Joshua R. Greenberg
April 21, 1997
Go To Youth and Gender in 1780's NE Endnotes
Life Lessons: Prescriptive Literature, Youth, and Gender in 1780’s New England
An article entitled "The Little Boy Who Behaved Like A Man" appeared in the January, 1789 issue of Hartford, Connecticut’s The Children’s Magazine. It recounted the tale of a small child that cried after an oar fell on to his foot. His father replied that he was "sensible that you suffer some pain, but would have you, tho’ a little boy, summon fortitude to bear pain like a man."1 The resolution of the moral tale was that the boy "dried up his tears immediately; and, by trying, while young, to despise pain, was, when he became a man, admired for his fortitude and resolution."2 This short episode in a child’s magazine illuminates two aspects of late 18th century New England society: the creation of widespread prescriptive literature that sought to educate and initiate its audience as citizens of the new Republic and the gendered nature of the roles and images contained within that literature. Aimed at a group of emerging New England middling youth, these morality tales re-enforced male images of strength, temperance, and hard work and female images of morality, duty, and prudence for the families of the first generation in the new nation.3
The creation of the period’s prescriptive literature (magazines, journals, pamphlets, and novels) was not solely affected by the beginning of the Constitutional period. There were other societal trends that swayed the writings. The period saw a wave of support for education and the establishment of educational institutions to instruct the new citizenry.4 Education also served another purpose. In Boston and other Northern seaport cities, the expansion of markets quickly created a rising merchant elite that needed clerical and accounting expertise.5 As part of this educational enthusiasm, the period showed a rise in literacy rates and the availability of literature around the area.6 All of these trends were represented in a few middle-class magazines that were printed during the period, harnessing the ethics and morality of the new society and trying to present it to tomorrow’s citizens.
In particular, The Children’s Magazine published in Hartford (1789) and The Gentlemen’s and Ladies’ Town and Country Magazine published in Boston (1789), cashed in on these societal trends by presenting morality tales and instructional episodes aimed at a younger audience. Although many of the articles in these publications were reprinted from British journals and some of the "letters to the editor" were probably not actual letters, a study of these magazines can give insight into late 18th century New England culture because, as prescriptive literature, they represent attempts to universalize certain societal trends. One important question for an investigation of these magazines is how successful the magazines were or how widespread the readership was. While it is difficult to come up with raw numbers, it can be shown that Boston’s population in the late 1780’s was somewhere between 20 and 25 thousand and there were almost 350 official subscribers to The Gentlemen’s and Ladies’ Town and Country Magazine.7 All but a few of the names on the list of subscribers were men and most of them probably represented households. The Children’s Magazine, on the other hand, was sold to schools and was used as an institutional instructional material. It can also be assumed that these magazines were shared between neighbors and friends. Given that the magazine was aimed at more middling and upper status readers (due in part to their hefty prices paid in advance) they could have had significant numbers of readers with those groups, if only for a short period.
However, the question remains, what was the implication for the lessons and morals that these prescriptive magazines tried to teach? One method for uncovering the messages of these magazines is by using gender as a tool of analysis. By showing how gendered roles and imagery were used in prescriptive literature, it can be shown how gendered societal roles and images were taught and re-enforced.8 This discussion of two 1789 publications, The Children’s Magazine and The Gentlemen’s and Ladies’ Town and Country Magazine, will be structured to show how this was attempted. The explanation of the anecdotes, moral tales, and episodes in these journals will be split into three interlocking steps in the maturation of the intended audience. First, the gendered nature of instruction and identity creation for youths will be discussed. Second, the period of maturation and its consideration of the earlier education will be shown (especially through courting and love) and finally the discussion will turn to the application of the gendered roles (especially in marriage and child raising). By using this model, it can be suggested that this prescriptive literature laid out an entire gendered "middling" life plan for its audience (even if they were young at the time).
