white women’s rights white women’s rights The Racial Origins of Feminism in the United States louise michele newman New York • Oxford Oxford University Press 1999 Oxford University Press Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogotá Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris São Paulo Singapore Taipei Toyko Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 1999 by Louise Michele Newman Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Newman, Louise Michele. White women’s rights : the racial origins of feminism in the United States / Louise Michele Newman. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-508692-9; ISBN 0-19-512466-9 (pbk.) 1. Feminism—United States—History. 2. Women’s rights—United States—History. 3. Racism—United States—History. 4. White women—United States—Social conditions. 5. Minority women—United States—Social conditions. I. Title. HQ1410.N475 1998 97-53286 135798642 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Acknowledgments began this book as a graduate student in the American Civilization and History Iprograms at Brown University over a decade ago, and my greatest debts are to the faculty and graduate students there who befriended and supported me while I was writing my dissertation. Most important, I want to thank Professor Mari Jo Buhle for the extraordinarily generous and incisive criticism she gave me year after year, draft after draft, and for the unobtrusive way she provided for all my academic needs. I also benefitted greatly from the careful readings of Professors Jack Thomas, James Patter- son, and Mary Gluck, each of whom contributed substantially to my development as a historian. In addition, I would like to express my appreciation to Naomi Lamoreaux, who encouraged me at a crucial stage in the formulation of the topic, and to Tony Molho, whose compassion sustained me at a critical juncture. I also benefitted im- mensely from the discussions held by the Pembroke Seminar, under the direction of Karen Newman and Elizabeth Weed. Moreover, a number of scholars outside my graduate institution treated me with great kindness and respect, bolstering me when I was feeling discouraged. I am especially grateful to Hazel Carby for her expansive commentary at my first professional conference; to Nancy Hewitt for validating my work at a very early stage; and to Gina Morantz-Sanchez for adopting me as one of her graduate students, even though she already had plenty of her own. Finally, I had the unbelievable good fortune to be surrounded by a remarkable community of vibrant young scholars, whose work has been the inspiration of my own. To these friends and colleagues, I offer my love and gratitude: Kevin Gaines, Matt Jacobson, Gail Beder- man, Bob McMichael, Lyde Cullen Sizer, Todd Gernes, Linda Grasso, Oscar Campo- manes, Ann duCille, Tricia Rose, Suzanne Kolm, Lou Roberts, Elizabeth Francis, Ruth Feldstein, Lauri Umansky, Donna Penn, Michael Topp, Yardena Rand, Harry Williams, vi • acknowledgments Bruce Dorsey, Roseanne Camacho, Jim Cullen, Krista Comer, Jane Gerhard, Jessica Shubow, Bill Hart, Joanne Melish, Nan Boyd, and Melani McAlister. I also would like to express my gratitude to my former colleagues at Harvard Uni- versity, who welcomed me into their community and expressed genuine interest in my work, especially Liz Muther, Jan Thaddeus, Chris Appy, Jim Engell, Pat Palmieri, Meredith McGill, John Norman, Bob Lamb, Mark Dolan, and Laurence de Looze; and to my current colleagues at the University of Florida who have taken me under their wing and challenged me in many ways: Bob McMahon, David Colburn, Ron Formisano, Bert Wyatt-Brown, Bob Zieger, David Chalmers, Jeff Adler, and Tom Gal- lant. Special thanks to Susan Kent, Carol Lansing, Maria Todorova, Betty Smocovitis, Sue Rosser, Elizabeth Langland, Pat Miller, Jeff Needell, Eldon Turner, and Maureen Turim for their loving mentorship and helpful criticism of my work. I also would like to acknowledge Kathryn Burns, Fitz Brundage, Fred Corney, Jay Tribby, Mark Thurner, Sheryl Kroen, and Alice Freifeld, colleagues-in-arms, for their sincere enjoy- ment of my work and to thank them, as well as Arun Agrawal and Rebecca Karl, for the exquisite pleasure of their intellectual company. Finally, I want to express my deep appreciation to Betty Smocovitis, Matt Jacobson, and Rebecca Karl for their thorough perusal of my manuscript. Betty saved me from many embarrassing errors, Rebecca compelled me to fill in (some of) the logical gaps, and Matt assured me that the manuscript was ready for publication. There is no question that this book would have been much the worse without their interventions. In addition, I feel a great debt of gratitude to Marcia Dambry of Harvard’s History and