APUSH Review Blog

Discuss the changing ideals of American womanhood between the American Revolution (1770’s) and the outbreak of the Civil War. What factors fostered the emergence of “republican motherhood” and the “cult of domesticity”? Assess the extent to which these ideals influenced the lives of women during this period. In your answer be sure to consider issues of race and class. Use the documents and your knowledge of the time period in constructing your response.

Antebellum Renaissance

1790-1860
Analyzing the question

• Republican Motherhood- responsibility to cultivate civic virtue of republicanism in their children

• Focused on the changing women from the American Revolution to the Civil War.
• Focus on race and class
• Cult of Domesticity- homemakers and mothers
  
  
  Document A-Letter written by a Philadelphia woman, 1776
  • Boycotted English goods,manufactured their own goods, freedom
  • Daughters of Liberty- supported revolution
  • Abigail Adams- “remember the ladies”
  • Molly Pitcher (Mary McCauley)- carried water to soldiers
  • Home manufacturing
  • Document B-Benjamin Rush, Thoughts Upon Female Education, 1787
    
    
    • women’s should be educated to educate their children
    • Republican motherhood
    • Oberlin College
    • Catharine Beecher- teaching profession
    • Hartford Female Seminary- train mothers to be teachers and mothers
      Document C: Occupations of Women Wage Earners in Massachusetts, 1837
      • hats,textiles, boots, and shoes
      • paid workforce, limited space
      • Lowell girls
      • Lowell factory system
        Document D: Letter written by a factory worker, 1839
        • positive feeling about factory work
        • women recruited other women
        • some thought work as bad
        • Document E: Margaret Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, 1845
        • • equal opportunities
          • separate spheres- middle class ideal
          • Lucretia Mott- women’s right, abolitionist,
          • Elizabeth Cady Stanton- women’s right movement
          • Seneca Falls- Declaration of Sentiments
          • Document F: Sarah Bagley, “The Ten Hour System and Its Advocates,” Voice of
            Industry, January 16, 1846
          • • long hours of work
            • society american womanhood did not apply to the working class
            • ideal v reality
            • Lowell girls
            • immigrant women
            • ocument G: “Woman, and the ‘Woman’s Movement,’” Putnam’s monthly magazine of American literature, science and art, March 1853
              
              
              • inferior to men, guardian of man’s humanity
              • moral guardians
              • subordination
              • women movement
              • Declaration of Sentiments
              • Seneca Falls Convention
              • Document H: Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, published in 1861
              • • slaves as property, law did not protect slaves
                • ideal not extended to slaves
                • infidelity of their husbands
                • American Anti Slavery Society
                • Sojourner Truth- “ain’t I women”
                • Grimke Sisters- abolitionist and suffragists,
                • Uncle Tom’s Cabin- novel gained opposition to slavery, Harriet Beecher Stowe
                • Document I: Letters written by a frontier woman in Iowa to relatives, 1861
                • • women worked in the fields, acceptable work
                  • aspired for cult of ...
                  • Document J: H. L. Stephens, The Parting, 1863
                  • • sale of slave family
                    • slave families did not have stability
                    • Underground Railroad
                    • Sojourner Truth- “ain’t I woman”
                    • Harriet Tubman- conducted the underground railroad
                    Thesis- The cult of domesticity and republican motherhood was embraced as part of American womanhood with middle and upper class using it as a handicap to reach social and economic equity; however, such ideal could not be embraced by the working class and African Americans due to economic and social repression.

