Women in Antebellum Reform
The American History Series
1. Auflage Januar 2000
168 Seiten, Softcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
This is a soul-stirring era," remarked the Reverend William Mitchell in 1835, "and will be so recorded in the annals of time." Countless antebellum reformers agreed. The United States was awash in efforts to change itself, a "sisterhood of reforms" emerging to characterize the efforts of hundreds of thousands of Americans. In all of this, women played an important role.
In her latest publication, Professor Ginzberg offers a view of women and antebellum reform through two lenses: one focused on the ideas about women, religion, class, and race that shaped reform movements; and another that observes actual women as they participated in the work of social change. For women, a commitment to reform offered a broader sense of their place in the world-and of their responsibility to set it aright. By considering the efforts of these women-distributing bibles, tracts, and charity, fighting intemperance, opposing slavery, or demanding their rights as women-the reader gains a richer understanding of the antebellum era itself.
Preface ix
Chapter One. The Roots of Reform 1
A Changing Society 3
A Woman's Sphere 8
Chapter Two. Charity and the Relations of Class 15
The Worthy Poor 16
Female Benevolence 18
Organizing the Work 22
Helping One's Own 29
Chapter Three. Drink, Sex, Crime, and Insanity 33
Temperance 33
Moral Reform 39
Prison Reform 44
The Care of the Insane 48
Buildings and Ballots 51
Chapter Four. Antislavery 57
The Origins of Antislavery 60
The Moral Problem of Slavery 64
Antislavery Efforts 70
Response from the Opposition 74
Life as an Abolitionist 81
Chapter Five. Woman's Rights 90
Roads Not Taken 91
Reformers and the Woman Question 97
The Declaration of Sentiments 105
The Birth of the Woman's Rights Movement 110
Conclusion 118
Bibliographical Essay 122
Index 137
Illustrations and Photographs follow page 80
and sophisticated. Ginzberg brings a wide array of individuals,
events, and movements to life and provides particularly insightful
discussions of class and racial differences within antebellum
society and antebellum reform."
-Nancy A. Hewitt, Rutgers University
Women's Studies at Pennsylvania State University. She is the
author of Women and the Work of Benevolence: Morality, Politics,
and Class in the Nineteenth-Century United States, which was
co-winner of the 1991 National Historical Society's Book
Prize in American History. She has written numerous articles on
nineteenth-century women's political and intellectual
history, including "'Pernicious Heresies':
Women's Political Identities and Sexual Respectability in the
Nineteenth Century," in Alison Parker and Stephanie
Cole, eds., Women and the Unstable State in Nineteenth-Century
America, and "'The Hearts of Your Readers will
Shudder': Fanny Wright, Infidelity, and American
Freethought," American Quarterly 46, which won the
Constance Rourke prize. In 1995-96 she was a Fulbright senior
teaching fellow at the Hebrew university in Jerusalem. Lori
Ginzberg lives in Philadelphia.