Sample Student Research Project 2012
Journal
LITR
4232 American Renaissance
Sample Student Research Project 2012
Journal
Penny
McMichael
28 April
2012
The
Forgotten Genre—Women’s
Domestic Fiction
I never heard of domestic fiction until
I took a required course in American literature. I reviewed Susan Warner’s
The Wide, Wide World and Maria
Cummings’s The Lamp Lighter for an
assignment. What I discovered seemed
like a forgotten era in women’s and American literature. I became fascinated
with the authors and their time period. I wanted to learn more, so I decided to
do my journal assignment on women’s domestic fiction spanning from the 1820s to
the 1870s.
Women’s
domestic fiction consists of novels written for women by women. Most were
serialized in papers, and did not get published in novel form until years after
they were written. Papers would hire popular writers to write exclusively for
them. This practice became highly competitive and dueling papers were created.
For example the New York Ledger hired
Mrs. E.D.E.N Southworth to compete with the
New York Weekly and their writer Mrs.
Mary Jane Holmes.
Domestic novels mostly consisted of
stories about women breaking the chains of normal society and becoming strong
and self-sufficient. Nina Baym observed that most the novels followed the same
plot. In Baym’s book Woman’s Fiction,
she says most plots follow is "the story of a young girl who is deprived of the
supports she had rightly or wrongly depended on to sustain her throughout life
and is faced with the necessity of winning her own way in the world”(19). For
example, in the beginning of most novels the heroine proves naïve and in need of
protection. The heroine becomes orphaned or is separated from her parents and
placed in the care of an unloving relative or benefactor. The
relative/benefactor usually neglects the heroine or abuses her. Unhappy in her
situation, and sometimes desolate and near death, the heroine embarks on a
journey that makes her realize her inner potential, and by the end of the novel
the heroine becomes self-sufficient and confident. This change in her, changes
the “world's attitude toward her” (Baym 19).
This
research journal will show the changes in society and lifestyle that allowed
this genre to flourish. I will explore the lives of a few of the authors, and
summarize some of the most popular books that emerged from this literary genre.
I will give a review of one of my sources and explain why I chose it.
Review of
the societal changes in the time leading up to the 1850s
The new
reader
Chapter four
in All the Happy Endings, by Helen
Papashvily, gives a comprehensive overview of the social and lifestyle changes
that happened around the 1850s that allowed domestic literature to become
popular. Papashvily outlines these changes.
First, more efficient ways of
papermaking, binding, and copying led to mass production of inexpensive books
and magazines. In the 1830s paperback books sold for as little as seven cents.
Better transportation (toll roads, new canals, and eventually the railroad)
permitted wider distribution than ever before. Inexpensive books and more
efficient distribution allowed a larger part of the population have access to
affordable books, papers, and magazines.
In 1840, states began offering free
education. Because of this a generation
learned to read. The development of oil lamps to replace candles made
illuminating a house, or room less expensive and more efficient. This allowed
people the ability to read during the dark hours of the nighttime. The 1840s
produced a perfected kitchen stove which made fireplace cooking obsolete and
allowed the women of the house a faster, more efficient way of cooking. Clothing
families became easier with progresses made in textiles and sewing machines.
Shorter cook times coupled with faster ways to make and mend clothes gave the
women of the 1850s more leisure time which, for many, equaled more reading time.
Also, because of the high numbers of immigrants flooding into the
Free
education, advances in making and distributing books, new stoves and sewing
machines, and for some, domestic help led to a new generation of women readers.
Women readers opened a large market for papers and novels around the 1850s and
they have remained a valued market ever since.
Why it
became so popular
I read
several books about this subject; many repeated what the others said, and many
reviewed the authors and their works. However, in
All the Happy Endings, Papashvily
explains the time period women’s domestic fiction became popular. For example in
1850 Susan Warner published The Wide,
Wide World (WWW), and even though it was not the first domestic novel, it
became a best seller. Papashvily explains on page 11 that the WWW became so
popular because the reader and the author shared a common lot in life. She
explains:
“In a world
made for men they were women. Law, custom and theology told them they were
inferior. Experience proved to them they were not. Day after day, year after
year women lived within the frustrating confines of this contradiction, and
gathered ‘scattered sorrows’, reasons to weep, from injustices they could not
understand and customs they could not change”.