                    Class
                    
                    
                    • lower class and black women
                    • young women- work in factories
                    • Lowell girls- semi-acceptable working conditions
                    • obligated to attend church
                    • no economic advancement- for men
                    • Dorothea Dix- against inhumane treatment of insane prisoners
                    • Clara Barton- founded the Red Cross
                    • nursing
                      
                      
                      Race
                      • white- cult of domesticity
                      • black- freed and enslaved
                      • not able to practice republican motherhood
                      • torn apart from families- unable to instruct values
                      • the law didn’t do anything
                      • slaves forbidden to marry
                      • taught to admire both but unable to
                      Politics
                      
                      
                      • advocates of women’s political rights- shunned
                      • suffragist- not seen as ladies
                      • Seneca Falls Convention
                      • Susan B. Anthony- woman and men are equal
                      • Margaret Fuller- Transcendental journal
                      • cult of domesticity and republican motherhood- bad for advocates of women’s right
                        
                        
                        Social Reforms
                        • educated and middle class women- social reform
                        • advocates of temperance and prohibition
                        • organized anti-alcohol groups
                        • abolitionist
                        • Grimke sisters
                        • Uncle Tom’s Cabin
                          
                          
      
      
      Religion
      • Great Awakening
      • moral supremacy- country’s values
      • make intellectual and physical superiority- out of politics and economics
      • cult of domesticity- moral preservation and instruction
      • occupation of teaching
      • republican motherhood- unmarried women teaching
      • enforced
      Conclusion
      • American womanhood was suppose to be followed by every woman living in America; however, it was not due to economic and social repressions.
      • It was not welcomed by advocated for women’s right because it suppressed their ability.
      • 19th amendment

Truman Doctrine, Hanoi Hilton

If you were assigned an Event or situation you need to summarize the event add primary source analysis, and include a video of the event or situation in 3 paragraphs.
Truman Doctrine

      The Truman Doctrine came to be after Britain was unable to provide financial support to pro-democratic countries, usually surrounded by pro-Soviet countries. Truman instituted the Truman doctrine in order to help financially countries retain the pro-democratic stances. President Eisenhower invoked the Eisenhower Doctrine ten years after his predecessors Truman Doctrine. In 1947, President Truman asked congress for four hundred million dollars in order to prevent countries such as Turkey and Greece fall into communism. 
      Truman said it is the duty of the Unites States to help countries overthrow and stop communism. Therefore, he provided aid in the ways he sought fit since Britain could no longer provide support. The doctrine supported countries through economic means not so much through military action. Controversy was seen when that support for all countries was not economically possible such as the case with the Hungarian revolt under the Eisenhower doctrine.
Truman Doctrine
      Britain informed the United States it could no longer provide financial aid to Turkey and Greece. This was due since war world 1 had a lot of economic repercussions and Britain was widely affected. It was then that the idea of the United States responsibility to help countries to not fall into communism came to be. With the Truman Doctrine the Domino theory was created. Truman addressed the American people through the radio and gave extreme importance to a measure against communism.

Hanoi Hilton
     The capital of communist Vietnam was the Hanoi and the area surrounding it was called the Hanoi Hilton by American prisoners of war. In 1948, the Geneva Convention to discuss the treatment of prisoners of war and how countries were to conduct warfare. North Vietnamese did not follow the treatment of prisoners of war established by the Geneva Convention due to the fact the U.S. did not officially declare war. As a result, American prisoners of war were badly treated and considered pirates and air pirates. The Hanoi Hilton is the base of interrogation for the Vietnamese were cruel treatment was practiced. The Vietnamese practiced sensory deprivation and with that process were able to get information from the soldiers.
      However, American soldiers were trained and educated in military academies; their command was not to leak information unless the pain became unbearable. Being educated soldiers created a communication system in the prison with the basis of the Morse code. The soldiers then gave inaccurate information to their captors and were not caught. The Vietnamese believed the treatment worked and trusted the information. Some American soldiers lived in the Hanoi Hilton to up to 8 years and managed to survive using the communication system.
Documentary -video
Primary Source
     The primary source is derived from the Geneva Convention which is supposed to ensure the treatment of prisoners of war is not brutal.It states that the enemy power is held responsible for the treatment of the prisoner and can be accused if an individual violates the Geneva Convention. It is the responsibility of the enemy power to return the custody of the prisoners if the convention is violated. The convention states no brutal treatment can be given to prisoners such as mutilation. The enemy power is also in charge of the health and medical fees of the prisoners. This was important because Vietnam violated the Geneva Convention;however, it was okay because the U.S. did not officially declare war against Vietnam.