Cott, Nancy F. The Bonds of Womanhood: “woman’s sphere” in New England, 1780 - 1835. New Haven: Yale UP, 1997.
Cott’s book approaches domesticity and the “woman’s sphere” with an emphasis on women’s consciousness and consciousness-raising; the edition I used was the second, but the original edition came out in 1977. Cott states her aim is “to see how middle-class women’s experience and concomitant outlook in the decades leading toward the 1820s and 1830s matched or confronted (or possibly produced) the prescriptive ‘canon’ of domesticity” (xiii). This attention to the middle-class was a perfect match because Mary Burnam is also middle-class. I primarily focused on her introduction, chapter three (“Education”) and the conclusion. This book was an excellent source for background research, and provided great historical background about education in post-Revolutionary America. I learned a great deal about the tension between the idealized cult of domesticity and the demands from supporters of female enlightenment.
Davidson, Cathy N. Revolution and the Word: The rise of the novel in America. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.
Davidson’s ground breaking work focuses on “coemergence of the new U.S. nation and the new literary genre of the novel” (vii). The book utilizes many different sources, ranging from primary sources, to archival documents, and private writings (diaries, letters). Davidson varies her approach as well, applying a history of the text to the more standardized “reception studies, social history, historical materialism and poststructuralist critical theory” (vii). This book was helpful in that Davidson mentions The Factory Girl specifically twice, though in reference to its industrial connotations, which I did not necessarily explore in my paper.
Fetterley, Judith. “Introduction.” Provisions: a reader from 19th-Century American women. Ed. Judith Fetterley. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1985. 1-40.
Fetterley’s “Introduction” to the anthology is decidedly personal as she recounts her own experiences with early American women writers and their texts. Her decision to include the journey that brought her to edit and produce the anthology reminds readers how different the field of feminine studies was twenty years ago: “the attempt to integrate the work of nineteenth-century American women into the definition of American literature would provide a good testing ground for the relationship between sexual politics and literary judgment” (2). Though Fetterley does not make specific reference to Sarah Savage or The Factory Girl, her “Introduction” provided a strong argument concerning women writer’s decision to focus on the lives of women, which is what Savage’s text does. If time and paper length constraints weren’t an issue, I would have included more of Fetterley’s research in my paper.
Kelley, Mary. Learning to Stand & Speak: women, education, and public life in America’s republic. Williamsburg, Virginia: U of North Carolina P, 2006.
Kelley’s book focuses on “the movement of women into public life” (1) by measuring the transformation “in individual and social identities” (1). Specifically, the book looks at female academies/seminaries, and what role they played in “mediating this process” (1). The source material covers a wide range, from personal letters, diaries, school newspapers, newsletters, etc. The anecdotal approach lets the reader feel a connection to these women who lived over a hundred years ago. My research concentrated on the introduction, chapters two and seven (“The Need of Their Genius: The Rights and Obligations of Schooling” and “The Mind Is, in a Sense, Its Own Home: Gendered Republicanism as Lived Experience”), and the conclusion. Despite the fact that Savage is never mentioned specifically, I still read through all the material because it was so incredibly fascinating. It provided excellent historical reference for my paper regarding the evolution of female education during the 1830s - 1860s.
Lovell, Thomas B. “Separate Spheres and Extensive Circles: Sarah Savage’s ‘The Factory Girl’ and the Celebration of Industry in Early Nineteenth-Century America.” Early American Literature 31.1 (1996): 1-24. America: History & Life. 7 February 2009.
Lovell’s article explores the connections between “labor, virtue and womanhood” (1) in The Factory Girl and suggests that the lack of scholarship on the novel stems from the fact that “it challenges the dominant conceptual framework of separate spheres” (5) by welcoming “the domain of the factory as a new opportunity” (5) instead of labeling it (industrialization) as a threat to the home. Lovell’s approach is firmly grounded in economic theory and he views Mary, like many post-Revolutionary women, as economically constituting herself in response to the shifting economy of the time. This article was extremely helpful in my research because it included many non-fictional historical documents about the introduction of factories into American economy, and provided support for the connections between agency and expansion of Mary’s sphere of influence I found in the text.
Moore, Margaret B. “Sarah Savage of Salem: A Forgotten Writer.” Essex Institute Historical Collections 127.3 (1991): 240-259. America: History & Life. 7 February 2009.
Moore’s article methodically tracks down biographical and historical information about Sarah Savage, author of at least twelve books (all published anonymously). Moore argues that Savage was “a pioneer teacher and writer in this transition” (240), the transition referring to the shift from “stern Calvinism to the milder tenets of Unitarianism” (240). Although scholars are supposed to shy away from authorial intent or indulging in psychobiography, there are clear cut similarities between Savage and Mary Burnam, the heroine of The Factory Girl. I wish I had been able to include more of the background information regarding schools, Sunday schools and the role of religion in my paper, but I ran out of space.
Welter, Barbara. “The Cult of True Womanhood.” American Quarterly 18.2 (1966): 151-174. JSTOR. 7 February 2009.
Welter’s article is the culmination of reading through, categorizing and synthesizing material from women’s magazines, gift books, religious tracts and sermons, and cookbooks from 1820 to 1860 in addition to the materials that collaborated but were not cited in her article. At the time of publication, Welter’s work is considered groundbreaking and her definition of true womanhood, “piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity” (152) provokes an avalanche of critical response. Though some scholars disagree with Welter’s conclusions, it must be remembered there is always a gap between an idealized notion of true womanhood and the realities of post-Revolutionary America. It is the tension between these two standpoints that I attempt to explore in my paper on The Factory Girl, which is indebted to Welter’s research.
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