In its statement of purpose, The Children’s Magazine, laid out its intentions to try and offer some variety to the process by which its readers were instructed and socialized. With the proliferation of schools in the 1780’s, students quickly ran out of new primers. The magazine hoped to end the "complaint that children are obliged to read too long in the same book; by which means the subjects become familiar and cease to command attention."9 To stop this tendency of school children to be bored with their same old texts, the magazine would be geared toward children and include a monthly geography lesson. The remainder of the publication would "contain instructive essays on morality, religion, manners, &c-familiar letters, dialogues, and select pieces of poetry."10 Many of these instructive essays taught the readers what roles they would be playing in society.
In a repeated series entitled "Moral Tales" that was probably reprinted from an English journal, Mr. and Mrs. Andrews traveled around the countryside dispensing charity to those they deemed worthy. Along the way they met, "persons in lowly stations who displayed the most amiable virtues" and also those who "neglected the education of their children, slighted their nearest relations, had no pity for their neighbors, and exercised many barbarities on poor dumb creatures."11 These moral tales (with names like "The Unkind Daughter" and "The Dutiful Daughter") were meant to show what traits children should aspire to have and not have. By focusing on one tale at a time, a simple lesson could be learned and connected with the main character. For example, the daughter in a given story was unkind because "while her poor mother went out to work, she got idle habits, and could not be persuaded to delight in reading the Scriptures."12 Stories like these not only taught a moral (not to be idle) but linked it to a role (daughter). Being idle was not simply the problem for the girl, it was the failure to act as a daughter should, thereby causing distress for others. In this case she was mean to her mother, in other cases it was society that she was being unkind to. Some of these morality tale also worked to correct their reader’s unwanted activities.
One topic that middle status children were introduced to early on was the emerging temperance movement. While it would reach its heights as an evangelical cause decades later, early admonitions against spirits could be seen in late 18th century prescriptive literature. The message of temperance was not gender neutral and was aimed specifically at men and their over imbibing. In the tale of "The Complaining Husbands," Mr. Andrews attempts to solve the problem of several men that he meets who are "addicted to dram drinking" by passing out a "number of Dr. Stephen Hale’s Admonition to the Drinkers of Spirituous Liquors."13 The editors of The Children’s Magazine included a note that this book was useful to those readers that "are in danger of learning that dreadful habit." This cautionary tale was interesting for a few of the societal trends that it was cashing in on and by attempting to instruct its youthful readers about the ill affects of spirits through a medical pamphlet, the magazine re-enforced both a professionalization among doctors and the establishment of evangelical religions in late 18th century New England.14 These morality tales also told stories of how good sons and daughters were supposed to act.
Under the title of "True Story" came the tale of a young man who helped return home an elderly gentleman who had fallen down. Later, when the old man died, he rewarded this kindness and "left the young man a very handsome legacy."15 The author of this tale, "The Schoolboy," cautioned his readers that:
It is not to be supposed that every such action will be attended with a like return; nor should we be so selfish as to expect it: there is so much pleasure in performing a good or a kind act, that a generous mind will be always disposed to it; and will consider it a sufficient reward, that inward satisfaction which arises from a knowledge of having done our duty.16
If this had been written 50 years later the reader might have expected a Horatio Alger style "rags to riches" rise for any young man that would do a kind act out of the goodness of his heart. But, as a product of the Constitutional era, the author was merely proposing that good acts should be done for society (or any stranger) because of a sense of virtue. Critical to the formation of responsive citizenry in the new nation, the concept of virtue said that an individual would consciously give of himself for the larger society. This outlook would quickly change in the political turmoil of the 1790’s as even the word virtue would change its meaning.17 But in 1789, this concept was critical to the passage of the Constitution and was well represented in the prescripted traits that young men should be learning. However, not all of the literature of the time was aimed at young men.
