Family Life in 19th-Century America (Family Life through History)

440 Pages·2007·2.05 MB·English

by  James M. Volo

FAMILY LIFE IN
19TH-CENTURY
AMERICA

JAMES M. VOLO,
DOROTHY DENNEEN VOLO
GREENWOOD PRESS
FAMILY LIFE IN
19 -
TH CENTURY

AMERICA
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Marilyn Coleman, Lawrence H. Ganong, and Kelly Warzinik
FAMILY LIFE IN
19 -
TH CENTURY

AMERICA
JAMES M. VOLO

AND DOROTHY DENNEEN VOLO
Family Life through History
GREENWOOD PRESS
Westport, Connecticut (cid:127) London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Volo, James M., 1947-
Family life in 19th-century America / James M. Volo and Dorothy
Denneen Volo.
p. cm. — (Family life through history, ISSN 1558-6286)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978–0–313–33792–5 (alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0–313–33792–6 (alk. paper)
1. Family — United States — History — 19th century. 2. United States—
Social conditions—19th century. I. Volo, Dorothy Denneen, 1949– II.
Title. III. Title: Family life in nineteenth-century America.
HQ535.V65 2007
306.850973’09034—dc22 2007018352
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.
Copyright © 2007 by James M. Volo and Dorothy Denneen Volo
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2007018352
ISBN-13: 978–0–313–33792–5
ISBN-10: 0–313–33792–6
ISSN: 1558–6286
First published in 2007
Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
www.greenwood.com
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this book complies with the
Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Introduction vii
Part 1: The 19th Century: An Overview of America 1
1. The Background of 19th-Century America 3
Part 2: Family 23
2. The Family 25
3. Father as a Family Man 47
4. Father as a Success 65
5. Father as Worker 73
6. Faith of Thy Fathers 114
7. Man of Honor and Good Counsel 131
8. Father Protector 141
9. Father and the Civil War 175
10. Women as Mothers 194
11. Mother as Wife 208
12. Mother as Homemaker 226
vi Contents
13. Children as Family 255
14. Children as Learners 278
15. Children as Workers 315
16. Independent Living 330
17. Domestic Servants 350
18. Slaves 361
19. The Family and Manifest Destiny 380
Selected Bibliography 401
Index 405
Introduction
P arents should instruct their children in the Scriptures. Should bring
them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Should also teach
them to be sober, chaste, and temperate, to be just to all and bountiful
to the poor as they have opportunity and ability. Parents should govern
their children well; restrain, reprove, correct them as there is occasion. 1
—Benjamin Wadsworth
A Well-Ordered Family (1719)
Family
F amily was the primary mechanism by which 19th-century children
passed to successful adulthood acquiring the skills, the values, and the
philosophies of their forbearers, their community, their church, and their
nation. The knowledge gained by the experiences of childhood, the acqui-
sition of formal or informal occupational training, and the formation of
adult values were all intimate functions of the family. The family served
to transmit cultural ideals, societal standards, and political awareness
through succeeding generations. A well-ordered family also helped to
mitigate the sometimes wild fluctuations in the levels of agricultural
s uccess, economic stability, and personal security that affected family
members in an organized and distinctive way.
Modern historians have suggested that by the beginning of the 19th
century several complex factors had worked together to undermine
the family household of colonial times. Among these were the waning
viii Introduction
of traditional church authority and the rise of emotionalized religions,
revivalism, evangelicalism, and camp meetings; the growth of industrial
manufacturing and regional consumerism and the subsequent weakening
of the traditional farmland economy; the challenge to parental authority
posed by public school and by the growing body of secular officials and
agencies within the community; and the loss of patriarchal influence
in the afterglow of enlightened thought and republican principles. The
challenge to families represented by the secession crisis and the Civil War
should not be underestimated. Yet Victorian-era families in America seem
to have lived in well-ordered and structurally sound homes.
T he 19th-century idealization of the American family home as a place
of gathering and foundation of community bordered on the reverence
accorded a sanctuary in some circles. In 1864 self-improvement advisor
and child-rearing author, John F. W. Ware noted some of the impending
threats to the traditional family home, and he warned, “[Our] English
ancestors . . . [were] an in-door people. . . . Make this whole nation an
out-of-doors people, teach them to find their amusement, their happiness,
away from home, in gardens, in cafes, in the streets as it is in France and
