How was Jackson portrayed by his friends and foes?
· 2. What were the central arguments for and against universal white manhood suffrage?
· 3. What role did morality and religion play in the campaigns of the Age of Jackson?
· 4. What did each side say about money and economics?
Interpreting the Sources
· 1. Why was Jackson so controversial? What types of voters supported him and opposed him? Why?
· 2. Attack ads, scandal-mongering, and an unbalanced focus on image rather than substance are criticisms often made against modern campaigns. To what degree do these judgments also describe the elections of the Age of Jackson? Provide examples from the documents.
· 3. Would you have voted for Martin Van Buren in the presidential election of 1836? Justify your answer.
· 4. What were the underlying assumptions of those who supported Jackson and those who opposed him?
Additional Reading
For entertaining introductions to Andrew Jackson, see Robert Remini, The Life of Andrew Jackson (2001) and H. W. Brands, Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times (2005). For the politics of the era, see Daniel Feller’s The Jacksonian Promise: America, 1815 to 1840 (1995), Lawrence Frederick Kohl’s The Politics ofIndividualism: Parties and the American Character in the Jacksonian Era (1989), and Joel Silbey’s Martin Van Buren and the Emergence of American Popular Politics (2005). Serious students of the period should consult Arthur Schlesinger Jr.’s 1946 Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, The Age of Jackson (2005). Also ofinterest is Charles Seller’s provocative study on the impact of capitalism, entitled The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815–1846 (1991).
10 Women in Antebellum America
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Looking back over her girlhood in New England in the 1840s,
Lucy Larcom
declared,
· It was seldom said to little girls, as it always has been said to boys, that they ought to have some definite plan while they were children, what to be and do when they were grown up. There was usually but one path open before them, to become good wives and housekeepers. And the ambition of most girls was to follow their mothers’ footsteps in this direction; a natural and laudable ambition.
By the early nineteenth century, the role of the wife and housekeeper was indeed being upheld as the ideal one for middle-class women. Yet ideals and realities are not the same things. Larcom’s mother ran a boardinghouse for young women who worked in
textile mills
, so Lucy knew firsthand many women who did not live within the domestic ideal.
Equally important, Lucy Larcom questioned the desirability of what some have called the cult of true womanhood, that cluster of beliefs that places a woman in the home not only for domestic duties, but also as the moral center and spiritual font of family values. Larcom recalled that she had sometimes been encouraged to develop her talents and learn to be a useful citizen: “Girls, as well as boys must often have been conscious of their own peculiar capabilities—must have desired to cultivate and make use of their individual powers.”
Larcom’s thoughts on her own girlhood addressed problems that many American women were feeling. The nineteenth century was an era of changing identities, and the “proper” roles of men and women were not always clear. Gender identity—how we define what it means to be a man or a woman—was very much influenced by the economy. By the 1830s and 1840s, farms in the soil-poor Northeast had failed, as new markets for agricultural goods opened up and as the vast lands of the South and the Midwest produced unprecedented quantities of staple crops. Moreover, in the eastern cities, the old artisan method of manufacture—a household-based economy that gave a productive role to women and children—was being replaced. The increased division of labor under capitalism brought new factories and the wage-labor system. While farms and artisanal shops were highly patriarchal (that is, men were given the dominant role as authority figures and decision makers), they did make labor a family-centered activity. The new, more specialized system that gradually replaced the old tended to disperse family members: children at school, men at the job, women in the home. Production became divorced from the household. In other words, the old economic function of the family declined, and the middle-class family became more the center for fulfilling emotional and domestic needs, such as cooking, education, spiritual uplift, and religious instruction.
This new division of roles within the family presented dilemmas for the middle-class American woman. She could simply accept the domestic tasks of homemaker, mother, spiritual guide, and uplifter of the race. Certainly, it was flattering to be told that work in the home was the most godly of occupations, the most elevating for humankind. Ironically, the women who wrote in this vein, women like writer-reformer Catherine Beecher, were themselves stepping out of the private household to enter the public realm, the world of work. After all, it was fine to argue that raising good children and providing a haven for one’s husband were the noblest of tasks, but money, power, and status were all to be found outside the home.
For other women, however, the cult of domesticity was a luxury. Some continued to work on farms, where the sheer labor of milking, harvesting, preserving, churning, and sewing, not to mention the usual cooking, cleaning, and nursing, left little time for pure moral uplift. Other women—young, unmarried, widowed, immigrant, some abandoned by their husbands, some with elderly parents—needed to earn a living, and many of these worked either as domestic servants in others’ homes or as operatives in new factories like the Lowell textile mills in Massachusetts. Perhaps some of these women would have enjoyed the luxury of staying home as a wife and mother, but many clearly welcomed the chance to go out into the world. Nevertheless, domestic labor was demeaning, and work in the mills required long hours at low pay. Both were subject to the vagaries of the marketplace, including wage cuts and unemployment, and both quickly became stigmatized as lower-class occupations. The domestic ideal could be suffocating, but as a middle-class role, it promised higher social status than that afforded to working-class women.
Other middle-class women, a small but articulate group, rejected the domestic ideal outright. Some of them went so far as to draw parallels between the condition of slaves and their own. Sarah and Angelina Grimké, for example, noted that neither women nor slaves could vote, neither could hold property, both had virtually no public voice, and both were restricted from positions of power and prestige. For white women like Lucy Larcom who were given at least a rudimentary education and who were encouraged to lead useful lives, the cult of domesticity could be a trap. But at its most extreme, African-American womenexperienced how the oppression of both slavery and gender reinforced each other.
Many American women hated the lack of occupational outlets for their talents and loathed appearing submissive to men in public; home, the moral center of the universe, suffocated them. But the alleged moral superiority of women—an idea supported by the evangelical religion so popular in the antebellumera—cut two ways, becoming a bulwark of activism. Women’s spirituality could be expressed not just at home or in church, but in organizations that went out into the world to change it and spread benevolence. Thus, in the powerful reform movements of the antebellum era—antislavery, temperance, missionary work, education, and others—women founded organizations, proselytized, and assumed active public roles.
During these years, middle-class women gained a bit more control of their lives in another way. Throughout the nineteenth century, the birthrate declined, and it is clear that, by the 1840s, this decline was due in part to the deliberate practice of birth control. Smaller families gave women some freedom from the drudgery of daily home life. This was also an era that saw the decline of arranged marriages (inwhich parents worked out nuptial agreements for their children, often for economic motives) and the growing presence of the idea of romantic love, of choosing one’s mate solely on the basis of personal attraction and emotional compatibility. Once again, this new way of arranging marriages gave women far more control of their lives than they had had under the older, more purely patriarchal ways.
