Revolutionary Conceptions

by Klepp, Susan E.

• ISBN13: 9780807859926
• ISBN10: 0807859923
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-12-01
• Publisher: Omohundro Inst of Early Amer

Summary

In the Age of Revolution, how did American women conceive their lives and marital obligations? By examining the attitudes and behaviors surrounding the contentious issues of family, contraception, abortion, sexuality, beauty, and identity, Susan E. Klepp demonstrates that many women--rural and urban, free and enslaved--began to radically redefine motherhood. They asserted, or attempted to assert, control over their bodies, their marriages, and their daughters' opportunities. Late-eighteenth-century American women were among the first in the world to disavow the continual childbearing and large families that had long been considered ideal. Liberty, equality, and heartfelt religion led to new conceptions of virtuous, rational womanhood and responsible parenthood. These changes can be seen in falling birthrates, in advice to friends and kin, in portraits, and in a gradual, even reluctant, shift in men's opinions. Revolutionary-era women redefined femininity, fertility, family, and their futures by limiting births. Women might not have won the vote in the new Republic, they might not have gained formal rights in other spheres, but, Klepp argues, there was a women's revolution nonetheless.

Author Biography

Susan E. Klepp is professor of history and affiliated professor of women's studies and of African American studies at Temple University. She is author or coeditor of six books and editor of the Journal of the Early Republic.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. v
List of Illustrations	p. ix
List of Table	p. xiii
Introduction First to Fall: Fertility, American Women, and Revolution	p. 1
Starting, Spacing, and Stopping: The Statistics of Birth and Family Size	p. 21
Old Ways and New	p. 56
Women's Words	p. 88
Beauty and the Bestial: Images of Women	p. 128
Potions, Pills, and Jumping Ropes: The Technology of Birth Control	p. 179
Increase and Multiply: Embarrassed Men and Public Order	p. 215
Reluctant Revolutionaries	p. 248
Conclusion: Fertility and the Feminine in Early America	p. 272
Appendix	p. 287
Index	p. 305
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