Italy, and it would be as difficult to maintain our Republic as it has been
to establish one in Paris and Rome. . . . [W]e should all be grateful that we
have so pure a model as the ideal Anglo-Saxon home.”2
It is important for the reader to keep in mind the limitations created
by such ethnocentric attitudes when considering the words and deeds of
different classes of persons in the 19th century. Nonetheless, it seems safe
to suggest that the functions of the family, as perceived by those living at
the time, can be separated into several general themes: religious, economic,
educational, societal, and s upportive. These several functions of the family,
which will be discussed in detail later, allowed each family member to
adapt to the outside world and overcome the peculiar challenges of life.
Each of these themes took on a different level of significance as the 19th
century progressed. At times they were seemingly subverted by the larger
historical issues of the day such as abolition, secession, or civil war; but all
five continued to characterize the overall purposes of the family through-
out the period.
The r eligious function was thought to be the key to a well-ordered
19th-century family. For children in particular, family religious instruction
remained uniquely important because it was thought that they received
religious training at home at an earlier age and in a more appropriate
manner than any formal religious training institution could have e ffectively
done. As Ware notes, “The Divine Mind seems to have laid broadly and
deeply the foundations of an institution [the family] which should s atisfy
the wants of the most uncultured, at the same time that it should be
capable of stretching itself out so to satisfy the highest aspirations of the
most refined.” 3 The antebellum period was c haracterized by a grassroots
upwelling of evangelical sentiment and a Second Great Awakening of
Introduction ix
religious fervor among the established religious communities. In many
cases formal church membership among traditional Protestants rose to
historic highs.
However, many of the immigrants to America were highly sectarian in
their beliefs. Irish immigrants, in particular, introduced an ever- increasing
Roman Catholic presence into a largely Protestant urban population
that was ill disposed to accept them. There were also a number of
new religious sects that became popular in this period (among them
Mormons, Campbellites, Shakers, Rappites, Fourierists, Unitarians, and
Universalists). These sects tended to be more narrowly focused on dis-
crete principles than the more traditionally organized churches, and
their doctrines generally rejected formalized ceremonies and traditional
religious organizations for a more popularized format. Some of these,
like the Mormons, affected the social and economic characteristics of the
wider community while others were mere splinter groups or cultural
curiosities.
Sectarian groups were often self-led or formed around a particularly
charismatic leader, while organized churches generally had a trained
authoritarian ministry and a long-standing dogmatic tradition. It was
thought that young women were particularly susceptible to being led
astray by these novel religions, unconventional doctrines, and celebrated
preachers. Ware notes, “No words can describe the mischief that has been
so largely done in these latter days, by those who have laid themselves
out, to lead away our young women from their home faith.” Nonetheless,
many religious sects initiated at the dawn of the century—the Methodists
and the Mormons, for instance—eventually evolved into remarkably
well-organized and authoritarian churches, each with its own set of
sophisticated and discrete doctrines.4
As a method of religious instruction and a means of religious sup-
port, the family supplied an ethical atmosphere based on the particular
tenets of its religion or sect that helped to maintain its core beliefs. It was
thought that core religious beliefs would “touch and control the home life
in all its relations,” and any compromise in this regard between a husband
and wife was considered injurious to the maintenance of family order.
“To make home life happy and united, one faith should run through
it—father, mother, children, after the same way worshipping [God] the
Father.” For this reason, should the young couple differ in religious
belief when engaged to marry, the woman was expected to defer to the
man’s faith before marriage—the women’s judgment in this area being
thought “but scant proof” against temptation. “The family is no sooner
begun, and children become old enough to ask questions and receive the
simpler rudiments of religious knowledge, than the difficulty assumes a
still graver aspect.” Family religious traditions and training, on the other
hand, continually reinforced the practice of worship even outside the
formal settings of Sabbath Day worship. 5