THE DOCUMENTS
The following documents capture much of the variety in women’s identities around the middle of the nineteenth century, ranging from ringing endorsements of the cult of true womanhood through a feminist declaration of independence. However, it is probably best not to think of antebellum women as fitting into one or another category, such as worker, mother, or activist. There was considerable ambivalence in roles and ideals: Some young mill workers probably longed for a cottage and a family as far from factories as possible; overburdened mothers fantasized about leaving home behind to seek their independence; promoters of the domestic ideal sought public acclaim; and
feminists
sometimes made demands for women’s empowerment based on inherent female moral superiority. This was, then, an era of new possibilities and also one of confusing goals and expectations. As you read the documents, try to think of these women as engaged in a great dialogue. What were they saying to each other, and where were they agreeing and disagreeing?
Introduction to Document 1
The 1840s witnessed a growing consciousness of women’s place in American society. Document 1 is excerpted from A. J. Graves’s Women in America (1843). She argued vigorously from Scripture that a woman’s place was in the home. Compare Graves’s ideas about religion with how the Bible was cited by the court in the Vesey conspiracy (
Chapter 8
).
DOCUMENT 1
“Religious Women”
A. J. Graves
Our chief aim throughout these pages is to prove that [women’s] domestic duties have a paramount claim over everything else upon her attention—that home is her appropriate sphere of action; and that whenever she neglects these duties, or goes out of this sphere of action to mingle in any of the great public movements of the day, she is deserting the station which God and nature have assigned to her. She can operate far more efficiently in promoting the great interests of humanity by supervising her own household than in any other way. Home, if we may so speak, is the cradle of the human race; and it is here the human character is fashioned either for good or for evil. It is the “nursery of the future
man and of the undying spirit”; and woman is the nurse and the educator. Over infancy she has almost unlimited sway; and in maturer years she may powerfully counteract the evil influences of the world by the talisman of her strong, enduring love, by her devotedness to those intrusted to her charge, and by those lessons of virtue and of wisdom which are not of the world… .
That woman should regard home as her appropriate domain is not only the dictate of religion, but of enlightened human reason. Well-ordered families are the chief security for the permanent peace and prosperity of the state, and such families must be trained up by enlightened female influence acting within its legitimate sphere… .
Let man, then, retain his proud supremacy in the world’s dominion; let him inscribe his name upon its high places, and be the leader of the congregated masses of his fellow-men, with all their excitements, their agitations, and their powerful concentration of effort; but these things belong not to woman. She best consults her happiness, best maintains her dignity, and best fulfils the great object of her being, by keeping alive the sacred flame of piety, patriotism, and universal love to man, upon the domestic altar; and by drawing worshippers around it, to send them forth from thence better citizens, and purer and holier men… .
… Then, when our husbands and our sons go forth into the busy and turbulent world, we may feel secure that they will walk unhurt amid its snares and temptations. Their hearts will be at home, where their treasure is; and they will rejoice to return to its sanctuary of rest, there to refresh their wearied spirits, and renew their strength for the toils and conflicts of life.
Introduction to Document 2
Catharine Beecher, in her Treatise on Domestic Economy for Young Ladies at Home and at School (1847), made her case for the importance of the domestic ideal, declaring that woman’s subordination to man inthe world of politics and work sheltered her and enabled her to perform the task of moral uplift. Document 2 is taken from
Chapter 1
of this treatise, “The Peculiar Responsibilities of American Women.” Catharine Beecher was a member of one of the most influential families of the nineteenth century, which included her father, the Reverend Lyman Beecher; her brother, the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher; and her sister, Harriet Beecher (Stowe), author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
DOCUMENT 2
“The Peculiar Responsibilities of American Women”
Catharine Beecher
… There must be the magistrate and the subject, one of whom is the superior, and the other the inferior. There must be the relations of husband and wife, parent and child, teacher and pupil, employer and employed, each involving the relative duties of subordination. The superior, in certain particulars, is to direct, and the inferior is to yield obedience. Society could never go forward, harmoniously, nor could any craft or profession be successfully pursued, unless these superior and subordinate relations be instituted and sustained.
But who shall take the higher, and who the subordinate, stations in social and civil life? This matter, in the case of parents and children, is decided by the Creator. He has given children to the control of parents, as their superiors, and to them they remain subordinate, to a certain age, or so long as they are members of their household. And parents can delegate such a portion of their authority to teachers and employers, as the interests of their children require.
In most other cases, in a truly democratic state, each individual is allowed to choose for himself, who shall take the position of his superior. No woman is forced to obey any husband but the one she chooses for herself; nor is she obliged to take a husband, if she prefers to remain single. So every domestic, and every artisan or laborer, after passing from parental control, can choose the employer to whom he is to accord obedience, or, if he prefers to relinquish certain advantages, he can remain without taking a subordinate place to any employer.
And the various privileges that wealth secures, are equally open to all classes. Every man may aim at riches, unimpeded by any law or institution which secures peculiar privileges to a favored class, at the expense of another. Every law, and every institution, is tested by examining whether it secures equal advantages to all; and, if the people become convinced that any regulation sacrifices the good of the majority to the interests of the smaller number, they have power to abolish it… .
It appears, then, that it is in America, alone, that women are raised to an equality with the other sex; and that, both in theory and practice, their interests are regarded as of equal value. They are made subordinate in station, only where a regard to their best interests demands it, while, as if in compensation for this, by custom and courtesy, they are always treated as superiors. Universally, in this Country, through every class of society, precedence is given to woman, in all the comforts, conveniences, and courtesies, of life.
In civil and political affairs, American women take no interest or concern, except so far as they sympathize with their family and personal friends; but in all cases, in which they do feel a concern, their opinions and feelings have a consideration, equal, or even superior, to that of the other sex.
In matters pertaining to the education of their children, in the selection and support of a clergyman, in all benevolent enterprises, and in all questions relating to morals or manners, they have a superior influence. In such concerns, it would be impossible to carry a point, contrary to their judgement and feelings; while an enterprise, sustained by them, will seldom fail of success.
If those who are bewailing themselves over the fancied wrongs and injuries of women in this Nation, could only see things as they are, they would know, that, whatever remnants of a barbarous or aristocratic age may remain in our civil institutions, in reference to the interests of women, it is only because they are ignorant of them, or do not use their influence to have them rectified; for it is very certain that there is nothing reasonable, which American women would unite in asking, that would not readily be bestowed… .
… The flow of wealth, among all classes, is constantly increasing the number of those who live in a style demanding much hired service, while the number of those, who are compelled to go to service, is constantly diminishing. Our manufactories, also, are making increased demands for female labor, and offering larger compensation. In consequence of these things, there is such a disproportion between those who wish to hire, and those who are willing to go to domestic service, that, in the non-slaveholding States were it not for the supply of poverty-stricken foreigners there would not be a domestic for each family who demands one. And this resort to foreigners, poor as it is, scarcely meets the demand: while the disproportion must every year increase, especially if our prosperity increases. For, just in proportion as wealth rolls in upon us, the number of those, who will give up their own independent homes to serve strangers, will be diminished.
