Stacey Robertson, professor of American heritage and director of Women’s Studies at Bradley University, and BYU history professor Matthew Mason discussed the prominent and often unacknowledged political accomplishments of women between the American Revolution and the Civil War at a Women’s Studies colloquium.
PROVO, Utah (Dec. 4, 2014)—What were women doing before they had the right to vote or run for public office? Stacey Robertson, American heritage and women’s studies professor at Bradley University, argued that the influence of many dynamic women has been written out of our nation’s history. Robertson and BYU history professor Matthew Mason addressed this issue at a Women’s Studies colloquium entitled “Women, Morality, and the Coming of the Civil War.”
“I think there is a stereotype that women before my generation lived lives of domesticity, that they were not engaged in political activity, or any kind of important activity,” said Robertson. “We’re kind of stuck in this 1950s vision of domestic womanhood. I’m here to suggest that that’s anything but true. We can look further back even than the 20th century and find that women are engaged in political discourse and political activism in ways that you would never have imagined.”
Robertson highlighted less commonly known movements and female figures from the time period between the American Revolution and the Civil War to show how women were involved in the public sphere and partisan politics.
“Women don’t have the right to vote during this time period, and women are not holding political office during this time period, so the idea that they are engaging in real political and partisan activism is surprising to a lot of people,” she said.
Robertson asked how women’s voices contributed to the conflict over slavery that would become the Civil War. She identified key figures and factors that would shape this time period, including Jessie Frémont – the wife of John C. Frémont, the first antislavery Republican Party candidate for president – and the appearance of women’s charitable organizations, among others.
“Jessie Frémont would become a lightning rod for women in the 1856 election,” said Robertson. She explained that John C. Frémont had little to do with his own political campaign and that it was really Jessie and her cohort of men who would go on to run it.
“Her marriage to John Frémont allowed her abolitionist voice to become a nationwide political voice,” said Robertson. “She transformed women’s participation and ideas about politics and would be a key figure throughout the 1850s as women began to move increasingly into a political position.”
Another way women became involved in the public sphere was under the pretense of organized charitable or benevolent activities. Robertson explained that in order for a woman to run an effective benevolent group she had to be able to understand local politics and gain resources and support from local politicians. Women who formed these groups were often engaged in the public sphere with men and becoming politically involved in their communities.
“What we see during this time period is that under the guise of women being moral and thoughtful, women are also getting for themselves all kinds of skills and knowledge without it seeming inappropriate,” explained Robertson.
“By the early 19th century one of the ways that women are even able to engage in these organizations is that there is a widespread new idea of womanhood that develops that women are morally superior to men,” she continued. “In the 18th century and before, the common idea of women’s character was that women were seductresses out to cause men problems.”
Professor Matthew Mason also highlighted an occurrence in history that showed how women were becoming involved in politics during this time period.
In the mid-1800s many people were appealing to Congress and the Virginia legislature to save Mount Vernon, George Washington’s home and a pilgrimage site for many.
“Not surprisingly, the man failed,” said Mason. “Eventually the women just say, ‘You can’t get this done. We’ll do it.’”
Mason explained that in 1853 a few Southern women formed the Mount Vernon Ladies Association to go outside partisan politics in their own attempt to save Mount Vernon.
“Mount Vernon became a shrine for Unionism. It is a really interesting movement that is nonpartisan, nonsectional, but clearly political,” he said. “In the midst of oncoming civil war, women will save the Union because men have failed.”
Mason concluded, “It’s an interesting, very specific example. This is not a minor movement, and I think it deserves a lot more study.”
For more information about Stacey Robertson and Matthew Mason, visit their university webpages.
—Sylvia Cutler (B.A. English ’17)