“What is my place in society?” An average white woman, or young lady, might have asked (or not asked) in pre-Civil War times. In response to that question, the answer most likely would have been, “keep to the affairs of the household, leave the finances and political affairs to your husband, keep yourself beautiful and modest at all costs and whatever you do, do not speak your mind.” Women took a back seat in societal affairs during this period. The “True Woman” was identified as someone who was “timid, doubtful and clingingly dependent, a perpetual childhood.”[1] This was a time when women were “celebrated by staying home,” which led to a life that was shut away from the outside world.[2]
Many of the women accepted or embraced this type of society, since it was safe and secure from the unexpected dangers from the outside world, particularly the instability of the economy and earning a living.[3] Just how safe was the woman who fit the mold, however, and did she really avoid the dangers of life?
There were many threats for the middle and upper class white women who led this safe and surreal life. She was expected to wear a tight corset, that could cause miscarriages and sickness, avoid physical exertion, which proved unhelpful to her health or in childbirth, went to doctors who often times caused more damage than helped [4]. It was more likely for a white mistress to die in child labor than a slave who lacked the attention of doctors. [5] She was also subject to the injustices of her husband without legal protection and often injured her own children due to the lack of support and guidance. [6] For many reasons the pre-Civil War ideal of woman was indeed dangerous and could be fatal. The slaves and lower classes also were affected by this idea of women, but they were required to work, attend to their duties without the time and leisure to play this accustomed role.[7]
There were many women who fought against the societal boundaries set for them and proved to be most heroic. Young women who were often obliged to work in the mills, sang songs of hope that “[d]ependent on others we ne’er will be,” [8] but later found themselves singing a song of rebellion, claiming that “I will not be a slave, for I’m so fond of liberty[.]” [9] Lucy Stone devoted her entire life, against all odds, to the moving forward the women’s Suffrage Movement and then urged her daughter to follow in her footsteps by asking her, on her death bed, to “make the world better.”[10] Her daughter and husband continued on to support women’s rights. Women like Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, who were ex-slaves, fought valiantly for their own freedoms as well helped others fight against their own societal boundaries.[11] These women also experienced dangers and affliction, but helped break down the walls that aimed at smothering a woman’s right to live, think, speak, own property and find their personal “pursuit of happiness.”[12]
1. Gail Collins, America’s Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines, (Harper Perennial, New York, 2003), 87.
2. Collins, America’s Women, 89.
3. Collins, America’s Women, 90.
4. Collins, America’s Women, 122-127.
5. Collins, America’s Women, 153.
6. Collins, America’s Women, 136.
7. Collins, America’s Women, 142.
8. “Song of the Spinners,” (Lowell Offering, 1841), found at the Liberty Rhetoric Website, at http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/americanstudies/lavender/graphics/spinsong.jpg (Retrieved on 3/12/2012).
9. Protesting Workers at Lowell, Song Lyrics, (1836), found at the Liberty Rhetoric Website, at http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/americanstudies/lavender/lowetext.html#1836song (Retrieved on 3/12/2012).
10. Jean H. Baker, Sisters: The Lives of America’s Suffragists, (Hill and Wang, New York, 2005), 51-53.
11. Collins, America’s Women, 157-159 & 177-178.
12. Declaration of Sentiments, (Seneca Falls Convention, 1848), found at the Liberty Rhetoric Website, at http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/americanstudies/lavender/decsent2.html (Retrieved on 3/12/2012).
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