By the Book: Advice and Female Behavior in the Eighteenth -Century South
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W&M ScholarWorks Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 1999 By the book: Advice and female behavior in the eighteenth -century South Catherine Kerrison College of William & Mary - Arts & Sciences Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd Part of the United States History Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons Recommended Citation Kerrison, Catherine, "By the book: Advice and female behavior in the eighteenth -century South" (1999). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1539623967. https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-k23z-pc55 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 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Kerrison 1999 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number 9974957 Copyright 1999 by Kerrison, Catherine Monica All rights reserved. UMI" UMI Microform9974957 Copyright 2000 by Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Beil & Howell Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Copyright 1999 by Catherine M. Kerrison All rights reserved ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPROVAL SHEET This dissertation is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy OMu ~)?L- JCf)----- Catherine M. Kerrison Approved, July 1999 /James'P: Whittenburg, Chair Leisa D. Meyer Robert A. Gross A xZu James Axtell 1 c a founvw Kathleen M. Brown University of Pennsylvania iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. For my children, Justin, Elizabeth, and Sarah Foster, whose love and unwavering confidence in me has sustained me throughout. IV Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.............................................................................. vi ABSTRACT...................................................................................................... ix CHAPTER I: HISTORIOGRAPHY OF WOMEN AND PRINT.....................2 CHAPTER 0: “TO BE A DUTIFUL AND OBEDIANT WIFE”: TRADITIONAL ADVICE IN ENGLAND AND THE EARLY AMERICAN SOUTH.................................................................................. 57 CHAPTER ffl: THE DISSEMINATION AND READING OF TRADITIONAL ADVICE IN THE SOUTH............................................ 116 CHAPTER IV: THE ROLE OF THE NOVEL IN ENGLAND AND THE EARLY AMERICAN SOUTH........................... 186 CHAPTER V: READING NOVELS IN THE SOUTH................................. 229 CHAPTER VI: REFASHIONING FEMININITY.........................................282 CONCLUSION: TAKING UP THE PEN.................................................... 337 BIBLIOGRAPHY.......................................................................................... 343 V Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Acknowledgments The process of writing a doctoral dissertation is a journey no one makes alone and I have accumulated professional and personal debts along the way that I cannot hope to repay, except perhaps in following the example set for me by all whom I now have the pleasure of thanking. I offer my most profound thanks to my director, James P. Whittenburg, whose numerous teaching awards and legions of devoted students attest better to his gifts as teacher, mentor, and friend, than can any words of mine. I am grateful for his expert guidance, kind encouragement, and cheerfully constant availability. Leisa D. Meyer graciously joined my committee at a critical juncture, managing simultaneously to ask hard questions and to support my interpretive efforts. Robert A. Gross interrupted his teaching overseas to read and comment extensively upon this manuscript; I am very grateful to him, particularly for his advice that I treat my subject in a broader, trans-Atlantic context. James Axtell has provided a model of style and grace in writing that I shall spend a career trying to emulate; I thank him for all he has taught me about the doing of history. I am enormously grateful to Kathleen M. Brown for her praise and critiques; I look forward to learning more in further conversations about race and gender when I join the early American community in Philadelphia. I have profited also from others who have read and commented upon papers that have become chapters in this work, particularly my colleagues who participated in graduate “brown-bag” seminars at the College of William and Mary; and Richard D. vi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Brown, Holly Brewer, and Karin Wulf, who commented respectively upon papers given at the 1993 Graduate Student Forum at the University of North Carolina, the 199S Symposium in Southern Women’s History at the Museum of North Carolina and the 1998 American Historical Association meeting. I would also like to thank the archivists and librarians who have been so gracious and have taught me so much. I want to thank the staff at the Virginia Historical Society, particularly Frances Pollard, whose warmth and interest in my work made the Historical Society a research “home.” I would like to thank Nelson Lankford for his acceptance of my essay, “By the Book,” for publication in the Virginia Magazine o f History and Biography. I am also indebted to the Historical Society for an Andrew W. Mellon Research Fellowship. I am grateful to the staffs of the Special Collections Department of the College of William and Mary; the Library of Virginia, particularly Sandy Treadway and Nolan Yelich; the Library of Congress; the Special Collections Department of the University of Virginia; the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina; and the Archives and Records Department of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. I have benefited enormously from the intellectual vitality and collegiality of the Department of History of the College of William and Mary. In addition to my readers, whose doors were always open, I am grateful to Dale Hoak for countless hours of spirited conversation and to LuAnn Homza who shared with me her passion for teaching. I thank Blair Pogue, Gail S. Terry, and John Hemphill for introducing this returning student to the disciplines of research and writing, and making the path easier. For conversations as stimulating as any in the classroom, I am indebted to my colleagues, particularly the vii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. summer study group of 1993: Richard Chew, Meaghan Duff, Michael Guasco, and Brian McCarthy. I thank Nell Jones of the William and Mary Elderhostel program for giving me the opportunity to teach some of the most interesting and challenging students anywhere. I could not have completed this work without the support of generous friends. I thank Wendy DiTraglia for seeing me through the early years; Wendy Hamilton Hoelscher,