Professional Documents
Culture Documents
17:35:00
← Women in the colonial society
• Early settlement
• Importance of wifely obedience
• The pros and cons of femininity
← The spiritual ideal
• Puritans and quakers: spiritual equality
Quaker women’s
The puritan ideal
← Patriarchy Family
• Men are the head.
• Women’s main role is to be obedient.
← Husband is the patriarch
• Wife is always subordinate
• Wife is the Jr. partner but never to over rule the husband
• Husband does not own the wife but rules her
← Wife wields some authority
• Children
• Servants
← Children are legally the Fathers possession
←
← These are all farming communities
• Parenthood is a joint occupation
← Mothers have more day to day responsibility but father has more
authority
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← An individual’s gender had a direct impact on that person’s character
and place in society
←
← Gender determines character
New outlets for women are birthed through the puritan and quaker church
and women being spiritually equal.
The new view is that women and men are equal in view of God.
Women relied on their spirituality to help them cope with their place in the
patriarchal society, especially during the immigration.
Running out to find husbands and wife’s is the single greatest threat to the
quakers and women fought and preached against this practice.
Those who married outside of the quaker society, they were expelled from
the communities. Even familiy members of those who married outside were
looked down upon as this causes a sort of contamination within the
community.
Women were called upon to exert their influence to keep families and their
members from marrying outside the quaker society.
Women were praised bc of their piety and their meekness, by playing the
role or rather hand that they were given.
• Even with women’s public piety, they had limits
←
← Puritans insisted on a high rate of literacy
• Literacy was divided into two different things
• Literacy was only reading, not writing.
• Almost no girls were taught to write and even some boys were not
taught pending on their trade.
← Puritans believed that women’s brain’s were even weaker than men
thus they limited the education of women
←
← Women’s education was strictly for their own use.
←
← The term meddling was used to describe any and all unwanted
behavior from women
←
Anne Hutchinson
• arrived in boston in 1635
• very intelligent
• her intellect lead to her being very assertive and manipulative
• had 15 children but 12 survived
• full member of puritan church
• her husband is a merchant and a public offical
• their family has status in boston
• she convinced her husband to move to boston to follow puritan
minister John Cotton
• She was also a very skilled midwife
• Summer of 1635 she began having meetings in which she invited
women to her home to recap the previous Sunday’s sermon
• Rapidly grew in size and the women’s husbands began attending
• Initially her efforts were applauded
• She begins critiquing the sermons and interpreting the sermons
herself to the point of deeming some of the ministers heretics
• She preached against the “ministry of works”
• She preached the covenant of grace
• At this point puritan leadership begins to frighten the leaders of the
church
• Men that had beef with the ministers began to attend her meetings
out of anger for the leaders of the church
• This religious debate turns to a power struggle with anne h. stuck in
the middle
• A very large portion of boston protected her from the leaders of the
church
• The Governor, John Winthrop, would not tolerate any sort of
disagreement.
• Even Anne’s supporters could not save her from her persecution
• She was arrested and convicted for heresy and sedition, and
ultimately was banned for the mass bay colony
←
← The puritans knew that certain things must be changed once they
moved but one thing they never wanted to change was their Patriarchy
←
← in 1670, a man was called by the magistrate and was ordered to
provide for his wife and lodge with her once a week.
←
← Physical abuse to wives was outlawed
• In England this was not so
←
← Most laws that were enstated in the puritan colonies were to ensure a
societal harmony
←
← Puritans allowed for divorce whereas this was not so anywhere else
• The reason for them allowing for divorce is once again for a
harmonious society and social order.
• Certain grounds must be met in order to be granted a divorce
← Divorce most frequently granted for desertion, bigamy, impotence
(only for males, females that were impotent would not be allowed for
divorce),
←
lecture 3
9.14.09t 02/09/2009 17:35:00
← Women’s Place in colonial society
• Gender relations
• Parents and children
← Womens work
• Domestic responsibility
• Deputy husbands
• Women and paid labor
←
← Colonial families have more kids than the brits and also marry several
years younger.
