As American as Motherhood and Apple Pie The Founding Mothers Kevin P. Dincher .
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Transcript of As American as Motherhood and Apple Pie The Founding Mothers Kevin P. Dincher .
As American as Motherhood and Apple Pie
The Founding Mothers
Kevin P. Dincherwww.kevindincher.com
“… I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.”
Abigail Adams
Ancient World Middle Ages (400-1500) Reform Period (1500s)Personhood and Identity
Relationship to a man (father or husband)
Relationship to a man (father or husband)
Relationship to a man (father or husband)
Status No natural political/civil role
Inferior human being; weak (dangerous)
Property ethic (Not exactly a slave; extension of father/husband)
No natural political/civil role
Inferior human being; weak (dangerous)
Property ethic (softening)
No natural political/civil role
Inferior human being; weak (dangerous)
Property ethic (softening)
Marriage Contract between 2 men
Norm: Polygamy Transfer of property
Economic relationship; valued as an asset or resource
Consent of woman not really considered?
Not a civil or religious institution
Contract between 2 men
Norm: Monogamy Economic relationship;
valued as an asset or resource
Transfer of property Some degree of
consent by woman Minimal religious
significance or involvement; no civil involvement
Contract between 2 men
Norm: Monogamy Economic
relationship; valued as an asset or resource
Transfer of property Some degree of
consent by woman Civil/religious
institutionalization
Enlightenment (1600-1800)
Industrial Revolution (1750-1850)
American Revolutionary Era
(1730-1783)
Something New • Importance of the Individual• Natural Rights• Liberty• Fulfillment of the
individual
• Wealth redefined• Capital and
production rather than property
• Politicization of “women’s work”• What women
do has political impact and consequences
Challenges • Women get their identity from relationship with father/husband• Women are not
property• Women are not an
extension of husband
• Economics as primary basis for marriage• Opens the
possibility of affection as primary basis for marriage
• Women have no natural political role• What is that
political role?
“… I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.”
Abigail Adams
August 18, 1920144 years after Abigail asked John to “remember the ladies”
19th Amendment to the US Constitution
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
• Naturally inferior – weak and dangerous
• Not a slave – but not a separate person
• No property rights
• No natural political ability/role
• Natural rights• Not property,
although not equal to men
• Women have a political role/responsibility within the “domestic sphere.”
Remember the Ladies
All MEN are created equal– Women, children and the
landless has few rights– White European, land owners
• Free holders
No OFFICIAL “Voice for Women”? – Reluctant Revolutionaries?– Too radical for the founders?– Adams: “If we give in …
Default Position: Coverture (Couverture)
• Sir William Blackstone (1723 -1780)– Commentaries on the Laws of
England (1769)• Treatise on the common law of
England• Pre-Revolutionary source of common
law by United States courts• US Supreme Court relies on
Blackstone‘ s work – Historical discussion that goes back to
Revolutionary and pre-Revolutionary America
– For example, the intent of the Framers of the Constitution
Coverture (Couverture)
Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England The Rights of Persons The Rights of Things Of Private Wrongs Of Public Wrongs
English social structure; relationship of people to one another:•King, aristocracy, commoners•Husbands and wives•Masters and servants (employers and employees)•Guardians and wards
Property rights Torts and various methods of trial that existed at civil law
Jurisdictions of the several courts, from the lowest to the highest.
Criminal law and criminal justice system
Coverture (Couverture)• The husband and wife are one person in law– The “very being or legal existence of the woman is
suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband: under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs every thing”
– Wife: called England’s law-French a feme-covert; • “Said to be covert-baron, or under the protection and
influence of her husband, her baron, or lord; and her condition during her marriage is called her coverture.”
Coverture (Couverture)“Upon this principle, of a union of person in husband and wife, depend almost all the legal rights, duties, and disabilities, that either of them acquire by the marriage.”– A man cannot grant any thing to his wife, or
enter into covenant with her: for the grant would be to suppose her separate existence;
– To covenant (contract) with her would be only to covenant with himself
– All compacts made between husband and wife, when single are voided by the intermarriage.
Two Classes of Women
Feme Sole• Single Woman
– Femme seule
• Independent legal personality– Right own property– Right to enter into contracts
in her own name
Feme Covert• Married Woman
– Femme coverte
• Independent legal personality was suspended during marriage– Subsumed by that of her
husband
Feme Covert1. Woman’s independent legal personality was
suspected during marriage• Subsumed by that of her husband
2. Married women did not have the legal capacity to• Enter a contract• Sue• Own personal property• Receive wages• Carry on a business• Manager her real property or receive rents/profits from it
3. Married women could not sue their husbands• Effectively gave married men immunity from prosecution for
violent crimes committed against their wives.
Coverture (Couverture)
England– The Married
Women’s Property Act of 1870
– The Married Women's Property Act 1882
Coverture (Couverture)
United States
– 1809: Connecticut• Allowed a married woman to write a will • Impact on property and contracts?
