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Towards a Productive Marriage of Antebellumgender and Political History

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Towards a Productive Marriage of Antebellumgender and Political History Lori D. Ginzberg. Untidy Origins: A Story of Women's Rights in Antebellum New York. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005. xiv + 222 pp. $22.95, paper, ISBN 978-0-8078-5608-6. Lori D. Ginzberg. Untidy Origins: A Story of Woman's Rights in Antebellum New York. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005. xiv + 222 pp , , . Sherry H. Penney, James D. Livingston. A Very Dangerous Woman: Martha Wright and Women's Rights. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004. 288 pp. $22.95, paper, ISBN 978-1-55849-447-3. Judith Wellman. The Road to Seneca Falls: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the First Woman's Rights Convention. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004. xii + 297 pp. $55.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-252-02904-2. Reviewed by Carol Lasser Published on H-SHEAR (December, 2005) New works by Judith Wellman, Lori Ginzberg, deserve the attention of all historians of politics and, jointly, Sherry Penney and James D. Liv‐ and culture in what was once called "the middle ingston revise--and revitalize--the story of the be‐ period." Returning to the well-tilled soil of the ginnings of the woman's rights movement; they Burned Over District, these recent publications H-Net Reviews have unearthed new evidence and reignite now which the antebellum period serves chronologi‐ smoldering embers to cast new light on the multi‐ cally and teleologically as the time of beginnings, plicity of forces at work in the women's rights setting the stage for the achievement of women's conflagrations of the antebellum years. More than enfranchisement and full citizenship in the twen‐ this, they suggest ways to synthesize narratives all tieth century. Instead, I want to resituate them in too often marked off into the separate spheres of the "master narrative" of antebellum politics. The women's history and political history. volumes under review make clear the centrality Nineteenth-century political historians tend of questions of property and representation, and to address Seneca Falls in passing, connecting the of religious orientation and family networks, not emergence of women's rights to the incubation of only for their gendered subjects, but also for a egalitarian ideas within the antislavery move‐ more complete understanding of the rising ten‐ ment; once having recognized the emergence of sions of the 1850s and the collapse of the union this formation, however, they relegate it to the pe‐ that resulted in the Civil War. riphery, to return to a political narrative, with Ginzberg and Wellman both position their women's rights reappearing only much later in work as revisions of the canonical origins story the nineteenth century, when temperance advo‐ promulgated by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her cates and reformers push for women's electoral allies through Stanton's self-conscious biographi‐ presence. Historians of women celebrate Seneca cal writings and the magisterial authoritative His‐ Falls, but then frequently follow a path that es‐ tory of Woman Suffrage.[1] Neither Ginzberg nor chews the sectional crisis of the 1850s, pushing Wellman is satisfied to tell the story as that of the through the antebellum conventions to reach the frustrated young matron who, with the help of formation of Women's National Loyal League dur‐ Lucretia Mott, came to comprehend the assault on ing the Civil War; they only return to political ref‐ their status as women sustained at the World's erents to explain the split in the movement in Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840, and 1869 over questions of the relationship of African- who deferred her action until she fnally found American and women's enfranchisement. Thus herself driven to a "women's rights convulsion" political and gender historians follow their own eight years later in revolt against the drudgery of trajectories, with little attention to how they inter‐ small town domesticity.[2] Each author appreci‐ sect. These new works, however, suggest how ates that "the ideas expressed at Seneca Falls did heretofore divergent historiographies might be not burst full-grown upon the scene"[3], and that brought together to create a new interpretation, Stanton did not single-handedly will the meeting placing questions about gender and political rep‐ into existence. Ginzberg expertly explains how six resentation centrally within the larger study of unknown women in the relative isolation of the political culture for the antebellum period. "North Country" brought together their experi‐ This review essay will not so much critique ences and the "world of ideas" they encountered the individual works under review--books already in reading newspaper accounts of the debates at perceptively reviewed separately here on H-NET the New York State constitutional convention to and elsewhere--as it will suggest how they con‐ formulate their demand for woman suffrage in tribute to an understanding of the critical role August 1846, nearly two full years before the played by gender dynamics in the sectional ten‐ Seneca Falls gathering. Likewise, Wellman maps sions that resulted in national upheaval and Civil the "converging paths" that came together in Stan‐ War. In so doing, I deliberately remove the works ton and her newly adopted hometown in 1848 to from the traditional women's history narrative in make a local story with national import. For Well‐ man, fve forces came together at the 1848 con‐ 2 H-Net Reviews vention: the market revolution that repositioned gifted to her by Wright's friend and neighbor, the towns and villages along the Erie Canal; the William Seward. Wellman and Ginzberg analyze upheavals in the Society of Friends that brought as well the economic conditions that shaped wom‐ some egalitarian-minded Quakers into worldly re‐ en's attitudes and action. Documenting gender as form; the transformations of the abolitionist a factor in the ownership of land and real proper‐ movement in which gender issues interplayed ty, they both explore how its control was mediat‐ forcefully with changing ideas about political en‐ ed by and through family networks on farms and gagement; the discussions of legal reform perme‐ in fedgling commercial centers. Women and legal ated by "rights talk" for both women and African reformers in antebellum New York, as they make Americans; and the dynamic personality of Eliza‐ clear, connected questions of gender, rights, citi‐ beth Cady Stanton. Penney and Livingston too zenship, and suffrage. want to broaden the narrative, in their case to Taken together, these authors identify the write into it the significant role of the talented complex and intertwined social forces and ideas and witty Martha Coffin Wright, long overshad‐ that ignited the struggle for women's rights. Yet owed by her better-known sister, Lucretia Coffin the implications of their work have significance Mott, the formidable and long-lived Quaker femi‐ for studies well beyond these individuals and this nist-abolitionist. Their meticulous research pro‐ region, and for periods both before and after the vides a long-overdue biography of this "founding fateful days of July 19 and 20, 1848. Can we, for mother," revealing how, in her life, politics, reli‐ example, fnd similar dynamics at work propel‐ gion, and social change came together to empow‐ ling interest in woman's rights in Jane Swis‐ er this birthright Quaker woman, living in the shelm's Pittsburgh? In Jane Elizabeth Jones's rapidly transforming region of upstate New York, Salem, Ohio? In Lucy Stone's West Brookfield, to nurture and maintain her strong family net‐ Massachusetts? Can we tease out genealogies and works while engaging in abolitionism and wom‐ kinship for these locales and for these individuals en's rights. that reveal the importance of religious communi‐ As these authors are aware, however, social ties in shaping ideas and orientation? Can we doc‐ forces alone do not make for human action. Well‐ ument the impact of print culture, educational in‐ man, like Ginzberg, seeks to answer the question: stitutions and transportation networks to trace "what ideas were available in the language of the the possible sources for their ideas about race and day" (p.45); and both anchor their inquiries in, as the revolutionary tradition? Can we fnd evidence Wellman defines it, "the perspective of families, of contact with nonhegemonic alternatives among communities, and the larger context of reform" to Native Americans, free thinkers, and communi‐ reveal why some individuals began to articulate tarians that shaped their preparation for engage‐ the seemingly radical ideas about women's rights ment? in property and in political participation (p. 13). The volumes under review here locate and Wright's biographers place her centrally in this contextualize the multiple origins of women's context, detailing how she imbibed ideas of anti‐ rights talk as they revise our understanding of slavery and gendered power from her sister's where--and with whom--woman suffrage agita‐ Philadelphia Quaker milieu, and transported this tion began. But, equally important, Wellman and knowledge into her life in Auburn. There, it Ginzberg, along with Penney and Livingston, are shaped not only her lifelong participation in the part of a discourse that is encouraging historians women's rights movement, but also her efforts on to rethink the larger question of the relationship behalf of antislavery, including her ongoing work of women to the male-defined polis of the antebel‐ with Harriet Tubman, who settled nearby on land 3 H-Net Reviews lum North, a question that weaves through their property and religion.[5] And, as Wellman, revisions of the origins story, and one that sug‐ Ginzberg, Penney and Livingston document, anti‐ gests ways to reunite the histories of women and slavery remained central to them. Women were political culture. Antebellum gender, we now present at the very beginnings of the politiciza‐ know, was not a simple, private matter.
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