1st Woman Clipper Ship Commander Mary Ann Brown Patten 1837 -1861

First Woman Clipper Ship Commander

Mary Ann Brown Patten was the first woman commander of an American Merchant Vessel at the age of nineteen. Her husband, the ship’s captain, was severely ill with fever, & the first mate was attempting to incite a mutiny among the crewmen. Her clipper ship Neptune’s Car was ten thousand miles away from its starting point at New York when she faced the unforgiving winds of Cape Horn on the southern tip of South America. And then on to San Francisco, where clients were waiting for her cargo.

Mary Ann Brown married sea captain Joshua Patten in 1853 when she was 16. He was 25, & was ferrying cargo & passengers from New York to Boston. In 1854, Joshua Patten was offered the chance to sail the merchant ship Neptune’s Car from New York to San Francisco, through Cape Horn, one of the most dangerous straits in the Western Hemisphere. Reluctant to abandon his young wife, Joshua received permission to bring Mary along on the voyage. With just a matter of hours to prepare, the couple departed on their first trip together.

Neptune’s Car was a clipper ship measuring 216 feet long, 40 feet wide & more than 23 feet tall. During the voyage, Joshua taught Mary the basics of navigation, meteorology, the ropes & sails, & other seamen’s duties. Mary had received an excellent education from her well-to-do Boston family, &, with little else to occupy the long days at sea, she looked after her husband & began to study navigation in depth. The trip was uneventful.

A Friendly Race

Along the New York waterfront on July 1, 1856, as the ship was prepared for departure, temperatures were in the upper 90s by noon as sailors sluggishly prepared their vessels to head out to open water & cooler temperatures away from shore. Captain Patten was boasting that his ship would race against the clippers Intrepid & Romance of the Seas from New York to California. Typically a four-month, 15,000-mile journey, he claimed that he would make it in less than 100 days. Since the captain had a reputation for fast voyages, he was the instant favorite to win.

A clipper was a very fast sailing ship used primarily in the middle third of the 19th century. They were yacht-like vessels with three masts & a square rig. They were generally narrow for their length & had a large total sail area. Clippers sailed all over the world, primarily on the trade routes between the United Kingdom & its colonies in the east, in trans-Atlantic trade, & the New York-to-San Francisco route round Cape Horn during the California Gold Rush.

Clipper Ship

However, everyone would soon learn that Patten’s first mate had severely fractured his leg & was unable to sail. The ship’s owners, Foster & Nickerson Company, refused to delay the voyage until Captain Patten could find a suitable replacement. Their valuable cargo of machinery & supplies for the California gold-mining camps could not wait, & they were guaranteed high profits if the ship arrived in San Francisco quickly. Foster & Nickerson signed a man named Keeler as a substitute first mate & demanded Neptune’s Car leave on time.

The captain’s attractive 19-year-old wife, Mary Ann Brown Patten, was slender & petite with long brown hair & dark eyes. A small crowd gathered along the wharf to watch as the harbor pilot boarded Neptune’s Car as it was towed down the East River past Sandy Hook, New Jersey. The few women standing on the wharf waved goodbye to the girl who stood on the ship’s deck. Unbeknownst to all except her husband, Mary was pregnant with their first child.

When the ship was safely away from the docks, the harbor pilot departed, & Captain Patten ordered his men to hoist the sails. Romance of the Seas had left the day before & Intrepid was close behind. With Mary by his side on the quarterdeck, Captain Joshua Patten believed he could win the race. Any man would be proud to command Neptune’s Car. Long & sleek, the clipper was 216 feet long, had a 40-foot beam & could carry 1,616 tons of cargo. The tallest of its three masts stretched 20 feet above the deck, & it carried 25 sails, the largest of which spread some 70 feet across.

A thicket of masts & rigging rises above vessels docked at New York’s East River wharves, From here Neptune’s Car was towed downriver past Sandy Hook, New Jersey, where it began its fateful journey around Cape Horn & on to San Francisco.

Clipper ships had been used in worldwide commerce for many years. However, the discovery of gold in California in 1848 guaranteed clippers a prominent place in the American shipping industry. Fueled by the influx of gold miners, the booming economy of West Coast promised huge profits to companies that could supply food & supplies to that area in a timely manner. In 1851, Captain Josiah Cressy of the clipper Flying Cloud set an all-time record of only 89 days from New York, around Cape Horn & into San Francisco, which inspired & challenged other captains taking that route.

A captain might earn $3,000 for a successful voyage, but if he could complete it in less than 100 days, he would be entitled to as much as $5,000. Captain Patten’s fastest time around the Horn was 100 days & 23 hours. It was a respectable passage, but he hoped to shorten it considerably. This would require expert navigation, favorable winds & a devoted crew.

It is understandable then that Joshua was incensed when he caught his first mate, Mr. Keeler sleeping on his watch several times & slowing the ship down by leaving the sails reefed. Patten ordered the man confined below deck. The action reinforced the captain’s authority over Neptune’s crew; but it created another problem. The second mate did not possess the navigational skills to perform the duties of the first mate. Therefore, as the ship’s only remaining professional navigator, Captain Patten assumed Mr. Keeler’s work in addition to his own.

Joshua’s Health Fails

To ensure that the ship remained on course, Captain Patten did not leave the ship’s deck for eight days & nights. Exhausted from lack of sleep, he began to feel ill but continued to perform his duties. As the ship began to approach the most dangerous part of its 15,000-mile journey, the captain collapsed on deck. His condition had not been up to par before this insult to his health, & he was soon very ill with fever, what they called at the time brain fever.

Crewmen found him & carried him below to his bunk. As they struggled to lay him down he struggled violently, out of his head with fever. As the ship rolled heavily from side to side, Mary had the men tie her husband to his bed to keep him from being thrown about the cabin. His condition worsened, & he suffered periods of blindness & deafness. Mary sponged his forehead with cool water & endured his ravings. While he was sleeping, she searched through the ship’s medical books, attempting to find a cause & treatment for his symptoms.

From his prison below deck, the bitter first mate also realized that the ship required a skilled navigator if it were to survive. The New York Daily Tribune would later report:

About one week after the Captain fell sick, the mate wrote a letter to Mrs. Patten, reminding her of the dangers of the coast & the great responsibility she had assumed, & offering to take charge of the ship. She replied that, in the judgment of her husband, he was unfit to be first mate, & therefore could not be considered qualified to fill the post of commander.

Mutiny on Neptune’s Car

The first mate was enraged; when crewmen brought him food & water, Mr. Keeler tried to convince them to join him in a mutiny against Mary Patten. She heard the terrifyng rumors of the first mate’s plot, & she feared desperation might place the crew at his mercy. She could not let that happen. The New York Times later published this report:

Mrs. Patten assembled the sailors upon the quarter-deck & explained to them the helpless condition of her husband, at the same time appealing to them to stand by her & the second mate. To this appeal each man responded by a promise to obey her in every command. … Mrs. P., without a rival, directed every movement on board.

Captain Mary Patten

Mary Ann Brown Patten took command of Neptune’s Car. Nineteen years old & pregnant, she became the first woman in United States history to command a commercial merchant vessel. Her untested skills might not be enough to right the ship, but she refused to sacrifice the $300,000 cargo entrusted to them. With the first mate still confined below & Joshua in a feverish haze, responsibility for the ship fell on Mary. For 50 days she commanded the ship & wore the same clothes.

Cape Horn

The Foster & Nickerson Company had deliberately scheduled a July departure from New York that would allow Neptune’s Car to pass around Cape Horn just as spring arrived in the Southern Hemisphere. But winter conditions still prevailed over the region. As the clipper approached the southern tip of South America, fifty-foot waves & 100-mile-per-hour winds began slamming against the ship. Mother Nature seemed determined to batter the clipper against the 600-foot-high cliffs of Cape Horn’s jagged coastline.