The difficulties and sufferings, which have accrued to American women, from this cause, are almost incalculable. There is nothing, which so much demands system and regularity, as the affairs of a housekeeper, made up, as they are, of ten thousand desultory and minute items; and yet, this perpetually fluctuating state of society seems forever to bar any such system and regularity. The anxieties, vexations, perplexities, and even hard labor,
which come upon American women, from this state of domestic service, are endless; and many a woman has, in consequence, been disheartened, discouraged, and ruined inhealth. The only wonder is, that, amid so many real difficulties, American women are still able to maintain such a character for energy, fortitude, and amiableness, as is universally allowed to be their due.
Introduction to Document 3
Among middle-class women, the views of Graves and Beecher quickly gained adherents; indeed, such women expressed ideas that others had felt earlier, even if they could not fully articulate them. But there were powerful alternative views. Sarah Grimké was the daughter of a South Carolina slaveholder. Like Graves, she relied on the Bible as her authority, but she reached very different conclusions. For women, as for African slaves, the main question was one of freedom, according to Grimké. In this letter to her sister Angelina, she examined a range of issues from unequal pay through the nature of housekeeping duties.
DOCUMENT 3
“On the Condition of Women in the United States”
Sarah M. Grimké
Brookline, 1837
My Dear Sister,
During the early part of my life, my lot was cast among the butterflies of the fashionable world; and of this class of women, I am constrained to say, both from experience and observation, that their education is miserably deficient; that they are taught to regard marriage as the one thing needful, the only avenue to distinction; hence to attract the notice and win the attentions of men, by their external charms, is the chief business of fashionable girls. They seldom think that men will be allured by intellectual acquirements, because they find, that where any mental superiority exists, a woman is generally shunned and regarded as stepping out of her “appropriate sphere,” which, in their view, is to dress, to dance, to set out to the best possible advantage her person, to read the novels which inundate the press, and which do more to destroy her character as a rational creature, then any thing else. Fashionable women regard themselves, and are regarded by men, as pretty toys or as mere instruments of pleasure; and the vacuity of mind, the heartlessness, the frivolity which is the necessary result of this false and debasing estimate of women, can only be fully understood by those who have mingled in the folly and wickedness of fashionable life; and who have been called from such pursuits by the voice of the Lord Jesus, inviting their weary and heavy laden souls to come unto Him and learn of Him, that they may find something worthy of their immortal spirit, and their intellectual powers; that they may learn the high and holy purposes of their creation, and consecrate themselves unto the service of God; and not, as is now the case, to the pleasure of man.
There is another and much more numerous class in this country, who are withdrawn by education or circumstances from the circle of fashionable amusements, but who are brought up with the dangerous and absurd idea, that marriage is a kind of preferment; and that to be able to keep their husband’s house, and render his situation comfortable, is the end of her being. Much that she does and says and thinks is done in reference to this situation; and to be married is too often held up to the view of girls as the sine qua non of human happiness and human existence. For this purpose more than for any other, I verily believe the majority of girls are trained. This is demonstrated by the imperfect education which is bestowed upon them, and the little pains taken to cultivate their minds, after they leave school, by the little time allowed them for reading, and by the idea being constantly inculcated, that although all household concerns should be attended to with scrupulous punctuality at particular seasons, the improvement of their intellectual capacities is only a secondary consideration, and may serve as an occupation to fill up the odds and ends of time. In most families, it is considered a matter of far more consequence to call a girl off from making a pie, or a pudding, than to interrupt her whilst engaged in her studies. This mode of training necessarily exalts, in their view, the animal above the intellectual and spiritual nature, and teaches women to regard themselves as a kind of machinery, necessary to keep the domestic engine in order, but of little value as the intelligent companions of men.
Let no one think, from these remarks, that I regard a knowledge of housewifery as beneath the acquisition of women. Far from it: I believe that a complete knowledge of household affairs is an indispensable requisite in a woman’s education,—that by the mistress of a family, whether married or single, doing her duty thoroughly and understandingly, the happiness of the family is increased to an incalculable degree, as well as a vast amount of time and money saved. All I complain of is, that our education consists so almost exclusively in culinary and other manual operations. I do long to see the time, when it will no longer be necessary for women to expend so many precious hours in furnishing “a well spread table,” but that their husbands will forego some of their accustomed indulgences in this way, and encourage their wives to devote some portion of their time to mental cultivation, even at the expense of having to dine sometimes on baked potatoes, or bread and butter… .
There is another way in which the general opinion, that women are inferior to men, is manifested, that bears with tremendous effect on the laboring class, and indeed on almost all who are obliged to earn a subsistence, whether it be by mental or physical exertion—I allude to the disproportionate value set on the time and labor of men and of women. A man who is engaged in teaching, can always, I believe, command a higher price for tuition than a woman—even when he teaches the same branches, and is not in any respect superior to the women. This I know is the case in boarding and other schools with which I have been acquainted, and it is so in every occupation in which the sexes engage indiscriminately. As for example, in tailoring, a man has twice, or three times as much for making a waistcoat or pantaloons as a woman, although the work done by each may be equally good. In those employments which are peculiar to women, their time is estimated at only half the value of that of men. A woman who goes out to wash, works as hard in proportion as a wood sawyer, or a coal heaver, but she is not generally able to make more than half as much by a day’s work. The low remuneration which women receive for their work, has claimed the attention of a few philanthropists, and I hope it will continue to do so until some remedy is applied for this enormous evil. I have known a widow, left with four or five children, to provide for, unable to leave home because her helpless babes demand her attention, compelled to earn a scanty subsistence, by making coarse shirts at 12 1/2 cents a piece, or by taking in washing, for which she was paid by some wealthy persons 12 1/2 cents per dozen. All these things evince the low estimation in which woman is held. There is yet another and more disastrous consequence arising from this unscriptural notion—women being educated, from earliest childhood, to regard themselves as inferior creatures, have not that self-respect which conscious equality would engender, and hence when their virtue is assailed, they yield to temptation with facility, under the idea that it rather exalts than debases them, to be connected with a superior being.