– Beginning in late 1830s• Married Women’s Property Acts: 3 phases
– Allowed married women to own property– Allowed married women to keep their own income– Allowed married women to engage in business
Early Changes in Property Rights
1821 ME Allowed to own and manage property in their own name during incapacity of spouse
1835 AR Married women allowed to own (but not control) property in their own name
MA Allowed to own and manage property in their own name during incapacity of spouse
TN Allowed to own and manage property in their own name during incapacity of spouse
Early Changes in Property Rights
Panic of 1837
• 1839: Mississippi
– Woman could own property in her own right but could not manage it or sell it without husband’s consent.
– Safe from husband’s debt collector’s
Martin van Buren
Early Changes in Property Rights
• 1840: Texas• 1843: Maryland• 1844: Michigan• 1845: New York and
Pennsylvania• 1846: Arkansas• 1846-1848: Ohio,
Indiana, Iowa
• 1849: Tennessee• 1852/1872: New Jersey• 1855: Massachusetts
– 1860: 14/34 States– 1865: 29/34 States
– Civil Rights Act of 1866• Rights of African-Americans• Opponents: change the
status of married women
Early Changes to Property Rights
• 1849: California Constitution
– Spanish civil law rather than English common law
– Community Property
• 1860: 14/34 States– 1865: 29/34 States
• Civil Rights Act of 1866– Rights of African-
Americans– Opponents: change the
status of married women
Coverture (Couverture)
1867: Illinois Supreme Court (Cole v Van Riper)
"It is simply impossible that a married woman should be able to control and enjoy her property as if she were sole, without practically leaving her at liberty to annul the marriage.“
Coverture (Couverture)1869: Harriet Beecher Stowe
“The position of a married woman … is, in many respects, similar to that of the negro slave. She can make no contract and hold no property; whatever she inherits or earns becomes at the moment property of her husband… Though he acquired a fortune through her, of though she earned a fortune through her talents, he is the sole master of it, and she cannot draw a penny…. In the English common law a married woman is nothing at all. She passes out of legal existence.”
Coverture (Couverture)
1972
– Two US court cases allowed a wife accused in criminal court to offer as a legal defense that she was obeying her husband's orders.
Remember the Ladies• Husbands– Smart enough to give
their wives room to act
• Fathers– Enlightened enough
to educate their daughters
• Women– Bold enough to
speak/act for themselves
“Smart” Husbands: Margaret Hardenbroek (c. 1635–1691) • “She-Merchant” – Circa 1635: born in the Netherlands– 1659: Immigrated to New Amsterdam– 1659-1661: Pieter de Vries– 1663-1691: Frederick Philipsen
“Smart” Husbands:Ann Smith (1696-1763)
• Publisher/Printer– 1696: Born in Boston– 1723: married James Franklin (1697-1735)– 1721-1726: New-England Courant• Silas Dogood
– 1727: Newport, Rhode Island• 1727-1734: Rhode-Island Almanack (Poor Robin)• 1730-1731: Colony of Rhode Island• 1732-1733: Rhode Island Gazette
“Smart” Husbands:Ann Smith (1696-1763)
• Publisher/Printer– 1735: James Franklin died– “Widow Franklin”• 1736: General Assembly of Rhode Island
– Official printer» Law records, legal forms, election ballot, currency
– Controversy
• 1737-1741: Revived Rhode-Island Almanack– 1741: Began selling Poor Richard’s Almanack
“Smart” Husbands:Ann Smith (1696-1763)
• Publisher/Printer
– 1748: “Ann and James Franklin”• 1745: Acts and Laws of Rhode
Island (500 copies)• 1758: Newport Mercury
– Newport Daily– “First female editor”
– 1762: “Franklin & Hall• Samuel Hall (son-in-law)
“Smart” Husbands:Ann Smith (1696-1763)
• Publisher/Printer
– 1763: a woman whose “economy and industry … supported herself and her family, and brought up her children in a genteel manner.”
– The woman who owned the press on which Benjamin Franklin learned to set type.