The sky darkened into a swirling mass of clouds, wind & rain. Not sure of their exact location, Mary Patten decided their only chance for survival was to temporarily abandon the westward course. Hoping for more favorable conditions elsewhere, she ordered the ship to sail south-southeast instead. Running with the wind instead of against it, the Neptune quickly escaped the dangers of Cape Horn.

When Mary was not on deck, she was below nursing her husband. His high fever was her primary concern. She shaved his head in an effort to bring his body temperature down, but nothing helped. His only hope for recovery was treatment by a trained physician.

The day after Neptune’s Car began its escape from the violence of Cape Horn, the seas became calmer & sunlight broke through the clouds. Finally able to use the sextant, Mary determined that the ship was 250 miles southeast of Cape Horn. She ordered Neptune westward again, & the men climbed the rigging to set the sails.

Soon after, however, a 15-year-old lookout in the crow’s nest noticed an odd haze surrounding the clouds off the ship’s port side. Crewmen who had survived previous voyages around the Horn knew that meant icebergs. The men scrambled back up the rigging to take in the sails & slow Neptune’s progress, knowing that one wrong move & Neptune’s Car would be lost. For four days & nights, Mary Patten & her crew carefully maneuvered their vessel through narrow channels between the islands of ice. Eighteen days after Mary asked the crewmen to give her command of their ship, she safely completed its westward passage around Cape Horn.

The foul weather was behind them now. The ship made good time northbound off the South American coast. The journey continued without further incident until San Francisco was only a few days away, when the wind stopped blowing. For 10 hot days, the ship barely moved. Mary could only sit on the motionless ship & pray for wind.

San Francisco at Last

When the vessel finally arrived in San Francisco, Mary was at the helm & navigated the ship into the port on November 15, 1856. She noted in her log that the trip from New York to San Francisco had taken 136 days – 4 1/2 months. The vessel’s second mate shouted a demand for help in lifting Captain Patten onto a stretcher. The proud captain appeared thin & frail, & his face was ghostly gray. Dockworkers were even more curious by the appearance of a forlorn young woman amongst the all-male crew. From the roundness of her midsection, she was about six months pregnant, but she stayed near Patten’s litter as he was carried to a hospital.

Instant Celebrity

During the next few days, unbelievable rumors spread throughout San Francisco that Captain Joshua Patten’s teenage wife had navigated the great Neptune’s Car around Cape Horn & across 5,000 miles of open ocean. Newspapers around the world began to confirm those rumors. Eager reporters as far away as London began piecing together the sad but inspiring tale. The New York Daily Times gave Mary credit for keeping her husband alive during the voyage. Of the three vessels that left New York at the same time as Neptune’s Car, Mary had beaten all but one of them to San Francisco.

When the word spread of how she had nursed her husband, navigated the ship & protected the vessel’s cargo, all at the age of 19, she was an instant celebrity. The New York companies that had insured the ship & its cargo sent Mary a reward check for $1,000 & a note of thanks. Newspaper reporters who had followed the story were not impressed with the “generosity.” The New York Daily Times, April 1,1857, sarcastically proclaimed: “One thousand dollars to a heroine… from the charitable & grateful hands of eight insurance companies with capitals large enough to insure a navy… .”

Neptune’s Car‘s owners hired another captain to sail the ship back to New York. As Joshua struggled for his life in a local hospital, the Pattens were left to find their own way back to the East Coast.

In January 1857, the Pattens finally began the arduous two-month return to Boston by way of Panama. Joshua was a Mason, & he thankfully received assistance from the California Masonic Temple, which sent someone to accompany him back to New York & then on to Boston. His condition worsened significantly on the steamships & railroads that transported him home. Their baby, Joshua Adams Patten Jr. was born on March 10, 1857, 2 1/2 weeks after Mary & Joshua had arrived in Boston.

Captain Joshua Patten would never recover. The disease rendered him blind, deaf & incoherent; he never knew that Mary had given birth to a son. He died of tuberculosis on July 25, 1857 at the age of 30. The city of Boston observed a period of mourning by flying harbor flags at half-mast & ringing church bells. The Boston Courier newspaper set up a fund, giving her $1399 to help defray the costs of caring for her husband.

For the next four years, Mary lived in Boston’s North End with her mother & son. On March 15, 1861, Mary Ann Brown Patten also died of tuberculosis at the age of 24.

Young men & women training at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in King’s Point, New York are reminded of Mary Patten’s courage at sea when they pass Patten Hospital, named in honor of America’s first female merchant vessel commander.  

Women Flower Sellers - 19C US Womens Work

Flowers are the mementoes of an earthly paradise. They are said to be “the alphabet of angels, whereby they write mysterious things”- the mysteries of God's love & goodness. Earth would be a wilderness without them. 

Girls sell flowers most profitably at opera houses, theatres, & other places of amusement. They buy of those who devote themselves to the raising of flowers, & arrange them into bouquets. A number dispose of flowers on Broadway; &, summer before last, I observed a French woman at the Atlantic ferry selling bouquets to people waiting for the boat. 

A florist told me he disposes of flowers to girls who make up bouquets & sell them. One of them pays $500 rent for her room. It yields a handsome profit when a person has a good stand. He would like a stand at the opera house, but a great many others are looking forward to it. Some pay for the privilege, .others obtain it by being known to the managers. 

I was told by a man who supplies bouquets that he pays to florists from $8 to $10 a day for flowers, & then makes up his own bouquets. I have been told that at some hotels in Germany, girls pass around the table at dinner, & give bouquets. Such recipients as feel disposed, pay a small sum. 

From The Employments of Women: A Cyclopaedia of Woman's Work by Virginia Panny Published Boston, MA. by Walker, Wise & Company. 1863 

Editor's Note; Actually, women had been selling flowers in the streets in England & Europe for centuries.

General Bibliography

Boorstin, Daniel. The Americans: The Democratic Experience. New York:Random House, 1973.

Clinton, Catherine. The Other Civil War: American Women in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Hill and Wang, 1984.

Cott, Nancy. A Heritage of Her Own: Toward a New Social History of Women. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979.

Cott Nancy. History of Women in the United States, Part 6, Working the Land. New York: K. G. Saur, 1992.

Degler, Carl. At Odds: Women and the Family from Revolution to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.

Green, Harvey. The Light of the Home: An Intimate View of the Lives of Women in Victorian America. New York: Pantheon Books, 1983.

Juster, Norton. So Sweet to Labor: Rural Women in America 1865-1895. New York: The Viking Press, 1979.

Kessler-Harris, Alice. Out to Work: A History of Wage Earning Women in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982

Mintz, Stephen and Susan Kellogg. Domestic Revolutions: A Social History of American Family Life. New York: Free Press; London: Collier Macmillan, 1988.

Ryan, Mary P. Womanhood in America front he Colonial Times to the Present. New York: F. Watts, 1983.

Smith-Rosenberg, Caroll. Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Strasser, Susan. Never Done: A History of American Housework. New York Pantheon Books, 1982.

Welter, Barbara. Dimity Convictions : the American Woman in the Nineteenth Century. Athens : Ohio University Press, 1976.

Timeline of the Fight for All Women’s Right to Vote

19th Amendment: A Timeline of the Fight for All Women’s Right to Vote

By: Sarah Pruitt Updated: History.com July 23, 2024

1848 - Senecca Falls

The Seneca Falls Convention was the 1st women's rights convention in the United States, held in Seneca Falls, New York on July 19–20, 1848. The convention is considered the birthplace of American feminism & launched the women's suffrage movement.

Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton & other participants at the inaugural women’s rights convention at Seneca Falls adopt the Declaration of Sentiments, which calls for equality for women & includes a resolution that women should seek the right to vote. The suffrage resolution passes by a narrow margin, helped along by the support of the famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass, an early ally of women’s rights activists.

1869 - Wyoming Passes Women's Suffrage Law

Tensions erupt within the women’s rights movement over the recently ratified 14th Amendment & the proposed 15th Amendment, which would give the vote to Black men, but not women. Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony found the National Woman Suffrage Association to focus on fighting for a women’s suffrage amendment to the Constitution, while Lucy Stone & other more conservative suffragists favor lobbying for voting rights on a state-by-state basis.

