How Gender Conceptions Developed and Changed During the Period of Jacksonian America - Research Paper Example

?During the presidential administration of Andrew Jackson, American society experienced a number of political, economic, and ideological upheavals that changed the cultural landscape of the nation permanently. Daniel Walker Howe (2007) argues, for example, that due to territorial expansion, booming industrialization, democratic reconfiguration, and religious revitalization, the nation that came out of the years of Jackson’s presidency was far different than the one that went in. Even scholars who disagree that such changes were for the better, such as Edward Pessen (1985) – who argues that the resulting national civil society and economy left over from the Jackson years was characterized by greater inequality than had been the case prior to Jackson’s term – admit that that the changes that occurred during the period were deeply rooted and long lasting. Therefore, any attempt to fully understand the development of America’s societal history must take into account the changes that occurred during these years. This seems especially true when considering the notion of gendered identity of both males and females in the public and private spheres that have determined much of the history of American family, educational, and societal life. Because Jackson’s presidency occurred during a time when the industrial and transportation revolutions were just beginning in the US, and were characterized by expansions and alterations of expectations among the various classes that made up the American social, political, and economic scenes, the ways that men and women came to view their roles in American life during this early birth of modernization are important to review. This brief paper will consider how gendered identities came to be established among men and women during the Jacksonian period, in light of the other social, economic, and religious changes that occurred. Particular attention will be paid to the way that the emergence of class differences with the rise of industrialization influenced the views of men and women regarding their societal roles. The paper will present a definition of gendered identity consistent with the public and private views of the roles of men and women that existed at the time, and will consider how that notion was developed alongside the various upheavals that characterize the Jacksonian period. When discussing issues of gender, it is important to point out that there are varying definitions and ideas surrounding the term, and that changes have occurred over time regarding what it means. Many people hear the word “gender” and automatically think it signifies simply “male” or “female.” However, the terms “male” and “female” are actually categories of sex, not gender, and refer to the biological and physiological characteristics that define men and women. The word “gender” more appropriately refers to the socially-constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a society considers appropriate for both men and women. Characteristics of gender are based mainly on attributes that are considered either “masculine” or “feminine.” (Rubin 1975). These attributes are greatly influenced by the religious, economic, cultural and political aspects that make up a given society. The ways in which various elements within society function and interact with one another is a key factor in establishing these roles. Due to the fact that gender conception is socially determined, these roles and their interpretations are subject to change. For example, Dorsey (2002) argues that during much of early American history the concept of gender emphasized the differences in societal roles between men and women, and in fact, much evidence exists which suggests that gender conceptions during the time of Jacksonian America were largely focused on the different social roles and duties of both men and women (Welter 1966, Johnson 1880). However, recent interpretive views of gender, argues Dorsey, take into account the influences of economic class, religious ideology, and other variables, and account for how these factors influenced both male and female definitions of identity. This suggests that views of gender say as much about the current society which is interpreting the past as they do about the trends and influences which were present in what Boydston (2008) calls the “messy” past. This possibility is acknowledged here, but the general idea that great social changes must be taken into account when discussing gender identity seems perfectly in line with the approach of the paper, because the social roles defined for men and women during the Jacksonian era were driven by the many transformations that took place during the period and were not exclusively determined by male and female differences. Among the various influences which went into determining the gender roles of men and women during the Jacksonian period, none perhaps was more important or pervasive than the role of economics. The market revolution had a great deal of influence on the ways in which Americans thought about their society and one another. It involved not just an economic transformation but a combination of events that affected all aspects of American life. According to Sean Wilentz (1997), the economic changes brought about by the market revolution caused a great shift in the social relationships between men and women of this time. As the market economy expanded so did the factory system, transportation and communication processes. These forces worked together to transform