Women's Status in Early 19th Century America

Jul 10, 2010 Michael Streich

Women Worked in Early Textile Mills - Jlpapple photo wikimedia commons

Women of all classes in early 19th Century American history were politically powerless and forced to conform to the dependence on males.

   

The American experiment that began as a Republic after ratification of the Constitution created political, social, and economic participation for its citizens, but not for women. The status of women in the early 19th century was shaped by economic considerations, religious beliefs, and long-held notions of female inferiority. While poor, laboring women suffered the most, the characteristics of inequality were evident in all social classes.

The Proper Role of Women in the Early Republic

The early 19th century experienced a shift, at least for women in the urban centers of the Northeast, from the household economies that reflected an agricultural society to the necessity of linking female responsibilities with their husband’s careers. For lower class women, this meant supplementing family income by working either in early industrial mills, as domestic servants, or vending on city streets.

Upper middle class women focused on social endeavors tied to their husband’s employment and continued social upper mobility. This included supervising servants, facilitating parties, and raising the children. Women who voiced any political activism were frowned upon. Perhaps the only place a woman might venture such opinions was around the dinner table.

Above all, women were equated with virtue and purity. Middle and upper class women devoted time to helping charities that sought to alleviate the plight of the poor, especially widows and abandoned mothers with children. They worked with Protestant missions and labored to save poor women from prostitution. Due to the cult of female purity, they were viewed as being the best teachers, the “moral guardians” of society.

Women in the Working Class

In the early 19th century, many Northeast cities, especially port cities, saw an increase in crude mass production industries, as in the first textile mills. One result was the use of poor class women working for cheap wages, often to augment their husband’s meager incomes.

Some poor women left the cities during periods of harvest to assist farmers needing cheap laborers. Others earned meager sums vending on city streets. Still others worked in the growing sewing trades or as domestic servants. Single mothers, however, were often forced to rely on the Almshouses and the various charities geared toward the poor. Widows had a particularly difficult time. Historian Christine Stansell, in her 1986 study of New York women 1789 to 1860, writes that “widowhood was virtually synonymous with impoverishment.”

Education Reforms in Early 19th Century American History

Reforms in education in the 1830s and 1840s resulted in free and compulsory public education in order to develop a generation of civic minded citizens.

Another result of the changes in female status was the slow decline in birthrates. Historians John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman state that, “Economic interest encouraged some families to have fewer children.” They demonstrate a possible correlation of the rise of industrialization and the decline of agricultural pursuits with steadily lowering birthrates throughout the 19th century.

Impact of Protestant Theological Shifts

By the early 19th century, Protestantism had discarded earlier notions of man’s relationship to God. This was particularly true of the Calvinist principle of predestination. Religion focused on an individual relationship with God and placed on man a greater sense of controlling one’s destiny. These views were being shaped by Transcendentalism as well as the emphasis on personal commitment coming out of the Second Great Awakening.

Such views had a direct impact on sexuality and lowering birthrates. Sexuality was no longer simply a loveless act of procreation. Thus, families limited the number of children based on their economic situation. Still, the changing attitude was not universal and men and women had numerous children, especially in rural, farm areas. Lucretia Mott, an early advocate of women’s rights, for example, had six children.

Female Status in the Early 19th Century

Although the expectations of women in the early 19th century were shifting, their status within a patriarchal society remained the same. Politically, they were powerless. Job opportunities were severely limited. Because of the social expectations that tied female dependence on men, single women and widows were the most vulnerable. Even upper middle class women were doomed to conform to patterns of daily life that were dictated by their husbands.

