Women and Reform in a New England Community, 1815-1860

Women and Reform in a New England Community, 1815-1860 PDF Author: Carolyn J. Lawes
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813184010
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
Interpretations of women in the antebellum period have long dwelt upon the notion of public versus private gender spheres. As part of the ongoing reevaluation of the prehistory of the women's movement, Carolyn Lawes challenges this paradigm and the primacy of class motivation. She studies the women of antebellum Worcester, Massachusetts, discovering that whatever their economic background, women there publicly worked to remake and improve their community in their own image. Lawes analyzes the organized social activism of the mostly middle-class, urban, white women of Worcester and finds that they were at the center of community life and leadership. Drawing on rich local history collections, Lawes weaves together information from city and state documents, court cases, medical records, church collections, newspapers, and diaries and letters to create a portrait of a group of women for whom constant personal and social change was the norm. Throughout Women and Reform in a New England Community, conventional women make seemingly unconventional choices. A wealthy Worcester matron helped spark a women-led rebellion against ministerial authority in the town's orthodox Calvinist church. Similarly, a close look at the town's sewing circles reveals that they were vehicles for political exchange as well as social gatherings that included men but intentionally restricted them to a subordinate role. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the women of Worcester had taken up explicitly political and social causes, such as an orphan asylum they founded, funded, and directed. Lawes argues that economic and personal instability rather than a desire for social control motivated women, even relatively privileged ones, into social activism. She concludes that the local activism of the women of Worcester stimulated, and was stimulated by, their interest in the first two national women's rights conventions, held in Worcester in 1850 and 1851. Far from being marginalized from the vital economic, social, and political issues of their day, the women of this antebellum New England community insisted upon being active and ongoing participants in the debates and decisions of their society and nation.

Women and Reform in a New England Community, 1815-1860

Women and Reform in a New England Community, 1815-1860 PDF Author: Carolyn J. Lawes
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813184010
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369

Get Book

Book Description
Interpretations of women in the antebellum period have long dwelt upon the notion of public versus private gender spheres. As part of the ongoing reevaluation of the prehistory of the women's movement, Carolyn Lawes challenges this paradigm and the primacy of class motivation. She studies the women of antebellum Worcester, Massachusetts, discovering that whatever their economic background, women there publicly worked to remake and improve their community in their own image. Lawes analyzes the organized social activism of the mostly middle-class, urban, white women of Worcester and finds that they were at the center of community life and leadership. Drawing on rich local history collections, Lawes weaves together information from city and state documents, court cases, medical records, church collections, newspapers, and diaries and letters to create a portrait of a group of women for whom constant personal and social change was the norm. Throughout Women and Reform in a New England Community, conventional women make seemingly unconventional choices. A wealthy Worcester matron helped spark a women-led rebellion against ministerial authority in the town's orthodox Calvinist church. Similarly, a close look at the town's sewing circles reveals that they were vehicles for political exchange as well as social gatherings that included men but intentionally restricted them to a subordinate role. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the women of Worcester had taken up explicitly political and social causes, such as an orphan asylum they founded, funded, and directed. Lawes argues that economic and personal instability rather than a desire for social control motivated women, even relatively privileged ones, into social activism. She concludes that the local activism of the women of Worcester stimulated, and was stimulated by, their interest in the first two national women's rights conventions, held in Worcester in 1850 and 1851. Far from being marginalized from the vital economic, social, and political issues of their day, the women of this antebellum New England community insisted upon being active and ongoing participants in the debates and decisions of their society and nation.

The Origins of Women's Activism

The Origins of Women's Activism PDF Author: Anne M. Boylan
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807861251
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
Tracing the deep roots of women's activism in America, Anne Boylan explores the flourishing of women's volunteer associations in the decades following the Revolution. She examines the entire spectrum of early nineteenth-century women's groups--Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish; African American and white; middle and working class--to illuminate the ways in which race, religion, and class could bring women together in pursuit of common goals or drive them apart. Boylan interweaves analyses of more than seventy organizations in New York and Boston with the stories of the women who founded and led them. In so doing, she provides a new understanding of how these groups actually worked and how women's associations, especially those with evangelical Protestant leanings, helped define the gender system of the new republic. She also demonstrates as never before how women in leadership positions combined volunteer work with their family responsibilities, how they raised and invested the money their organizations needed, and how they gained and used political influence in an era when women's citizenship rights were tightly circumscribed.

Private Women and the Public Good

Private Women and the Public Good PDF Author: Carmen J. Nielson
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 0774826940
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
In 1846, a group of women came together to form what would become one of Hamilton's most important social welfare institutions. Through the Ladies Benevolent Society and Hamilton Orphan Asylum, they managed and administered a charitable visiting society, orphan asylum, and aged women's home. In Private Women and the Public Good, Carmen J. Nielson explores the tension inherent in nineteenth-century women's charitable work, nominally private because it was voluntary and female, but also sustained by public monies, legitimated by law, and serving the so-called public good.

