Greetings, Cave-dwellers! – Unitary Moonbat here. As you may know, my day job as a public school teacher occasionally generates so much stuff to be graded that it becomes impossible to research, let alone write, an HfK. In the past, I’ve simply gone on hiatus for a week or two, but this time, I’m calling in the cavalry and asking a fellow historioranter to present tonight’s lecture while I go through the zillion or so notebooks and papers lurking atop my kitchen table. I’ll still pop into the Cave, but only as a visitor (which promises to be a surreal experience), but before we get started, I’d like to extend my thanks once again to aphra behn for stepping up to the podium. – U.M.
Thanks for the invite! I'll try not to leave a mess, but it's gonna be rough. Tonight's lecture will feature fiery speeches, angry mobs, and at least one bona fide axe-murderer as we explore the birth of the American women's rights movement in the years 1820-1860. Get ready for another long, wild ride in the Moonbat-mobile of history, as driven by your humble guest-Historiorantrix...
Crossposted at Progressive Historians
Jesus is Coming--Look Busy! Or,The Second Great Awakening
Evangelical religion may seem like a strange starting point for women's rights. But think Jimmy Carter, not Jerry Falwell. The Second Great Awakening of 1800-1840 served as a wake-up call to American Evangelical Protestants.
In camp meetings and revivals that stretched from the Indiana frontier to the oldest settlements of New England, fiery preachers warned that Judgement was nigh. Human sin knew no bounds, but neither did God's grace. Women, children, slaves, poor farmers and elite men–all had a role to play in God's plan. It was a message of spiritual liberation and social reform: The world had to be made over, and soon!
Curiously, liberal religionists and philosophers of the same period were preaching something that sounded remarkably similar. Not the fiery conversion stuff, o' course--it was the part about changing the world.
Liberal reliigous groups, on the other hand, rejected the conservatism and Biblical literalism of the Evangelicals. (Most Unitarians, for example, did not believe in Jesus's literal divinity and questioned the entire doctrine of the Trinity.) Yet they all embraced Jesus' message about serving the poor and uplifting the lowly. Many liberal religious and/or philosophical movements–the Quakers, the Universalists, and those wacky Transcendentalists—were moved to improve the world around them.
Divided by theology, both evangelicals and liberals were united in a desire to make the world better. And where better to begin than with booze and sex?
Bottoms up! The "Moral Reform" Movements
Early 19th century reformers identified alcohol–specifically, hard liquor--- as the root of America's social problems. The wide availability of cheap corn whiskey, combined with the stresses of the 14-16 hour industrial workday, seemed to be fueling a rise in domestic abuse, urban poverty, and gang-related violence. By 1830, nearly 250 state and local anti-liquor organizations were spreading the Gospel of Temperance, urging Americans to take "the pledge" and abstain from distilled liquor.
Historiorant/Sidenote: Now, your Lady Scribbler likes the odd pot of Guinness. Quite a lot. She usually thinks of those who fulminate against alcohol as fuddy-duddy killjoys, puritanical pipsqueaks and/or tyrannical twitterheads. But...in 1820, the average American drank more than 7 gallons of absolute alcohol each year. (By comparison, we are abstemious today at 2.6). That's a lot of corn whiskey! By 1840, the average was down to 3 gallons a year. Probably a good change for American citizens—and their livers. It's also worth noting that some of the temperance concern reflected nativist objections to hard-drinking Irish and German immigrants–but that's another diary!
Women were central to the temperance campaign. Since alcohol abuse was thought to be primarily a male problem, women were urged to "encourage" husbands, brothers, and sons to reform.
Women were also central to the campaign against prostitution. In the 1830s, the numbers of American prostitutes grew rapidly, especially in urban centers. Often "downsized" factory workers unable to find other work, these poor women lived perilous lives. Even successful prostitutes were at risk: young, beautiful, and exclusive New York "escort" Helen Jewett was brutally murdered in 1836 by an axe-wielding client.