Women liked
reading about things they could relate to, and these domestic novels validated
that their feelings and frustrations, and showed them that they were not alone.
The plot line of a woman surviving hardship and becoming independent of men,
having the ability to make their own decisions, and becoming self-sufficient
expressed an unspoken desire of women all over the country.
This ideology went against the common
thought in society. Most of the historians and sociologist of the period “felt
sure that women, ‘good’ women at least, found their lot ideal. . . the real
‘womanly’ woman is quiet, placid and acquiescent, for submission, the wish and
need to be dominated, is inherent in the female organism” (Papashvily 29). This
thinking did not belong only to men. Some women supported women’s social
position, and those women openly spoke against the domestic fiction written at
the time. Several made the argument that women were drawn to fiction because of
an inherent part of the female character included lying, gossiping, and meddling
(40). This argument became a way to discourage the reading of the new novels.
The fact
was, women were unhappy. During the 1850’s the embers of the women’s movement
began heating up. Even though a lot of women did not rally together with the
feminist groups of the time, the feelings of dissatisfaction and determination
for change grew among them. Diaries and letters record their grievances,
although they kept a “ladylike silence” (24).
Papashvily explains this very eloquently when she writes:
“Nonetheless
the quiet revolted too, and waged their own devious, subtle, undeclared war
against men – their manual of arms, their handbook of strategy was the
sentimental domestic novel . . . pages reveal the tactics women adopted, the
weapons they chose, the victories they sought – and finally won”.
The Second
Great Awakening and its Influence on Society
The Second Great Awakening was a religious revival that spread westward,
and occurred in the mid nineteenth century. It inspired a rise in social
activism. Many things resulted from this social activism like: the movement to
abolish slavery, reformation of prisons, changes in societies care for
handicapped and mentally ill, new denominations, strengthened Methodist and
Baptist religions became strengthened and created the camp meetings (revivals),
the creation of interdenominational missionary societies, and public and
educational societies began promoting Christian education.
Domestic
novels, in the beginning, were based on religion and faith. These novels
reiterated Christian values and quoted bible verses. A lot of the early heroines
went on a journey involving self-discovery founded in the acceptance of God and
striving to become better Christians. The
Wide, Wide World by Susan Warner is a good example of a domestic novel with
evangelical content.
(Most of
this information was taken from Dr. White’s web site
http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/terms/G/GreatAwake.htm.)
The Authors
Susan Warner
The Wide,
Wide World
and
Queechy
Susan
Warner’s name showed up in many of my sources, and the facts repeated themselves
in every book. However, Papashvily provided the most detail of how desperate the
nineteenth century woman’s situation could be. Susan’s father controlled all of
her money and squandered her fortune leaving her desolate and dependent.
Susan Warner
was born in 1819 in
Women
struggling to support themselves and their families became common in the mid
nineteenth century. Economic troubles occurred nationwide in 1837. Bank and
business failures, devaluated currency, and deflated booms created the hardships
for many families. Literature written by women turned into a manual of how to
save a marriage, and how to enjoy being poor. For example, the novel
A Rich Poor Man, a Poor Rich Man
(1837) by Catherine Sedgwick focuses on the emptiness of wealth and the richness
of being happy with what one has.
Susan and her sister Ana wrote hymns, Sunday school lessons, and short
stories in an attempt to provide for their family. In 1850 Susan wrote
The Wide, Wide World (WWW). This
became a best-selling book and, other than Harriet Beecher Stowe’s
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the most
circulated of its time. WWW is a romance narrative with evangelical content.