The A to Z of the Jacksonian Era and Manifest Destiny

The A to Z of the Jacksonian Era and Manifest Destiny PDF Author: Terry Corps
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0810868504
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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Book Description
The brief period from 1829 to 1849 was one of the most important in American history. During just two decades, the American government was strengthened, the political system consolidated, and the economy diversified. All the while literature and the arts, the press and philanthropy, urbanization, and religious revivalism sparked other changes. The belief in Manifest Destiny simultaneously caused expansion across the continent and the wretched treatment of the Native Americans, while arguments over slavery slowly tore a rift in the country as sectional divisions grew and a national crisis became almost inevitable. The A to Z of the Jacksonian Era and Manifest Destiny takes a close look at these sensitive years. Through a chronology that traces events year-by-year and sometimes even month-by-month actions are clearly delineated. The introduction summarizes the major trends of the epoch and the four administrations therein. The details are then supplied in several hundred cross-referenced dictionary entries, and the bibliography concludes this essential tool for anyone interested in history.

Historical Dictionary of New England

Historical Dictionary of New England PDF Author: Peter C. Holloran
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538102196
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 660

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Book Description
This second edition of Historical Dictionary of New England contains a chronology, an introduction, appendix, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 700 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, places, institutions, and events.

Hearts Beating for Liberty

Hearts Beating for Liberty PDF Author: Stacey M. Robertson
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 9780807899489
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Challenging traditional histories of abolition, this book shifts the focus away from the East to show how the women of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin helped build a vibrant antislavery movement in the Old Northwest. Stacey Robertson argues that the environment of the Old Northwest--with its own complicated history of slavery and racism--created a uniquely collaborative and flexible approach to abolitionism. Western women helped build this local focus through their unusual and occasionally transgressive activities. They plunged into Liberty Party politics, vociferously supported a Quaker-led boycott of slave goods, and tirelessly aided fugitives and free blacks in their communities. Western women worked closely with male abolitionists, belying the notion of separate spheres that characterized abolitionism in the East. The contested history of race relations in the West also affected the development of abolitionism in the region, necessitating a pragmatic bent in their activities. Female antislavery societies focused on eliminating racist laws, aiding fugitive slaves, and building and sustaining schools for blacks. This approach required that abolitionists of all stripes work together, and women proved especially adept at such cooperation.

Historical Dictionary of the Jacksonian Era and Manifest Destiny

Historical Dictionary of the Jacksonian Era and Manifest Destiny PDF Author: Mark R. Cheathem
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442273208
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 558

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Book Description
This second edition of Historical Dictionary of the Jacksonian Era and Manifest Destiny contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 200 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture.

The Weston Sisters

The Weston Sisters PDF Author: Lee V. Chambers
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469618184
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
The Westons were among the most well-known abolitionists in antebellum Massachusetts, and each of the Weston sisters played an integral role in the family's work. The eldest, Maria Weston Chapman, became one of the antislavery movement's most influential members. In an extensive and original look at the connections among women, domesticity, and progressive political movements, Lee V. Chambers argues that it was the familial cooperation and support between sisters, dubbed "kin-work," that allowed women like the Westons to participate in the political process, marking a major change in women's roles from the domestic to the public sphere. The Weston sisters and abolitionist families like them supported each other in meeting the challenges of sickness, pregnancy, child care, and the myriad household responsibilities that made it difficult for women to engage in and sustain political activities. By repositioning the household and family to a more significant place in the history of American politics, Chambers examines connections between the female critique of slavery and patriarchy, ultimately arguing that it was family ties that drew women into the activism of public life and kept them there.

Woman Thinking

Woman Thinking PDF Author: Tiffany K. Wayne
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 9780739107591
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
This book explores the theoretical relationship between feminism and transcendentalism through the ideas and activism of prominent 19th century female thinkers and activists. By analyzing the work of such important figures in post-Civil War American intellectual life_such as Ednah Cheney, Caroline Dall, Margaret Fuller, and Elizabeth Oakes Smith_Tiffany Wayne demonstrates how transcendentalism provided a language with particular appeal to women and helped promote an emerging feminist movement with a similar goal of acknowledging women's right to self-development. Bridging the gap between the traditionally disparate fields of women's history and American intellectual history, this book is as much a re-visioning of transcendentalism_arguing for recognition of its more widespread and long-lasting influence in American cultural life_as a project in historicizing feminist theory.

Without Benefit of Clergy

Without Benefit of Clergy PDF Author: Karin Erdevig Gedge
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN: 0195130200
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
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