Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher. Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750. New York: Oxford University Press: 1983. Thesis: Ulrich argues that colonial women of northern New England “were part of much larger changes in the history of the western world, yet they are best understood in the close exploration of the lives of ordinary women and men (241).” She also argues that while she focuses on northern New England, that much of what she has discovered is true of other parts of British colonial North America (xiv). Themes: One of the main themes of the text is anonymity. Women were praised and revered for their ability to blend in with society and not tarnish their reputation. This was not solely because of the woman, but because the woman was a reflection of her husband and family, and if she were to besmirch her name, she would, more importantly, besmirch the name of her husband, or if she were not married, her father. Another theme of the text is patriarchy and realms. Colonial America was a patriarchal society where women were responsible for the …show more content…
The religious overtone of the text permeates through these titles to demonstrate the different ways women could be described using these women of the Bible. Within these three parts are twelve chapters that are named after the various roles women did during colonial America: Part One: “The Ways of Her Household,” “Deputy Husbands,” “A Friendly Neighbor,” and “Pretty Gentlewomen;” Part Two: “The Serpent Beguiled Me,” “Consort,” “Travail,” and “Mother of All Living;” and Part Three: “Blessed Above Women,” “Viragoes,” “Captives,” and “Daughters of Zion.” Roughly halfway through the text Ulrich has a few pages dedicated to displaying images of various items and texts from the Colonial-era. The text ends with an Afterword summarizing the main points of the
In addition, the short story included called “Leg Irons” illustrates the life of a African American man named George Washington who runs away from slavery still in chains and manages to get to the Union Lines. Dated on 1861, two years before the Emancipation Proclamation, the union soldiers that captured him didn’t send him back to his master in the south but instead sent him to a camp, where they keep other escapee. The short comic takes us through the series of tests that George had to conquer. One of them presents some union soldiers stopping him and pointing a gun at him however he walks away unharmed until someone else stops him and does the same thing. This shows the heart-breaking ideology that no matter where slaves went, north or south,
Both of these examples explicitly state the ways in which women were dehumanized through the institution of marriage during this time. Because marriage was mainly seen as a way to support yourself, and men were the ones who were expected to provide that support, it made people see women as the useless part of the equation. Even though men were expected to be the financial bedrock for the women, women were also expected to not be totally destitute. Otherwise the husband would be taking on that much more of a financial burden than the wife already is. This is seen in the novel when the marriage between Wickham and Lydia is discussed, where Lydia is seen as a poor match for Wickham mainly due to Wickham not being able to support a girl with such little financial assets.
During the 1820’s and 1830’s, New England was undergoing a major transformation. With the Industrial Revolution underway, thousands of individuals packed up their belongings and relocated from the farms into the cities. As the Industrial Revolution emerged, thousands of girls took the opportunity as a means of obtaining freedom and independence to gain knowledge, income, and a sense of belonging. The murder of Sarah Cornell and the trial of Avery resulted in a clash between two emerging institutions in New England modernization during their lifetime, the textile mills and the Methodist Church, both of which believed that the opportunity for future growth relied heavily on a favorable verdict from the jury. This decision would determine both institutions future respectability and progress, as both Sarah and Avery’s reputation would reflect the reputation of the new economic development and methodist denomination.
War has always been perceived as a theater for males to show their superior manhood over their enemies; New England is not an exception. In Abraham in Arms: War and Gender in Colonial New England, Ann M. Little discusses the roles that the notions of gender and masculinity have played in guiding the warfare and the cultural confrontation in the border area of New England in the 17th and 18th century. Based primarily on English sources but in an attempt to explore the perspectives of manhood in the three warring parties in New England (British, French, and Native Americans), this book investigates how the Indians and colonists demonstrated their masculinity to distinguish themselves from the effeminate foe and exploited the weakness of their opponents’ manhood to fight wars and to claim lands and captives. Despite the distinctive strategies and goals employed by the three sides, Little managed to identify the similarities between them and suggests that English, French, and Indians actually all highlighted the ideology of gender and household in comprehending wars against each other
Women also primarily learned from their mothers of all the responsibilities “that a competent eighteenth-century woman” should accept as her own (3). This would explain why “Abigail did not herself aspire to anything more than being a good wife and mother, but Abigail still believed women should be better educated (45–46). In Abigail’s mind, there was nothing wrong with being both. In this way Abigail Adams was a “prisoner of the times” (xiii). She could do little more than educate herself and her female relatives privately without harming her or her husband’s reputation.