Ellen leaves her ill mother and moves to the country with her Aunt Fortune who
shows little sympathy or care for her. The Humphreys, a strong Christian family,
take Ellen in and treat her kindly until Ellen’s father sends her to
Ellen’s journey is both internal and external. She goes on a physical
journey that ends with physical stability. Her internal journey is the same. She
is emotionally unstable. She constantly weeps throughout the novel, and she
feels she needs to have stronger faith, but by the end of the novel she grows
into a strong Christian. This journey coupled with the evangelical content of
the WWW resonated with readers from all backgrounds. An excerpt from Susan’s
diary explains why she believed the book was so well received:
“On Feb 3
1859 Susan Warner wrote in her diary:
‘Got into
the cooler little black room and rested with a charming little talk with Mrs.
Hutton about her reading The Wide, Wide World in her kitchen to her black woman
and Irish woman and two little children—all
enchained.’
“The smaller
difference of religion, color, nationality, age class, culture pattern were
forgotten—all women—all enchanted—all enchained. How to be free, that was now
the question” (Papashvily 14).
Warner
develops her heroines into stronger characters. In her book
19th Century Women’s Novels:
Interpretive Strategies, Susan K. Harris analyzes the difference between
Ellen from WWW and Fleda in Warner’s 1852 novel
Queechy. Ellen could not do anything for herself “she burnt the chocolate,
tangled her sewing and demonstrated little skill and less interest in the
routine tasks of everyday life” (97). Fleda Ringgan, also orphaned at age 12,
“managed her own affairs. . . raised vegetables, made bread, cobbled shoes,
boiled maple sugar, sold flowers, and in her uncle’s absence managed his farm so
profitably she converted the neighborhood to a whole new method of agriculture”
(97). Women’s domestic fiction evolved and stronger heroines became more
prevalent. This appealed to the overall desire of readers, to be valued and seen
as capable and equal members of society.
Unfortunately, Susan Warner lived in a time for women when: “Neither prestige
nor cash was theirs . . . the man of the house had a legal right to what was
earned by the family” (Harris 18). Susan’s father had control over her money and
the legal rights to her novels. Despite becoming a successful author, she had
nothing. The WWW should have provided a lifetime of comfort, but Susan’s father
spent all of the money and forced Susan to sell the copyrights for immediate
cash. One semiannual royalty payment for WWW amounted to $4500 (Papashvily 95).
This is close to $200,000 today, meaning Susan could have made $400,000 a year
off of royalties alone. Unfortunately her father required more than that a year
to fund his bad investments, and overall bad decisions.
The sisters
continued to write short stories, articles, and books. After some time they
wrote only because they had to support their family; they lost the joy in doing
it. They also “attempted a magazine; they corrected papers; arranged dictation
books for teachers; prepared Sunday-school lessons—it was still not enough—they
raised and sold vegetables” (Papashvily 18). Neither of the sisters married and
both are buried on
E.D.E.N.
Southworth
The Deserted
Wife
These facts
about Mrs. Southworth’s life and work came from several books. Her life is
documented in numerous sources and, through my research, became common knowledge
to me. I cannot place one single reference as my source, so I will list the
books that I gained my knowledge from:
Feminism and
American Literary History—Nina
Baym; Woman’s Fiction—Nina Baym; 19th
Century Women’s Novels: Interpretive Strategies- Susan K. Harris;
All the Happy Endings—Helen
Papashvily.
Emma Dorothy
Eliza Nevitte Southworth was born in 1819 in
Emma married
Frederick H. Southworth and moved to
Mrs.
Southworth became a teacher and earned $250 a year to support her family. On
Christmas eve 1844 she wrote the Irish
Refuge which she took to Shillingham’s bookshop and asked the owner to send
it to a magazine owner. Baltimore’s
Sunday Visitor accepted the article, but did not pay writers. However, the
National Era took notice and
published her next story. She began a writing career with them, and published
six short stories before she wrote the novel
Retribution. Novel after novel
followed.
Society at
this time made a habit of blaming individuals for their misfortunes, saying
their bad situations occurred because of their choices or lack of will.
Southworth’s sympathy for the poor,
illegitimate, abused child, mistreated slave, overworked servant, neglected
orphan, and most of all, the deserted wife became prevalent themes in her
novels, and she grew in popularity and became increasingly in demand.
