Women in the 19C United States of America: 19C American Women & Families by Noah North 1809-1880

Monday, August 16, 2021

19C American Women & Families by Noah North 1809-1880

Noah North (1809-1880) Elizabeth Darrow of Holley, New York.

Noah North (American painter, 1809-1880) Unknown Lady in Elaborate Lace Bonnet

Born in Alexander, New York, Noah North was a relatively unknown portraitist whose art career seems to last only during the 1830s in the areas of Alexander, Holley, & Rochester, New York. He also journeyed into Ohio offering his services as a portrait painter and may have traveled as far as Cincinnati. He may have painted in Kentucky as well. No signed portraits from Noah North have yet been identified from the 1840s. Many naive painters saw a serious decline in the demand for their services with the development of photography in the 1940s. Another problem with Noah North's portraits is that they are similar to those of his colleague Milton W Hopkins, and often misattributed.

Noah North (American painter, 1809-1880) Eunice Eggleston Darrow Spafford

Noah North (American painter, 1809-1880) Family Portrait

Noah North (American painter, 1809-1880) Gracie Beardsley Jefferson Jackman and Her Daughter c 1835

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.”