Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-05T00:12:26.887Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“Drawing the Line of Equality”: Hannah Mather Crocker on Women's Rights

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2006

EILEEN HUNT BOTTING  and
SARAH L. HOUSER
EILEEN HUNT BOTTING
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame
SARAH L. HOUSER
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Hannah Mather Crocker was the leading American political theorist between 1800 and 1820 to engage the controversial question of sex equality. In the wake of the postrevolutionary backlash against political radicalism, she became a subtle rhetorician of women's rights. She accepted how her cultural context placed limits on the realization of women's rights, yet she did not analytically conflate these temporal limits with women's capacities to contribute to their polity. She sought to normatively defend and gently extend American women's ongoing informal political participation in the postrevolutionary era and challenged the separate spheres discourse that aimed to restrict it. Through the first comprehensive study of Crocker's oeuvre, this article provides new insight into the political role and rhetorical style of women's rights discourse and women's activism in the early republic and uncovers Crocker's philosophical legacies for scholars who seek to reconcile the standpoints of equality and difference feminism.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 100 , Issue 2 , May 2006 , pp. 265 - 278
Copyright
© 2006 by the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allgor Catherine. 2000. Parlor Politics: In Which the Ladies of Washington Help Build a City and a Government. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia.
Anonymous. 1818. “RIGHTS OF WOMEN.” Columbian Centinel, 1 April and 8 April.
Baker Paula. 1984. “The Domestication of Politics: Women and American Political Society, 1780–1920.” The American Historical Review 89 (June): 620– 47.Google Scholar
Bederman Gail. 1995. Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880–1917. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Bennett Paula. 2003. Poets in the Public Sphere: The Emancipatory Project of American Women's Poetry, 1800–1900. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Berkin Carol. 2005. Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America's Independence. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Botting Eileen Hunt, and Carey Christine. 2004. “Wollstonecraft's Philosophical Impact on Nineteenth-Century American Women's Rights Advocates.” American Journal of Political Science 48 (October): 707– 22.Google Scholar
Boylan Anne. 2002. The Origins of Women's Activism: New York and Boston, 1797–1840. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Branson Susan. 2001. These Fiery Frenchified Dames: Women and Political Culture in Early National Philadelphia. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Brekus Catherine. 1998. Strangers and Pilgrims: Female Preaching in America, 1740–1845. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Brown Chandos. 1995. “Mary Wollstonecraft, or the Female Illuminati: The Campaign against Women and ‘Modern Philosophy’ in the Early Republic.” Journal of the Early Republic 15 (Fall): 389– 424.Google Scholar
Caine Barbara. 1997. English Feminism, 1780–1980. New York: Oxford University Press.
Cott Nancy F. [1977] 1997. The Bonds of Womanhood: “Woman's Sphere” in New England, 1780–1835. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Cott Nancy F. 1987. The Grounding of Modern Feminism. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Cress Lawrence. 1987. “‘Cool and Serious Reflection’: Federalist Attitudes towards War in 1812.” Journal of the Early Republic 7 (Summer): 123– 45.Google Scholar
Crocker Hannah Mather. 1812. “Fast Sermon.” Mather Family Papers, Box 12, Folder 7. American Antiquarian Society. Unpublished manuscript.
Crocker Hannah Mather. 1813. “Thanksgiving Sermon.” Mather Family Papers, Box 12, Folder 8. American Antiquarian Society. Unpublished manuscript.
Crocker Hannah Mather. 1814a. “The United Trinity or Consistent Catholic Christian.” Mather Family Papers, Box 12, Folder 1. American Antiquarian Society. Unpublished manuscript.
Crocker Hannah Mather. 1814b. “Jephthah Vow Explained.” Mather Family Papers, Box 12, Folder 2. American Antiquarian Society. Unpublished manuscript.
Crocker Hannah Mather. 1814c. “An Humble Address to the reason and wisdom of the American nation.” Mather Family Papers, Box 12, Folder 3. American Antiquarian Society. Unpublished manuscript.