There is another class of women in this country, to whom I cannot refer, without feelings of the deepest shame and sorrow. I allude to our female slaves. Our southern cities are whelmed beneath a tide of pollution; the virtue of female slaves is wholly at the mercy of irresponsible tyrants, and women are bought and sold in our slave markets, to gratify the brutal lust of those who bear the name of Christians. In our slave States, if amid all her degradation and ignorance, a woman desires to preserve her virtue unsullied, she is either bribed or whipped into compliance, or if she dares resist her seducer, her life by the laws of some of the slave States may be, and has actually been sacrificed to the fury of disappointed passion. Where such laws do not exist, the power which is necessarily vested in the master over his property, leaves the defenceless slave entirely at his mercy, and the sufferings of some females on this account, both physical and mental, are intense. Mr. Gholson, in the House of Delegates of Virginia, in 1832, said, “He really had been under the impression that he owned his slaves. He had lately purchased four women and ten children, in whom he thought he had obtained a great bargain; for he supposed they were his own property, as were his brood mares.” But even if any laws existed in the United States, as in Athens formerly, for the protection of female slaves, they would be null and void, because the evidence of a colored person is not admitted against a white, in any of our Courts of Justice in the slave States. “InAthens, if a female slave had cause to complain of any want of respect to the laws of modesty, she could seek the protection of the temple, and demand a change of owners; and such appeals were never discountenanced, or neglected by the magistrate.” In Christian America, the slave has no refuge from unbridled cruelty and lust.
S. A. Forrall, speaking of the state of morals at the South, says, “Negresses when young and likely, are often employed by the planter, or his friends, to administer to their sensual desires. This frequently is a matter of speculation, for if the offspring, a mulatto, be a handsome female, 800 or 1000 dollars may be obtained for her in the New Orleans market. It is an occurrence of no uncommon nature to see a Christian father sell his own daughter, and the brother his own sister.” The following is copied by the N.Y. Evening Star from the Picayune, a paper published in New Orleans. “A very beautiful girl, belonging to the estate of John French, a deceased gambler at New Orleans, was sold a few days since for the round sum of $7,000. An ugly-looking bachelor named Gouch, a member of the Council of one of the Principalities, was the purchaser. The girl is a brunette; remarkable for her beauty and intelligence, and there was considerable contention, who should be the purchaser. She was, however, persuaded to accept Gouch, he having made her princely promises… . That such a state of society should exist in a Christian nation, claiming to be the most enlightened upon earth, without calling forth any particular attention to its existence, though ever before our eyes and in our families, is a moral phenomenon at once unaccountable and disgraceful.” Nor does the colored woman suffer alone: the moral purity of the white woman is deeply contaminated. In the daily habit of seeing the virtue of her enslaved sister sacrificed without hesitancy or remorse, she looks upon the crimes of seduction and illicit intercourse without horror, and although not personally involved in the guilt, she loses that value for innocence in her own, as well as the other sex, which is one of the strongest safeguards to virtue. She lives in habitual intercourse with men, whom she knows to be polluted by licentiousness, and often is she compelled to witness in her own domestic circle, those disgusting and heart-sickening jealousies and strifes which disgraced and distracted the family of Abraham. In addition to all this, the female slaves suffer every species of degradation and cruelty, which the most wanton barbarity can inflict; they are indecently divested of their clothing, sometimes tied up and severely whipped, sometimes prostrated on the earth, while their naked bodies are torn by the scorpion lash.
The whip on woman’s shrinking flesh!
Our soil yet reddening with the stains
Caught from her scourging warm and fresh.
Can any American woman look at these scenes of shocking licentiousness and cruelty, and fold her hands in apathy, and say, “I have nothing to do with slavery”? She cannot and be guiltless.
I cannot close this letter, without saying a few words on the benefits to be derived by men, as well as women, from the opinions I advocate relative to the equality of the sexes. Many women are now supported, in idleness and extravagance, by the industry of their husbands, fathers, or brothers, who are compelled to toil out their existence, at the counting house, or in the printing office, or some other laborious occupation, while the wife and daughters and sisters take no part in the support of the family, and appear to think that their sole business is to spend the hard bought earnings of their male friends. I deeply regret such a state of things, because I believe that if women felt their responsibility, for the support of themselves, or their families it would add strength and dignity to their characters, and teach them more true sympathy for their husbands, than is now generally manifested,—a sympathy which would be exhibited by actions as well as words. Our brethren may reject my doctrine, because it runs counter to common opinions, and because it wounds their pride; but I believe they would be “partakers of the benefit” resulting from the Equality of the Sexes, and would find that woman, as their equal, was unspeakably more valuable than woman as their inferior, both as a moral and an intellectual being.
Thine in the bonds of womanhood,
Sarah M. Grimké
Introduction to Documents 4 and 5
The following two documents contain voices of women of color. Harriet Jacobs was born a slave inEdenton, North Carolina, in 1813. The events described in this passage took place around 1830. Jacobs’s life was filled with drama. Unrelenting sexual exploitation finally drove her into hiding. For seven years, a black family sheltered her in a tiny crawl space of their home until Harriet was able to escape to New York City in 1842. Finally, she was reunited with her two children. The second narrative describes the experiences of Sarah Winnemucca, the granddaughter of the chief of the Piute nation of the American West. Both accounts depict in graphic detail some of the hardships that were suffered by nineteenth-century women of color. To what degree are the themes addressed in these passages alike and different from the main themes expressed in Sarah Grimke’s “On the Condition of Women in the United States”?
DOCUMENT 4
From Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Harriet Jacobs
… I now entered on my fifteenth year—a sad epoch in the life of a slave girl. My master began to whisper foul words in my ear. Young as I was, I could not remain ignorant of their import. I tried to treat them with indifference or contempt. The master’s age, my extreme youth, and the fear that his conduct would be reported to my grandmother, made him bear this treatment for many months. He was a crafty man, and resorted to many means to accomplish his purposes. Sometimes he had stormy, terrific ways, that made his victims tremble; sometimes he assumed a gentleness that he thought must surely subdue. Of the two, I preferred his stormy moods, although they left me trembling. He tried his utmost to corrupt the pure principles my grandmother had instilled. He peopled my young mind with unclean images, such as only a vile monster could think of. I turned from him with disgust and hatred. But he was my master. I was compelled to live under the same roof with him—where I saw a man forty years my senior daily violating the most sacred commandments of nature. He told me I was his property; that I must be subject to his will in all things. My soul revolted against the mean tyranny. But where could I turn for protection? No matter whether the slave girl be as black as ebony or as fair as her mistress. In either case, there is no shadow of law to protect her from insult, from violence, or even from death; all these are inflicted by fiends who bear the shape of men. The mistress, who ought to protect the helpless victim, has no other feelings towards her but those of jealousy and rage… .
I had entered my sixteenth year, and every day it became more apparent that my presence was intolerable to Mrs. Flint [the wife of Harriet Jacobs’s owner]. Angry words frequently passed between her and her husband. He had never punished me himself, and he would not allow anybody else to punish me. In that respect, she was never satisfied; but, in her angry moods, no terms were too vile for her to bestow upon me. Yet I, whom she detested so bitterly, had far more pity for her than he had, whose duty it was to make her life happy. I never wronged her, or wished to wrong her; and one word of kindness from her would have brought me to her feet.