From the publication of East of Eden to today the rights and empowerment of women have escalated exponentially. Women are no longer obligated to follow the nurturing mother ideal; they can be independent and strong. Then, in the novel, East of Eden, some believe the author oversimplifies his female characters by filing them into either traditional, caring mothers or heinous villains. However, Steinbeck utilizes their simple, one-dimensional archetypes to show how complex his female roles truly are through subtle details.
In her article, “Three Inventories, Three Households”, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich argues that women’s work was crucial not simply for subsistence but that “women were essentials in the seventeenth century for the very same reasons they are essentials today-for the perpetuation of the race” (Ulrich 51). She believes, women were expected to do everything. They were not only to take care of the children, but they were also cook, clean, raise the greens and ranches. Mainly, women plays important role for the survival and continuation of life.
Historians have identified that New England contains a “family labor” system, and it was “inherently cyclical” (220). Couples begin their marriage by “raising workers and their last bereft of help”, and eventually reaching the “harvest time”, where the couple is no longer as productive as before, but now their children have grown (220). When Martha was reaching her sixties, she had already passed the peak of her live as a mistress and as a midwife. Her fatigue no longer allows her to handle too many birth deliveries and house chores, and her sons and daughters have grown up, and have married to start another cycle in the system of family labor. Ulrich also saw the diminishing status of Martha as a mistress a “subtle passing of authority from one generation to one another”
In colonial North America, the lives of women were distinct and described in the roles exhibited in their inscriptions. In this book, Good Wives the roles of woman were neither simple nor insignificant. Ulrich proves in her writing that these women did it all. They were considered housewives, deputy husbands, mistresses, consorts, mothers, friendly neighbors, and last but not least, heroines. These characteristics played an important role in defining what the reality of women’s lives consisted of.
This book was quite fresh and the reader can really see all sides of a single picture. This book is told more of a chapter book than a textbook and would greatly appeal to students who want to learn more about colonial women of America. Even scholars and professionals in this area of study would enjoy the
Women in the 1600s to the 1800s were very harshly treated. They were seen as objects rather than people. They were stay-at-home women because people didn’t trust them to hold jobs. They were seen as little or weak. Women living in this time period had to have their fathers choose their husbands.
During the colonial period many settlers came to the New World to escape persecution for their Puritan beliefs. Writers such as William Bradford, John Winthrop, Anne Bradstreet, and Mary Rowlandson all shared their experiences and religious devotion throughout their literature that ultimately inspired and influenced settlers to follow. This essay will discuss the similarities in Anne Bradstreet and Mary Rowlandson’s work as they both describe their experiences as signs from God. Anne Bradstreet came to the New World as a devoted Puritan as she repeatedly talked about it in her poetry. In her poems she discusses many tragedies that happened in her life such as; the burning of her house and the death of her two grandchildren all of which she thinks were signs from God.
Around the late 18th to early 19th century, colonial American New England life was centered on living independently and being finally free from the British Empire after the Revolutionary War. Establishing control of a newly founded government with set functions and a first president, there were progressive changes that America had to act upon post-war. However, behind the political aspects that are greatly highlighted in American history, the roles of women in society, particularly midwives shouldn’t be cast aside. Although women were largely marginalized in early New England life because of their gender, nevertheless Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s A Midwife’s Tale is instructive because it demonstrates the privilege of men’s authority in society
The Cult of True Womanhood in “The Yellow Wallpaper” In her essay “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860”, Barbara Welter discusses the expected roles and characteristics that women were supposed to exhibit in accordance with the extreme patriarchy of the nineteenth-century America. The unnamed narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is seen to conform and ultimately suffer from this patriarchal construct that Welter labels the Cult of True Womanhood. The narrator falls victim to this life of captivity by exhibiting several of the fundamental characteristics that Welter claims define what a woman was told she ought to be.
Anne Bradstreet (1612 – 1672) has been a long-lasting leading figure in the American literature who embodied a myriad of identities; she was a Puritan, poet, feminist, woman, wife, and mother. Bradstreet’s poetry was a presence of an erudite voice that animadverted the patriarchal constraints on women in the seventeenth century. In a society where women were deprived of their voices, Bradstreet tried to search for their identities. When the new settlers came to America, they struggled considerably in defining their identities. However, the women’s struggles were twice than of these new settlers; because they wanted to ascertain their identities in a new environment, and in a masculine society.