The Gentlemen’s and Ladies’ Town and Country Magazine ran an article in April of 1789 called "The ill Consequences of Pride" which attempted to instruct young women how to properly represent their position in society. The young woman in the story, who is of "rank and fortune," gets into trouble after not listening to her older steward who warned her about strangers. She learns the hard way, to regret her opinion to, "admit of no instructions from servants."18 In the story, there are several pieces of advice that the young woman learns: to respect her elders and even as someone of some means, not to overstep her position as a woman. Other examples of prescriptive literature for young women used stories about sisters to show the dichotomy between a good girl and a bad girl. One story, entitled "Lucinda and Leonora" described a father who became enraged and heartbroken when Leonora failed to follow the other into "a very honourable and advantageous marriage."19 The failure of one of his daughters was so difficult on him because he:
used every means in his power to improve their minds by the best education, for in them were placed the hopes of his family, he having no son; and such a proficiency did they make in learning and the fine arts, that they were accounted the wonders of the age and place.20
The lesson that was being put forth in this article was of a daughter’s duty and obligation to her family. In the place of a son to carry on the legacy and name of the family the pressure on the daughters was doubled and Leonora’s failure in their father’s eyes lead to heartbreak. This episode was interesting for two reasons: the assumption that women have more of a duty to the family than men and the complete willingness to educate young women on behalf of the family. Both of these points reflected the period’s creation of the Republican mother (or wife) who responsibility it was to educate the new (male) voting citizens. They were specifically chosen because of their "natural" feminine morality and good sense; although the movement for female education of the period was also improved their ability to carry out the task.21 To aid in this process, the magazines taught not only morality and manners but also skills, like arithmetic and penmanship.
In The Children’s Magazine, a serial of letters between Phillis Flowerdale and her cousin, Miss Truelove, ran monthly which focused on the attempt to teach Phillis (and the readers) some educational lessons. Miss Truelove’s reasons for wanting to teach Phillis read like a list admirable traits for young women of the period to strive for. She wrote that she "was so well pleased with the meekness, humility, and industry of Phillis, that I obtained my Mamma’s permission to take her under my own care, and to instruct her as far as I am able in reading, working, writing, and accounts."22 Letter number three in the series focused specifically on writing and included Miss Truelove’s warning to "take care to place your copy-book exactly before you, and to sit upright; as any uneasy posture of the body will certainly affect the letters you are making."23 Writing was only part of the lesson for Phillis (and the readers) control, over mind and body was actually what was sought.
At one point, Phillis made some mistakes in her studies and was disciplined. Following the occurrence, Miss Truelove sought to resume her instruction, provided that Phillis, "set a proper value on learning, [and not] considering it, particularly in your station in life, by far less valuable than a modest and unassuming disposition."24 As a young middling women, she could not afford to be uneducated. Soon, the lessons became more complicated and focused on arithmetic and accounting. Miss Truelove wrote that "Addition is a rule in arithmetic which informs us how to add two or more numbers together, in order to know how much is produced by both."25 Instruction about adding and accounting was critical for the children or a rising merchant and professional group who hoped to one day fill the ranks and help the new economy grow. By using a young woman as the standard for learning the these skills, The Children’s Magazine showed that the work was not so hard because even a girl could master it and also that the economy was not solely (yet) considered a male realm, but rather one inhabited by both men and women that needed a certain mastery of numbers to carry out business. Another article in the magazine entitled, "Rules for a Life of Business" got to heart of the matter, telling the readers to lead "not an idel (sic) life, but find out some honest business, in which you may constantly employ yourself, and by which you may do good both to yourself and others."26 Here the idea of virtue was used again, this time to instill in the young reader an ethic of hard work and honesty. Armed with these and other traits (instilled and re-enforced by the magazines) it was up to the children to mature and become productive adults. However, they did not have to use their new identities alone, these magazines supplied more advice for the young adult, specifically about love and the prospect of marriage.
Love was a constant topic of conversation in middling magazines in late 18th century New England. This period has been pegged by historians as the rise of affectionate marriage and the trend was definitely displayed by these magazines.27 In a poem called "On Conjugal Love," love was set up as an ideal that "death can’t divide, nor waters quench, this fix’d celestial fire; firm to each other’s interest."28 The poem was, however, clear to differentiate between love and lust. Lust, "like a hurricane, destroys, like lightning, quick it burns; when the first gust is o’er, this love to greater hatred turns. True love unchangeable remains."29 The educational lessons that the magazines tried to instill in their youthful readers were not thrown out when they printed these love poems, rather they were being re-enforced. By contrasting lust to true love, this set of prescriptive literature showed that the path of duty and virtue that enabled them to be good sons or daughters also enabled them to be good prospective husbands and wives. It was only in the continuation of their gendered roles that they would truly benefit society. This attitude was shown in an article entitled, "On Love of our Country". The tract said that:
though there is a benevolence due to all mankind, none can question but a superior degree of it is to be paid to a father, a wife, or a child. In the same manner, though our Love should reach to the whole species, a greater proportion of it should exert itself toward that community in which providence has placed us.30
Here, as was a common occurrence of the time, the family model was being used a metaphor for the state. However, in this example, the metaphor is being used to show how love, rather than power or authority should be directed. This position showed the benefits to the family and the new country if love was transmitted through earlier established gendered roles.
