Review of Women of the Republic by Linda Kerber

The republican ideals set in motion by the American Revolution and its aftermath would shape the future of not just the fledgling United States but of numerous nations across the globe.  In Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America, Linda K. Kerber demonstrates that the new political and social structures arising during and immediately following the Revolution did not quickly translate to women.  In fact, it fell to women themselves to define a new political role for themselves, a role that came to be known as Republican Motherhood, combining the traditional domestic responsibilities of women with the new sense of civic duty inspired by the founding of the Republic. 

Kerber divides her study into two major themes—the place of women in the legal and social structure of Revolutionary/post-Revolutionary America and the intellectual space occupied by women of that time as they sought to define their identities as members of the new Republic.  Drawing extensively from legal and legislative records, as well as diaries, memoirs, and letters, Kerber demonstrates how the war both directly and indirectly affected women’s lives and the rapidly changing responsibilities that fell to them as a result.  The identification of women as either patriots or loyalists gave them a new political presence, a presence severely tempered by the legal and societal restrictions that were the colonies’ inheritance from Great Britain.  Kerber uses the legal processes of confiscation, coverture, and divorce to explain how women’s political identities were still tied to the role of wife; in a nation founded on liberty, women gained very little freedom as those three processes remained fixed in the legal system as well as in the minds and hearts of the citizens.

Kerber explores the intellectual role of women by examining their education and the books, plays, and other works they consumed.  Here Kerber finds a way of not only explaining the role of fiction in the intellectual development of women but also of pointing out that the women of the new Republic, while encouraged to read history, had very little material available to them on the history of members of their own sex.  As Kerber completed her research and writing in the late 1970s, she likely found that the condition of women’s history had not changed greatly (or greatly enough) since those early days of the nineteenth century.  While she does not say so explicitly, the contrast between the state of women’s history in the new Republic and in the late twentieth century United States cannot go unnoticed.

While Kerber does an excellent job of extrapolating data from a myriad of primary sources, including court records, government documents, first-person accounts, library records, etc., she does not cover a wide geographic area in her research.  With the exception of noting the absence of divorce laws in the American south, Kerber largely ignores that area.  While New England and Middle States women were experiencing the Revolution and their changing society, a reader wonders what their Southern sisters were doing.  As Kerber’s research methodology is clear from her work, however, the door is open for further historians to apply her methods to the South, to enhance the study that Kerber has begun by expanding its geographical focus.

Published in 1980 and still studied today, Kerber’s Women of the Republic remains an interesting look into the lives of late-eighteenth, early-nineteenth century women and the manner in which women redefined themselves during and after the American Revolution.  In addition, Women of the Republic serves as an excellent guide for future historians on how to make the most of the limited sources available from that time. 

The Dividing Line

The other night at dinner with my family, an interesting topic found its way into our conversation.  My father, sister, and I, having all recently watched a documentary about Wyatt Earp, were each astonished to think of Earp living until 1929.  Earp, the "star" of the OK Corral--he lived in Los Angeles, loved the movies, and wanted William S. Hart to play himself.  He was a 20th-century man!  My sister remarked that she never thinks about prominent historical figures of the 19th century living into the 20th.  There is some sort of firm divide, a border that comes along with the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, that separates people of the 19th century from those of us who lived during the 20th century.

I have to admit that I feel that dividing line as well between 1901 and 1902, between the centuries as marked off by the great Victoria.  What strikes me more, however, is my own connection with the 19th century.  That connection goes like this:

• My grandmother, Fern Susan Gumz Stratton, was born in 1909;
• She was alive when some of the great historical figures of the 19th century were also alive;
• I grew up close to my grandmother; ergo
• I am connected to the 19th century.

All right, I will acknowledge that my thinking is twisty, but I absolutely adore that feeling of being connected to the past.  And my own past, since 1961, is not enough (although I am always happy to remember the Christmas that I got my first transistor radio and listened all day to the news coverage of the immenent death of Harry Truman).  I want to be connected with a long gone past--and here's how I can be....

In 1910 and 1912, respectively, Florence Nightengale and Clara Barton died.  Florence, connected with the Crimean War, and Clara, connected with the Civil War, were both alive when my grandmother was a toddler. 

Harriet Tubman died in 1913--can you imagine?  Harriet Tubman, a woman whose story everyone should know!  The woman who played an integral role in the Underground Railroad, whose bravery and dedication to her cause are a crucial part of American history--my grandmother was already four years old when Harriet went to her reward.

Alexander Graham Bell died in 1922.  The inventor of the telephone, an instrument that made such a splash during the U.S. Centennial Exposition in 1876, was alive when my grandmother was alive.  My grandmother, a thirteen-year-old, may have read about Bell's death in the newspaper as news of the inventor's demise was reported on the front page of the Oshkosh Daily Northwestern. 

In 1927, my grandmother was 18 years old--and Lizzie Bordon died.  While my grandmother never took an axe and gave her father 40 whacks, the fact that Lizzie Bordon lived so far into the 20th century creeps me out, and may have bothered my grandmother as well.

But what really anchors me to the 19th century happened in 1938.  On the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, a reunion was held.  Twenty-five veterans of that great battle were in attendance, as well as over 1,800 other veterans of the Civil War.  Yes, while my grandmother was a new bride, men who had fought in the Civil War were gathering together to remember what must have been the most important time in their lives.

Whether by visiting historic sites, studying history at school, reading history for the sheer pleasure of it, or tracing my own family and the families of friends, I love exploring the ways in which we are all connected with the past.  I'm practically a 19th-century woman!