the family, social relationships, education, and other forces within society that impacted upon the ways men and women viewed their roles. The introduction of the railroad, for example, made transporting materials faster and easier, which meant that materials could then be dispersed among small town farmers who began, in turn, farming to sustain the larger market rather than their own households. As a result, families became smaller, production means became more focused, and role expectations shifted from a more personal, household-centered view of what was required of men and women working together in the confines of an interdependent family unit for survival, to a more competitive, impersonal, role-centered view that accommodated the new economic realities (53). Men, especially in the Northeast where the market revolution was most successful and the middle class emerged most forcefully, came to dominate the public sphere while women were relegated to the private or domestic sphere (54). Wilentz argues that women were essentially put on a pedestal, viewed in idealistic terms that emphasized their special role in maintaining the domestic realm, and then locked away in the home (54). This echoes the view of Welter who claimed that women were treated with a kind of religion reverence that was not meant only to protect them but to control them. They were idealized and then held “hostage in the home” (151). Ironically, this shifting view of women’s roles occurred at a time when men’s own views of themselves were changing as well. Johnson described the terms of masculinity that were dominant during the period of artisan and yeoman economic culture which predated the industrial revolution, and his description allows for an easy-going physicality in which men who worked, for example as shoemakers were expected to fill many different roles and their value was often ascribed to things such as their set of tools or their physical prowess or some other differentiating factor that had little to do with their specific economic role. However, Wilentz argues that with the rise of the factory system and the decline of the artisan economy, goods could be produced at better quality and cheaper rates through improved means of production, so that low wage workers such as women and children could replace men in the workplace (53). This shift brought about a situation in men came to define themselves almost exclusively by their worth in an economic sense. The rise of competitive classes and the separation of men and women into public and private spheres, respectively, worked to make men identify with their public, economic roles just as women came to identify with their private, domestic roles. Wilentz argues that these trends were influenced by regional and geographical realities so that, for example, slavery in the south and expansionism in the West impacted upon the new economic realities in ways that caused slight variations to the Northeastern middle-class market-driven revolution, but generally the trends were similar. In the South, which maintained a family-centered yeoman style farming economy, slavery and class differences among the small farmers and the large planters caused the rise of a cultural paternalism that resembled the middle class values of the North in their emphasis on the primacy of men in the public realm and women in the home, while the expansion westward brought many new immigrants and lower class workers looking for opportunities denied to them in the middle-class economy back East, and the new competitive realities eventually forced the same kinds of role distinctions and divisions of labor within the family. The rise of the market economy, that is, was pervasive in its influence, as it forced men of all different regions and class situations to evolve their gendered identity in relation to their economic roles in the public sphere while it emphasized the domestic expectations placed upon women who were called on to keep the home fires burning. The role of religion in supporting and deepening these evolving role expectations was important. Welter argues that the idealization of women during this period was cult like in its religious fanaticism. “True womanhood” came to be defined by the emphasis on such values as “piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity” (152). Welter argues that these values were presented as virtues which all women should strive to achieve, and while the socialization efforts to inspire women to accept these role expectations emphasized the benefits of these supposed virtues, Welter argues that they were, essentially, “tranquilizers” (153). Women were counseled, for example, not to allow any other interests to distract them from the practice of these values, including the development of intellectual pursuits. Women were relegated to the domestic realm and were meant to feel themselves ultimately weak and dependent on their men. Wilentz emphasizes that through the religious revivalism which occurred during the time, especially in the middle class, Protestant society that led the market revolution, women were ascribed a kind of moral superiority that emphasized their domestic importance (61), but this should not be taken as an indication that women ruled the home in any final sense. Welter argues, in fact that the “right kind” of woman “accepted submission as her lot” (162) and spent her time and energy developing domestic skills such as nursing, needlework, flower arranging, cooking, entertaining, and the like. While one may wonder whether the fact that Welter wrote during the mid-1960s, during a time