Women in the 19C United States of America: Heading West in 19C America

Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Heading West in 19C America

Jennie Augusta Brownscombe (1850-1936) Love's Young Dream

Jennie Augusta Brownscombe’s sentimental oil paintings celebrating rural family life & events from American history appealed to popular Victorian tastes in England & the United States. The artist was born in a log cabin in rural northeastern Pennsylvania to William Brownscombe, an English-born farmer, & Elvira Kennedy, a direct descendant of a Mayflower passenger. Thus, Brownscombe’s early life was reminiscent of one of her own paintings. When her father died in 1868, Brownscombe began supporting herself through teaching & creating book & magazine illustrations. Brownscombe also sold the rights to reproduce her watercolor & oil paintings as inexpensive prints, Christmas cards, & calendars. She distributed more than 100 artworks this way, spreading her images into homes nationally. Viewers loved her highly naturalistic style, which included picturesque details that helped them recognize the stories & emotions portrayed. A prize-winning student at the Cooper Institute School of Design for Women & the National Academy of Design, Brownscombe became a founding member of the Art Students League & later served as faculty. In the 1880s & 1890s, Brownscombe studied art in France, spent winters in Rome, & exhibited in London, New York, Chicago, & Philadelphia.
Bio from National Museum of Women in the Arts
https://nmwa.org/explore/artist-profiles/jennie-augusta-brownscombe

About this blog

In colonial 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 children were raised, religious questions, & all matters of right & wrong.

In the early part of the 19Cy, 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 the public world -– economic striving, political maneuvering, & social competition. But women were 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 and 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. “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.”