References:

• John D’Emillio and Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1988)
• Carol Hymowitz and Michaele Weissman, A History of Women in America (New York: Bantam, 1984)
• Page Smith, The Shaping of America: A people’s History of the Young Republic, Volume 3 (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1980)
• Page Smith, The Nation Comes of Age: A People’s History of the Ante-Bellum Years, Volume 4 (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1981)
• Christine Stansell, City of Women: Sex and Class in New York 1789 – 1860 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986)
• see also: Sally G.McMillen, Seneca Falls and the Origins of the Women's Rights Movement (Oxford: Oxford University Pr4ess, 2008)

© 2010 Michael Streich

All rights to this article "Women's Status in Early 19th Century America," are retained by Michael Streich; any republishing of this article in any form including digital and print is forbidden without written permission from the author.

 

Early American Medicine and Health Care

Jul 12, 2010 Michael Streich

Colonial Medicine was Severely Limited - Jeff Kubina Flickr Image

George Washington might have lived longer if medical advances had moved beyond bleeding as a remedy for most maladies.

In mid-December 1799 George Washington developed a sore throat after having been outside of his home during a snowstorm. Doctors were summoned to his bedside and utilized the common medical practice of bleeding or bloodletting. There were no hospitals or clinics at the time and most patients were treated in their homes. According to writer Henry Wiencek, “He was probably suffering an acute infection, and might well have survived if the doctors had performed a tracheostomy, a procedure not unknown to them.” Washington’s death illustrates the state of medicine in early American history.

Late 18th Century Medical Transitions

Applying science to medical treatments was in its infancy as the new American nation entered the 19th Century. Bloodletting was still the most desired treatment for many maladies. Surgical instruments were not sterilized and amputations were preformed without the benefit of anesthesia. Although Hollywood films often show alcohol used in such procedures, the fact is alcohol was forbidden because it was known to thin the blood, complicating surgeries.

Often, severe epidemics swept through the larger colonial cities during the 18th century. In 1706, Charles Town in South Carolina experienced a yellow fever outbreak that almost allowed the Spanish to take the city. Between 1763 and 1764 a smallpox epidemic swept through Boston. One of the worst outbreaks was the 1793 yellow fever epidemic that killed scores of people in Philadelphia.

Such major events helped doctors experiment with new treatment options as well as refining older techniques, some learned from the Native Americans. Ipecac, a natural remedy, was used to alleviate dysentery. Venereal diseases like syphilis were treated with mercury, called quicksilver at the time. From the earliest days of Spanish exploration, Europeans discovered quinine, another American Indian cure for malaria. Treating scurvy with vitamin C was learned from the Northeast Indians by the early French explorers.

The Absence of Dentistry

One of the myths about Washington centers on his so-called wooden teeth. Dentistry during the 18th century was crude and practically non-existent. People lost teeth early in life due to a lack of daily care. Weincek relates that Washington possessed several sets of false teeth made, in part, from ivory and slaves’ teeth. According to Weincek, “…the custom of the wealthy buying teeth from the poor was common in Europe.”

According to historian Page Smith, advances in dentistry would not come until the early 19th century. He cites the observations of an early 19th century contemporary, Israel Joseph Benjamin, who correlated the growth of the dentistry profession with the home-bound role of middle and upper middle class women that “delight in sweets and tid-bits.” Benjamin writes that some women had “…rows of teeth pulled, as I myself witnessed, to obtain more beautiful ones…”

Professionalizing Medical Practices

By the turn of the century, some of the first hospitals appeared in cities like Philadelphia, established by prominent physicians that had been trained in Europe, unlike most late colonial period doctors who learned their professions through apprenticeships. Additionally, professional organizations began to emerge.

Advances in dissection, previously prohibited, as well as discoveries resulting from the scientific revolution – like blood circulation, further enhanced growing medical knowledge. Yet it would take many decades to overcome the rudimentary treatment methods used by many health care professionals. Even President Andrew Jackson, in the 1830s, still bled himself.