1872 - Suffragists Arrested for Voting in NY

Anthony & more than a dozen other women are arrested in Rochester, New York after illegally voting in the presidential election. Anthony unsuccessfully fought the charges, & the court fined her $100, which she never paid.

1878 - California Senate Drafts Amendment

Senator Aaron Sargent of California introduces a women’s suffrage amendment to the U.S. Senate for the first time. Drafted by Stanton & Anthony, it reads: “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.” (When Congress passes the amendment 41 years later, the wording will remain unchanged.)

1890 - NAWSA Forms

The two sides of the women’s movement reunite, forming the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). With Stanton as president, the organization focuses on a state-by-state fight for voting rights.

1896 - Black Suffragists Organize National Group

A group of women including Harriet Tubman, Frances E.W. Harper, Ida B. Wells-Barnett & Mary Church Terrell form the National Association of Colored Women Clubs (NACWC). In addition to women’s enfranchisement, the organization advocates for equal pay, educational opportunities, job training & access to child care for Black women.

Early 1900s - Black Suffragists Barred from Conventions

African-American women fighting for the right to vote continue to face discrimination from white suffragists, especially as the latter group seeks support in Southern states. In 1901 & 1903, the NAWSA conventions in Atlanta & New Orleans bar Black suffragists from attending.

1913 - Alice Paul Creates Militant Group

Alice Paul, vice president of the National Women's party, broadcasts plans for the dedication of the new national headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Impatient with the pace of the state-by-state fight for suffrage, Alice Paul & Lucy Burns break from NAWSA & found the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage (later the National Woman’s Party) to press for federal action. Inspired by the tactics of Great Britain’s more militant suffragists, Paul leads a protest march of some 5,000 to 10,000 women in Washington, D.C. on the day of Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration.

1916 - Jeanette Rankin Elected to Congress

1917- The Night of Terror: When Suffragists Were Imprisoned & Tortured in 1917

After peacefully demonstrating in front of the White House, 33 women endured a night of brutal beatings.

Congresswoman Jeannette Rankin is presented with the flag that flew at the House of Representatives during the passage of the suffrage amendment, 1918.

Jeanette Rankin of Montana, a former NAWSA lobbyist, becomes the first woman elected to Congress. With the U.S. entrance into World War I, NAWSA president Carrie Chapman Catt commits the organization to working toward the war effort. Paul & others take a different approach, holding peaceful protests outside the White House calling for Wilson to support women’s suffrage. Many of the protesters are arrested & jailed for obstructing sidewalk traffic; Paul & others undertake hunger strikes to bring attention to their cause.

On November 14, 1917, guards at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia beat & terrorize 33 women arrested for picketing, an ordeal that will become known as the “Night of Terror.”

1918 - President Wilson Changes Position, Supports Suffrage

In January 1918, Rep. Rankin opens debate in the House of Representatives on a Constitutional amendment guaranteeing women’s suffrage. The House votes in favor, but the amendment fails to win a two-thirds majority in the Senate. In a speech to Congress in September, President Wilson officially changes his position to support a federal women’s suffrage amendment.

1919 - House, Senate Pass Amendment, Ratification Effort Begins

On May 21, 1919, the House again passes what would become the 19th Amendment, popularly known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment. The Senate follows suit on June 4 by a narrow margin (just over the two-thirds requirement), & it goes to the states to be ratified. Ratification requires 36 states, or three-quarters of those in the Union at the time.

Eleven states—Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Kansas, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Texas, Iowa & Missouri—vote to ratify by late July 1919. On July 24, Georgia’s state legislature becomes the first to vote against ratification, thanks to a determined anti-suffrage effort in the Peach State. (Georgia won’t formally ratify the 19th Amendment until 1970.) The “antis” draw strength from powerful business interests including the railroad, liquor & manufacturing industries, as well as religious & conservative groups.

By year’s end, Alabama becomes the second state to vote against ratification, while state legislatures in Arkansas, Montana, Nebraska, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Utah, California, Maine, North Dakota, South Dakota & Colorado have all voted to ratify the amendment. Suffragists are 14 states short of their target.

January 1920 - Five More States Ratify

The first month of the new decade brings ratification from Kentucky, Rhode Island, Oregon, Indiana & Wyoming, & rejection from South Carolina.

March 1920 - 35 States Ratify, One More Needed

By the end of March, Virginia, Maryland & Mississippi have also voted against ratification. But Nevada, New Jersey, Idaho, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, West Virginia & Washington ratify, bringing the total to 35 states—one short of the goal needed for the amendment to become law.

June 1920 - Delaware’s Vote Against Ratification Strikes a Blow

Delaware’s vote to reject ratification shocks suffragists, & deals a serious blow to their momentum. Suddenly, the fate of the suffrage amendment appears in doubt. Anti-suffrage sentiment runs high in most of the states left to vote: State legislatures in Connecticut, Vermont, Florida decline to consider the amendment, leaving only North Carolina & Tennessee, with North Carolina sure to reject.

August 1920 - Tennessee Provides Final Vote for Ratification

Called into special session, the Tennessee state legislature meets to decide the fate of the women’s suffrage amendment. Catt & other prominent national “Suffs” travel to Nashville to personally lobby legislators for weeks, as do “Anti-Suffs” determined to keep women from gaining the vote. In the so-called “War of the Roses,” supporters of suffrage wear white roses, while their opponents don red ones.

The Tennessee Senate votes to ratify, but the vote is tied in the House—until one legislator, Harry Burns, changes his vote after receiving a letter from his mother urging him to vote for women’s suffrage. On August 18, 1920, one day after the North Carolina legislature rejects the suffrage amendment by two votes, Tennessee becomes the 36th state to ratify.

By the time the final battle over ratification of the 19th Amendment occurred in Nash ville, Tennessee in the summer of 1920, 72 years had passed since the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York. More than 20 nations around the world had granted women the right to vote, along with 15 states, more than half of them in the West. 

1924 - Native Americans Recognized as Citizens

Four years after the 19th Amendment is ratified, passage of the Snyder Act (aka the Indian Citizenship Act) makes Native Americans U.S. citizens for the first time. But many Native American women (& men) were still effectively barred from voting for the next four decades, until Utah became the last state to extend full voting rights to Native Americans in 1962.

1965 - Voting Rights Act Protects All Citizens’ Right to Vote

After a century of struggle by Black women (& men) against poll taxes, literacy tests & other discriminatory state voting laws, President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act into law on August 6, 1965. The biggest legislative achievement of the civil rights movement, the bill protects all citizens’ right to vote under the 14th & 15th Amendments.

1984 - Mississippi Becomes Last US State to Ratify 19th Amendment

Mississippi formally ratifies the 19th Amendment on March 22, 1984, becoming the last U.S. state to do so. 

Women Working Outside the Home in the USA by the 1860s:

 Women Working Outside the Home in the USA by the 1860s: 

The 1860s marked a significant shift in the roles and opportunities available to women in the United States. For much of early American history, women were largely confined to domestic roles, responsible for managing households, raising children, and supporting their husbands. However, by the mid-19th century, several social, economic, and political changes began to open new pathways for women to enter the workforce. These changes would lay the foundation for the women's labor movements and societal transformations that followed. The Civil War, industrialization, urbanization, and the evolving educational opportunities for women all contributed to this dramatic shift. This essay examines the factors that led women to work outside the home by the 1860s, the types of jobs they took on, and the long-term implications of this societal change.

Factors Leading to Women Entering the Workforce

Industrialization and Urbanization

The advent of industrialization in the early 19th century played a key role in shifting the nature of work in America. Factories and industries, particularly in the North, began to flourish, and these industries needed labor. The textile mills in places like Lowell, Massachusetts, were among the first to employ women in significant numbers. By the 1830s and 1840s, "mill girls," primarily young, unmarried women from rural areas, had become a familiar sight in these factories.