Crocker Hannah Mather. 1814d. “Antiquarian Researches.” Mather Family Papers, Box 12, Folder 4. American Antiquarian Society. Unpublished manuscript.
Crocker Hannah Mather. 1814e. “North Square Creed.” Mather Family Papers, Box 12, Folder 10. American Antiquarian Society. Unpublished manuscript.
Crocker Hannah Mather. 1814f. “Letter to Isaiah Thomas, 21 February 1814.” In “Meeting of June 1, 1814,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 1 (1812–1849): 43.Google Scholar
Crocker Hannah Mather. 1815. A Series of Letters on Free Masonry. Boston: John Eliot.
Crocker Hannah Mather. 1816. The School of Reform, or Seaman's Safe Pilot to the Cape of Good Hope Boston: John Eliot.
Crocker Hannah Mather. 1818. Observations on the Real Rights of Women, with their Appropriate Duties, Agreeable to Scripture, Reason and Common Sense. Boston: Printed for the Author.
Crocker Hannah Mather. 1819. “Midnight Beau.” Mather Family Papers, Box 12, Folder 9. American Antiquarian Society. Unpublished manuscript.
Crocker Hannah Mather. 1827. Reminiscences and Traditions of Boston: being an Account of the Original Proprietors of that Town & the Manners and Customs of its People. R. Stanton Avery Special Collections Department, The New England Historic Genealogical Society. Unpublished manuscript.
Crocker Hannah Mather. 1974. Observations on the Real Rights of Women, with their Appropriate Duties, Agreeable to Scripture, Reason and Common Sense, eds. Leon Stein and Annette K. Baxter. New York: Arno.
DuBois Ellen Carol. 1981. “Feminism before Seneca Falls.” In Elizabeth Cady Stanton/Susan B. Anthony: Correspondence, Writings, Speeches, ed. Ellen Carol DuBois. New York: Schocken, 2– 9.
Flexner Eleanor, and Fitzpatrick Ellen. [1959] 1996. Century of Struggle: The Woman's Rights Movement in the United States. Cambridge, MA: Belknap.
Frost Tabitha. 1786. “Ye sons of freedom rise and sing,” The Massachusetts Centinel, 13 December.Google Scholar
Ginzberg Lori. 1990. Women and the Work of Benevolence: Morality, Politics and Class in the Nineteenth-Century United States. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Ginzberg Lori. 2005. Untidy Origins: A Story of Woman's Rights in Antebellum New York. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Hamilton Alexander. [1787–1788] 1961. “Federalist 1.” In The Federalist Papers, ed. Clinton Rossiter. New York: Penguin, 33– 37.
Harris Sharon M., ed. 2003. Women's Early American Historical Narratives. New York: Penguin.
Isenberg Nancy. 1998. Sex and Citizenship in Antebellum America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
James Janet Wilson. 1971. “Crocker, Hannah Mather.” In Notable American Women, eds. Edward T. James and Janet W. James. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 406– 7.
Kelley Mary. 2003. “‘A More Glorious Revolution’: Women's Antebellum Reading Circles and the Pursuit of Public Influence.” The New England Quarterly 76 (June): 163– 96.Google Scholar
Kerber Linda. 1970. Federalists in Dissent: Imagery and Ideology in Jeffersonian America. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Kerber Linda. 1980. Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Kraditor Aileen, ed. 1968. Up from the Pedestal: Selected Writings in the History of American Feminism. Chicago: Quadrangle Books.
Landes Joan B. 1988. Women and the Public Sphere in the Age of the French Revolution. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Lipson Dorothy. 1977. Freemasonry in Federalist Connecticut. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Locke John. [1693] 1996. Some Thoughts Concerning Education. In Some Thoughts Concerning Education and Of the Conduct of the Understanding, eds. Ruth W. Grant and Nathan Tarcov. Indianapolis: Hackett, 7– 161.