References:

• Dale Taylor, Everyday Life in Colonial America From 1607-1783 (Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 1997)
• Page Smith, The Shaping of America: A People’s History of the Young Republic, Volume 3 (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1980)
• Page Smith, The Nation Comes of Age: A People’s History of the Ante-Bellum Years, Volume 4 (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1981)
• Jack Weatherford, Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World (New York: Fawcett Books, 1988)
• Henry Wiencek, An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003)

© 2010 Michael Streich

All rights to this article are retained by Michael Streich and any reprint in any form, including digital and print must be grated by Michael Streich in writing.

 

NSC-68 and the Soviet Threat in 1950

The United States as World Policeman Since 1950

Dec 7, 2009 Michael Streich

National Security Council Report 68 defined the Cold War as a global confrontation between the free world led by the U.S. & the Soviet Union intent on global domination.

NSC-68 (National Security Council Report 68) was prepared for the Truman administration in April 1950. The Korean War would begin two months later and Senator Joseph McCarthy had already begun his notorious “witch hunt” of alleged Communist activity within agencies of the federal government earlier in the year. It was also a mid-term election year and the administration needed to demonstrate a strong resolve in confronting the apparent expansionist aims of Soviet Russia throughout the world. NSC-68 defined the need for “containment” and gave Truman the ammunition to rebuild American military strength.

Defining the Aims of the Soviet Union

As NSC-68 detailed, World War Two “fundamentally altered” the “international distribution of power.” Colonial empires no longer existed and traditional coalitions of strong nations had been eclipsed by the two newly emergent superpowers. Only a year before the report, the Soviet Union had detonated its own atomic bomb, setting into motion an arms race that began in January 1950 when President Truman authorized the building of a hydrogen bomb.

NSC-68 defined the characteristics and ideologies of the two superpowers as polar extremes. While the U.S. represented the “free world,” a democracy with global security interests aimed at preserving the republic, the Soviet Union’s ideology rested on “fanatic faith” that sought to “impose…absolute authority over the rest of the world.” This basic assumption would come to define the Cold War.

Although NSC-68 was a reaction to contemporary events such as the division of Europe by an “iron curtain” and Soviet attempts to interfere in Greece and Turkey, the architects of the document may have failed to take into account that the Soviet Union was acting out of varying motivations. Russian desires in Turkey, notably control of the Dardanelles, were historic. Stalin’s occupation of what became known as “Eastern Europe” was based on traditional fears of encirclement as well as reparations for the devastation suffered during World War II.

Mutual Fears Based on Ideological Assumptions

Soviet Russia had never trusted the west. After World War One, the Bolsheviks accused the allies of intervention on behalf of the Whites, whose goal in the Russian Civil War was the overthrow of Lenin. In the 1930s, Stalin watched the western democracies appease Adolf Hitler. Stalin finally concluded a separate agreement with Hitler in August 1939. Following the end of World War Two, President Truman terminated Lend Lease assistance to the USSR, evoking a bitter response from the Kremlin; the aid was restored temporarily.

NSC-68 portrayed the potential of Soviet victory vividly: “The issues that face us are momentous, involving the fulfillment or destruction not only of this Republic but of civilization itself.” The U.S. surmised that Soviet foreign policy was a singular “one-size-fits-all” program whose overall goal was the destruction of the free world.

The Inevitability of Global Communism

Although most Kremlin leaders were realists, the ideologues among them, like M.A. Suslov, believed in the ultimate triumph of the Soviet system. It was this “system” that was addressed by NSC-68. The Soviet “system” could be found anywhere in the world, particularly in those nations arising out of colonialism. Hence, containment offered the most promising response. These views would shortly shape U.S. response to the outbreak of the Korean War.

NSC-68 called upon the U.S. to act as a force of “positive participation” within the world community. This meant rebuilding the military and expanding the costs of defense. It also meant educating the American people on the threat of Communist global aims and the dire implications for the free world. As Senator Arthur Vandenberg advised Truman, “scare the hell out of them.” [the American public]

NSC-68 set the tone for the next decades of response to Soviet actions throughout the world, although U.S. responses were modified by different presidents. As a consequence, the U.S. abandoned isolationism forever and began the long process of policing the world.