Knowing how to act and how to feel affection still left one problem for the prospective marriage candidate within the prescripted literature, how to choose a mate. To help in this process, numerous articles ran with titles like, "On Marriage", On the Choice of a Wife," and "A Recipe for the Ladies, or, advice how to get a husband."31 The decision of a mate was terribly important, especially when, for the first time, readers were actually supposed to marry for love. It was written that the "happiness or misery of life does very much depend," on the choice of the right partner. Along with the pressure to marry (from these magazines) came a few guidelines for picking a suitable mate. These advice essays acted to solidify ideal gendered images and urge younger readers to make hard considerations about their earlier education.
These advice essays reminded younger readers to grow up and put the folly of their youth behind them. One article reminded its audience that those who, "in the ardour of unreflecting youth, form such gay visions of splendid enjoyments and everlasting passion," should "consider that there are requisites of a nobler kind, without which, when it may be too late they find themselves involved in an irretrievable ruin."32 Marriage and love were serious business (especially if the family was the model of the state) and there was no time for frivolity. This advice was echoed in a poem that supposed told ladies how to get a husband. It suggested that the reader:
Exchange, my good friend, for a spice of disdain, That warmth of affection, which kills a poor swain, renounce your gay smiles, assume a dread Frown, Only simper a rifle, and catch half the town, Then pick who you please, (but leaving out merit) Some Buck, or gay lad, sweet fellow of spirit, Will please you the most;-as a partner for life, And faith you will make him an excellent Wife.33
This poem may have been written partly as a satire, but it does express the notion that women would do better getting a man if they became more serious. The men in the poem, on the other hand, are referred to as "buck" and "gay lad" which seemed to imply that they did not have to be as serious as the women in the relationship. Again, in a subtle way, these images were using the notion of the Republican wife who would bring order, stability, and natural morality to the marriage and especially the children produced by the marriage. With these roles firmly in place, the magazines turned to last institutional stop in their readers’ lifelong process of becoming socialized to middling society in the new Republic, marriage.
The prescripted literature on marriage in The Children’s Magazine and The Gentlemen’s and Ladies’ Town and Country Magazine focused mainly on two aspects of married life: the relationships between husbands and wives and parents and children. The first of these repeated the often used image of the Republican wife who would naturally reform and moralize her husband. One moral tale called, "Three Days After Marriage" set out to display the "almost invariable maxim, amongst the fair sex, that a reformed rake makes the best husband." This could be accomplished because "almost every female fancies she has sufficient powers and attractions to work this reformation."34 On the third morning of a certain couple’s marriage the husband mentioned that maybe separate beds would be in order. At this, the wife got upset, "accusing him with being a traitor, who had married her only for the sake of her money."35 The gendered aspects of the family dynamic set up in this article were purely a product of the period. Middling men, working outside of the home for the first time, were seen as a corruptible lot who could (and should) be controlled by a strong domestically bound woman. Also, the threat of "traitor" also brought to mind the family model of the state. Failure as a husband, was failure as a citizen and an offense against the nation. Other articles dealt specifically with how married men and women should act.