Her case, and others like it, drew America's eye to prostitution, which fueled the activities of anti-prostitution groups like the Magdalene Societies. These groups tried find prostitutes alternate work, and shamed "Johns" via public prayer and publishing lists of their names in the newspapers.
I'm just scratching the surface of reform movements here–19th century Americans were tackling everything, it seemed: prison reform, education reform, urban reform, and of course, the abolition of slavery. Although women were important to almost every reform movement, they often were unable to join some of the male-dominated treehouses reform groups. Why? The answer lies in the contradictory puzzle of the Cult of Domesticity.
Bring on the Kool-aid! Or, the Cult of Domesticity
19th century Americans tended to believe that women and men belonged to separate spheres–public and private. In the one lay paid employment, public speaking, intellectual activity, violence of the necessary sort (i.e., military service police work, and beating factory workers when they got out of line). In the other lay housework, child-rearing, emotions, morality and religion.
As an Illinois newspaperman put it:
Man is daring and confident, woman is diffident and unassuming; man is great in action, woman in suffering; man shines abroad, woman at home; man talks to convince, woman to persuade and please; man has a rugged heart, woman a soft and tender one; man prevents misery, woman relieves it; man has science, woman taste; man has judgement, woman sensibility; man is a being of justice, woman of mercy.---Galena (Ill.)Advertiser 7 March 1835.Read more here.
Pretty clear, huh? Ahhhh, but not so fast. If women are so good at relieving misery, then they have to speak up about it, right? If women's role is to promote mercy, then can they stand silent when they see cruelty—the raised fist of a drunken abuser, the whip on a suffering slave, the crying orphan abandoned by its parent? (Historiorant Whoa. Forgive the purple prose. I've been sniffing the dry pages of 19th century books a little too long.)
In short, the very arguments that were supposed to keep women at home could be reversed in order to support women's public activities. Education reformer Horace Mann used this logic in 1845 when he argued in support of female teachers (and, therefore, for wider educational opportunities for women):
By a manifestation of the superiority of moral power, she can triumph over that physical power which has hitherto subjected her to bondage...She can bless those by whom she has been wronged...By inspiring nobler desires for nobler objects, she can break down the ascendancy of those selfish motives that have sought their gratification in her submission and inferiority. All this she can do...by training the young to juster notions of honor and duty, and to a higher appreciation of the true dignity and destiny of the race...---(8th Annual Report of the Massachusetts Board of Education, 1845)Read more here.
It's not a coincidence that women's educational opportunities –both as teachers and as students—increased tremendously in the 19th century. American female reformers as far back as Abigail Adams had argued that improved access to education was vital American women and their children. Yet many families still sincerely believed that educating their daughters would permanently injure the girls' reproductive organs, or turn them into immoral hussies. Combating this, Emma Hart Willard founded the Troy Female Seminary in New York in 1821; it was the first endowed school for girls. Even more revolutionary, in 1833 Ohio's Oberlin College became the first coeducational college in the U.S. (It was also color-blind, allowing blacks and whites to study together.)
Married Women's Property? Or, All My Worldly Goods I Can't Thee Endow
Another problem: the legal status of married women. In most states, women disappeared (legally speaking) once they became a "Mrs." They could not control any wages they might earn, nor have any say over any other property (it didn't matter if the wife had owned the property before the marriage). The law also restricted how much of a husband's property the wife could inherit. The husband's will didn't matter —he could bequeath his widow no more than one-third (in some states one-half) of his estate.
Generally speaking, husbands were legally the "guardians" of their wives. Married women were stuck in a sort of permanent childhood under the law. That meant that a husband could control her movements, demand her obedience, and even physically "correct" a wife without any legal interference. This wasn't normally an issue in a happy marriage, but what about people stuck in an abusive or life-threatening situation? Divorce was difficult in most states, and expensive everywhere.