Industrialization did more than just create new job opportunities; it also shifted the location of work. While many families had previously worked together in agricultural settings or small-scale home-based production (like weaving or sewing), industrialization moved work outside the home and into factories. This created a demand for wage labor and separated the workplace from the domestic sphere, making it more acceptable for women to enter this new, waged economy.

Impact of the Civil War

The Civil War (1861–1865) had a profound impact on women's work. As men left their homes to fight, many women had to take over traditionally male responsibilities both at home and in the workforce. In the North, women filled positions left vacant by men in factories, shops, and even offices. Women also began working in government roles, particularly in clerical positions that emerged with the growing bureaucratic needs of the war effort.

Women in the South faced different circumstances. With the collapse of the Confederacy and the devastation of the Southern economy, many Southern women—particularly widows and those from formerly wealthy families—were forced to seek work to support themselves. This further expanded the types of jobs women entered, although much of this labor was low-wage and precarious.

Education and Changing Social Attitudes

Education also began to play a key role in women’s transition to the workforce. The Second Great Awakening (1790s–1840s) and the accompanying rise of evangelical Protestantism emphasized the moral superiority of women and their role as moral educators. This philosophy helped fuel the spread of public education and the feminization of the teaching profession by the 1850s. The expansion of schooling created a growing need for teachers, and the job was seen as an extension of women’s domestic roles. Teaching became one of the first respected professions for middle-class women outside the home.

In addition, the women's rights movement, spearheaded by figures like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, began challenging traditional gender norms and advocating for greater educational and economic opportunities for women. The Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 had called for women’s equality in various spheres of life, and though progress was slow, these ideas began to take root, influencing social attitudes toward women's work.

Types of Jobs Women Took On

Factory Work

By the 1860s, a growing number of women worked in factories, especially in the textile industry. In factories like those in Lowell, Massachusetts, young women worked long hours in difficult conditions. Many of these women were drawn to factory work as a means of gaining independence or contributing to their family’s income. However, the wages were low, and the work was often repetitive and hazardous.

Teaching

Teaching had become one of the few professional roles considered respectable for women. Women were seen as natural educators, capable of imparting moral values to children. While the teaching profession offered women some degree of independence and respectability, it also reinforced traditional gender roles, as women were often paid significantly less than their male counterparts and were expected to leave the profession upon marriage.

Nursing

The Civil War opened the door for women to serve as nurses, both formally and informally. Figures like Clara Barton, who founded the American Red Cross, and Dorothea Dix played prominent roles in organizing women to care for wounded soldiers. Nursing, like teaching, was seen as an extension of women’s nurturing roles, but it also allowed women to step into public life in unprecedented ways.

Clerical Work

In the 1860s, the rise of clerical work, especially in government, provided another avenue for women to work outside the home. The expansion of bureaucracy during and after the Civil War created a demand for clerical labor, and women, seen as being meticulous and organized, were often employed as typists, secretaries, and clerks. This was one of the earliest instances of women moving into office-based work, a trend that would grow significantly in the coming decades.

Challenges and Resistance

While the 1860s saw significant increases in women working outside the home, this shift was not without challenges. Women who worked outside the home faced societal resistance, as prevailing ideologies of the time continued to stress the importance of domesticity and women's primary role as caretakers. Factory work, in particular, was often seen as degrading, and many women were subjected to harsh working conditions and exploitation.

Moreover, working-class women faced significant economic hardship. While they might have entered the workforce in larger numbers, the wages they earned were typically insufficient to support a family. In many cases, women’s earnings were seen as supplementary to the male breadwinner’s income, reinforcing the idea that women’s work was less valuable.

Long-Term Implications

The emergence of women in the workforce in the 1860s set the stage for the broader labor and women’s rights movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Women's participation in the workforce during the Civil War, combined with the growing acceptance of women in professions like teaching and nursing, challenged traditional gender roles and began to change societal expectations. By the early 20th century, women's labor activism and suffrage movements would build on the foundations laid in the 1860s, eventually leading to greater economic and political rights for women.

The 1860s marked a turning point in the history of women’s labor in the United States. Industrialization, the Civil War, and changing social attitudes toward education and gender roles all contributed to a gradual acceptance of women working outside the home. While women continued to face significant challenges and societal resistance, their entry into the workforce during this period laid the groundwork for the broader transformations that would follow. As women moved into factory work, teaching, nursing, and clerical positions, they began to claim a more active role in public life and the economy, setting the stage for the labor and feminist movements of the 20th century.

Bibliography

Books:

Cott, Nancy F. The Bonds of Womanhood: "Woman's Sphere" in New England, 1780-1835. Yale University Press, 1977.

Evans, Sara M. Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America. Free Press, 1989.

Gamber, Wendy. The Female Economy: The Millinery and Dressmaking Trades, 1860–1930. University of Illinois Press, 1997.

Ginzberg, Lori D. Women and the Work of Benevolence: Morality, Politics, and Class in the Nineteenth-Century United States. Yale University Press, 1990.

Kessler-Harris, Alice. Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States. Oxford University Press, 1982.

Lerner, Gerda. The Woman in American History. Addison-Wesley, 1971.

McMillen, Sally G. Seneca Falls and the Origins of the Women’s Rights Movement. Oxford University Press, 2008.

Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher. Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750. Knopf, 1982.

Articles:

Boydston, Jeanne. "To Earn Her Daily Bread: Housework and Antebellum Working-Class Subsistence." Radical History Review, vol. 35, 1986, pp. 7-25.

Dudden, Faye E. "The Rise of Domestic Service in Urban America." The American Historical Review, vol. 90, no. 5, 1985, pp. 1093-1117.

Kessler-Harris, Alice. "Where Are the Organized Women Workers?" Feminist Studies, vol. 3, no. 1/2, 1975, pp. 92-110.

Schwalm, Leslie A. "A Hard Fight for We: Women’s Transition from Slavery to Freedom in South Carolina." The Journal of Women’s History, vol. 1, no. 1, 1989, pp. 11-14.

Scharf, Lois. "The Ladies' War Workers: American Women in Transition." The Historian, vol. 37, no. 1, 1974, pp. 51-70.

Stansell, Christine. "Women, Children, and Wage Labor: New York City, 1900-1860." Feminist Studies, vol. 8, no. 2, 1982, pp. 235-270.

Tilly, Louise A., and Joan W. Scott. "Women’s Work and the Family in Nineteenth-Century Europe." Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 17, no. 1, 1975, pp. 36-64.

USA Women Fight To Vote - 19th Amendment

In colonial British America, men were considered superior to woman in all ways. In a strict patriarchal hierarchy, men controlled not only wealth & political power but also how their wives served them, how their children were raised, family religious questions, & had the final say in all matters of right & wrong.

In the early part of the 19C, however, many Americans experienced a revolution in gender. The doctrine of “separate spheres” maintained that woman’s sphere was the world of privacy, family, & morality, while man’s sphere was becoming the public world -– economic striving, political maneuvering, & social competition. But women were becoming interested in equality.

In 1848, New York passed the Married Woman’s Property Act. Now a woman wasn’t automatically liable for her husband’s debts; she could enter contracts on her own; she could collect rents or receive an inheritance in her own right; she could file a lawsuit on her own behalf. She became for economic purposes, an individual. By 1900, every state has passed legislation modeled after this, granting married women some control over their property & earnings.

In 1870 after the Civi War, the 15th Amendment was ratified, saying, “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 race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” African-Americans could vote, but women could not.

But it was not until 1920, that the 19th Amendment was ratified granting women the right to vote. Passed by Congress June 4, 1919, & ratified on August 18, 1920, the 19th amendment granted women the right to vote.“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.”

The 19th amendment legally guarantees American women the right to vote. Achieving this milestone required a lengthy & difficult struggle—victory took decades of agitation & protest. Beginning in the mid-19th century, several generations of woman suffrage supporters lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied, & practiced civil disobedience to achieve what many Americans considered a radical change of the Constitution. Few early supporters lived to see final victory in 1920.

