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The Cult of Millenial Motherhood and the Rhetoric of Female Reform: Domesticity, the Millenium, and Gender Constructions in Antebellum America

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The Cult of Millenial Motherhood and the Rhetoric of Female Reform: Domesticity, the Millenium, and Gender Constructions in Antebellum America Illinois Wesleyan University Digital Commons @ IWU Honors Projects History Department 4-14-2006 The Cult of Millenial Motherhood and the Rhetoric of Female Reform: Domesticity, the Millenium, and Gender Constructions in Antebellum America Erie M. Roberts '06 Illinois Wesleyan University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/history_honproj Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Roberts '06, Erie M., "The Cult of Millenial Motherhood and the Rhetoric of Female Reform: Domesticity, the Millenium, and Gender Constructions in Antebellum America" (2006). Honors Projects. 7. https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/history_honproj/7 This Article is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by Digital Commons @ IWU with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this material in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/ or on the work itself. This material has been accepted for inclusion by faculty at Illinois Wesleyan University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ©Copyright is owned by the author of this document. Erie Martha Roberts Honors Research Prof. Bushnell 14 April 2006 The Cult ofMillennial Motherhood and the Rhetoric ofFemale Reform: Domesticity, the Millennium, and Gender Constructions in Antebellum America "While you thus keep our country virtuous, you maintain its independence. ,,1 Early American reform has long been a subject of study and interest for scholars of American history. The period between 1820 and 1850, during and directly after the Second Great Awakening, gave rise to myriad different reformers and reform movements, all with different agendas. Yet, within specific movements, and even among different ones, reformers held similar ideologies that wielded great influence over the'movements they led. This was especially true ofconservative female reformers, many ofwhom believed in domestic ideologies that prescribed a separate, yet equal sphere ofinfluence for women. As Linda Kerber, Ruth H. Bloch, and Barbara Welter argue, post-revolutionary and antebellum America gave rise to the Republican Mother, the Moral Mother, and the Cult ofTrue Womanhood? Each theory proposes different ways ofunderstanding how and why religious maternal domesticity became so influential in the early nineteenth century. However, these theories tend to overlook the role that evangelical millennialism played in the construction ofthese ideologies. 1 "Female Influence: Columbia College Commencement Oration of 1795," quoted in Linda K. Kerber, Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980),230. 2 See Kerber, Women ofthe Republic; Ruth H. Bloch, "American Feminine Ideals in Transition: The Rise of the Moral Mother, 1785-1815." Feminist Studies 4 no. 2 (June 1978); Barbara Welter, "The Cult ofTrue Womanhood: 1820-1860" American Quarterly 18 no. 2 (1966). Roberts 2 Such is not the case with the work ofRobert H. Abzug. As he convincingly proves in his book Cosmos Crumbling: American Reform and the Religious Imagination, underlying many of the major early American reformers was a strong sense ofthe coming millennium. However, while Abzug looks at the major reform movements ofthis period, his analysis overlooks conservative reform movements that help to fully construct this cosmic drama, including the majority ofantebellum women's rights activists. This is especially evident in his analysis of Catharine Beecher and Lydia Maria Child, and by the reformers he neglects, such as Lydia Howard Huntley Sigourney, and Susan Wamer.3 As my essay will show, by combining the theories ofKerber, Bloch, Welter, Abzug and others, a more comprehensive picture ofearly, non-radical female reformers becomes clearer, that ofthe Cult ofMillennial Motherhood. I. Gender Ideology in Post-Revolutionary and Antebellum America Before an intelligent discussion about women's activism in antebellum America can take place, it is first imperative to understand the prevailing gender ideology ofthe time. In pre­ revolutionary America, "woman" and "mother" were not thought ofas inseparable terms, nor was "mother" a woman's primary role. In the late eighteenth century, there were two mutually exclusive feminine ideals propagated by contemporary rhetoric: the help-meet or the decorative ornament.4 As the Help-Meet, women were supposed to be an extension ofmale breadwinning, helping with the economic prosperity ofthe household; as the Ornament, women were decorative objects whose main job was to achieve as many refinements as possible, such as music, drawing, 3 It must be noted that Warner is not usually considered a "reformer" in the strictest sense. However, her novels brought her into the public sphere and, as demonstrated in section VII, in the antebellum period reading was a political act. Thus, Warner advocated the reforms posited in her novels and can be considered a reformer. 