After repeated quarrels between the doctor and his wife, he announced his intention to take his youngest daughter, then four years old, to sleep in his apartment. It was necessary that a servant should sleep inthe same room, to be on hand if the child stirred. I was selected for that office, and informed for what purpose that arrangement had been made. By managing to keep within sight of people, as much as possible, during the day time, I had hitherto succeeded in eluding my master, though a razor was often held to my throat to force me to change this line of policy. At night I slept by the side of my great aunt, where I felt safe. He was too prudent to come into her room. She was an old woman, and had been in the family many years. Moreover, as a married man, and a professional man [a doctor], he deemed it necessary to save appearances in some degree. But he resolved to remove the obstacle in the way of his scheme; and he thought he had planned it so that he should evade suspicion. He was well aware how much I prized my refuge by the side of my old aunt, and he determined to dispossess me of it. The first night the doctor had the little child in his room alone. The next morning, I was ordered to take my station as nurse the following night. A kind Providence interposed in my favor. During the day Mrs. Flint heard of this new arrangement and a storm followed. I rejoiced to hear it rage… .
The secrets of slavery are concealed like those of the Inquisition. My master was, to my knowledge, the father of eleven slaves. But did the mothers dare to tell who was the father of their children? Did the other slaves dare to allude to it, except in whispers among themselves? No, indeed! They knew too well the terrible consequences… . … Dr. Flint contrived a new plan. He seemed to have an idea that my fear of my mistress was his greatest obstacle. In the blandest tones, he told me that he was going to build a small house for me, in a secluded place, four miles away from the town. I shuddered; but I was constrained to listen, while he talked of his intention to give me a home of my own, and to make a lady of me. Hitherto, I had escaped my dreaded fate, by being in the midst of people. My grandmother had already had high words with my master about me. She had told him pretty plainly what she thought of his character, and there was considerable gossip in the neighborhood about our affairs, to which the open-mouthed jealousy of Mrs. Flint contributed not a little. When my master said he was going to build a house for me, and that he could do it with little trouble and expense, I was in hopes something would happen to frustrate his scheme; but I soon heard that the house was actually begun. I vowed before my Maker that I would never enter it. I had rather toil on the plantation from dawn till dark; I had rather live and die in jail, than drag on, from day to day, through such a living death. I was determined that the master, whom I so hated and loathed, who had blighted the prospects of my youth, and made my life a desert, should not, after my long struggle with him, succeed at last in trampling his victim under his feet. I would do any thing, every thing, for the sake of defeating him. What could I do? I thought and thought, till I became desperate, and made a plunge into the abyss.
And now, reader, I come to a period in my unhappy life, which I would gladly forget if I could. The remembrance fills me with sorrow and shame. It pains me to tell you of it; but I have promised to tell you the truth, and I will do it honestly, let it cost me what it may. I will not try to screen myself behind the plea of compulsion from a master; for it was not so. Neither can I plead ignorance or thoughtlessness. For years, my master had done his utmost to pollute my mind with foul images, and to destroy the pure principles inculcated by my grandmother, and the good mistress of my childhood. The influences of slavery had had the same effect on me that they had on other young girls; they had made me prematurely knowing, concerning the evil ways of the world. I knew what I did, and I did it with deliberate calculation.
But, O, ye happy women, whose purity has been sheltered from childhood, who have been free to choose the objects of your affection, whose homes are protected by law, do not judge the poor desolate slave girl too severely! If slavery had been abolished, I also, could have married the man of my choice; I could have had a home shielded by the laws; and I should have been spared the painful task of confessing what I am now about to relate; but all my prospects had been blighted by slavery. I wanted to keep myself pure; and, under the most adverse circumstances, I tried hard to preserve my self-respect; but I was struggling alone in the powerful grasp of the demon Slavery; and the monster proved too strong for me. I felt as if I was forsaken by God and man; as if all my efforts must be frustrated; and I became reckless in my despair.
I have told you that Dr. Flint’s persecutions and his wife’s jealousy had given rise to some gossip in the neighborhood. Among others, it chanced that a white unmarried gentleman had obtained some knowledge of the circumstances in which I was placed. He knew my grandmother, and often spoke to me in the street. He became interested for me, and asked questions about my master, which I answered inpart. He expressed a great deal of sympathy, and a wish to aid me. He constantly sought opportunities to see me, and wrote to me frequently. I was a poor slave girl, only fifteen years old.
So much attention from a superior person was, of course, flattering; for human nature is the same in all. I also felt grateful for his sympathy, and encouraged by his kind words. It seemed to me a great thing to have such a friend. By degrees, a more tender feeling crept into my heart. He was an educated and eloquent gentleman; too eloquent, alas, for the poor slave girl who trusted in him. Of course I saw whither all this was tending. I knew the impassable gulf between us; but to be an object of interest to a man who is not married, and who is not her master, is agreeable to the pride and feelings of a slave, if her miserable situation has left her any pride or sentiment. It seems less degrading to give one’s self, than to submit to compulsion. There is something akin to freedom in having a lover who has no control over you, except that which he gains by kindness and attachment. A master may treat you as rudely as he pleases, and you dare not speak; moreover, the wrong does not seem so great with an unmarried man, as with one who has a wife to be made unhappy. There may be sophistry in all this; but the condition of a slave confuses all principles of morality, and, in fact, renders the practice of them impossible… .
As for Dr. Flint, I had a feeling of satisfaction and triumph in the thought of telling him. From time to time he told me of his intended arrangements, and I was silent. At last, he came and told me the cottage was completed, and ordered me to go to it. I told him I would never enter it. He said, “I have heard enough of such talk as that. You shall go, if you are carried by force; and you shall remain there.”
I replied, “I will never go there. In a few months I shall be a mother.”
He stood and looked at me in dumb amazement, and left the house without a word. I thought I should be happy in my triumph over him. But now that the truth was out, and my relatives would hear of it, I felt wretched. Humble as were their circumstances, they had pride in my good character. Now, how could I look them in the face? My self-respect was gone! I had resolved that I would be virtuous, though I was a slave. I had said, “Let the storm beat! I will brave it till I die.” And now, how humiliated I felt!
DOCUMENT 5
Words from a Native-American Female
First Meeting of Piutes and Whites
I was born somewhere near 1844, but am not sure of the precise time. I was a very small child when the first white people came into our country. They came like a lion, yes, like a roaring lion, and have continued so ever since, and I have never forgotten their first coming. My people were scattered at that time over nearly all the territory now known as Nevada. My grandfather was chief of the entire Piute nation, and was camped near Humboldt Lake, with a small portion of his tribe, when a party travelling eastward from California was seen coming. When the news was brought to my grandfather, he asked what they looked like? When told that they had hair on their faces, and were white, he jumped up and clasped his hands together, and cried aloud,—
“My white brothers,—my long-looked for white brothers have come at last!”