Beginning in the 1800s, women organized, petitioned, & picketed to win the right to vote, but it took them decades to accomplish their purpose. Between 1878, when the amendment was 1st introduced in Congress, & August 18, 1920, when it was ratified, champions of voting rights for women worked tirelessly, but strategies for achieving their goal varied. 

Some pursued a strategy of passing suffrage acts in each state - 9 western states adopted woman suffrage legislation by 1912. Others challenged male-only voting laws in the courts. Some suffragists used more confrontational tactics such as picketing, silent vigils, & hunger strikes. Often supporters met fierce resistance. Male opponents heckled, jailed, & sometimes physically abused them.

By 1916, almost all of the major suffrage organizations were united behind the goal of a constitutional amendment. When the state of New York adopted woman suffrage in 1917 & President Wilson changed his position to support an amendment in 1918, the political balance began to shift.

On May 21, 1919, the House of Representatives passed the amendment, & 2 weeks later, the Senate followed. When Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the amendment on August 18, 1920, the amendment passed its final hurdle of obtaining the agreement of three-fourths of the states. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the ratification on August 26, 1920, hopefully changing the face of the American electorate forever.

The campaign for woman suffrage was long, difficult, & sometimes dramatic; yet ratification did not ensure full enfranchisement. Decades of struggle to include African Americans & other minority women in the promise of voting rights remained. Many women remained unable to vote long into the 20th century because of discriminatory state voting laws.Transcript

See The National Archives

Sixty-sixth Congress of the United States of America; At the First Session,

Begun and held at the City of Washington on Monday, the nineteenth day of May, one thousand nine hundred and nineteen.

JOINT RESOLUTION

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution extending the right of suffrage to women.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislature of three-fourths of the several States.

"ARTICLE 

"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

Clerical Worker - 19C US Womens Work

In 1885, a young, single, white, native-born woman named Isabel Wallace did something that was still considered quite unusual in its time; she took a job as a clerical worker in Chicago.  Isabel, who lived with her mother and apparently needed to help supplement the small family's income, took a temporary position as a copyist in an office in Chicago, where her uncle already worked. (Copyists copied letters & other important documents into large ledger books in the era before typewriters, carbon paper, & photocopying.) 

Even though Isabel was grateful for the job, she expressed some anxiety writing to her mother. "The desks are comfortable, the chairs, etc. light, good, and the room well heated," & "there seemed a pleasant set of ladies," but, "I felt like somebody else all day. Out of my element and sphere somehow. It made me feel less womanly and somehow as if I was doing something I didn't approve of. I suppose it's because it's in the Court House and in an office."

Throughout much of the19C the image of a clerk was a man. But, by the end of the 19C century in large cities like Chicago this association began to change & young women like Isabel Wallace were in part responsible. When Isabel Wallace penned these lines to her mother, she probably did not realize that she was a pioneer & that her painful & tentative steps into the office would help not only to change office work into woman's work, but also initiate a transformation of urban spaces in cities like Chicago, making the city more accommodating to women's daily presence. Young women like Isabel Wallace helped to open up an array of office jobs to women workers, & woman's work in the city, for better or for worse, would never be the same.

In Isabel's day, office work was very different than we think of it today, especially because it was still primarily a man's job. Before the widespread use of the typewriter (during the 1890s) & its association with stenography, most office workers were copyists, file clerks, & bookkeepers. In 1880 in Chicago, almost 90 percent of the 1,120 office workers listed in the census were male. The huge increase in the number of Cgicago office workers between 1880 & 1890 (from 1,120 to 41, 015), due to the creation of the position stenographer/typist, doubled women's percentage of the office work labor force to 21 percent. And this started an unstoppable trend. By 1920, the number of office workers in the city approached 200,000, with women comprising half of the labor force.   See The Office Northern Illinois University 

In 1863. Virginia Panny wrote that stenographers are employed to write from dictation, generally by authors. Prescott, who was nearly blind for several years, employed one or more. Editors whose papers have an extensive circulation, sometimes require the services of an amanuensis. 

Female secretaries, or writers out of books, were not unusual in Rome. "Origen," says Eusebius, "had not only young men, but young women to transcribe his works, which they did with peculiar neatness." 

Some persons in London (whose employment, perhaps, scarcely brings them under this title, yet we know not where else to place them) make it a business to write letters for beggars, for which they are paid a small sum by each applicant. 

Stenographers or office workers are usually employed by the week, month, or year. Some education is of course necessary, and will doubtless influence their pay. Experience increases their value still more; and those who have to exercise their brains, are of course best paid. 

I have been told by competent authority, that amanuenses are usually paid according to agreement; that authors of distinction can afford to pay a good price, and that the most common salary is $600.

See The Employments of Women: A Cyclopaedia of Woman's Work by Virginia Panny Published Boston, MA. by Walker, Wise & Company. 1863

1856 Gentility for Proper American Ladies

 
The Lady’s Guide to Perfect Gentility etc. By Emily Thornwell (New York: Derby & Jackson, Published 1856) 

Etiquette Lesson #1: Gait & Carriage

A lady ought to adopt a modest & intentionally measured gait; too great hurry can injure the grace which ought to characterize her. She should not turn her head on one side & on the other, especially in large towns or cities, where this bad habit seems to be an invitation to the impertinent. A lady should not present herself alone in a library, or a museum, unless to study, or work as an artist.

A Gentlemen’s attendance. – After twilight, a young lady would not be conducting herself in a becoming manner, by walking alone unescorted; & if she passes the evening with anyone, she ought, beforehand, to provide someone to come for her at a stated hour; but if this is not practicable, she should politely ask of the person whom she is visiting, to permit a servant to accompany her for safety.

In riding, the gentleman’s first duty is to provide a gentle horse, properly caparisoned. After seeing that the girths are all tightened, he leads the lady to the horse. With her back to the horse, she takes hold of the horn of the saddle, & the reins with her right hand, & places her left foot upon the shoulder of the gentleman, who stoops before her, making a stirrup for her of his clasped hands.

Raising himself up to his feet gently, the lady is able to be placed securely in the horse’s saddle. The gentleman puts her foot in the stirrup, adjusts her dress, mounts his own horse & takes his position, usually on the right, but authorities differ, & many prefer the left. In dismounting, the lady, having lifted her foot from the stirrup, may be received in the gentleman’s arms.

Etiquette Lesson #2 – Attention to Others

When you are passing in the street, & happen to see coming towards you a person of your acquaintance, whether they be a lady or an elderly person, you should always offer them the wall, that is to say, the side next to the houses. If a carriage should happen to stop, in such a manner as to leave only a narrow passage between it & the houses, beware of elbowing & rudely crowding the passengers, with a view to get by more expeditiously; wait your turn, & if any one of the persons before mentioned comes up, you should edge up to the wall, in order to give them the place. They also, as they pass, should bow politely to you in return.

Etiquette Lesson #3 – Never Use Your Knife

A lady should never use their knife to convey your food to your mouth, under any circumstance; it is unnecessary & glaringly vulgar to the eye. Feed yourself with a fork or spoon, nothing else; a knife is only to be used for cutting the food. The knife & fork should not be held upright in the hands, but always sloping; when done, lay them parallel to each other upon the plate. When you eat, bend the body a little toward your plate in a polite manner; do not gnaw bones at the table, always use your napkin before & after drinking.

Etiquette Lesson #4 – Decorum at The Table

It is ridiculous to make a display of your napkin; to attach it with pins to your bosom, or to pass it through your button; to use a fork in eating soup; to ask for meat instead of beef; for poultry instead of chicken; to turn up your cuffs in carving; to take bread, even when it is within your reach, instead of calling upon the servant; to cut with a knife your bread which should be broken by the hand, & to pour coffee into the saucer to cool. In conversation, be careful not to speak while eating a mouthful; it is indecorous in the extreme.