Sources:

• Stephen E. Ambrose and Douglas G. Brinkley, Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938 (Penguin, 1997)
• Carl Oglesby and Richard Shaull, Containment and Change (Macmillan Company, 1967)
• National Security Council Paper No. 68, 1950 in Major Problems in American Foreign Policy, Volume II: Since 1914, Thomas G. Paterson, Ed. (D.C. Heath & Company, 1984)
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Korean War, Harry Truman, and Communism

Proving the Strength of Containment While Building Political Appeal

Jan 18, 2009 Michael Streich

The Democrats in 1950 were faced with an opposition party accusing it of being soft on Communism and allowing China to fall to Chairman Mao. Korea would prove them wrong.

On June 25th, 1950, North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel and began an invasion of the South. The very next day President Harry Truman reacted by extending the Truman Doctrine to the Pacific, announcing military support for the French in Indochina as well as the Philippine government fighting the Huks, and preparing a swift American response in Korea. It was a moment to demonstrate to the American people, the world, and particularly Communists in Russia and Asia that the United States would not tolerate expanding Communism.

The Cold War and Communism in American Politics

Two years into his second term, Harry Truman had been barely elected in 1948. The Republican Party had made significant gains, thwarting his social program and extensions of New Deal ideology. Communism was the single most foreign policy concern as Josef Stalin flexed his muscles, supporting pro-Communist movements – such as the Huks. Winston Churchill’s warning of an Iron Curtain descending in Europe seemed to be true in Asia as well.

The political parties blamed each other. “Who lost China?” was the question on many minds as Mao’s forces appeared to be preparing for an invasion of Taiwan, the island home of the Nationalist government under Chiang Kai-shek. In the Congress, the House Un-American Activities Committee was engaged in hearings on potential Communist spying in the US. The Soviet Union had tested an atomic bomb in 1949, fifteen years before they were predicted to have such capabilities.

American troops occupied Japan, working to rebuild the nation both physically and politically. Yet even in Japan an emerging Communist Party was staging anti-US protest demonstrations. Japan and the Philippines were part of the American “line of defense,” as stated by Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Tom Connally in May 1950.

In Korea, split in September 1945 when Russian troops took the Japanese surrender in the North and American forces under General Hodge took the surrender in the South, an American puppet leader, Syngman Rhee, was struggling to remain in power. Immensely unpopular and undemocratic, Rhee, much like Vietnam’s Ngo Diem of later years, exacerbated Anti-American feelings and fed into Communist propaganda.

South Korea had not been a part of Connally’s “chain of defense.” Even the Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, had made similar statements, perhaps sending signals to the Communist North and its Kremlin supporters that the United States would not act if the South were invaded. The fact remains, however, that the Communist invasion offered Harry Truman and the Democratic Party a perfect opportunity to prove that they were strong in resisting Communism. Truman was well aware that the next general election was only two years away.

From Status Quo Ante Bellum to Thoughts of Liberation

If indeed the Democrats harbored any notions of emerging from Korea as the visible defenders of the free world, the strategy backfired. Josef Stalin ignored Truman’s early note of 1950 for status quo ante bellum and the war dragged on. Repulsing the South Koreans, Douglas MacArthur’s actions aimed at liberating the North, led to the threat of a wider conflict involving China.

As the war appeared to last beyond initial projections, Truman in late 1950 even considered using the atomic bomb. Ultimately, conduct of the war led to the election of Dwight D. Eisenhower who had only recently been appointed by Truman as the Supreme Commander Europe over NATO. Eisenhower told the American people he would personally go to South Korea and end the war.

Korea remained divided, as it is still today. Communism became more firmly entrenched, earning North Korea a spot in President George Bush’s “axis of evil.”

Sources:

Stephen Ambrose and Douglas Brinkley, Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938 (Penguin, 1997) see chapter 7.