Only Alberto Gonzales would say this was "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" for American women. And why should anybody have to follow laws when they have no say in their legislation? "Taxation without representation," anyone? English writer Harriet Marineau, after visiting the United States, pondered this contradiction in her 1837 book Society in America:
One of the fundamental principles announced in the Declaration of Independence is, that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. How can the political condition of women be reconciled with this?...Governments decree to women in some States half their husbands' property; in others one-third. In some, a woman, on her marriage, is made to yield all her property to her husband; in others, to retain a portion, or the whole, in her own hands. Whence do governments derive the unjust power of thus disposing of property without the consent of the governed? ---(You can read more Martineau here.)
The Grimke Sisters, Or, Freedom of Speech?
Another glaring exception to American equality existed in 19th century America, of course: slavery. And sisters Angelina and Sarah Grimke knew something about slavery.
Born into a wealthy South Carolina slaveholding family, they witnessed the grim reality of slaves' lives under the "peculiar institution." (Historiant"Peculiar" meaning singular– most Americans didn't think slavery was weird, just unique.) At age 5, Sarah was so disturbed when saw a save being brutally whipped that she tried to run away from home.
In the 1830s, the grown-up sisters moved to the North, where they were determined to tell the truth about slavery. They were hoping to combat Fox News pro-slavery propaganda which argued that slavery was actually good for slaves. Enter Theodore Weld, fervent abolitionist who later became Angelina's husband.
Knowing how powerful the sisters' testimony would be, he encouraged them to publish their work, and even trained to two in the arts of public speechmaking–training which few American women had ever received. The idea of women addressing public audiences(especially mixed-gender audiences) horrified most Americans in the 1830s.
The sisters published several tracts, which addressed the most hidden horrors of slavery. They also went on speaking tours of Congregationalist churches, in which they argued that white women should feel an affinity with slave women–a radically feminist notion that contributed to the public outcry over their "immodest" actions.
Undaunted, the sisters launched into lecture series in Boston, and, explosively, in Philadelphia:
Men, brethren and fathers -- mothers, daughters and sisters, what came ye out for to see? A reed shaken with the wind? Is it curiosity merely, or a deep sympathy with the perishing slave, that has brought this large audience together? [A yell from the mob without the building.]....Women of Philadelphia! allow me as a Southern woman, with much attachment to the land of my birth, to entreat you to come up to this work. Especially let me urge you to petition. Men may settle this and other questions at the ballot-box, but you have no such right; it is only through petitions that you can reach the Legislature. It is therefore peculiarly your duty to petition...Men who hold the rod over slaves, rule in the councils of the nation: and they deny our right to petition and to remonstrate against abuses of our sex and of our kind. We have these rights, however, from our God.---History of Pennsylvania Hall which was Destroyed by a Mob on the 17th of May, 1838 Read the entire speech here, and be sure to check out PBS's other resources on slavery.
The angry mob was so incensed that it attacked the building and even burned down the hall. The sisters –and Weld--were undaunted. In 1839 they published the bestseller American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses. A huge compilation of slavery-related news items and advertisements from a vast range of southern newspapers, it sold 100,000 copies in the first year.
The World Antislavery Convention, Or, the Proverbial Straw
Still, the charge that it was too "immodest" for women to publicly discuss slavery continued to dog abolitonist women of America. In 1840, leading female abolitionist Lucretia Mott traveled to England to attend a "World Antislavery Convention."She had founded the first national women's aboliitonist group ever int he United States in 1837.
Historical Sidenote: Mott and her husband were both so opposed to slavery that they personally boycotted all products produced with slave labor: cotton textiles, sugar from cane, and any other product that might ultimately derive from slave labor. It was a difficult thing to commit to, as anyone tho tries to buy truly "green" or fair trade products today can attest.