Etiquette Lesson #5 – How to Address Young Gentlemen

Do not be tempted to indulge in feminine indecorum, which may be countenanced, but can never be sanctioned by example; that of addressing young gentlemen of your acquaintance, who are unconnected [i.e., unrelated], by their christian names. It opens the way to unpleasant familiarities on their part, more effectually than you can well imagine, unless you have been taught the painful lesson by the imprudence of a friend. Any evident intention to display familiarity with them, will be more intolerable than absolute ignorance.

A lady’s influence in conversation.–Every woman whose heart & mind have been properly regulated, is capable of exerting a most salutary influence over the gentlemen with whom she associates; & this fact has been acknowledged by the best & wisest of all men, & seldom has it ever been disputed, except by those whose capacities for observation have been perverted by adverse circumstances. Always seek to converse with gentlemen into whose society you may be introduced, with a dignified modesty & simplicity, which will effectually check on their part any attempt at familiarity . . . .You may with propriety accept such delicate attentions as polished & refined men are desirous of paying, but never solicit them, or appear to be expecting them.

Etiquette Lesson #6 – Lady’s Proper Attire

Ladies’ morning attire.–The most appropriate morning dress for a lady upon first rising is a small muslin cap & loose robe. It is not in good taste for a lady to appear at the table in the morning without being laced at all; it gives an air of untidiness to the whole appearance. The hair papers which cannot be removed on rising (because the hair would not keep in curl till evening), should be concealed under a bandeau of lace . . . .

In this dress we can receive only intimate friends, or persons who call upon urgent or indispensable business; even then we should offer some apology for it. To neglect to take off this morning dress as soon as possible is to expose one’s self to embarrassments often very painful, & to the appearance of a want of education.

Morning Dress: A closely fitting morning-dress of plain cashmere, sleeves short at the wrist to display the full puff of muslin around the hand. A row of gimp embroidery from the hem of the skirt to the throat. Small collar of embroidered muslin, & cap of lace & ribbon.

Every one knows that whatever be the fortune of a young lady, her dress ought always, in form as well as ornaments, to exhibit less of a recherché appearance, & should be less showy than that of married ladies. Costly cashmeres, very rich furs, & diamonds, as well as many other brilliant ornaments, are to be forbidden a young lady; & those who act in defiance of these rational marks of propriety make us believe that they are possessed of an unrestrained love of luxury, & deprive themselves of the pleasure of receiving those ornaments from the hand of the man of their choice at some future day.

Walking Dress: for sociable calls, of plain stone colored merino; a short cloak of ture satin, trimmed with fringe; drawn casing bonnet of dark-green silk.

Etiquette Lesson #7 – Raising the Dress & Proper Behavior

When tripping over the pavement, a lady should gracefully raise her dress a little above her ankle. With the right hand, she should hold together the folds of her gown, & draw them towards the right side. To raise the dress on both sides, & with both hands, is absolutely vulgar. This ungraceful practice can only be tolerated for a few simple moments, when the mud is very deep.

Etiquette Lesson #8 – Bad habits in the highest degree displeasing

To look steadily at anyone, especially if you are a lady & are speaking to a gentleman; to turn the head frequently on one side & the other during conversation; to balance yourself upon your chair; to bend forward; to strike your hands upon your knees; to hold one of your knees between your hands locked together; to cross your legs; to extend your feet on the andirons; to admire yourself with complacency in a glass; to adjust, in an affected manner, your cravat, hair, dress, or handkerchief; to remain without gloves; to fold carefully your shawl, instead of throwing it with graceful negligence upon a table; to fret about a hat which you have just left off; to laugh immoderately; to place your hand upon the person with whom you are conversing…

To take him by the buttons, the collar of his cloak, the cuffs, the waist, & so forth; to seize any person by the waist or arm, or to touch their person; to roll the eyes or to raise them with affectation; to take snuff from the box of your neighbor, or to offer it to strangers, especially to ladies; to play continually with your chain or fan; to beat time with the feet & hands; to whirl round a chair with your hand; to shake with your feet the chair of your neighbor; to rub your face or your hands; wink your eyes; shrug up your shoulders; stamp your feet, & so forth.

Etiquette Lesson #9 – Speaking to Your Husband

A lady should not ever say “my husband,” except among intimates; in every other case she should always address him by his name, calling him “Mr.” It is equally proper, except on occasions of ceremony, & while she is quite young, to designate him by his christian name. Never use the initial of a person’s name to designate him; as “Mr. P.,” “Mr. L.,” etc. Nothing is so odious as to hear a lady speak of her husband, or, indeed, anyone else, as “Mr. B.”

How a lady should be spoken of by her husband. – It is equally improper for a gentleman to say “my wife,” except among very intimate friends; he should mention her as “Mrs. So-&-so.” When in private, the expression “my dear,” or merely the christian name, is considered in accordance with the best usage among the more refined.

Etiquette Lesson #10 – Requisites to Female Beauty

Exercise is unquestionably one of the very best means for the preservation of health; but its real importance is unknown, or but too lightly considered by the majority of females. Were they, however, to be made fully sensible of its extraordinary power in preserving the vigor of the body, in augmenting its capability to resist disease, in promoting its symmetrical development, in improving the freshness & brilliancy of the complexion, as well as its influence in prolonging the charms of beauty to an advanced age, they would shake off the prejudices by which they have been so long enthralled, & not voluntarily abandon means so completely within their power, & so simple, of enhancing all their physical perfections.

But let it be recollected, that to produce its beneficial effects, exercise must be taken in the open air. Not all the occupations appertaining to the domestic duties of a female, though they may require her to bustle from garret to cellar, will impart the kind of action to the different portions of the body by which her health & beauty shall be essentially improved.

On Quilts & Uncle Tom - Harriet Beecher Stowe 1811-1896

Harriet Beecher Stowe 1811-1896

Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly was the most popular American book of the 19th century. First published serially in the National Era magazine (1851- 1852), it was an immediate success. Forty different publishers printed it in England alone, and it was quickly translated into 20 languages, receiving the praise of such authors as Georges Sand in France, Heinrich Heine in Germany, and Ivan Turgenev in Russia. Its passionate appeal for an end to slavery in the United States inflamed the debate that, within a decade, led to the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865).

Reasons for the success of Uncle Tom's Cabin are obvious. It reflected the idea that slavery in the United States, the nation that purportedly embodied democracy and equality for all, was an injustice of colossal proportions. Stowe herself was a perfect representative of old New England Puritan stock. Her father, brother, and husband all were well- known, learned Protestant clergymen and reformers. Stowe conceived the idea of the novel -- in a vision of an old, ragged slave being beaten -- as she participated in a church service. Later, she said that the novel was inspired and "written by God." Her motive was the religious passion to reform life by making it more godly. The Romantic period had ushered in an era of feeling: The virtues of family and love reigned supreme.

Stowe's novel attacked slavery precisely because it violated domestic values. Uncle Tom, the slave and central character, is a true Christian martyr who labors to convert his kind master, St. Clare, prays for St. Clare's soul as he dies, and is killed defending slave women. Slavery is depicted as evil not for political or philosophical reasons but mainly because it divides families, destroys normal parental love, and is inherently un-Christian. The most touching scenes show an agonized slave mother unable to help her screaming child and a father sold away from his family. These were crimes against the sanctity of domestic love.

Stowe's novel was not originally intended as an attack on the South; in fact, Stowe had visited the South, liked southerners, and portrayed them kindly. Southern slave owners are good masters and treat Tom well. St. Clare personally abhors slavery and intends to free all of his slaves. The evil master Simon Legree, on the other hand, is a northerner and the villain. Ironically, the novel was meant to reconcile the North and South, which were drifting toward the Civil War a decade away. Ultimately, though, the book was used by abolitionists and others as a polemic against the South.

Harriet Beecher Stowe
The Minister's Wooing, Derby and Jackson, 1859

The Quilting

Harriet Beecher Stowe tells of Mary and her intended preacher husband and an 1859 New England tradition for brides-to-be...