Mackey Albert. 1947. The Symbolism of Freemasonry. Chicago: E.A. Cook.
Mansbridge Jane. 1996. “Reconstructing Democracy.” In Revisioning the Political, eds. Nancy Hirschmann and Christine DiStefano. Boulder, CO: Westview, 117– 138.
Mansbridge Jane. 1998. “Feminism and Democracy.” In Feminism and Politics, ed. Anne Phillips. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 142– 158.
Mattingly Carol. 1998. Well-Tempered Women: Nineteenth-Century Temperance Rhetoric. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press.
Murray Judith Sargent. [1790] 1998. “On the Equality of the Sexes.” In Judith Sargent Murray: A Brief Biography with Documents, ed. Shelia L. Skemp. Boston: Bedford Books, 176– 82.
Murray Judith Sargent. [1798] 1998. “Observations on Female Abilities.” In Judith Sargent Murray: A Brief Biography with Documents, ed. Shelia L. Skemp. Boston: Bedford Books, 144– 49.
Nussbaum Martha C. 2001. Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Offen Karen M. 2000. European Feminisms, 1700–1950: A Political History. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Okin Susan. [1989] 1991. Justice, Gender, and the Family. New York: Basic Books.
Okin Susan. 1999. “Reply.” In Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?, eds. Joshua Cohen, Matthew Howard, and Martha C. Nussbaum. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 117– 31.
Post Constance. 1999. “Hannah Mather Crocker.” Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 200: American Women Prose Writers to 1820, ed. Carla Mulford. Belmont, CA: Gale, 85– 93.
Post Constance. 2005. “Making the A-List: Reformation and Revolution in Crocker's Observations on the Real Rights of Women.” Resources for American Literary Study, Vol. 29. New York: AMS Press, 67– 88.
Rendall Jane. 1984. The Origins of Modern Feminism: Women in Britain, France, and the United States, 1780–1860. New York: Schocken.
Riegel Robert. 1963. American Feminists. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press.
Schloesser Pauline. 2002. The Fair Sex: White Women and Racial Patriarchy in the Early American Republic. New York: New York University Press.
Skemp Shelia L. 1998. Judith Sargent Murray: A Brief Biography with Documents. Boston: Bedford Books.
Skocpol Theda. 1992. Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States. Cambridge, MA: Belknap.
Smith Rogers M. 1997. Civic Ideals: Conflicting Visions of Citizenship in U.S. History. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Stanton Elizabeth Cady, Anthony Susan B., and Gage Matilda Joslyn. 1886. History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III: 1876–1885. Rochester, NY: Charles Mann.
Sterling Dorothy, ed. 1984. We Are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Norton.
Ulrich Laurel. 1976. “Vertuous Women Found: New England Ministerial Literature, 1668–1735,” American Quarterly 28 (Spring): 20– 40.Google Scholar
Taylor Barbara. 2003. Mary Wollstonecraft and the Feminist Imagination. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wallace James D. 1990. “Hawthorne and the Scribbling Women Reconsidered.” American Literature 62 (June): 201– 22.Google Scholar
Ward Harry M. 1999. The War for Independence and the Transformation of American Society. London: University College London Press.
Wollstonecraft Mary. [1792] 1995. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. In A Vindication of the Rights of Men and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, ed. Sylvana Tomaselli. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zagarri Rosemary. 1995. A Woman's Dilemma: Mercy Otis Warren and the American Revolution. Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson.
Zagarri Rosemary. 1998. “The Rights of Man and Woman in Post-Revolutionary America.” The William and Mary Quarterly, Series 3, 55 (April): 203– 30.Google Scholar
Zagarri Rosemary. 2004. “Women and Party Conflict in the Early Republic.” In Beyond the Founders: New Approaches to the Political History of the Early Republic, eds. Jeffrey L. Pasley, Andrew W. Robertson, and David Waldstreicher. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 108– 28.
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.