What is Woman's Fiction in Early America? (Weekly Reading Response # 2)

Before reading Nina Baym’s book Woman’s Fiction I had hear of the concepts of Republican Motherhood and the Cult of Domesticity, but had a difficult time understanding them.  The basic premise—that women could shape America from their homes—was confusing from my contemporary perspective.  However, Baym clearly explained how the movement and the literature written by women at the time were actually empowering women with self confidence and self reliance.

Baym defines Woman’s fiction as “the many formulaic novels of contemporary life by and about American women published between 1820 and 1870” (ix).  She describes the basic plot structure of these popular early American novels as a woman losing her financial stability because her guardians can no longer care for her.  Through a series of trials this woman finds that she can live independently.  The authors wrote professionally when there were not many career options for women.  Baym stresses that these women did not see themselves as writing “literature” but that instead they wanted to teach their women readers about their potential value as an individual.  The novels often referenced “literature” in a way that would familiarize the reader with these works through their novels (xvii).

How does becoming an independent woman relate logically to developing the growing nation of America? Baym explains that independent citizens and a strong middle-class were considered essential for a democratic republic to succeed because they could provide for themselves and part with money to fund the government.  Hence the Woman’s fiction writers felt they were serving a patriotic calling by showing women how to be independent and good citizens by exposing their readers to American ideology (xxiii).  Baym says that in early America women conserved family wealth and on the whole they conserved republican values: “in a nation whose authorizing revolutionary past was rapidly receding from public awareness, it had become women’s job, literally, to conserve these once powerful values and to publicize them whenever possible. . . . It was a paradox, but not a particularly deep one, that they had to become individuals to perform these tasks” (xxviii).  I especially like that in these stories women did not need to marry and have children to be fulfilled.  They were also written in reaction to previous fiction that furthered “long-entrenched trivializing and contemptuous views of women” (29).

Women’s fiction and the concept of the Republican Mother was not revolutionary feminism, but they did support a woman gaining agency in the home through her responsibility over instilling republican values.  Baym clarifies that “although the idea of reforming a nation by correcting its manners my well seem naïve or ludicrous or snobbish now, many mid-century women saw this task as a mission allied, though secondary, to their mission of overturning the male money system as the law of American life” (47). I do see how this is empowering; every American is raised at home, and if this is the woman’s domain, then technically women are responsible for raising every citizen and shaping them; also, though women’s fiction the writers could instill independence in a future generation of women (49).          

How does all of this “domestic feminism” connect with ecofeminisim?  To be honest I am not sure yet.  In rejecting a money-centered American ideology, did any of these women promote an ecocentric America?  As I indicated in my post yesterday, Baym also mentions the different portrayals of nature in this genre.

Country: Unlike previous fiction genres, that idealized country life, woman’s fiction discussed the hardship and reality of living on small farms and the often impoverished conditions: “They saw women’s lot on the farm as particularly hard, and country men as particularly intransigent in their opposition to feminine self-development” (43).

City: These writers viewed the city as a place where women had more opportunity but “they mourned the loss of simplicity and the separation from natural rhythms” (44).

Utopia: Some women wrote about a blissful commuter life between the city and the country.  Other women imagined an urban-mannered way of life in the countryside.

Garden cities: I believe the concept that I discussed in my post last night—that some woman’s fiction featured a garden city where “urban” life included the greenery of the country—has the most potential to include early ecoconscience and ecofeminist attitudes.

Until next post,

~Blake