The daughters of rural Massachusetts :: women and autonomy, 1800-1860

231 Pages·2017·11.67 MB·English

by  Glendyne R. Wergland

UUnniivveerrssiittyy ooff MMaassssaacchhuusseettttss AAmmhheerrsstt
SScchhoollaarrWWoorrkkss@@UUMMaassss AAmmhheerrsstt
Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014
1995
TThhee ddaauugghhtteerrss ooff rruurraall MMaassssaacchhuusseettttss :::: wwoommeenn aanndd aauuttoonnoommyy,,
11880000--11886600//
Glendyne R. Wergland
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses
Wergland, Glendyne R., "The daughters of rural Massachusetts :: women and autonomy, 1800-1860/"
(1995). Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014. 2073.
Retrieved from https://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses/2073
This thesis is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for
inclusion in Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014 by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass
Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected].

THE DAUGHTERS OF RURAL MASSACHUSETTS
WOMEN AND AUTONOMY,
1800-1860
A
Thesis Presented
by
GLENDYNE WERGLAND
R.
Submitted to the Graduate School of the
University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
February 1995
Department of History
° Copyright by Glendyne R. Wergland 1995
All Rights Reserved
THE DAUGHTERS OF RURAL MASSACHUSETTS
WOMEN AND AUTONOMY,
1800-1860
A
Thesis Presented
by
GLENDYNE WERGLAND
R.
Approved as to style and content by:
Bruce Laurie, Chair
Member
Winfr/^d E.A. Bernhard,
Barry Levy, Member
Bruce Laurie, Department Head
History Department
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to express my appreciation to the number of people who made
this thesis a reality. First, Bruce Laurie, my advisor and thesis committee chairman,
asked questions and suggested alternate lines of reasoning when I thought I had
reached an impasse with the material. Winfred E.A. Bernhard, in whose seminar this
study was first born, provided encouragement throughout the process. Barry Levy,
the third member of my thesis committee, added considerably to my understanding of
the possibilities of quantification. Judy Ruttenberg, my sister teaching assistant, read
the manuscript and offered suggestions.
My daughters, Jennifer Wergland and Karyn Wergland, proofread portions.
women
As the most recent of a long line of this family's stubborn and independent
who sought to maximize their own autonomy in a variety of subtle and not-so-subtle
ways, they have been a continuing source of inspiration. They reminder me that all
women, whether or not they are wives or sisters, are daughters first.
Last but never least, my husband, Gerald Pendleton Wergland, through his
generous support, made all this possible.
iv
ABSTRACT
THE DAUGHTERS OF RURAL MASSACHUSETTS
WOMEN AND AUTONOMY,
1800-1860
FEBRUARY
1995
GLENDYNE WERGLAND, MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE
R. B.A.,
M.A., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST
Directed by: Professor Bruce Laurie
This study addresses a series of questions about household demographics,
property ownership, testation, and employment changes that benefited women by
increasing their potential for autonomy in rural western Massachusetts from 1800 to
1860. Increasing numbers of women headed their own households and appeared on
tax lists as single women and widows. Women also inherited real estate from both
women and men. Single women favored women as their primary beneficiaries. In the
1830s testators sharply increased bequests with "sole and separate use" provisions to
protect married women's separate property -- well in advance of the passage of the
Massachusetts Married Women's Property Act of 1855. In addition, fathers showed a
slight favoritism for their daughters in bequests during the mid-nineteenth century,
when more and more heirs had emigrated west. As increasing numbers of women
owned property, there was increasing commentary linking women's property
ownership with the right to vote.
v
PREFACE
It was perhaps 1954 when I realized that women lived in a different world than
men. At age six, I knew that women spoke a different language among themselves,
and that men did not speak the same language. The faces women presented to each
other were not the masks they put on in front of their husbands, brothers, fathers, and
sons. Feminine reality was a fuller, more supportive reality than what I could see of
men's reality. But perhaps that was because men wore masks of their own.
My
paternal great-grandmother, Gertrude Smith Cosper, was one of six
daughters. She had one son and four daughters, including my grandmother, Gertrude
Elizabeth Cosper Beemer Weber. My grandmother and her sisters were so close that
on the occasional Christmas when her husband had to work over the holiday, she
would leave him behind in Oklahoma and travel half a day to Texas to be with her
sisters. My maternal grandmother, Bessie Irene Heller Goin, also came from a
my
family of sisters with only one brother. Both grandmothers and all paternal great-
aunts enjoyed the company of women. When they were roistering in the kitchen
-
cleaning up after the holiday feasts, conversation would be lively and intimate until
a man entered the room. They curbed their tongues in the presence of any men. I
could see for myself that among them there was more communication, more
cooperation, and less competition. They were, in fact, a community of women. That
sort of community can be seen today at any gathering of women who are on intimate
women
terms. To judge from what my grandmother told me, the intimacy of is little
vi
different today than it was in the 1880s when my great-grandmother was growing up
with her five sisters in rural West Virginia.
These women allowed me into their lives from earliest childhood. They taught
me more than domestic skills; they also taught me how to be a woman, and how
much or how little I could expect from other women or men. Though they appeared
my
to child's eyes as "domestic beings," all of them were employed, most of them
My
throughout their adult lives. mother, Dolores Goin Beemer Canfield taught
My
school. grandmother and godmother were hairdressers. Another great-aunt was
a secretary-bookkeeper, and yet another was the accountant for what grew into a
multimillion dollar family business. My pious, meek maternal grandmother worked
in a munitions factory during World War II, packing hand grenades. But I saw them
only at home, where they showed themselves unmasked to me.
This is why, when I saw evidence in the federal census of women without men
in their households, I recognized the fact that some women's comfort factor is
immeasurably higher when men are not present. Women who banded together in
their own enclaves did more than preserve their independence. They maintained a
bond with other women, a bond which could have been damaged by men. They lived
with each other in a greater sense of equality than would have been possible with
men. And some of those women secured their personal safety from men who abused
them in the appalling and varied ways that men have been known to abuse women.
Whether was because together women could afford housing that none could afford
it
separately, or because they needed or could offer nursing care to each other, or
needed the help of a friend or kinswoman in raising children in widowhood, or
••
Vll
because they were financially dependent, or simply because they preferred each
others' company to that of men, this much is historic fact: women banded together to
form feminine households. For those women, the search for autonomy depended on
help from other women.
viii