William J. Lederer, A Nation of Sheep (Fawcett Crest, 1967) see chapter 4.

Major Problems in American Foreign Policy Volume II, Since 1914, 2nd Ed. Thomas G. Paterson, editor (Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath and Company, 1984)

The copyright of the article Korean War, Harry Truman, and Communism in American History is owned by Michael Streich. Permission to republish Korean War, Harry Truman, and Communism in print or online must be granted by the author in writing

 

Failure to End the Korean War in 1953

Jul 19, 2010 Michael Streich

The fear of Communism, South Korea's Syngman Rhee, and the policy of Containment conspired to leave the Korean question unanswered, plaguing leaders today.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates began talks on July 19, 2010 with South Korean political and military officials aimed at up-coming joint naval war games in the wake of the sinking of the South Korean naval vessel Cheonan on March 26, 2010. The sinking was blamed on a North Korean torpedo. The current tensions between the two Koreas are traced to the 1950 Korean War, ending on July 27, 1953 with an armistice but not a peace treaty or a permanent solution. In early 1953 President Eisenhower hinted at using atomic weapons to end the conflict; today, North Korea possesses nuclear weapons. History has come full circle.

The Failure to End the Korean Conflict

The Korean War was, in part, a gift for the Truman administration in 1950. A year earlier, the Soviet Union had successfully tested its own atomic bomb. Korea allowed Truman to react to Republican criticism that the Democrats were soft on Communism.

Former Senator J. William Fulbright (D-Arkansas; died 1995) wrote [1] that after loosing the 1948 election, “the Republicans became desperate in their search for a winning issue.” This issue became the threat of expanding Communism. It was this issue that forced Truman’s hand and ultimately, in 1953, resulted in the notion – then propagated by the new Eisenhower administration, that Communism must never be appeased.

The inconclusive settlement, partially the fault of South Korea’s strongman Syngman Rhee, left a divided Korea at the 38th parallel and created a militarized zone that still exists today and occupies thousands of U.S. soldiers. At the same time, North Korea evolved into one of the most restrictive and dictatorial societies, one of President George W. Bush’s “axis of evil” nations.

The Korean War in 1952 and 1953

After General Douglas MacArthur reached the 38th parallel following a massive U.S. retreat from the North, President Truman and the United Nations entered into negotiations to end the conflict by returning all parties to status quo ante bellum. Both MacArthur and Rhee, however, sabotaged peace efforts.

MacArthur believed that Communism in Asia could only be crushed once China was liberated. Korea was a stepping stone toward that goal as was the use of General Chiang in Taiwan, where the Chinese Nationalist government had taken refuge. MacArthur’s public policy break with Truman led to his dismissal.

Rhee also wanted to keep fighting the North. In early 1953, as the new Eisenhower administration was starting peace talks, Rhee freed 26,000 North Korean prisoners, enraging the Communist North. According to William J. Lederer [2], “He tried everything possible to block the armistice negotiations; and wanted, instead, to march north and take North Korea.”

Rhee ruled South Korea with American support and economic help until 1960. The rebuilding of South Korea cost $2.5 billion (1950 values). Rhee employed thugs to root out any political opposition. Elections were rigged and corruption abounded.

But Rhee was a fierce anti-Communist at a time the U.S. viewed Communism as the greatest threat to American democracy. As in Vietnam, the U.S. overlooked Rhee’s practices because he supported American policy. Rhee was eventually turned out of power by a popular uprising.

The Korean Conflict in 2010

Tensions and threats of war between the prosperous South Korea and the impoverished North Korea continue. North Koreans frequently label South Korean leaders as “traitors,” “puppets of the U.S.,” and “western lackeys.” [3] North Korea frequently threatens war after every effort to impose sanctions. The armistice was signed 57 years ago, but the failure to definitely craft a long-term resolution led to almost six decades of tension.