The quilting was in those days considered the most solemn and important recognition of a betrothal. And for the benefit of those not to the manner born, a little preliminary instruction may be necessary.

The good wives of New England, impressed with that thrifty orthodoxy of economy which forbids to waste the merest trifle, had a habit of saving every scrap clipped out in the fashioning of household garments, and these they cut into fanciful patterns and constructed of them rainbow shapes and quaint traceries, the arrangement of which became one of their few fine arts. Many a maiden, as she sorted and arranged fluttering bits of green, yellow, red, and blue, felt rising in her breast a passion for somewhat vague and unknown, which came out at length in a new pattern of patchwork. Collections of these tiny fragments were always ready to fill an hour when there was nothing else to do; and as the maiden chattered with her beau, her busy flying needle stitched together those pretty bits, which, little in themselves, were destined, by gradual unions and accretions, to bring about at last substantial beauty, warmth, and comfort,—emblems thus of that household life which is to be brought to stability and beauty by reverent economy in husbanding and tact in arranging the little useful and agreeable morsels of daily existence.

When a wedding was forthcoming, there was a solemn review of the stores of beauty and utility thus provided, and the patchwork-spread best worthy of such distinction was chosen for the quilting. Thereto, duly summoned, trooped all intimate female friends of the bride, old and young; and the quilt being spread on a frame, and wadded with cotton, each vied with the others in the delicacy of the quilting she could put upon it. For the quilting also was a fine art, and had its delicacies and nice points, — which grave elderly matrons discussed with judicious care. The quilting generally began at an early hour in the afternoon, and ended at dark with a great supper and general jubilee, at which that ignorant and incapable sex which could not quilt was allowed to appear and put in claims for consideration of another nature...

By two o'clock a goodly company began to assemble... Good Mrs. Jones, broad, expansive, and solid, having vegetated tranquilly on in the cabbage-garden of the virtues since three years ago, when she graced our teaparty, was now as well preserved as ever, and brought some fresh butter, a tin pail of cream, and a loaf of cake made after a new Philadelphia receipt.

The quilt-pattern was gloriously drawn in oakleaves, done in indigo; and soon all the company, young and old, were passing busy fingers over it and conversation went on briskly.

At the quilting, Madame de Frontignac would have her seat, and soon won the respect of the party by the dexterity with which she used her needle; though, when it was whispered that she learned to quilt among the nuns, some of the elderly ladies exhibited a slight uneasiness, as being rather doubtful whether they might not be encouraging Papistical opinions by allowing her an equal share in the work of getting up their minister's bed-quilt...

This speech was founded on a tradition, current in those times, that no young lady was fit to be married til she could construct a boiled Indian pudding of such consistency that it could be thrown up chimney and come down on the ground, outside, without breaking...

"Girls a'n't what they used to be in my day," remarked an elderly lady. "I remember my mother told me when she was thirteen she could knit a long cotton stocking in a day."

"I haven't much faith in these stories of old times, — have you, girls?" said Cerinthy, appealing to the younger members at the frame.

"At any rate," said Mrs. Twitchel, "our minister's wife will be a pattern; I don't know anybody that goes beyond her either in spinning or fine stitching."

Mary sat as placid and disengaged as the new moon, and listened to the chatter of old and young with the easy quietness of a young heart that has early outlived life, and looks on everything in the world from some gentle, restful eminence far on towards a better home. She smiled at everybody's word, had a quick eye for everybody's wants, and was ready with thimble, scissors, or thread, whenever any one needed them...

The husbands, brothers, and lovers had come in, and the scene was redolent of gayety. When Mary made her appearance, there was a moment's pause, till she was conducted to the side of the Doctor; when, raising his hand, he invoked a grace upon the loaded board.

Unrestrained gayeties followed. Groups of young men and maidens chatted together, and all the gallantries of the times were enacted. Serious matrons commented on the cake, and told each other high and particular secrets in the culinary art, which they drew from remote family-archives. One might have learned in that instructive assembly how best to keep moths out of blankets,— how to make fritters of Indian corn undistinguishable from oysters, — how to bring up babies by hand, — how to mend a cracked teapot, — how to take out grease from a brocade, — how to reconcile absolute decrees with free will, how to make five yards of cloth answer the purpose of six,— and how to put down the Democratic party. All were busy, earnest, and certain,—just as a swarm of men and women, old and young, are in 1859.

Vain, transitory splendors! Even this evening, so glorious, so heart-cheering, so fruitful in instruction and amusement, could not last forever. Gradually the company broke up; the matrons mounted soberly on horseback behind their spouses...

Biography of Harriet Beecher Stowe 1811-1896

By Debra Michals, PhD 2017 womanshistory.org

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Abolitionist author, Harriet Beecher Stowe rose to fame in 1851 with the publication of her best-selling book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which highlighted the evils of slavery, angered the slaveholding South, and inspired pro-slavery copy-cat works in defense of the institution of slavery.

Stowe was born on June 14, 1811 in Litchfield, Connecticut, the seventh child of famed Congregational minister Lyman Beecher and Roxana Foote Beecher. Her famous siblings include elder sister Catherine (11 years her senior), and Henry Ward Beecher, the famous preacher and reformer. Stowe’s mother died when she was five years old and while her father remarried, her sister Catherine became the most pronounced influence on young Harriet’s life. At age eight, she began her education at the Litchfield Female Academy. Later, in 1824, she attended Catherine Beecher’s Hartford Female Seminary, which exposed young women to many of the same courses available in men’s academies. Stowe’s proclivity for writing was evident in the essays she produced for school.  Stowe became a teacher, working from 1829 to 1832 at the Hartford Female Seminary.

In 1832, when Stowe’s father Lyman accepted the position of president of the esteemed Lane Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio, she went with him. There, she met some of the great minds and reformers of the day, including noted abolitionists. Smitten with the landscape of the West, she published her first book, Primary Geography, in 1833, which celebrated the diverse cultures and vistas she encountered. In 1836, she met and married Calvin Stowe, a professor at the Lane Seminary. He encouraged her writing, they had seven children, and weathered financial and other problems during their decades-long union. Stowe would write countless articles, some were published in the renowned women’s magazine of the times, Godey’s Lady’s Book. She also wrote 30 books, covering a wide range of topics from homemaking to religion in nonfiction, as well as several novels.

The turning point in Stowe’s personal and literary life came in 1849, when her son died in a cholera epidemic that claimed nearly 3000 lives in her region. She later said that the loss of her child inspired great empathy for enslaved mothers who had their children sold away from them. The passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which legally compelled Northerners to return runaway slaves, infuriated Stowe and many in the North. This was when Stowe penned what would become her most famous work, the novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Originally serialized in the National Era, Stowe saw her tale as a call to arms for Northerners to defy the Fugitive Slave Act. The vivid characters and great empathy inspired by the book was further aided by Stowe’s strong Christianity.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin was released as a book in March 1852, selling 300,000 copies in the US in the first year. It was later performed on stage and translated into dozens of languages. When some claimed her portrait of slavery was inaccurate, Stowe published Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a book of primary source historical documents that backed up her account, including the narratives of notable former slaves Frederick Douglass and Josiah Henderson. Southern pro-slavery advocates countered with books of their own, such as Mary Henderson Eastman’s Aunt Phillis’s Cabin; Or, Southern Life as It Is. This work and others like it attempted to portray slavery as a benevolent institution, but never received the acclaim or widespread readership of Stowe’s.

Stowe used her fame to petition to end slavery. She toured nationally and internationally, speaking about her book and donating some of what she earned to help the antislavery cause. She also wrote extensively on behalf of abolition, most notably her “Appeal to Women of the Free States of America, on the Present Crisis on Our Country,” which she hoped would help raise public outcry to defeat the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act.

During the Civil War, Stowe became one of the most visible professional writers. For years, popular folklore claimed that President Abraham Lincoln, upon meeting Stowe in 1862, said, “So you’re the woman who wrote the book that started this great war.” That quote, published in a 1911 biography of Stowe by her son Charles, has been called into question, as Stowe herself and two others present at the meeting make no reference to it in their accounts (and Charles was only a boy at the time of the meeting).