He immediately gathered some of his leading men, and went to the place where the party had gone into camp. Arriving near them, he was commanded to halt in a manner that was readily understood without an interpreter. Grandpa at once made signs of friendship by throwing down his robe and throwing up his arms to show them he had no weapons; but in vain,—they kept him at a distance. He knew not what to do. He had expected so much pleasure in welcoming his white brothers to the best in the land, that after looking at them sorrowfully for a little while, he came away quite unhappy. But he would not give them up so easily. He took some of his most trustworthy men and followed them day after day, camping near them at night, and travelling in sight of them by day, hoping in this way to gain their confidence. But he was disappointed, poor dear old soul!
I can imagine his feelings, for I have drank deeply from the same cup. When I think of my past life, and the bitter trials I have endured, I can scarcely believe I live, and yet I do; and, with the help of Him who notes the sparrow’s fall, I mean to fight for my downtrodden race while life lasts.
***
The following spring, before my grandfather returned home, there was a great excitement among my people on account of fearful news coming from different tribes, that the people whom they called their white brothers were killing everybody that came in their way, and all the Indian tribes had gone into the mountains to save their lives. So my father told all his people to go into the mountains and hunt and lay up food for the coming winter. Then we all went into the mountains. There was a fearful story they told us children. Our mothers told us that the whites were killing everybody and eating them. So we were all afraid of them. Every dust that we could see blowing in the valleys we would say it was the white people. In the late fall my father told his people to go to the rivers and fish, and we all went to Humboldt River, and the women went to work gathering wild seed, which they grind between the rocks. The stones are round, big enough to hold in the hands. The women did this when they got back, and when they had gathered all they could they put it in one place and covered it with grass, and then over the grass mud. After it is covered it looks like an Indian wigwam.
Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, “First Meeting of Piutes and Whites,” from Life Among the Piutes (1883).
Oh, what a fright we all got one morning to hear some white people were coming. Every one ran as best they could. My poor mother was left with my little sister and me. Oh, I never can forget it. My poor mother was carrying my little sister on her back, and trying to make me run; but I was so frightened I could not move my feet, and while my poor mother was trying to get me along my aunt overtook us, and she said to my mother: “Let us bury our girls, or we shall all be killed and eaten up.” So they went to work and buried us, and told us if we heard any noise not to cry out, for if we did they would surely kill us and eat us. So our mothers buried me and my cousin, planted sage bushes over our faces to keep the sun from burning them, and there we were left all day.
Oh, can any one imagine my feelings buried alive, thinking every minute that I was to be unburied and eaten up by the people that my grandfather loved so much? With my heart throbbing, and not daring to breathe, we lay there all day. It seemed that the night would never come. Thanks be to God! the night came at last. Oh, how I cried and said: “Oh, father, have you forgotten me? Are you never coming for me?” I cried so I thought my very heartstrings would break.
At last we heard some whispering. We did not dare to whisper to each other, so we lay still. I could hear their footsteps coming nearer and nearer. I thought my heart was coming right out of my mouth. Then I heard my mother say, “’Tis right here!” Oh, can any one in this world ever imagine what were my feelings when I was dug up by my poor mother and father? My cousin and I were once more happy in our mothers’ and fathers’ care, and we were taken to where all the rest were.
Introduction to Document 6
In 1848, ten years after Grimké’s letter, several women and a few men met in
Seneca Falls
, New York, and drew up their
Declaration of Sentiments
, a women’s Declaration of Independence addressing a whole range of legal and customary inequalities that they wanted changed.
DOCUMENT 6
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 just powers from the consent of the governed. Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, 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 were 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 usurpations 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.
He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise.
He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice.
He has withheld from her rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded men—both natives and foreigners.
Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides.
He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.
He has made her, morally, an irresponsible being, as she can commit many crimes with impunity, provided they be done in the presence of her husband. In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her master—the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty, and to administer chastisement.
He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what shall be the proper causes, and in case of separation, to whom the guardianship of the children shall be given, as to be wholly regardless of the happiness of women—the law, in all cases, going upon a false supposition of the supremacy of man, and giving all power into his hands.
After depriving her of all rights as a married woman, if single, and the owner of property, he has taxed her to support a government which recognizes her only when her property can be made profitable to it.
He has monopolized nearly all the profitable employments, and from those she is permitted to follow, she receives but a scanty remuneration. He closes against her all the avenues to wealth and distinction which he considers most honorable to himself. As a teacher of theology, medicine, or law, she is not known.
He has denied her the facilities for obtaining a thorough education, all colleges being closed against her.
He allows her in Church, as well as State, but a subordinate position, claiming Apostolic authority for her exclusion from the ministry, and, with some exceptions, from any public participation in the affairs of the Church.
He has created a false public sentiment by giving to the world a different code of morals for men and women, by which moral delinquencies which exclude women from society, are not only tolerated, but deemed of little account in man.
He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her conscience and to her God.
He has endeavored, in every way that he could, to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life.
Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half the people of this country, their social and religious degradation—in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of the United States.
In entering upon the great work before us, we anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule; but we shall use every instrumentality within our power to effect our object. We shall employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the State and National legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press in our behalf. We hope this Convention will be followed by a series of Conventions embracing every part of the country.
Introduction to Document 7
Lucy Larcom’s life changed dramatically when her father passed away. Financial pressure caused her mother to open up a boardinghouse for “girls” (many were in their twenties and thirties) who worked inthe textile mills. Young Lucy alternated between school and the mills, but her intelligence and curiosity made her long for something more, a longing that most working-class people rarely got the chance to fulfill. Document 6 is an excerpt from her memoirs, in which she recalls her youth—A New England Girlhood (1889).
DOCUMENT 7
From A New England Girlhood
During my father’s life, a few years before my birth, his thoughts had been turned towards the new manufacturing town growing up on the banks of the Merrimack. He had once taken a journey there, with the possibility in his mind of making the place his home, his limited income furnishing no adequate promise of a maintenance for his large family of daughters. From the beginning, Lowell had a high reputation for good order, morality, piety, and all that was dear to the old-fashioned New Englander’s heart.
After his death, my mother’s thoughts naturally followed the direction his had taken; and seeing no other opening for herself, she sold her small estate, and moved to Lowell, with the intention of taking a corporation-house for mill-girl boarders. Some of the family objected, for the Old World traditions about factory life were anything but attractive; and they were current in New England until the experiment at Lowell had shown that independent and intelligent workers invariably give their own character to their occupation. My mother had visited Lowell, and she was willing and glad, knowing all about the place, to make it our home.
The change involved a great deal of work. “Boarders” signified a large house, many beds, and an indefinite number of people. Such piles of sewing accumulated before us! A sewing-bee, volunteered by the neighbors, reduced the quantity a little, and our child-fingers had to take their part. But the seams of those sheets did look to me as if they were miles long! …
Our house was quickly filled with a large feminine family. As a child, the gulf between little girlhood and young womanhood had always looked to me very wide. I supposed we should get across it by some sudden jump, by and by. But among these new companions of all ages, from fifteen to thirty years, we slipped into womanhood without knowing when or how.
