Root of Bitterness

by Cott, Nancy F.; Boydston, Jeanne; Braude, Ann; Ginzberg, Lori D.; Ladd-Taylor, Molly

• ISBN13: 9781555532567
• ISBN10: 155553256X
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-03-28
• Publisher: Northeastern Univ Pr

Summary

Presenting a diverse collection of documents, Root of Bitterness reaches from the colonial era through the nineteenth century, focusing on six dominant themes: women's work, the power of gender, the physical body, women's collective efforts, diversity and conflict among women, and women's relation to state authority. This edition contains about twenty selections from the original volume and almost sixty new ones.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi	(2)
Introduction	xiii
I. COLONIAL ENCOUNTERS AND COMMUNITIES	3	(46)
Examination of Anne Hutchinson	3	(8)
Church Trial and Excommunication of Ann Hibbens	11	(6)
Ordinary Dealings at Colonial County Courts	17	(7)
Case of Sarah Taylor, Indentured Servant	24	(5)
Statutes on Slave Descent	29	(3)
Susanna Martin, on Trial for Witchcraft	32	(4)
Carolina Women Observed	36	(6)
A Rape on the Body of Anne Eastworthy	42	(2)
A Law for Regulating Midwives	44	(5)
II. TRANSITIONS TO A NEW REPUBLIC	49	(64)
Sarah Osborn's Religious Conversion	49	(5)
Query to the Philadelphia Baptist Association	54	(2)
Sarah Harlan's Will	56	(3)
Letter from an Indentured Servant	59	(2)
Diary of Mary Cooper	61	(6)
Moll Placket-Hole	67	(4)
Abigail Adams's Letters from the Home Front	71	(6)
An Adolescent's Wartime Diary	77	(6)
Learning by Doing Women's Work	83	(8)
A Father's Advice to His Daughter	91	(7)
Eliza Southgate Reflects on the Sexes	98	(5)
Petition on Behalf of Fanny, a Slave Woman	103	(2)
Women's Work in the Market Economy	105	(8)
III. WOMAN'S SPHERE AND WOMEN'S EMPLOYMENTS	113	(64)
Maria Stewart Sees Chains on the Soul	113	(5)
Striking Tailoresses Speak	118	(5)
Sarah Grimke on the Condition of Women in the United States	123	(5)
The Legal Rights and Wrongs of Women	128	(4)
The Peculiar Responsibilities, and Difficulties, of American Women	132	(6)
"Sweethearts and Wives": A Story from Godey's Lady's Book	138	(10)
A Parlor Ballad	148	(4)
Margaret McCarthy Writes Home	152	(4)
Petition for a Ten-Hour Workday	156	(5)
Domestic Management in the Letters of Martha Coffin Wright	161	(6)
A New York Woman on a North Carolina Plantation	167	(10)
IV. WOMEN AND THE NATIONAL MISSION	177	(62)
Cherokee Women Address Their Nation	177	(2)
Missionary to Indian Territory	179	(6)
Eulalia Perez in Mexican California	185	(8)
Reaching Oregon	193	(5)
A Moral Reformer Makes Her Rounds	198	(6)
An Afternoon Call	204	(4)
A Daughter of Temperance Exhorts Her Sex	208	(5)
Planting Catholic Schools in North America	213	(5)
Since We Came to America	218	(6)
Iron Teeth (Mah-i-Ti-Wo-Nee-Ni) Remembers the Cheyenne Removal	224	(6)
The Great Indignation Meeting	230	(9)
V. SLAVERY, WAR, AND EMANCIPATION	239	(54)
James Curry's Mother	239	(4)
Virginia Ladies' Petition to Eliminate Slavery	243	(3)
An Appeal to the Women of the Nominally Free States, by Angelina Grimke	246	(6)
Narratives of Escaped Slaves	252	(6)
Sarah Parker Remond on American Slavery	258	(2)
A Slave Writes to Her Former Mistress	260	(2)
Louisa McCord on Enfranchisement of Woman	262	(6)
Union Women in Wartime	268	(6)
Gertrude Clanton Thomas's Civil War Diary	274	(7)
A Freedwoman before the Southern Claims Commission	281	(5)
The Race Problem--An Autobiography	286	(7)
VI. HEALTH, MEDICINE, AND SEXUALITY	293	(54)
On Female Health in America	293	(5)
Lucy Thurston's Surgical Operation	298	(5)
The Murders of Marriage, by Mary Gove Nichols	303	(6)
Testimony as to the Insanity of Elizabeth Packard	309	(6)
Abortion in New York	315	(6)
A Fox Woman Comes of Age	321	(4)
The Working Girls of Boston	325	(5)
Sex in Education, by Dr. Edward H. Clarke	330	(4)
Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi on Female Invalidism	334	(4)
Effeminate Men, Masculine Women	338	(3)
The Story of Aunt Easter	341	(6)
VII. WOMEN'S WORK IN AN INDUSTRIAL AGE	347	(52)
Have Been Busy All Day	347	(6)
The Sweating System, Charity, and Organization	353	(6)
Speak-out on Domestic Service	359	(5)
A Domestic Problem	364	(3)
Condition of Women in Rural Alabama	367	(5)
Leonora Barry Reports to the Knights of Labor	372	(5)
Rescued Chinese Prostitutes Testify at the Industrial Commission	377	(7)
Jane Addams on Idle Daughters and Working Mothers	384	(7)
Women's Evolution from Economic Dependence	391	(8)
VIII. NEW WOMEN, NEW WORLDS	399
Frances Willard Heralds "The Dawn of Woman's Day"	399	(7)
Mary Church Terrell Greets the National Congress of Mothers	406	(3)
Catholics Debate the Woman Question	409	(5)
Mary Lease, Prophet of the Farmers' Alliance	414	(6)
To the President, in the Negro's Behalf	420	(3)
An Indian Teacher among Indians	423	(3)
The Story of a Sweatshop Girl	426	(7)
The Typewriter Girl	433	(3)
Murray Hall Fooled Many Shrewd Men	436