when the rise of American feminism was just beginning to question the authority of male paternalism in the marketplace and across ideological realms, it seems clear that during this early period of the market revolution, men were in fact driven toward a public definition of self while women were socialized to identify with their domestic duties. Dorsey argues that the critical concern is one of “influence” – viewed as the extent to which both men and women were able to achieve the role expectations that were given them. Men focused on influencing the wider world through their participation in the market, while women attempted to influence their husbands, families, and small communities of friends and associates through their actions. Ultimately due to the market realities and the religious legitimation of role expectations, men were given a place of power relative to women that was superior in both the market and the home. As Boydston argues, these role distinctions should be taken only as guides for understanding the cultural realities of the period, and not hard, fast distinctions. In fact the shifting landscape of the Jacksonian era brought about a turbulence in which many different and often competing themes were evident. The new market realities which necessitated the division of men and women in gendered identities that emphasized their public and private roles, respectively, also led to class divisions that muddied the waters of what might otherwise be seen as distinct trends. Middle class men and women often saw their interests as members of a class, for example, in the same light, so that their own identities were formulated with economic similarities as well as sex differences. Dorsey argues that, even in light of religious legitimation of role identities, there were crossings of otherwise distinct gender boundaries, since women often entered the public realm through their religious activities and attempted to reform society based not on economic ideas but out of religious inspiration (3). Nelson (2004), in fact, claims that the market revolution brought about the development of a cultural ethos, especially among the middle class, in which a “market sentiment” arose that emphasized the kinds of cultural values believed to be useful for promoting profits and prosperity in the new economy. This sentiment was characterized by preference for personal restraint and individual deference to the community. Nelson argued that without deference to the kinds of considerations which promoted social harmony, “the potential for chaos was great” and she claims that both men and women scholars and social reformers of the middle classes came to stress the importance of emulating the behaviors of the social and economic elite in order to achieve social harmony and balance (24). As a result, “good motives” for economic behavior came to be defined as those that relied on disinterested profit and a responsibility to work for social harmony even as such profits were pursued (30-31). Nelson relays the story of Sarah Hale, who rose to prominence as the editor of a number of literary journals at the time and did so out of economic necessity to support her family. However, Nelson claims that Hale “fashioned a place for herself in literary culture that did not jeopardize her social standing or her womanly modesty” instead, using “the skills and knowledge she had learned in domestic life to enter the market and support her family without challenging traditional definitions of womanhood” (27). While it is clear, therefore, that in the admonitions toward socially amenable behaviors, women were expected to behave the most deferentially of all, firsthand accounts of the period relayed the importance that was placed upon both men and women of the middle class to behave responsibly at least in the public representations of their private motives. For example, John Sibley (1851) reviewed the county registers of Union, Maine during the period in question and determined that the presence of a community ethos made the society work towards a common benefit for all despite the presence of competitive economic influences. He concluded the following: If you wish the town to present attractions for intelligent strangers to settle among you, and your children to become men and women, and to do something for the improvement of the world, you must liberally and zealously encourage public worship, common-school education, temperance, integrity, piety (428). The listing of these public virtues echoes the list of womanly virtues that Welter argued were present in the “cult of true womanhood” because the middle class society that placed such expectations upon women was pervasive in its influence and required similar accounting for individual behavior of men that it did for women. Dorsey argues that gender categories include both visible and invisible influences. According to this view, one may consider the specific differences emphasized between men and women through their public and private roles as the visible expectations, while the class differentiations and similarities may be considered the invisible categories that blurred the lines of such differences by placing like claims on men and women based not on sex differences but on similar class interests (5). In fact, Dorsey also argues that racial differences -- particularly among the Southern culture which experienced the market revolution on a different timetable than the Northern culture due to its reliance upon slavery and its maintenance of the small family farm economy – impacted the notions of gendered identity. In the South, men