←
← Children were beat regularly. “better to be ripped than damned.”
←
← Women died freq during child birth 1 in 20 women.
←
← Men are barred from having any part in child birth.
• However men have a role in the socialization of their daughters
← Almost all education took part at home.
• Only exception was wealthy families
• Education was character training coupled with vocational training.
← The patriarchal set up did not interfere with the level of intimacy, for
the most part.
←
Lecture
9/16/09 02/09/2009 17:35:00
← Women and witchcraft
• Accusations and social conflict
• Accusers and accused
← Witches in Salem
• Community conflict
• Outlet for personal grievances
• Female aggression
Good wife
• Consort- sexual partner
• housewife
• Mistress-
Lecture 9/30/09 02/09/2009 17:35:00
← I. Women in West Africa
• Gender roles
• Enslavement
← II African women in the colonies
• Servants and slaves
• Wives and mothers
• Traders and market women
9/28/09 02/09/2009 17:35:00
marry,
women maintain their relationship with each other through extended visits
and correspondence ect.
Men were very distant in the writing of women. Women expressed their
affection for one another, not necessarily for men.
18th century women were view as lustful, now they are view as pure in the
19th century.
Mexican women kept maiden name and could own their own land
Mexy women outnumbered men
Mexican women danced with partners in public, anglos looked down on that
Betraying own morality was betraying family morality
Forced love is when one spouse is not accepting the sexual offereing
Victoria woodhull
• smart, articularte, and draws a cause
← Stanton said that women have the right to be soverign in their
decisions regarding marriage
←
← Dress reform is one of the most important reforms of the age.
←
11/9/09 02/09/2009 17:35:00
← Female associations
• Addressing social problems
• Women as abolitionists
• Concern with the plight of female slaves
← Abolition and the woman
←
← the institution of slavery was not looked highly upon as people thought
that they would be judged harshly due to slavery.
It was a selfish motive that caused abolition of slavery bc they did not want
to be judged harshly not out of concern of the slaves.
man was known as the public reformers and women were the private
reformers but the AAS started changing those views as their organization
became more public.
11/11/09 02/09/2009 17:35:00
Women and moral reform
• Religious motivation
• Prisons and asylums
• Temperance: the danger of drink
• Anti prostitiution
← Women’s rights
• Activism sparks calls for change
• Legal reform
1861 a womens org wrote another org saying that pushing for women’s
rights is going to be counteractive
women are beginning to use their domestic skills for the war and also to
raise money to supply military hospitals and other things
Women from north and south are positioning themselves for activism
• Pulling resources and doing whatever they can, ex knitting socks,
and baking, ect.
Refreshment saloons made to help boost morale
Women representatives are sent to the front line to distribute the supplies
• Women found nothing but complete chaos
←
← Annie wittenmyer
←
← clara barton- found the sanitary and practices of the military hospital
• becomes an agent to the sanitary org
←
← Women justify their new responsibilities as being an extension of their
duties and they were just looking towards the better of the community
←
← women have not been given the opportunity to be professional nurses
• only exception were catholic nuns
• the civil war brought on this opportunity to be professional nurses
←
← Nurses are treated with disrespect by army dr
• Army dr said that women are unfit as nurses bc they are annoying,
incapable of dealing with bodies of strange men, that they were too
weak, not prudent enough,
← Women begin to dominate the nursing field
←
← Mary Walker Edwards
• Given Congressional Award of Honor but it is stripped from her due
to the fact she dressed more manly
• In 1919 award is re-enstated posthumously
← White women took all responsibility in taking on all of the slaves.
←
← The myth of female dependence is cast aside due to the war effort
←
←
← Women begin to increase in numbers that graduate from hs and
college and a whole other host of opportunites expand due to the war
←
← and the