Southworth’s
formula for her novels involved removal of the dominant male figures. She had
husbands deserting wives, lost at sea, and many other creative situations that
removed the husbands in her writing. This gave her heroines sympathy and
approval of her readers. The heroine had control over her “person, her children,
her earnings . . . she had almost complete freedom of action” (115).
Mrs.
Southworth supported her children and some of her relatives. This became
difficult at times with her earnings as a writer. In 1848 her son and daughter
caught scarlet fever, so she moved her desk into their bedroom and did her
writing while taking care of them. She worked vigorously, trying to write to
make enough money to support her household. She was very tired, stressed, and
felt she was underpayed. At one point she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and
was told she was dying. At this point Robert Bonner entered her life.
Irish
immigrant Robert Bonner came to the
Southworth
developed the formula that she would use for many of her novels when she wrote
her second novel, The Deserted Wife.
It tells the story of Hagar. She marries and devotes her life to her husband.
Her husband abandons her for her cousin, and leaves her to care for their twin
daughters and unborn son. She has a talent for singing and pursues a career on
the concert stage. She becomes wealthy and famous. Her husband returns, repents,
and they reconcile. Many believe that this mirrored Southworth’s own marriage,
abandonment, and desire for her estranged husband to return and beg forgiveness.
This has never been confirmed.
Augusta Jane
Evans
Strong
Heroines, Loveless Marriages, and Ice
These facts
about Augusta Jane Evans’ life and work came from several books. Her life is
documented in numerous sources and, through my research, became common knowledge
to me. I cannot place one single reference as my source, so I will list the
books that I gained my knowledge from:
Feminism and
American Literary History—Nina
Baym; Woman’s Fiction—Nina Baym;
19th Century Women’s
Novels: Interpretive Strategies- Susan K. Harris;
All the Happy Endings—Helen
Papashvily.
Ms. Evans represents the generation after Ms. Warner and Mrs. Southworth,
and studying her work shows the influence of the earlier writers and novels on
society.
Augusta Jane Evans, born in 1835 shares
a story much like Susan Warner’s. She came from a wealthy family but her father,
through mismanagement, lost their fortune. He moved the family to
In her
novels a common theme became: dependency is a negative attribute. Nina Baym
explains how this related from the book to the reader.
“The
insecurity of her role [living with a benefactor] , more than a servant, less
than a daughter, always made a girl bitter, moody, unduly sensitive, frequently
ill tempered, and always fiercely ambitious and aggressively independent. This
played well with the fact that her readers often felt “misunderstood,
mistreated, and misjudged” (Baym 158).
This way of
writing validated the reader’s own feelings of frustration, and appealed to the
desire of wanting to be seen as capable and independent.
Evans’s most famous novel St. Elmo
is about Edna Earl who becomes orphaned by the age of thirteen. She decides to
leave her home in the
Evolution of
the Heroine and Evolution in American Women
Authors began writing heroines that could ‘charm’ men to get what they
wanted. This gave them some sense of having ‘power’. However, Mrs. Caroline Lee
Hentz, the author of many domestic novels like
Lovell’s Folly, and
The Planter’s Northern Bride,
questioned this ‘power’. “How could she . . . use her talent, beauty and charm
to any real advantage without violating convention”? To remain unmarried carried
“restrictions custom imposed on their (spinsters) dress, movement and behavior
(Papashvily 90). As long as there is a husband to “fortify legal and social
authority” a wife could not “demonstrate her courage, her value” (Papashvily
91). Author’s began freeing their
heroine’s from such conventions. Much like Southworth, Hentz started to remove
the husbands of her characters. In her novel
Linda, the husband dies at sea.
Evans
heroines longed for more opportunity to become self-sufficient. Her heroines
became educated, longed for independence, and wanted careers. In return,
American women began to open to the idea of women’s equality. The need for a
woman to be educated beyond public
school became a reality.
This changed
domestic novel formula, and instead of living happily ever after in the bonds of
holy matrimony, more authors began writing more independent heroines, and
reader’s realized they could get an education, just like the heroine’s did.
Thanks to “The untiring efforts of Emma Willard, her sister Mrs. Almira Phelps,
Mary Lyons and many other brave and now forgotten pioneers” women attended
colleges and universities (Papashvily 92).