especially came to identify themselves not through their economic differences but through their racial differences. This, too, may be considered an invisible influence because the Southern culture tended to develop expectations for both men and women that were driven not by middle class virtues but by racial differences. While it is clear that men and women in both the North and the South developed specific differences relative to their gendered identities, with men generally being expected to fill a public role and women generally being expected to take care of domestic responsibilities, such factors as class distinctions and racial categories worked to ameliorate some of these differences. Religion, on the other hand supported the differences in some cases through ideological justification of men’s supposed superiority, but also influenced change in cases where women entered the public sphere to act as reformers. Wilentz claims, finally, that politics worked to promote a kind of mixed legacy, as the modern two party system began to solidify during this period with the Democratic party emphasizing the role of democratic expansion of rights and equality that could be seen to benefit the rise of women and lower class men, while the Whig party arose to emphasize the benefits of public virtue and civic mindedness that could be seen to promote the middle class values of social harmony (66-67). Therefore, the stress upon gendered differences was blurred by any number of other social and economic transformations which occurred during the period, so that men and women came to identify themselves not in terms of their family roles as before, but in terms of the variety of public and private roles that the new world thrust upon them. Dorsey claims that the rise of gendered identities during the antebellum period was characterized by a situation in which women came to be identified by their sexual individuality while men came to be identified by their economic universality. This view, he argued, resulted in women having clear expectations placed upon them, while men became “strangely invisible to themselves” (5). This argument is intriguing because it suggests that the paternalism which ultimately resulted from the societal developments of the era, with men coming to hold economic power and women being relegated to the home, was unintentional on both the part of men and women. Further, it suggests that the role of economics, through the market revolution, largely determined the place of both men and women in the society that came out of the industrial revolution of the Jacksonian era. Although religion, politics, and other factors worked both to blur and reinforce the lines of demarcation between men and women in their role expectations, economics played a central role in defining the development of gendered identity during the period. Only after a number of generations in which economic power was slowly gained by women and political power was extended through the power of the vote and improvement of universal education did the lines of gender expectations become blurred enough that equality was made possible. While the history of the period cannot be said to be exclusively one of economic power, therefore, it can be said to be driven by the interests of economic development. Further, the gendered identities which began to be formed during this period came to hold great influence on the development of later American culture. Even where class differences worked to soften the lines of gendered expectations placed upon men and women, the influence of economics can be seen. Therefore, the argument may be made that the roles that were placed upon men and women during the social upheavals of the Jacksonian period were driven first and foremost by economic requirements of the new economy. If this view is true, and the argument of this paper suggests that it is, one may view the history of gendered identity in the US as one of primarily economic reality rather than psychological bias, and any attempt, therefore, to improve equality between men and women must concern itself first with economic realities. References Boydston, Jeanne. 2008. “Civilizing Selves: Public Structures and Private Lives in Mary Kelley's Learning to Stand and Speak.” Journal of the Early Republic, 28(1): 47-60. Dorsey, Bruce. 2002. Reforming Men and Women: Gender in the Antebellum City. Ithaca, NY”: Cornell University Press. Howe, Daniel. 2007. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Johnson, David. 1880. Sketches of Lynn. Lynn, Massachusetts: Thomas P. Nichols. Nelson, Elizabeth. 2004. Market Sentiments: Middle-Class Market Culture in Nineteenth-Century America. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books. Pessen, Daniel. 1985. Jacksonian America: Society, Personality, and Politics. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Rubin, Gayle. 1975. “The Traffic in Women: Notes on the ‘Political Economy’ of Sex.” In Toward an Anthropology of Women, edited by R. Reiter, 157-210, New York: Monthly Review Press. Sibley, John. 1851. A History of the Town of Union, in the County of Lincoln Maine, to the Middle of the Nineteenth Century; with a Family Register of the Settlers before the Year 1800, and of their Descendants. Boston: Benjamin B. Mussey and Company. Welter, Barbara. 1966. “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860.” American Quarterly, 18(2): 151-174. Wilentz, Sean. 1997. “Society, Politics, and the Market Revolution.” In The New American History, edited by Eric Foner, 51-71, Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Read More