Most of my mother’s boarders were from New Hampshire and Vermont, and there was a fresh, breezy sociability about them which made them seem almost like a different race of beings from any we children had hitherto known.
We helped a little about the housework, before and after school, making beds, trimming lamps, and washing dishes. The heaviest work was done by a strong Irish girl, my mother always attending to the cooking herself. She was, however, a better caterer than the circumstances required or permitted. She liked to make nice things for the table, and, having been accustomed to an abundant supply, could never learn to economize. At a dollar and a quarter a week for board (the price allowed for mill-girls by the corporations), great care in expenditure was necessary. It was not in my mother’s nature closely to calculate costs, and in this way there came to be a continually increasing leak in the family purse. The older members of the family did everything they could, but it was not enough. I heard it said one day, in a distressed tone, “The children will have to leave school and go into the mill.”
There were many pros and cons between my mother and sisters before this was positively decided. The mill-agent did not want to take us two little girls, but consented on condition we should be sure to attend school the full number of months prescribed each year. I, the younger one, was then between eleven and twelve years old.
I listened to all that was said about it, very much fearing that I should not be permitted to do the coveted work. For the feeling had already frequently come to me, that I was the one too many in the overcrowded family nest. Once, before we left our old home, I had heard a neighbor condoling with my mother because there were so many of us, and her emphatic reply had been a great relief to my mind:—
“There isn’t one more than I want. I could not spare a single one of my children.”
But her difficulties were increasing, and I thought it would be a pleasure to feel that I was not a trouble or burden or expense to anybody. So I went to my first day’s work in the mill with a light heart. The novelty of it made it seem easy, and it really was not hard, just to change the bobbins on the spinning-frames every three quarters of an hour or so, with half a dozen other little girls who were doing the same thing. When I came back at night, the family began to pity me for my long, tiresome day’s work, but I laughed and said,—
“Why, it is nothing but fun. It is just like play.”
And for a little while it was only a new amusement; I liked it better than going to school and “making believe” I was learning when I was not. And there was a great deal of play mixed with it. We were not occupied more than half the time. The intervals were spent frolicking around among the spinning-frames, teasing and talking to the older girls, or entertaining ourselves with games and stories in a corner, or exploring, with the overseer’s permission, the mysteries of the carding-room, the dressing-room, and the weaving-room.
I never cared much for machinery. The buzzing and hissing and whizzing of pulleys and rollers and spindles and flyers around me often grew tiresome. I could not see into their complications, or feel interested in them. But in a room below us we were sometimes allowed to peer in through a sort of blind door at the great waterwheel that carried the works of the whole mill. It was so huge that we could only watch a few of its spokes at a time, and part of its dripping rim, moving with a slow, measured strength through the darkness that shut it in. It impressed me with something of the awe which comes to us inthinking of the great Power which keeps the mechanism of the universe in motion. Even now, the remembrance of its large, mysterious movement, in which every little motion of every noisy little wheel was involved, brings back to me a verse from one of my favorite hymns:—
Our lives through various scenes are drawn,
And vexed by trifling cares,
While Thine eternal thought moves on
Thy undisturbed affairs.
There were compensations for being shut in to daily toil so early. The mill itself had its lessons for us. But it was not, and could not be, the right sort of life for a child, and we were happy in the knowledge that, at the longest, our employment was only to be temporary.
When I took my next three months at the grammar school, everything there was changed, and I too was changed. The teachers were kind, and thorough in their instruction; and my mind seemed to have been ploughed up during that year of work, so that knowledge took root in it easily. It was a great delight to me to study, and at the end of the three months the master told me that I was prepared for the high school.
But alas! I could not go. The little money I could earn—one dollar a week, besides the price of my board—was needed in the family, and I must return to the mill. It was a severe disappointment to me, though I did not say so at home. I did not at all accept the conclusion of a neighbor whom I heard talking about it with my mother. His daughter was going to the high school, and my mother was telling him how sorry she was that I could not.
“Oh,” he said, in a soothing tone, “my girl hasn’t got any such head-piece as yours has. Your girl doesn’t need to go.”
Of course I knew that whatever sort of a “head-piece” I had, I did need and want just that very opportunity to study. I think the resolution was then formed, inwardly, that I would go to school again, some time, whatever happened. I went back to my work, but now without enthusiasm. I had looked through an open door that I was not willing to see shut upon me.
I began to reflect upon life rather seriously for a girl of twelve or thirteen. What was I here for? What could I make of myself? Must I submit to be carried along with the current, and do just what everybody else did? No: I knew I should not do that, for there was a certain Myself who was always starting up with her own original plan or aspiration before me, and who was quite indifferent as to what people generally thought.
Well, I would find out what this Myself was good for, and that she should be!
Introduction to Document 8
The letters of Malenda Edwards to Sabrina Bennett and of Mary Paul to her father give us insight into the life and labor of American women. Mill workers usually worked from 11 to 13 hours per day, beginning around sunrise; they received very short breaks for meals, and their pay was not only low but unstable, as mills often cut wages in response to oversupply, slack demand, or a quest for greater profits. Such letters reveal that many mill workers considered their labor temporary and that they expected to marry or return to their old farms or small towns. This sense of transiency blunted the efforts of workers to organize. Nevertheless, in 1845, hundreds of mill workers petitioned the Massachusetts legislature for a ten-hour day. They complained that poor sanitary conditions and long hours were destroying their health. Their request was not granted.