Literature program, Sybil Mazor of Brown’s American Civilization program, and Betty Corwine and Kimberly Yocum of the University of Florida’s History Depart- ment, for taking such good care of me, far in excess of what our professional relation- ship requires. I have also been blessed to have had many wonderful students, and I am truly grateful for their interest and support. I want especially to thank Andrew Chancey, James Wilson, Matthew Franks, Carol Giardina, James Thompson, Andrew Frank, Lisa Tendrich Frank, Wendy Beauchamp, Julian Chambliss, Donna Jacklosky, Adam Lifshey, Rebecca Walkowitz, James Forman, Jr., Jace Anderson, Ben Wizner, Ryan Schneider, and Linda LeCraw. Scholars can not do good work without great librarians, and I have been fortunate to have had the assistance of some of the best. Elizabeth Coogan and Beth Beretta- Wendt in the interlibrary loan division of Brown’s John D. Rockefeller library worked tirelessly to furnish many crucial sources. Karen Lamoree, during her tenure as the Farnharn archivist in the Hay Library, shared with me many of her discoveries of pre- viously unknown materials. John Van Hook at the University of Florida has proven to be a resource beyond measure. Moreover, I will be forever grateful to the American Council of Learned Societies for believing in this project enough to grant me a year- long fellowship, and to the University of Florida for providing financial assistance in the summer of 1994 and release time from teaching in 1995–96. I would also like to express my respect and gratitude to the staff at Oxford Univer- sity Press. In particular, I want to thank my editor Thomas LeBien, who has had faith in me from the start; Susan Ferber and Robert Milks, who have taken care of all the acknowledgments • vii nagging details with extraordinary patience and grace; and my copyeditor, Martha Ramsey, whose dedication to perfection has made this a much better book. Finally, I want to thank my family and friends who have stood by me these many years: my mother, Marsha Newman, who did everything she could to ease the pain of writing; Barbara Walzer, who taught me how to read the past in physical objects; Matt Jacobson, whose inimitable mix of humor, compassion, and understanding sustained me at the end; Gina Morantz-Sanchez who read (and liked) every word I wrote; and Kevin Gaines, who believed in me and appreciated the value of my work, long before I did. Contents Introduction: Woman’s Rights, Race, and Imperialism 3 1 Evolution, Woman’s Rights, and Civilizing Missions 22 2 The Making of a White Female Citizenry: Suffragism, Antisuffragism, and Race 56 3 The Politics of Patriarchal Protection: Debates over Coeducation and Special Labor Legislation for Women 86 4 A Feminist Explores Africa: May French-Sheldon’s Subversion of Patriarchal Protection 102 5 Assimilating Primitives: The “Indian Problem” as a “Woman Question” 116 6 Eliminating Sex Distinctions from Civilization: The Feminist Theories of Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Mary Roberts Smith Coolidge 132 7 Coming of Age, but Not in Samoa: Reflections on Margaret Mead’s Legacy to Western Liberal Feminism 158 Conclusion: Coming to Terms 181 Notes 187 Selected Bibliography 229 Index 253 white women’s rights Introduction Woman’s Rights, Race, and Imperialism If rethinking the historical contours of Western racial [and femi- nist] discourse matters as a political project, it is not as a mani- festation of an other truth that has previously been denied, but as a vehicle for shifting the frame of reference in such a way that the present can emerge as somehow less familiar, less natural in its categories, its political delineations and its epistemological foundations. Robyn Wiegman, American Anatomies (1995) n the spring of 1888, the renowned suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902), Iat age seventy-three, presided over an international gathering of women. The meet- ing was held in part to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, the first organized meeting of woman’s rights activists in the United States. This was a joyous occasion, a time of celebration and renewed commit- ment, an opportunity for younger members to pay tribute to older pioneers. Lucy Stone (1818–1893), Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906), and Julia Ward Howe (1819–1910) all occupied places of honor on the stage. Alongside them sat Frederick Douglass, fa- mous ex-slave, abolitionist, and elder statesman, a longstanding supporter of woman’s rights. Invited by Anthony to say a few words, Douglass expressed his pleasure at see- ing Stanton chair such an extraordinary gathering, alluding to how great a change in public reception had occurred since the 1848 convention.