Mott and the other female delegates-–both British and American-- were surprised to find that some of the male delegates objected to their presence. Mott recorded the arguments in her diary:
Several sent to us to persuade us not to offer ourselves to the Convention...W. Morgan and Scales informed us "it wasn't designed as a World Convention -- that was mere Poetical license," and that all power would rest with the "London Committee of Arrangements." Prescod of Jamaica (colored) thought it would lower the dignity of the Convention and bring ridicule on the whole thing if ladies were admitted -- he was told that similar reasons were urged in Philadelphia for the exclusion of colored people from our meetings -- but had we yielded on such flimsy arguments, we might as well have abandoned our enterprise. Colver thought Women constitutionally unfit for public or business meetings -- he was told that the colored man too was said to be constitutionally unfit to mingle with the white man. He left the room angry.---Read more of Mott's diary here
The women were allowed only to listen to the meeting from behind a barrier, and certainly not to speak or participate. The humiliation of traveling so far, only to have their human dignity denied, convinced Mott and several other women that any discussion of human rights had to include a full and frank re-assessment of women's place in the world. She shared her frustrations with the young wife of delegate Henry Stanton–a lady named Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
Weird Historical Sidenote Cady Stanton's cousin, Gerrit Smith, was a secret financial backer of the ever-colorful John Brown, whose bloody abolitionist crusades were featured in last week's cave.
A Revolutionary Convention: Seneca Falls, 1848
Their conversations bore important fruit in 1848, when Mott, Stanton, and a handful of other abolitionists placed a small notice in the Seneca Falls, N.Y. newspaper. In it, they invited anyone interested to a convention that would "discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman." Despite the short (5 days) notice, 40 men and over 200 women gathered on July 19 to begin a revolutionary discussion that was chaired by none other than Henry Stanton, Elizabeth Cady's husband.
It may be hard for us to understand how far-reaching the Convention's debate was. The right to control their own property, the right to public speech, the right to be fairly paid, and more–it was all on the table. The Convention proposed nothing less than the complete shake-up of what many American accepted as the God-given order of life.
Historiorant: Gentle readers, your Historiorantrix would like to take a moment to address an ugly myth about the women of Seneca Falls: that they were simply "unhappy harridans who couldn't land a man." (Latter phrase quoted verbatim from an acquaintance of your Lady Scribbler.) I do hope that you have picked up by now that most of our fair heroines were married, and (gasp!) quite happily too. Others chose to remain single. Not that their marital status is really relevant. Just smashing a sterotype or two.
Since they were hoping to spark a revolution, Stanton drafted a "Declaration of Sentiments" that was expressly modeled on Jefferson's stirring "Declaration of Independence." In it, she made the point that many of the liberties that the Founders had secured were, in the 1840s, denied to women as a matter of course:
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…
...[Man] 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 taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns—----The Declaration of Sentiments as found at The Internet History Sourcebook
The convention voted overwhelmingly to approve the "Declaration of Sentiments."Only one item, in fact, was approved with less than unanimity. That item was female suffrage.
Historiorant: What?? What the heck was up with the delegates rejecting female suffrage? Don't be too hard on them. Remember what politics was like in the 1840s—nasty, brutish, and...uh, did I mention brutish? Drunkenness was typical on election day. GOTV efforts usually involved physical "intimidation," lots of bloody knuckles, and maybe a well-placed noose or two. So it's not totally surprising that some men and women hesitated at the idea of middle-class women entering that world..
It was Frederick Douglass who saved the idea. Thanks to his eloquent speech in favor of female suffrage, the assemblage agreed that:
...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 these United States
(Historiorant: Yep, that Frederick Douglass, the one we associate with abolitionism. Would it surprise you that he was also deeply committed to women's rights? He also campaigned in Britain for the civil rights of Catholics and protested against anti-Asian legislation in the American West. Extremely, extremely groovy guy.)
