Women in Revolutionary America. Abigail Adams Urges Men to "Remember the Ladies"


Term Paper, 2011

12 Pages, Grade: 1,7


Excerpt


Table of Contents

1 Introduction

2 Womanhood in the Revolutionary Days

3 Women and Letter Writing

4 “Remember the Ladies” -Abigail Adam´s Letters in Revolutionary Days

5 Conclusion

Works Cited

1 Introduction

In the eighteenth century both French and American Revolutions were based on ideas of The Enlightenment. In America, philosophers like Hobbes, Jefferson and John Locke began to redefine the state´s ideal beliefs and values, predominantly considering property, life and liberty (Post 147). Especially liberty should comprise as many people as possible in order to lead the state out of “tyranny of religious rage” (Marshall 3). But having adopted the ideological vocabulary from Aristotle, these liberal rights were only established for a “single sex”, since the public and politically decisive area was “the affair of men” (Kerber 7). Thus, women were excluded from those “natural laws” (Marshall 24) and restricted to the private domain, having no right to directly raise their voice in Revolutionary America (Kerber 7).

Nevertheless, women of the eighteenth century took actions and thereby got the possibility to shortly dive into the public world. Especially literature, including the genre of the letter, seemed to have “blurred the lines between public and private” (Vietto 26). Since correspondences were, like women, associated with the private sector, it was allowed to communicate through them and therefore they enabled women to approach the public sphere in a way. Thus, many women made use of this means to criticize the lack of equal rights while simultaneously performing their expected role of womanhood in the eighteenth century. One of these women was Abigail Adams, who mentioned in a letter to her husband in 1775: “My pen is always freer than my tongue” (Ellis 2).Adams fulfilled her conservative duties while she was longing for equality at the same time. How did she finally succeed in voicing her discontent in a patriarchal state?

Before concentrating on this question, based on correspondences of the year 1776, called “Remember the Ladies”, the general image of Womanhood in the historical and political development will be outlined including female approaches to the public sphere as well. Considering this historical context, the third part of the paper will illustrate the function of the genre of letters. Finally, a thorough analysis of Abigail Adam´s letters will be provided in the fourth part of the paper, which will point out in how far letter writing helps to successfully put forward her arguments.

2 Womanhood in the Revolutionary Days

In Pre-Revolutionary days, rigid ideological characteristics were primarily ascribed to women. These were based on Greek explanations (Kerber 7). Especially the origins of the word “idiot[]” (Kerber 8) were used in order to justify both political and educational lacks of womanhood. While John Bethke Elshtain defined women as “idiots in the Greek sense of the word, that is, persons who do not participate in the polis” (Kerber 8), Rebecca West focuses on women´s educational gap:

”The word “idiot” comes from a Greek root meaning private person. Idiocy is the female defect; intent on their private lives, women follow their fate through darkness deep as that cast by malformed cells in the brain” (Kerber 4).

John Trumbull fortified this thesis in an even harsher way by putting forward the argument that women would forget about their duties as wives and mothers if they left their private spheres in order to become more educated (Salmon 150). Nevertheless, in their roles as mothers, women were expected to have at least basic medical knowledge in order to fulfill their job as a midwife and healer. Furthermore, they needed to take care of both farming and gardening in their rural homes. In order to cope with all of these duties, they supported each other by forming social communities, which enabled them to take part in public affairs.

During the Revolution, the female role in society was expanded to a publicly more important one because women took a supportive position in war. According to Norton, the American Woman of War was expected to face mainly two duties (Norton 205): First of all, she needed to perform her husband´s role of the head of the household while he was absent. The latter was quite a difficult a task considering the need to be always prepared to flee from bloody fights in revolutionary days. Secondly, she had to produce food and clothing as well as to for the troops´ taxes. At the same time, she actively participated in the war as camp follower, spy and especially as a creator of political protest. Although still associated with the domestic sphere, the American women succeeded in struggling for a more independent state from England by abstaining from the consumption of any taxed items in 1767 and simultaneously increasing the production of homemade goods for political leaders (Norton 203). Although women were not taken seriously if they did voice political arguments, illusions of changing their subordinate, private role in society were set in their minds.

[...]

Excerpt out of 12 pages

Details

Title
Women in Revolutionary America. Abigail Adams Urges Men to "Remember the Ladies"
College
University of Münster  (Anglistik)
Grade
1,7
Author
Year
2011
Pages
12
Catalog Number
V1170503
ISBN (eBook)
9783346583512
ISBN (Book)
9783346583529
Language
English
Keywords
Declaration of Independance, Womanhood in the 18th century
Quote paper
Fabiane Rieke (Author), 2011, Women in Revolutionary America. Abigail Adams Urges Men to "Remember the Ladies", Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/1170503

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