DOCUMENT 8
Malenda Edwards and Mary Paul Letters
April 4, 1839
Dear Sabrina,
… You have been informed I suppose that I am a factory girl and that I am at Nashua and I have wished you were here too but I suppose your mother would think it far beneith [sic] your dignity to be a factory girl. There are very many young Ladies at work in the factories that have given up milinary d[r]essmaking & s[c]hool keeping for to work in the mill. But I would not advise any one to do it for I was so sick of it at first I wished a factory had never been thought of. But the longer I stay the better I like and I think if nothing unforesene calls me away I shall stay here till fall… . If you should have any idea of working in the factory I will do the best I can to get you a place with us. We have an excelent boarding place. We board with a family with whome I was acquainted with when I lived at Haverhill. Pleas to write us soon and believe your affectionate Aunt
M[alenda] M. Edwards
Timetable of the Lowell Mills, 1853. (American Textile History Museum, Lowell, MA)
Bristol [N.H.] Aug 18, 1845
Dear Sabrina,
We received your letter sent by Mr Wells and I embrace the first opportunity to answer it and will now confess that I am a tremendous lazy corespondent at the best—and between my house work and da[i]ry spining weaving and raking hay I find but little time to write so I think I have appologised sifficiently for not writing you before this. I am very glad indeed you have been so kind to write us so often this summer for I am always glad to hear from absent friends if I cannot see them. I think it was a kind providence that directed my steps to Haverhill last winter for it is not likely that I shall visit you again so long as father and mother live if I should live for so long for they fail fast especially father. He has had quite a number of ill turns this summer and I have been physician and nurse too. Dont you think Sabrina it is well I have taken some lessons in the line of phisick? Mother is able to do but little this sumer [compared] to what she has been sumers past. The warm wether overcomes her very much but we get a long first rate. I have got the most of my wool spun and two webs wove and at the mill and have been out and raked hay almost every afternoon whilst they were haying. Father did not have but two days extra help about his haying and we have not had a moments help in the House. Mother commenced spinning this summer with great speed and thought she should do wonders but she only spun 17 skeins and gave it up as a bad bargain. We received a letter from Brother and Sister Colby about 3 weeks ago. They are well and prospering nicely. They have a young son born in May last. They call his name Allen James for his two uncles. They bought a half lot of land and built them a house four good rooms on the ground and paid for it. Then they bought the other half lot with a good brick house on it and Mary says if we will just step in we may see Elias and Molly with there two pretty babies in there own brick house almost as grand as Lawyer Bryant’s folks. O Sabrina how my western fever rages. Were it not for my father and mother I would be in the far west ere this summer closes but I shall not leave them for friends nor foes! Mary and Elias say Liz don’t get married for you must come out here. I shall take up with there advice unless I can find some kind-hearted youth that want a wife and mother, one that is good looking and can hold up his head up. Then when all that comes to pass I am off in a fit of matrimony like a broken jug handle but till I find such an one I glory in being an old maid, ha ha ha! …
M. M. Edwards
Lowell Dec 21st 1845
Dear Father
I received your letter on Thursday the 14th with much pleasure. I am well which is one comfort. My life and health are spared while others are cut off. Last Thursday one girl fell down and broke her neck which caused instant death. She was coming in or coming out of the mill and slipped down it being very icy. The same day a man was killed by the cars. Another had nearly all of his ribs broken. Another was nearly killed by falling down and having a bale of cotton fall on him. Last Tuesday we were paid. In all I had six dollars and sixty cents paid $4.68 for board. With the rest I got me a pair of rubbers and a pair of 50.cts shoes. Next payment I am to have a dollar a week beside my board… . Perhaps you would like something about our regulations about going in and coming out of the mill. At 5 o’clock in the morning the bell rings for the folks to get up and get breakfast. At half past six it rings for the girls to get up and at seven they are called into the mill. At half past 12 we have dinner are called back again at one and stay till half past seven. I get along very well with my work… . I think that the factory is the best place for me and if any girl wants employment I advise them to come to Lowell. Tell Harriet that though she does not hear from me she is not forgotten. I have little time to devote to writing that I cannot write all I want to. There are half a dozen letters which I ought to write to day but I have not time. Tell Harriet I send my love to her and all of the girls. Give my love to Mrs. Clement. Tell Henry this will answer for him and you too for this time.
This from
Mary S. Paul
Lowell Nov 5th 1848
Dear Father
Doubtless you have been looking for a letter from me all the week past. I would have written but wished to find whether I should be able to stand it—to do the work that I am now doing. I was unable to get my old place in the cloth room on the Suffolk or on any other corporation. I next tried the dressrooms on the Lawrence Cor[poration], but did not succe[e]d in getting a place. I almost concluded to give up and go back to Claremont, but thought I would try once more. So I went to my old overseer on the Tremont Cor. I had no idea that he would want one, but he did, and I went to work last Tuesday—warping—the same work I used to do.
It is very hard indeed and sometimes I think I shall not be able to endure it. I never worked so hard in my life but perhaps I shall get used to it. I shall try hard to do so for there is no other work that I can do unless I spin and that I shall not undertake on any account. I presume you have heard before this that the wages are to be reduced on the 20th of this month. It is true and there seems to be a good deal of excitement on the subject but I can not tell what will be the consequence. The companies pretend they are losing immense sums every day and therefore they are obliged to lessen the wages, but this seems perfectly absurd to me for they are constantly making repairs and it seems to me that this would not be if there were really any danger of their being obliged to stop the mills.
It is very difficult for any one to get into the mill on any corporation. All seem to be very full of help. I expect to be paid about two dollars a week but it will be dearly earned… .
Write soon. Yours affectionately
Mary S. Paul
QUESTIONS
Defining Terms
Identify in the context of the chapter each of the following:
|
“cult of true womanhood” |
feminists |
|
“a woman’s place is in the home” |
|
|
Sarah Grimké |
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl |
| Seneca Falls | |
| textile mills |
Lowell, Massachusetts |
Probing the Sources
· 1. What was daily life like for the women who worked in mills or on farms?
· 2. What did Beecher and Graves say was the proper role for women? What did Grimké say? What about the writers of the Declaration of Sentiments?
· 3. How did the ideals of middle-class domestic life and working-class realities compare?
· 4. What tensions and conflicts did Lucy Larcom describe in the account of her life?
· 5. What did it mean to be not only a woman, but also black and a slave?
Interpreting the Sources
· 1. Why did women who upheld the domestic ideal and those who wrote against it both argue on the basis of religious ideals? Why and how did both sides claim to be upholders of American equality?
· 2. What do you think family life—as daughters, mothers, and wives—was like for women in this era?
· 3. Why do you think the writers of the Declaration of Sentiments used the Declaration of Independence as their model?
· 4. Sarah Grimké compared the condition of women with that of black slaves. How do you think their situations were similar or different?
ADDITIONAL READING
Katherine Kish Sklar’s Catharine Beecher: A Study in Domesticity (1973) is a fine biography of that very influential woman. The Bonds of Womanhood: Woman’s Sphere in New England, 1780–1835 (1977) by Nancy F. Cott is an important discussion of women’s culture during the era. Carol Smith Rosenberg’s Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America (1985) provides brilliant interpretive essays on women’s experiences. Christine Stansell, City of Women: Sex and Class in New York, 1789–1869 (1986), and Thomas Dublin, Transforming Women’s Work: New England Lives in the Industial Revolution (1994), describe the lives of working-class women. Mary P. Ryan’s Cradle of the Middle Class (1981) offers insight into the origins of women’s roles in middle-class culture. On women and reform, see Julie Roy Jeffries, The Great Silent Army of Abolitionism (1998); Nancy Isenberg, Sex and Citizenship in Antebellum America(1998); and Catherine E. Kelly, In the New England Fashion: Reshaping Women’s Lives in the 19th Century(1999). Harriet A. Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is available in an edited version by Jean Fagan Yellin (1987). Jeanne Boydston’s Home and Work: Housework, Wages, and the Ideology of Labor inthe Early Republic (1990) offers insight into the relationship between work inside and outside the home. On gender and the marketplace, see Amy Dru Stanley From Bondage to Contract (1998).