Reaction to the Convention was varied. Sampling the talking heads newspaper editorials of the day, we find many hostile; one called it "most insane and ludicrous farce." Horace Greely, editor of The New York Tribune, was clearly uncomfortable with the idea of women's rights, but gave them a fair shake, in a Ken Mehlman concern-troll kinda way: "When a sincere republican is asked to say in sober earnest what adequate reason he can give, for refusing the demand of women to an equal participation with men in political rights, he must answer, None at all. However unwise and mistaken the demand, it is but the assertion of a natural right, and such must be conceded."
A few newspapers were openly sympathetic:The St. Louis Dispatch said of the Declaration that "the flag of independence has been hoisted for the second time on this side of the Atlantic." But the reaction was generally negative. As Frederick Douglass wrote in his paper The North Star: "A discussion of the rights of animals would be regarded with far more complacency by many of what are called the wise and the good of our land, than would be a discussion of the rights of woman."
Dress Reform, Or, Get me out of this "Bloomin'" Skirt!
Much like modern news stories that focus on Hillary's pantsuits rather than her policies, 19th century critics of women's rights drew undue attention to a small part of the feminist cause: dress reform. Some of the female crusaders had adopted loose pantaloons, based on those worn by women in much of the Middle East. Seneca Falls journalist Amelia Bloomer promoted their "rational dress" reforms in her journal The Lily.The rest of the world dubbed the outfit "Bloomers" after their promoter.
When you consider just how much mid 19th century dress restricted women's movement–the voluminous, heavy, (and highly flammable) petticoats, or the huge hoopskirts–the call for "rational dress" makes a lot of sense. As one anti-corset writer put it (with a little help from Shakespeare):
To breathe, or not to breathe; that's the question
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fashion,
Or to bear the scoffs and ridicule of those
Who despise the Bloomer dresses.
In agony,
No more? -- and, by a dress to say we end
The side-ache, and the thousand self-made aches,
Which those are heir to, who, for mere fashion,
Will dress so waspish."—
---Water Cure Journal, June 1853This and other dress reform quotes can be found here
(Historiorant:Like the bloomers? Not to go all commercial, but you can buy your own at http://www.bloomers4u.com/ --it's where the picture came from.)
The outfits don't look so shocking to us today. But they garnered the women's movement so much negative attention that even Mrs. Bloomer herself dropped them by 1859. Still, we can thank her for instigating one of the most important friendships in American history.
A Key Partnership, Or, Enter Susan B. You-Know-Who
In 1851, Bloomer introduced her friend Stanton to a young temperance advocate named Susan B. Anthony. Anthony, of Quaker background and Unitarian leanings, was a former schoolteacher who cut her feminist teeth with a protest against gender-based wage differential (female teachers made about 1/4 of men's wages at the New York school where Anthony was an instructor.)
Anthony and Stanton became lifelong friends and partners in the struggle for women's rights. Many of her more interesting moments, such as her 1873 trial for the criminal act of Voting While Female came after the Civil War, so we won't get a close-up look at this wonderful lady right now. But it was in the 1850s that she and Stanton became a matchless team, working on their 3 great passions: temperance, abolition, and women's rights.
Women and Abolition, Or, "Ain't I a Woman"?
Women activists were now inextricably linked with abolition. No real discussion of slavery could press forward without acknowledging the ironies of the "Cult of Domesticity." Or as the Black preacher Sojourner Truth so famously put it at an 1851 Ohio women's rights convention:
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?---Read more of "Ain't I a Woman" at the Internet History Sourcebook.
Weird Historical Side Note: It may interest you to know that historians disagree about the exact wording of Truth's speech. Her "Ain't I a Woman?" has become an iconic cry for women's rights, but it's entirely possible that those are not her words at all! For an excellent discussion on this problem, as well as a historiorant-ish look at the discipline as a whole, let me recommend the very lively (and sometimes funny!) text History: A Very Short Introduction by John Arnold.