Loveless
marriages
“The
‘loveless marriage’ was a relationship conceived and idealized by domestic
novels”. In these domestic novels the men loved the women passionately, but the
women did not reciprocate the love, and only married “to protect her father’s
fortune, her brother’s honor, her mother’s secret” (Papashvily 168). Southworth
had fifteen-year-olds married to old men, and others married only for wealth or
position, but they always longed for a past love that they would recall
throughout the story.
Marion
Harland had her Mabel, in At Last,
marry for wealth, and her calm control carried her through the marriage until
her true love was widowed and she discovered her husband had an illness and died
a few pages later. With patience and time, she was able to find happiness.
Loveless marriages gave the heroine power over her husband. This
resonated with American women as a comfort. Women stuck in a loveless marriage,
(many in this time married for the same reasons as the heroines of the novels
they read) had their feelings and emotions validated through the author’s words.
American women found that they were not alone, and sometimes that is empowering
in its self.
Ice
Evans
described many of her heroines as having rigid lips, cold hands, pale skin,
white hair, and a chill face. Evans book
Vashti portrayed the heroine as bony, pale; she played sad music and read
sad poetry. The men loved her daintiness. She was an ice queen.
This characteristic of domestic fiction
heroines became coping mechanism for angry and frustrated wives. In the novels
ice queens were portrayed as more desirable than passionate girls. “What they
(men) accepted as maidenly
reserve was instead, militant frigidity, doubly viscous because it arose not
from apathy or ignorance but from anger and revenge” (Papashvily 168).
Many readers
took on the role of an ice queen. They portrayed themselves and calm and
reserved, having little or no emotion toward their husbands. This masked the
feeling of frustration they felt. These women passed this way of acting to their
daughters.
One Source Review
All the
Happy Endings
by Helen Papashvily
Published in
1956 by Harper Brothers Publisher,
This book is
a treasure. I ordered it from Amazon.com for three dollars, and when it arrived
I discovered that it was signed by the author. I have reflected on the mass
amount of information in this book and realize the work Mrs. Papashvily must
have put in to the research required for such a comprehensive compilation of
information on the domestic novel. This book gives detailed accounts of the
author’s lives, their books, and an analysis of each novel. She did not have the
internet and had to visit numerous libraries and classic book dealers to obtain
her information.
Conclusion
I have learned an immense amount about the genre of women’s domestic
fiction. The most important thing I took away from this research was the amount
of empathy I have gained for women in the nineteenth century. I have always
known that women were not treated as equals, and were merely men’s property in
the past, but never have I put much thought into it. It amazes me that these
women were able to overcome their bad circumstances and excel in writing in a
time when they were not permitted to have anything of their own.
I started my research looking for solid explanations of sublimated
symbols in the novels. I guess I thought that there was some secret language
being transmitted to the female population through these books. This is not the
case. Rather, it was the unifying conditions of the heroines, the sense that
some-one else was experiencing the raw emotions of anger and frustration that
bonded authors with their readers. The heroine and the evolution of the heroine
were part of the embers of what later inflamed to be the women’s movement. The
heroine was the symbol sublimated in in the story. Her tribulations and triumphs
inspired American women. Through the heroine they realized that they too were
strong and capable.
I checked out and bought around nine books for this journal. I have a lot
of information that would not fit in the page allotment for this assignment. I
could write a book on this subject. My research would continue in discovering
more about other writers, there were a lot, and their circumstances. I would
follow the evolution of the heroine and her impacts on the reader’s society.
I have thoroughly enjoyed researching and discovering, what I feel, is a
lost genre. Granted, the stories are repetitive, but I find the entire aspect of
the novels, serials, authors, and the society of the time to be incredibly
interesting.
Works Cited
Baym, Nina.
Feminism & American Literary History.
---.
Woman’s Fiction A guide to Novels By and
About Women in
Harris,
Susan K. 19th Century American Women's
Novels: Interpretive Strategies.
Papashvily,
Helen. All the Happy Endings.
NewYork: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1956. Print.