In an short piece named, "On Married Pairs," The Gentlemen’s and Ladies’ Town and Country Magazine offered advice the married couple on how organize themselves for maximum happiness. It was said to be bad when a "wife feels herself strong in cash, she is too apt to throw out the scold in a domestick (sic) debate, to oppose him from whom she derives all her consequence."36 This statement offered the flip side to the emerging Republican wife idea. Women were "allowed" to control the domestic space and act as moral watchdog for the family, but in return they had to give up their any opposition they had to their husband in outside of the house affairs. If they did not, then they became a "scold." However, the article went on to reaffirm the wife’s control of the domestic space. The piece said that some men, find "that he cannot be heard in his own house, while his wife is speaker" and because of this, "he may well complain of his matrimonial lot; and very sincerely wish that he could control all her bold measures."37 These men were chastised for such behavior and told, not that their wives had a problem for speaking out, but that both of their selections of a mate were ill advised. The ideal of affectionate marriage and suitable partners was supposed to solve such disputes.38 In opposition to this contentious situation, an ideal marriage was supposed to occur when partners "firmly attached to each other by the most rational ties, while they discover their mutual fondness, give striking proofs also of their wisdom." Such a couple decided to "enter into the conjugal state, they give it at once dignity, lustre, and grace."39 As a sign of the Enlightenment era, a mutual rational bond was elevated as the ideal one for marriage. Especially, as we have seen, if both partners did not disrupt the other’s domain. Some prescripted literature for married couple placed its attention else where and looked at the parent’s relationships with their children.
One article in particular entitled, "On Parental Severity" dealt with how to be properly discipline children. The short article said that parents:
should never be the severe in the punishment of their children; they should always appear as friends, even while they are compelled to be correctors. Nature, disdaining restraint, rises up in opposition to restraint, and will make a stout resistance too, when she is driven out of her course. By gentle treatment, the most stubborn tempers may be softened; harsh usage can never be defended till the mildest modes of correction have been adopted without success.40
This advice can be seen as purely a product of the post-Revolutionary era. With the memory of the revolt so fresh in their minds, the idea of harsh restraint seemed out of place. Another trend that this can be attributed to, was the beginning (along with affectionate marriages) of an affectionate attitude toward child raising. Rather than breaking the will of the child, newer ideas hoped to benevolently mold the child into the proper form (seemingly with the help of prescriptive literature).41 Some essays aimed at future parents seemed to be bringing the prescripted literature full circle from the earlier instructive tales. One of the moral episodes of Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, discussed earlier, found Mr. Andrews in the tale of "The Complaining Husbands." Upon entering a new area, he was told that the poor men of the town, "were great frequenters of the ale-house: this he was very sorry to hear, because it was proof that they did not live happily with their families."42 As the male children were told to beware of spirituous liquors, the were also warned as future parents that drinking was an indication that they were not fulfilling their roles as husbands and fathers. Another article reminded the readers that "he is not so much a Father who has begotten, as he who has brought up his Son; nor is she so truly a mother who has brought the child into the world, as she who has given him a good education."43 It was up the readers, as good future parents, to provide for the education that their children needed to become proper societal members and learn their roles. So these magazines had come full circle, from teaching children how to be good sons and daughters to teaching them how to raise good sons and daughters.
Late 1780’s New England had the possibility of being a very volatile place. A new government was being erected, a new and larger economic system was forming, and evangelical religions were establishing beachheads. Against these backdrops, attitudes about male and female roles in the family and parent/child relationships were adapting and changing because of their new society. For middling people, living in the seaport cities, these times could easily be seen as a time of growth and consolidation. However, they felt that they held only a tenuous grasp on their position. The Revolution was not that far in the past and even the uncertain period under the Articles of Confederation was just ending. Under these situations, it was important for the children of these middling New Englanders to learn their roles in the new nation. One place that these men and women looked to inform their children about what traits they should aspire to was prescriptive literature. The Children’s Magazine and The Gentlemen’s and Ladies’ Town and Country Magazine offered middling children instruction through morality tales and even educational skills lessons. The images that these magazines put forward were not haphazardly chosen, they focused on particular gendered traits that they were trying to convey to their readers. By showing particular gendered images, like the "Dutiful Daughter" or the "Boy who Behaved Like a Man" their young readers would become initiated into society with pre-existing awareness of virtue and Republican motherhood and of how a "proper" man or woman should act or how a "proper" family would function.