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Fact: The number of girls' academic schools in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic increased rapidly beginning in the mid-19th century.
 * Republican motherhood

MLA Citation: Nash, Margaret A. “A Means of Honorable Support: Art and Music in Women's Education in the Mid-Nineteenth Century.” History of Education Quarterly, vol. 53, no. 1, 2013, pp. 45–63.

DOI: 10.1111/hoeq.12002

Quote: In fact, however, formal education for white women grew enormously in the early nineteenth century. By the middle decades of the century, hundreds of female academies and seminaries existed, along with coeducational institutes, colleges, and normal schools, to which the daughters of farmers, ministers, and shopkeepers flocked. Phase Three:

Bloch, Ruth Heidi. Gender and Morality in Anglo-American Culture, 1650–1800. 1st ed., University of California Press, 2003, doi:10.1525/j.ctt1pnhm4.

This book contains information about how attitudes towards gender and religion evolved the way that they did. It highlights women’s roles in sexuality and authority compared to men. This give insight in the diversity gap of gender roles. It gives knowledge of how women’s roles were transformed in Anglo-American culture.

Gundersen, Joan R. To Be Useful to the World. The University of North Carolina Press, 2006.

This book contains information of women’s roles during the Revolutionary period. It highlights the idea that women’s roles depended greatly on their race and class during this time. This book contains several diversity gaps during the revolutionary period. It contains information of diversity between women, rather than just men and women.

Phase Four:

Fact 1 Paragraph: "On the other hand, reformed theology vigorously proclaimed the priesthood of all believers. In its early, more rebellious phase, the Protestant movement appealed especially to women who wished to prove theological issues and to participate more fully in a collective religious life. Protestant women not only read Scripture and sang psalms alongside men, but for a brief period some actually preached and contested theological points with their pastors in public. Even after leaders like Calvin and Beza firmly rejected the possibility of full sexual equality and the feminist thrust became confined within the radical democratic sects, Protestantism, without a doubt, partially improved the status of women. Perhaps most important, the Protestants insisted that everyone should read the Scriptures, thereby actively encouraging literacy among women as well as lower-class men. In addition, although women still could not become ministers, the Protestant clergy wielded none of the sacred authority of the Catholic priests. The laity, male and female, now established individual relationships with God unmediated by a male ecclesiastical hierarchy. Indeed, the very maleness of the symbol of God could work to encourage the regenerate of both sexes to conceive of themselves as female in relation to him, thereby blurring sexual distinctions among the elect."

Fact 1 Summary: Protestantism had a major influence in minimizing the gender gap between men and women in religion, and although, they still did not allow women to become ministers, they were allowed to read scriptures and sing Psalms.

Fact 2 Paragraph: "When the war ended, women had to find a new way to demonstrate their patriotism, through less heroic measures. Women’s political activity made the new republic uneasy. Some women turned to a traditional outlet by writing about politics and publishing pamphlets, poetry, and books on political issues and history. But, as Mercy Warren discovered in 1804 when she published her history of the Revolution, writing about politics was now outside the ‘‘road of female life.’’ Many Americans read Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Women, but found parts of it unwomanly or ‘‘too independent.’’ Some women even found it embarrassing to read out loud. Americans assumed that an unwomanly female would be unattractive and lacking in virtue. It was only a small step to assuming that such women were sexually loose."

Fact 2 Summary: Women could only be involved in politics to a certain extent before they were considered "unwomanly" by men and even other women.

Article Section:

Many Christian ministers, such as the Reverend Thomas Bernard, actively promoted the ideals of republican motherhood. They believed this was the appropriate path for women, as opposed to the more public roles promoted by Mary Wollstonecraft and her contemporaries. Traditionally, women had been viewed as morally inferior to men, especially in the areas of sexuality and religion. However, as the nineteenth century drew closer, many Protestant ministers and moralists argued that modesty and purity were inherent in women's natures, giving them a unique ability to promote Christian values with their children. Protestantism had a major influence in minimizing the gender gap between men and women in religion, and although, they still did not allow women to become ministers, they were allowed to read scriptures and sing Psalms.

Although the notion of republican motherhood initially encouraged women in their private roles, it eventually resulted in increased educational opportunities for American women, as typified by Mary Lyon and the founding in 1837 of "Mount Holyoke Female Seminary", later Mount Holyoke College. The ideal produced women with initiative and independence; as Kerber says, it was "one side of an inherently paradoxical ideology of republican motherhood that legitimized political sophistication and activity." Educated Northern women became some of the strongest voices and organizers of the abolitionist movement, which blossomed in the 1830s and 1840s. Women could only be involved in politics to a certain extent before they were considered "unwomanly" by men and even other women. Working on civil rights for enslaved people caused women to realize they themselves were enslaved by the patriarchy and wanted rights for themselves, giving rise to the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, and the women's rights movement in the United States. They worked for suffrage, property rights, legal status and child custody in family disputes. The movement likely owes a debt to the emphasis on republican motherhood of fifty years before.