Feminism in Hoop Skirts: The Role of Women in Antebellum America

[University of Michigan, 2006]

                “[Man and woman] were both made in the image of God; dominion was given to both over every other creature, but not over each other.  Created in perfect equality, they were expected to exercise the viceregence intrusted to them by their Maker, in harmony and love…” (Grimke 35 [emphasis mine]).  Using the Bible as her primary source of defense, Sarah M. Grimke determinedly resolved to inflame woman’s rights upon all who would hear her.  She directly referred to the New Testament when asserting the roles and responsibilities of women in the antebellum United States, and affectively.   In the New Testament, the Lord Jesus commands his followers to exalt Him, but is not discriminatory against either gender.  Grimke is adamant that the commandments in the bible are for both males and females, and deems it the responsibility of females to follow his commandments and do as he proclaims in the Bible, to “…bring forth the fruits of the Spirit, love, meekness, gentleness…” (Grimke 41).  She believed that women should be ostentatious in instructing religion and spreading the word of the Lord, and justifies this once again with commandments from the New Testament.  It is a woman’s duty as a human being, Grimke declared, to follow God’s instructions, despite any public denouncement she may receive.  Furthermore, if a woman is to submit to the whims and opinions of her husband or others, she should submit with confidence, plainly, for all to see and hear.  A woman must at all times act and think not for her husband or others, but for herself and her own desires.  Finally, according to Grimke, it is the responsibility of the woman to claim the rights which she has been for so long denied, rights that are “…inseparable from her existence as an immortal, intelligent and responsible being” (Grimke 48).  Grimke condemned those women who continuously acquiesced to the command of their husbands, and encouraged women to recognize their existence as independent, responsible, and moral human beings.

            James F. Sloan had quite a different opinion on the roles and responsibilities of women in the antebellum United States.  As a yeoman farmer, Sloan expected his entire family to contribute to the labor involved in running a farm.  As Stephanie McCurry explains, “In yeoman households family members comprised the chief labor supply” (McCurry 27).  Women were by no means exempt from this rule, and could be found in the fields from late spring to December, laboring along side their husbands and fathers in the agricultural production essential to Southern economy and yeoman life.  Yeoman farmers like Sloan also assumed complete domination over the women, children, and slaves of their households, and this concept of mastery was extremely important to their southern republican identity and helped shape their political beliefs.  A woman’s labor was exceptionally valuable in the south.  Because of the work that women did, yeoman farmers were able to claim dependence from the market economy.  Women produced items necessary to run a self sufficient household; everything that the family ate and wore was produced by them:  “If yeoman farmers escaped relations of serious debt and dependency with local merchants and planters, then they knew that the accomplishment was as much their wives’ as their own” (McCurry 29).  Their work was recognized and therefore considered important with the awarding of prizes for the fruits of women’s labor.  Sloan sent his daughters to school for only a brief period in August, but come September 2^nd they were back in the fields again picking cotton.  He felt that the woman’s primary responsibility was to contribute to the well being of the family, by laboring both in the fields and in the household.  According to his Sloan’s journals, his wife left the fields for a brief time period to give birth, another “fundamental contribution” to Sloan and his household, for it was the offspring that would later contribute to the labor force of the farm.  Sloan’s female slave, Manda, was expected to carry out all of the tasks that the males were performing, including field work.  Sloan demonstrated complete authority over his wife as well as his children, for “… [yeoman farmers] recognized domestic dependencies and inequalities as the necessary social conditions of public freedoms and equalities” (McCurry 34). 

Works Cited

Grimke, Sarah M.  “Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women.”

     Feminism:  The Essential Historical Writings.  Ed. Miriam Schneir.  New York: 

     Random House, 1972.  35-48.

McCurry, Stephanie.  “The Politics of Yeoman Households in South Carolina.”  Divided

     Houses:  Gender and the Civil War.  Ed. Catherine Clinton and Nina Silber.  New   

     York:  Oxford University Press, 1992.  22-37.