– 1986: one of the first inductees and first woman inducted into the Journalism Hall of Fame at the University of Rhode Island
“Smart” Husbands:Deborah Reed (1708-1774)
Enlightened Fathers:Eliza Lucas Pinckney (1722-1793)
Saint Peter's Episcopal Churchyard PhiladelphiaErected By The Eliza Lucas Chapter, Colonial Daughters Of The 17th Century
Enlightened Fathers:Eliza Lucas Pinckney (1722-1793)
• 1722: Born in Antigua, West Indies– Oldest of four (2 brothers and a sister)– Cabbage Tree, one family's three sugar
plantations• 200 slaves
– All 4 children sent to England for education
• 1738: South Carolina– 3 plantations – Chief one: Wappoo Creek outside of Charleston
Enlightened Fathers:Eliza Lucas Pinckney (1722-1793)
• 1739: War with Spain– Lieutenant Governor of
Antiqua– 1740: War of Austrian
Succession
Enlightened Fathers:Eliza Lucas Pinckney (1722-1793)
• Plantations: rice– Experiments• Lumber/Oak• Ginger, cotton, alfalfa, silk• Indigo
– 1744: successful crop– 1745-1746: 5,000 pounds– 1748: 130,000 pounds– 1776: 1/3 of total exports from SC
Enlightened Fathers:Eliza Lucas Pinckney (1722-1793)
• 1744: Marriage to Charles Pinckney – 1733: attorney general of
South Carolina – Speaker of the assembly
in 1736, 1738 and 1740, – Chief justice South
Carolina in 1752–1753 – Agent for South Carolina
in England in 1753–1758.
Enlightened Fathers:Eliza Lucas Pinckney (1722-1793)
• 1753 – Eliza presented the Princess of Wales with a dress made of silk produced on the Pinckney plantations.
• 1793 - President George Washington – Served as a pallbearer at her funeral
• 1989 - First woman to be inducted into the South Carolina Business Hall of Fame.
• Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History
Abigail Smith Adams (1744-1818)
Born: Weymouth, MA
Parents– Rev. William Smith• Liberal
Congregationalist
– Elizabeth Quincy
Abigail Smith Adams (1744-1818)1764– Marriage to John Adams– Third cousins• John: 29• Abigail: 20
Letters– Circuit Judge– Continental Congresses (1774 – 1789)
Abigail Smith Adams (1744-1818)
Abigail Adams– Adams’ farm and law
practice– Scandalous!
• Managed investments without John’s approval
• Bond speculator
– 1785: “this money which I call mine”
Abigail Smith Adams (1744-1818)
Catherine Macaulay (1731 –1791)Born: Catherine Sawbridge in Kent, England
•atharine Graham
•"a thoughtless girl till she was twenty, at which time she contracted a taste for books and knowledge by reading an odd volume of some history, which she picked up in a window of her father's house".
– Letter from Macaulay to Benjamin Rush
Catherine Macaulay (1731 –1791)
Born: – Catherine Sawbridge – Kent, England
1760: – married George Macaulay
1778– William Graham– She was 47; he was 21
Catherine Macaulay (1731 –1791)
"a thoughtless girl till she was twenty, at which time she contracted a taste for books and knowledge by reading an odd volume of some history, which she picked up in a window of her father's house".– Letter from Macaulay to
Benjamin Rush
Catherine Macaulay (1731 –1791)
The History of England from the Accession of James I to that of the Brunswick Line.– 8 volumes written between 1763 and 1783– British history: • Constant struggle for virtue and liberty not yet achieved• Win back rights crushed by “Norman yoke”
– Critically acclaimed, financially successful and politically influential in her own period.
– Played a significant role in the formation of revolutionary ideology
Catherine Macaulay (1731 –1791)
Letters on Education with Observations on Religions and Metaphysical Subjects (1790)– Apparent weakness of women
was due to their “mis-education”
– Mary Wollstonecraft• British writer, philosopher, and
advocate of women's rights. • A Vindication of the Rights of
Women (1792)
Revolutionary Women
Abigail Smith Adams (1744-1818)
• Education– Regretted own lack for formal education– Women should educate themselves and be
recognized for their intellectual capabilities
• Liberty– Slavery was evil and threat to American democracy– Women should not be subject to laws they did not
have a say in making
Abigail Smith Adams (1744-1818)
Mercy Otis Warren (1728–1814)
• Propagandist for the Revolution– Correspondence– Plays– Pamphlets– Poetry
Mercy Otis Warren (1728–1814)
• Correspondence– Abigail Adams– Catherine Macaulay– Martha Washington– Hannah Winthrop– John Adams– Samuel Adams– John Hancock– Patrick Henry– Thomas Jefferson– George Washington
Mercy Otis Warren (1728–1814)
• Plays– 1772: The Adulateur
• Directed against MA governor, Thomas Hutchinson• Foretold the Revolution
– 1773: The Defeat• Anti-Hutchinson
– 1775: The Group• Satire re: abrogation of MA charter of rights
– 1776: The Blockheads– 1779: The Motley Assembly
Mercy Otis Warren (1728–1814)
• Post Revolutionary Writings– 1788: Observations on the New Constitution
• Opposed ratification– 1790: Poems, Dramatic and Miscellaneous
• The Sack of Rome and The Ladies of Castille– Liberty– Social and moral values needed for the new republic
– 1805: History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution• Jefferson• Adams
Mercy Otis Warren (1728–1814)
• Women
– Advanced rights/education– – “Domestic sphere”
Statue dedicated to Warren. Erected July 4, 2001 in Barnstable, MA