Questions about slavery's effects on women, children, and families moved center stage after the institution of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850. As Unitary Moonbat has already mentioned, Harriet Beecher Stowe's text Uncle Tom's Cabin electrified the world with its now-somewhat-tedious Victorian prose. (But don't take my word for it. Read the online text here, if you dare!)Although Stowe's primary inspiration was real-life Methodist slave preacher
Josiah Henson, she also littered her text with tales of victimized female slaves: mothers trying to protect children, and other virtuous young women trying to escape the moral cesspool that the institution forced them to wallow in.
Slavery's defenders fired back. One, at least, answered in explicitly feminine terms. The Planter's Northern Bride was written by ex-abolitonist Michelle MalkinCaroline Lee Hentz in response to Uncle Tom's Cabin. Hentz argued that slavery was a benign institution in which loving female slaveowners instructed the mentally-deficient slaves in all good virtues. She chalked up any slave's unhappiness to the provocation of Northern abolitionists.
Historiorant snark:Darn those "outside agitators"! If only they would shut up, everything would be just fine. (The war in Iraq is going great, too, thanks for asking.)
Meanwhile, Back in the Reality-Based Community...
Stowe's arguments were bolstered by real-life events like the horrific 1856 case of Margaret Garner, an ex-slave who slit the throat of her 3 year old daughter rather than allow fugitive slave-hunters to haul her family back into slavery. (That's the inspiration for the novel and film, Beloved, by the way.) In fact, at least one former slave felt that Stowe's book wasn't harsh enough.
Using the pen-name "Linda Brent," ex-slave Harriet Jacobs began serializing her life experiences for a New York newspaper in the 1850s. She later published her account in a book called Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl It's a gripping story. (Historiorant: Way more gripping than Uncle Tom's Cabin, in your Lady Scribbler's not-too modest opinion.)
In it, she describes what it feels like for a child to realize that she is a slave, to be prevented from any self-improvemen, to be constantly under the power of a tyrant, and detailed how even the kindest of slaveholders were still part of a humiliating and unjust system. She wrote of spending seven years hiding in an attic, and her eventual escape for the North, where she still found racism and feared capture under the Fugitive Slave law. (You can view the notice of Harriet Jacobs' escape here.)
Above all, Jacobs ripped aside the Victorian veil of modesty and explained how slavery made it impossible for black women to be sexually virtuous–even when they desperately wanted to be. A very devout Christian, Brent informed Northern women about the sexual harassment, seduction, and rapes that slave women suffered. She argued that slavery made the "sacred institution of marriage" a joke–for white women as well as for their Black sisters.
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.
---- Read the entire text of Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl here.
Historiorant: I like to picture Jacobs wielding the Cult of Domesticity like a baseball bat: THWACK! "How can anyone defend an institution that so disrupts the home?" THWACK, THWACK!
Jacobs' work was finally published in book form in 1861--as the Civil War engulfed the United States. In 1863, the National Loyal Women's League, led by Stanton, voted to throw its entire weight behind ending slavery and to put off the pursuit of women's rights–temporarily. Instead, they threw themselves into the war effort and into the abolition of slavery where it still existed. It proved a fateful decision—after the war, women's groups were in a state of division and disarray, hard-pressed to fight effectively for enfranchisement and other goals. The hopeful women and men of Seneca Falls could not have imagined how long their Revolution would really take.
Historiorant:
And there, gentle readers, we will have to end this massively long tale. The hour of posting draws nigh and it is time for your guest-Historiantrix to tidy up the cave in preparation for Moonbat's return. Next week, he will pick up the thrilling tale of American politics just about where I am leaving you– with the hotly contested Election of 1860(As UM himself might say: Cue the tall, skinny guy!) Meanwhile, I'll be back to a bit of Canadian history. Thank you for joining me on our little side-trip, and don't forget to check out all the other fine historical diaries featured here this week, like gjohnsit's History of Iraq and the ever-popular Forgotten Founding Fathers (now with trading cards!) from mkfox. And there's always something historical brewing at Progressive Historians
Happy Historioranting!