The Angel in the House: Farrar and Foster primary texts: •excerpts from The Young Lady’s Friendby Eliza Farrar (1836) oIntroduction oOn the Improvement of Time oNursing the SickoFemale Companionship oBehavior to Gentlemen •The Coquetteby Hannah Foster (1797) secondary resources: •“The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860” by Barbara Welter (1966) •selected advertisements from women’s magazines, 1800-present •pilot episode fromMad Men Season 1 •excerpts from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs (1861) For the 19 th century woman, the time between leaving school and “settling” to marriage and raising a family was fraught with danger and potentially life-changing decisions. In The Young Lady’s Friend, Eliza Farrar advises young women from ages 15-20 on how to use this time well: rise early, work industriously, care for the sick, don’t let your mind wander, cultivate religion, speak to men only in company and on general topics and by no means make any advances of your own. The Coquette shows what happens when young women do not spend their time as advised by Mrs. Farrar—when, instead, they take pleasure in their newfound freedom and the delights of society. (What happens? You attract the wrong sort of man, surrender to sex, lose all vivacity, become pregnant, and die in childbirth.) The Coquette, purports to have the same educational purpose as The Young Lady’s Friend—and we can certainly read it as a conservative cautionary tale. But would that be enough to keep it a smash hit throughout the 19 th century? Or does the socially acceptable ending allow Foster to play with transgressive ideas about women and the family in the middle? Cathy Davidson sees the novel as “less a story of the wages of sin than a study of the wages of marriage” (225). Pairing The Young Lady’s Friend with The Coquette shows that resistance to normative gender roles and ideas of virtue was subtle but present in the authors’ time. Focusing on women helps us engage the national debate about their role in America: in a free country, what freedoms should women have? Is the right to raise patriotic sons enough? Our study will also be enriched by circling back to other texts—particularly ideas of exclusion in Du Bois and the treatment of female identity in Rowlandson. Key Questions What attitudes about gender are implied by Farrar’s injunctions to young women? What is Farrar’s attitude toward pleasure? (What are acceptable forms of pleasure? What are unacceptable forms?)
Transcript
8/6/2019 Unit 4: The Angel in the House: Farrar and Foster
primary texts:• excerpts from The Young Lady’s Friend by Eliza Farrar (1836)
o Introductiono
On the Improvement of Timeo Nursing the Sick o Female Companionshipo Behavior to Gentlemen
• The Coquette by Hannah Foster (1797)secondary resources:
• “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860” by Barbara Welter (1966)• selected advertisements from women’s magazines, 1800-present• pilot episode from Mad Men Season 1• excerpts from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs (1861)
For the 19th century woman, the time between leaving school and “settling” to marriage
and raising a family was fraught with danger and potentially life-changing decisions. InThe Young Lady’s Friend, Eliza Farrar advises young women from ages 15-20 on how touse this time well: rise early, work industriously, care for the sick, don’t let your mindwander, cultivate religion, speak to men only in company and on general topics and byno means make any advances of your own.
The Coquette shows what happens when young women do not spend their time asadvised by Mrs. Farrar—when, instead, they take pleasure in their newfound freedomand the delights of society. (What happens? You attract the wrong sort of man,surrender to sex, lose all vivacity, become pregnant, and die in childbirth.) The Coquette,purports to have the same educational purpose as The Young Lady’s Friend—and we cancertainly read it as a conservative cautionary tale. But would that be enough to keep it asmash hit throughout the 19th century? Or does the socially acceptable ending allowFoster to play with transgressive ideas about women and the family in the middle?Cathy Davidson sees the novel as “less a story of the wages of sin than a study of thewages of marriage” (225).
Pairing The Young Lady’s Friend with The Coquette shows that resistance to normativegender roles and ideas of virtue was subtle but present in the authors’ time. Focusing onwomen helps us engage the national debate about their role in America: in a freecountry, what freedoms should women have? Is the right to raise patriotic sonsenough? Our study will also be enriched by circling back to other texts—particularlyideas of exclusion in Du Bois and the treatment of female identity in Rowlandson.
Key Questions
What attitudes about gender are implied by Farrar’s injunctions to young women?
What is Farrar’s attitude toward pleasure? (What are acceptable forms of pleasure?What are unacceptable forms?)
8/6/2019 Unit 4: The Angel in the House: Farrar and Foster
What are the lessons officially endorsed by The Coquette and its author?
What other implicit (and perhaps contradictory) lessons might readers take away?
How do form, genre, and structure affect the messages of The Coquette?
According to these texts, what is an ideal marriage? What is an ideal family?
What role are women meant to play in the new republic? (Are women in America free?)
What is the relationship between the family and the nation?
Use of Secondary Resources
“The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860” provides an excellent overview of attitudestoward women in the 19th century, synthesizing material from women’s magazines, gift books, sermons, cookbooks, diaries, novels, and other texts. It is relatively brief and
highly accessible, making it a natural choice for providing historical context for ourprimary texts. “The Cult of True Womanhood” also offers an opportunity to analyzehow Welter’s voice and attitudes make their way into her essay; this provides someinsight into her own time (the 1960s).
Similarly, watching the pilot episode of Mad Men , which is rife with workplace sexism(as well as anti-Semitism, racism, and homophobia), will give us a window into thestatus of women in 1960—and prompt us to analyze the appeal of the show to viewersin the 2000s.
Sexism is easy to detect in past decades; what about in our own? Using Welter’s methodof culling cultural attitudes from women’s magazines and advertisements, we will look
at a selection of ads targeted towards women from the 1800s to the present. (I’veincluded a few favorites.) My main goal here is to show that while ad design hasevolved quite a bit, the messages and persuasive techniques of the ads have notchanged dramatically.
Finally, it will be important to recognize that gender roles and ideals of virtue look quite different when you look beyond the white, middle or upper class woman.Excerpts from Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl will help us see how bringing in race and class changes expectations of gender.
8/6/2019 Unit 4: The Angel in the House: Farrar and Foster