4 Bloch, 102. • Roberts 3 languages, etc.5 Both ofthese ideals "dwelt primarily on women's relationships to God and man as Christian, wife, and social companion. Neither placed much emphasis on motherhood.,,6 In fact, during this period the tasks associated with childrearing often were assigned to fathers, perhaps as Ruth Bloch posits, because of"broader cultural assumptions about the inferiority of women."? What both ideals did emphasize was a woman's "'control and influence' over the domestic realm."g However, it was not until several years after the Revolution that conceptions ofgender and the woman's proper role changed so as to make Mother her primary identity. During this post-revolutionary period the concept ofthe ''woman's sphere" began to develop. This ideology worked to rationalize traditional patriarchies by "considering masculine and feminine 'spheres' as equal, and by stressing women's common experiences as women.,,9 The masculine sphere was public, thus reinforcing the male role as economic provider for a family and justifying his participation in political actions. The feminine sphere, on the other hand, was private, domestic, and moral. A woman's rightful place was in the home, where she remained behind the scenes as the "moral center of the family."lo As many historians have noted, such an ideology could only have survived in a context where women "believed at least some part of-and gained at least some benefits from" this separation. 11 These benefits (discussed in more detail below) revolve around a woman's supposedly inherent piety, and protestant, evangelical religion helped create and sustain an antebellum gender ideology. The idea of separate spheres united women and religion so that both were enclosed "within the 5 Ibid., 102-103. 6 Ibid., 103. 7 Ibid., 106-107. 8 Anne M. Boylan, The Origins ofWomen 's Activism: New York and Boston, 1797-1840 (Chapel Hill: University ofNorth Carolina Press, 2002), 59. 9 Boylan, 16. 10 Donald Pickens, "Antebellum Feminism and the Domestication of the American Revolution"5 no. 8 (1984): 71. 11 Ipri D. Ginzberg, Women and the Work ofBenevolence: Morality, Politics, and Class in the Nineteenth Century (New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 19~0): 34. Roberts 4 generic boundaries ofthe domestic.,,12 From thenceforth, women, home, and religion were 1 inextricably linked and the influence she wielded from within her sphere grew as the nineteenth century progressed. II. Theoretical Contexts: Kerber, Bloch, Welter, and Abzug According to Kerber, the change from wife to mother first began in the years following the revolution. The ideology ofthe revolution was based on democratic ideals ofcitizenship and participation; however, these were male ideals. The war raised questions about women and politics. In the new, free democracy, what was the woman's role? Could women be political persons, and ifthey could, then how? 13 Americans at the time wanted to construct a role for women that allowed "private female virtues" to easily co-exist with the "civic virtue that was widely regarded as the cement ofthe Republic.,,14 Republican Motherhood provided the answer. In the new republic, because women were wives and mothers they shaped "morals and manners, [and] women were sent to make a crucial, though indirect, contribution" to society. IS The main source ofthe Republican Mother's powers was "The influence women had on children, especially sons, [which] gave them the ultimate responsibility for the future ofthe new nation.,,16 Woman "now claimed a significant political role, though she played it in the home."I? Thus, the concept ofRepublican Motherhood politicized the domestic and "justified an extension of women's participation ... in the civic culture.,,18 12 Tracy Fressendan. "Gendering Religion." Journal ofWomen 's History, 14 no. 1 (Spring 2002): 166. 13 Kerber, 9. 14 Ibid., 11. 15 Rosemarie Zagarri, "Morals, Manners, and Republican Motherhood." American Quarterly 44 no. 2 (June 1992): 205. 16 Kerber, 229. 17 Ibid., 12. 18 Pickens, 70. • Roberts 5 However, this did not mean that political women were universally accepted. Republican Motherhood "preserved traditional gender roles at the same time that it carved out a new, political role for women," yet, women's role remained "a severely limited one." 19 Ifwomen were "no longer prepolitical, they were certainly not fully
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