• [1] J. William Fulbright, The Crippled Giant: American Foreign Policy and its Domestic Consequences (New York: Random House, 1972)
• [2] William J. Lederer, A Nation of Sheep (Fawcett Crest, 1961, see “What We Aren’t Told about Korea”)
• [3] See The People’s Korea

Other Sources:

• Stephen E. Ambrose and Douglas G. Brinkley, Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938 (New York: Penguin Books, 1997)
• Bruce Cumings, The Korean War: a History (New York: Modern Library, 2010)
• Frederick Marks, Power and Peace: the Diplomacy of John Foster Dulles (New York: Praeger, 1995)

© 2010 Michael Streich

 

Effect of Loans & Trade on US Entry in War 1917

To What Extent Did Investment in the Allied Cause Determine Action?

Nov 29, 2008 Michael Streich

By 1915 American bankers and merchants kept the Allied cause viable through loans and war material, leading to speculation entry in the war was motivated by investment.

On April 6, 1917, the United States formally entered World War One. Although immediate causes include the Zimmermann Telegram as well as Germany’s decision to resume unrestricted submarine warfare, post war criticism included the aspect of Allied debt. Although no evidence exists that President Woodrow Wilson was under pressure from bankers or merchants to intervene in the war in order to protect American financial investments, by the end of the war British debt alone stood at over nine billion dollars.

Recession, War Loans, and Prosperity

The outbreak of war in 1914 coincided with a recession in the United States. By 1915, American neutrality was being criticized as bankers and merchants began to loan money and offer credits to the warring parties, although the Central Powers received far less. Between 1915 and April 1917, the Allies received 85 times the amount loaned to Germany. This was good business for American enterprises, notably munitions and foodstuffs.

According to Harold Faulkner, [1] the total dollars loaned to all Allied borrowers during this period was 2,581,300,000. The scope of the loans was not unnoticed in early 1915 as Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan sent a letter to J. P. Morgan & Co., reminding that the policy of neutrality and private bank loans were “inconsistent with the true spirit of neutrality.” [2] Bryan also quipped that “money is the worst of all contrabands because it commands everything else.”

After the United States entered the war, the government itself kept the Allies afloat with loans, financed partially through the sale of war bonds. Barbara Tuchman, in The Guns of August, writes that, “Eventually, the United States became the larder, arsenal, and bank of the Allies and acquired a direct interest in Allied victory that was to bemuse the postwar apostles of economic determinism for a long time.” [3]

The Nye Report of 1936

It was precisely this postwar view that influenced Senator Gerald Nye’s report on US neutrality in World War I and the role of war debt as a factor in declaring war. Speaking in the Senate in July 1939, Nye reiterated that: “No member of the Munitions Committee…has ever contended that it was munitions makers that took us to war. But that committee and its members have said again and again, that it was war trade and the war boom…that played the primary part in moving the United States into war.: [4]

The June 5, 1936 fifth committee report exonerated Wilson in terms of allegations that he had taken America to war to protect financial interests. However, the report also mentioned that Wilson was, “caught up in a situation created largely by the profit-making interests in the United States…” [5]

Summary

Despite American neutrality, loans and trade with Britain and France during the war accelerated the need to see the Central Powers defeated. Even the Lusitania carried contraband munitions, a fact downplayed by Wilson but mentioned in Senator Robert LaFollette’s anti-war speech of April 1917. American investment between 1915 and 1917 was one factor in entering the war. The 1936 Nye Report’s investigation and analysis sought to avoid a similar financial entrapment as another continental war loomed in the 1930s.

[1] Harold Underwood Faulkner, The Decline of Laissez Faire 1897-1917 (New York, Rinehart & Co., 1951.

[2] Quoted in same source.

[3] Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August (New York: MacMillan Company, 1962), p. 337.

[4] Congressional Record, 76 Congress, 1 Session (1939) pp. 10,405-6

[5] United States Special Committee, Senate Report 944, Part 5, 74 Congress, 2 Session, pp. 1-9.