Women in the 19C United States of America: Celebrating in 1830-60s America - Music & Dance by William Sidney Mount 1807-1868

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Celebrating in 1830-60s America - Music & Dance by William Sidney Mount 1807-1868

William Sidney Mount (American painter, 1807-1868) Catching the Tune 1866-7

William Sidney Mount (American painter, 1807-1868) Dance of the Haymakers 1845

The Irish tradition of "dancing a jig" in the Middle Atlantic was noted by a newspaper reporter in the middle of the century. In 1848, a reporter for the New York Tribune visited a hotel in Philadelphia's Southwark district where working-class men & women came to drink & dance. When the "old negro fiddler" strikes up a tune in a dancing-room upstairs, the reporter records,

"The dance proceeds for a few minutes in tolerable order; but soon the excitement grows, the dancers begin … accelerating their movements, accompanied with shouts of laughter, yells of encouragement and applause, … Affairs are now at their height. The black fiddler increases the momentum of his elbow and calls out the figure in convulsive efforts to be heard [while] the dancers, now wild with excitement, leap frantically about … and at length conclude the dance in the wildest disorder and confusion. As soon as the parties recover, the fiddler makes his appearance among them and receives from each gentleman a tip as his proportion of the ceremony of 'facing the music,' and the floor is cleared for a new set; and so goes on the night."

William Sidney Mount (American painter, 1807-1868) Right and Left 1850

William Sidney Mount (American painter, 1807-1868) Dancing on the Barn Floor 1831

William Sidney Mount (American painter, 1807-1868) The Banjo Player 1856

William Sidney Mount (American painter, 1807-1868) Rustic Dance After a Sleigh Ride 1830

William Sidney Mount (American painter, 1807-1868) The Bone Player 1856

William Sidney Mount (American painter, 1807-1868) The Breakdown Bar Room Scene 1835

William Sidney Mount (American painter, 1807-1868) Just in Time

William Sidney Mount (American painter, 1807-1868) The Power of Music 1847

William Sidney Mount (American genre painter, 1807-1868) The Banjo Player 1856

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.”