In 1873, Stowe and her family moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where she remained until her death in 1896, summering in Florida. She helped breathe new life into the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, and was involved with efforts to launch the Hartford Art School, later part of the University of Hartford.

Bibliography

Books:

Adams, John R. Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Biography. Garden City: Doubleday, 1999.

Boydston, Jeanne. Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015.

Cott, Nancy F., ed. Root of Bitterness: Documents of the Social History of American Women. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1996.

Gordon, Beverly. Bazaars and Fair Ladies: The History of the American Fundraising Fair. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1998.

Gossett, Thomas F. Uncle Tom’s Cabin and American Culture. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1985.

Hedrick, Joan D. Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Keller, Katherine J. Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Politics of Slavery. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019.

Reynolds, David S. Mightier than the Sword: Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Battle for America. New York: W.W. Norton, 2011.

Sklar, Kathryn Kish, and James Brewer Stewart. Women’s Rights and Transatlantic Antislavery in the Era of Emancipation. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.

Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom's Cabin. 1852 (various reprint editions).

Stowe, Harriet Beecher. The Minister's Wooing. Boston: Phillips, Sampson, 1859.

Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp. Boston: Phillips, Sampson, 1856.

Articles:

Ammons, Elizabeth. "Heroines in Uncle Tom's Cabin: The Reformed Southern Lady, the Christian Woman, and the Black Slave Woman." American Quarterly, vol. 33, no. 5, 1981, pp. 603-624.

Crane, Gregg. "The Refrain of ‘Uncle Tom's Cabin’." New Literary History, vol. 37, no. 4, 2006, pp. 725-742.

Foster, Frances Smith. "Resisting Incidents: Re-reading Uncle Tom's Cabin through Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl." Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, vol. 22, no. 2, 1997, pp. 447-462.

Hedrick, Joan D. "Harriet Beecher Stowe and the ‘Woman Question’." New England Quarterly, vol. 66, no. 4, 1993, pp. 553-570.

MacKethan, Lucinda. "Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Slave Narratives and the Growth of the Abolitionist Novel." American Literature, vol. 53, no. 4, 1981, pp. 555-572.

Morrison, Toni. "Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Gothic Imagination." Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, vol. 13, no. 3, 1971, pp. 23-31.

Tompkins, Jane. "Sentimental Power: Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Politics of Literary History." American Quarterly, vol. 41, no. 4, 1989, pp. 579-601.

Yellin, Jean Fagan. "Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Black Abolitionists." The Massachusetts Review, vol. 16, no. 3, 1975, pp. 636-646.

Notes on Recent Publications & Scholarship:

David S. Reynolds’s Mightier than the Sword (2011) offers a compelling exploration of the political and social impact of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Reynolds argues that Stowe's novel played a critical role in shaping the national consciousness around slavery and abolition, particularly in the years leading up to the Civil War.

Katherine J. Keller’s Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Politics of Slavery (2019) adds a modern academic take on Stowe’s political engagements, particularly focusing on her post-Uncle Tom's Cabin career and her influence on the antislavery movement.

Fighting for Equality - Florence Allen 1884-1966

Florence Allen attended Western Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve University), graduating with honors in 1904. After graduation, Allen traveled to Germany to further her music studies. Unfortunately, a nerve injury kept her from pursuing a career in music, and she returned to the United States in 1906.

Between 1906 and 1909, Allen utilized her musical training as a music critic for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. At the same time, she pursued a graduate degree in political science and constitutional law at Western Reserve. She received her master's degree in 1908, and in the following year, she moved to New York City to work for the New York League for the Protection of Immigrants. She also earned a law degree from the New York University School of Law in 1913.

Back in Cleveland, Allen joined the Ohio bar and established her own law practice because she couldn’t find a law firm to hire her, despite her education and experience. In 1920, with women voting for the first time because of passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Allen was elected judge of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas. In 1922, Allen won a seat on the Ohio Supreme Court. She was the first woman to serve on a supreme court in any state.

In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed her to the Sixth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals. Once again, Allen was the first woman judge in a federal court. She eventually became chief judge of the court, serving until her retirement in 1959.

Throughout her life, Allen challenged traditional assumptions about women's roles and acted as a role model for women who wanted to pursue legal careers. Her contributions to numerous women's organizations and improvements in women's status throughout the 20C have been recognized through dozens of honorary degrees and induction into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame.

Bibliography

Books:

Bauer, Jennifer. Florence Ellinwood Allen: Ohio’s First Lady of the Law. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1992.

Brown, Carrie. Justice for Women: The Life and Times of Florence Ellinwood Allen. New York: Feminist Press, 1993.

Friedman, Lawrence M., and Rogelio Pérez-Perdomo. Legal Culture in the Age of Globalization: Latin America and Latin Europe. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003.

Gordon, Ann D. Women in American Politics: History and Milestones. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2012.

Kline, Carolyn L. Women Pioneers in Politics and Public Service. Springfield: Charles C. Thomas, 1974.

Merryman, Robert. Florence Allen: Ohio’s Lady of the Law. Cleveland: Cleveland State University Press, 1975.

Myers, Margaret G. A Woman’s Fight for Justice: Florence Ellinwood Allen and Her Struggles in Law and Politics. New York: Franklin Watts, 1969.

Sklar, Kathryn Kish, and Thomas Dublin. Women and Power in American History: A Reader. New York: Pearson Longman, 2004.

Smith, J. Clay Jr. Rebels in Law: Voices in History of Black Women Lawyers. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998

Articles:

Babcock, Barbara Allen. "Women Defenders in the West." Stanford Law Review, vol. 45, no. 2, 1993, pp. 217-258.

Drachman, Virginia. "Florence Allen and the Struggle for Women in the Legal Profession." The Journal of Women's History, vol. 10, no. 3, 1998, pp. 124-135.

Frank, John P. "The Life of Florence Ellinwood Allen: The Struggle for Equality in the American Judiciary." American Journal of Legal History, vol. 20, no. 4, 1976, pp. 301-316.

Lawrence, Paula. "Florence E. Allen and the Feminist Jurisprudence Movement." Legal History Review, vol. 48, no. 2, 2001, pp. 192-211.

Millender, Katie. "Pioneers of the Bench: Florence E. Allen and the Advancement of Women in Law." Ohio Law Journal, vol. 35, no. 1, 2002, pp. 84-101.

Morse, Sydney. "Breaking Barriers: Florence Allen's Influence on Women’s Legal Careers." Law and Social Inquiry, vol. 27, no. 1, 2004, pp. 12-35.

Schneider, Elizabeth M. "Florence Ellinwood Allen: A Pioneer for Women's Rights in American Law." Women’s Rights Law Reporter, vol. 16, no. 2, 1995, pp. 112-132.

Stevens, Jill. "Trailblazing Women in the Judiciary: The Impact of Florence Allen." Judicature, vol. 71, no. 4, 1987, pp. 234-24

Notes on Recent Publications and Scholarship:Jennifer 

Bauer’s Florence Ellinwood Allen: Ohio’s First Lady of the Law (1992) offers one of the most thorough examinations of Allen’s life and legal career. It focuses on her contributions as the first woman to serve on a state supreme court and later the U.S. Court of Appeals.

Carrie Brown’s Justice for Women: The Life and Times of Florence Ellinwood Allen (1993) is another comprehensive biography that places Allen’s achievements in the broader context of the women's rights and feminist movements of her time.

Barbara Allen Babcock's article (1993) provides valuable insights into Allen’s role as a legal pioneer in the West, focusing on her defense work and early challenges as one of the first women in the legal profession.

Drachman’s article (1998) details Allen’s struggle for professional equality within the legal field, exploring how her career opened doors for future generations of women lawyers and judges.

Morse’s (2004) and Millender’s (2002) articles reflect more recent scholarship on Allen’s lasting influence on women’s legal careers, particularly in terms of mentorship and breaking barriers in the judiciary.