Rayne Kleinofen
Teresa Coronado
19th Cent. Am. Lit.
October 26, 2016
A Mother’s Letter to her Daughter
Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote that, “woman has too long rested satisfied in the circumscribed limits which corrupt customs and a perverted application of the Scriptures have marked out for her, and that it is time she should move in the enlarged sphere which her great Creator has assigned her” (Rutgers). Women, at long last, became restless and dissatisfied with their position within the American household. They were dismissed, belittled, and void of any sense of legal ownership. Abolitionists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott began raising calls to action and women's suffrage leaders such as Susan B. Anthony took up the torch as time raced on (history). When Elizabeth Cady Stanton first released her statement, a future women activist speaker was an eleven year old girl in North Turner, Maine, named Lurana Faustina Leavitt.
Faustina started her life as a leader young when in 1852, at 15 years old, she taught a term at her local school. She then worked as a Maine mill girl from 1853-1855 while attending school. However, in 1855 she began writing for the Lewiston Journal and the Advocate on pressing issues regarding the state of women’s rights. In 1856 she stopped her mill work and commenced her work as a lecturer until 1861 where she settled in Prescott, Wisconsin as a teacher and married Ephriam Whitaker in 1862. However, her marriage did not stop her social activism and she wrote more articles for the Hastings Gazette. She became the mother of seven children, the youngest which was a daughter named Emma.
Not many personal writings can be found for Faustina Whitaker outside of her incomplete lecture journal and one letter addressed she to her daughter Emma in 1886. This one letter becomes a fascinating means of witnessing how a socially active woman in the late 1800’s was required to think for herself under the weighted conditions society placed on her gender. The letter, being a private, personal piece of writing allowed Faustina to speak more directly and accurately to her own feelings without fear of public outrage. As a woman who wrote for the public through a collection of papers and lectured to crowds about social conditions, Faustina was accustomed to adjusting the extremity of her opinions for public reception. But this rare opportunity allows us to hear from the direct source the most intimate feelings she possessed that she could not share with the world.
The letter itself was written very peculiarly. It begins with what Faustina describes as a parable focused around the growth of a plant and then proceeds into a personal account of Faustina’s about a young girl who refused her brother’s proposal before it ends with Faustina's direct opinions about Emma’s decision to refuse a young man’s proposal. Though seemingly roundabout in handling the subject matter of the letter, each section proves to be a tremendous insight to both the reality of a woman’s world in the late 1800’s as well as the social environment that the people were experiencing. In writing through these mediums, this letter illustrates the conflict with the romantic drive to reconnect to nature as well as its practicality, the extent to which the historical circumstances of women allowed them to be activists, and the complicated familial environment including connections between different members, the need to uphold the family honor and the existence of the gender spheres.
The naturalistic themed parable told of the romantic idea of rejoining with nature which is verified through the popularity of landscape paintings during the life of Faustina. She begins hypothetically making her daughter, “a valuable plant- the like of which there could never be on Earth,” in which “every branch and every twig and almost every leaf had been [her] delight.” (Whitaker 1). By narrowing down the details of her joy, Faustina stresses to Emma the amount of care and vigilance she took in raising her. She individualizes her daughter, a common trait in the romantic idea, by calling her valuable as well as claiming her absolute uniqueness in existence (Britannica). After crafting this specific endowed image and calling upon Emma to image herself within the same circumstances, Faustina presses, “Would you like to give it up to one who would let the wind blow too roughly or to one who would not shelter it from frost or to one who had no roof to shield it from winter’s stern blasts” (Whitaker 2). By calling upon her daughter with a direct “you,” she asks her daughter to be held accountable for the decision that Faustina feels towards her own daughter. She also lets slip the parable, briefly, as she remarks on her concern for her Emma to have a roof over her head. Wind and frost are discussed within an ambiguous description, allowing for the audience to craft their own interpretations for what exactly she may be referencing. But a concern for a roof is a more directly voiced concern.
All of these naturalistic parallels can be connected to the widespread appreciation for landscape artwork. Throughout Faustina’s life, “North American landscape painting gained a new supremacy” (Getty). It was spoken about, reviewed, and experienced quite daily for the people in the 19th century. Furthermore, “the 19th century also saw the birth of landscape photography, which would greatly influence the landscape painters' compositional choices” (Getty). Not only was landscape art something that was well established into social circles, but it was also being reinterpreted, making it a common or presumable topic for discussion. Therefore it is reasonable to connect that Faustina would write such a lengthy and detailed parable comparing her daughter to a plant. The practice of this nature-inspired writing, in general, was not unique to Faustina in that letters from her relatives or her friends were of the same structure. This drive to paint more natural landscapes came from the drive people developed to reconnect with nature. This battle between the romantic attachment to nature in contrast to the progression of the city life is built upon as Faustina contemplates the possible outcomes for growing up in either of these situations. As for the country, Faustina warns her daughter away from that area by telling Emma that her future children will, “have no privileges of church or lectures or theatres or any social advantages” if they grow up in an area too far secluded from progress (Whitaker 10). There is a concern for social standing and for her future grandchildrens’ intellectual and spiritual well being. As a lecturer and a teacher, Faustina’s concern for these aspects of her daughter’s future are well within reason. However, having been a mill worker for quite a few years and experiencing what being too close to progress had to offered, Faustina entertains the idea of a more general living situation: one that provides all the necessary amenities and protects for the desensitized life in the city.
Her story, as well as her personal opinions, become interesting factors to consider when taking into account her choice to be a female rights lecturer. In certain parts of her letter, she appears to be urging her daughter towards a life that contradicts the progressive strides for women equality When telling the account of the unnamed girl she claims that, “the calls of nature urged her to seek a husband” (Whitaker 4). She seems to make a claim for this idea of a predetermined nature in every woman to be a mother. But, in another sense, she may be noting the primitive instinct of survival a woman feels under the oppressive conditions she endures. She later remarks to her daughter than in a married state, “neglect from the husband will come. And your will and your wishes be thwarted” (Whitaker 9). When comparing these two senses of advice within the same letter, one may begin to wonder about the conditions under which a woman would feel this sense of urgency to take shelter with a husband, rather than brave the world in solidarity. The conditions for women in the 19th century involved that “after depriving her of all rights as a married woman, if single and the owner of property, he has taxed her to support a government which recognizes her only when her property can be made profitable to it.” (Rutgers). There is no sense of escape for women as either single, independent beings or even as married women. They still endure the same sense of unhappiness and oppression either by their own husband or by the patriarchal government. Each new restriction before them not only crippled them within their current situation, but also complicated their process of moving forward. These American mothers “were expected to focus on housework and motherhood, not politics” (History).
The Declaration of Sentiments, only recently introduced at the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention in New York, was written for the purpose of calling attention to the desire of the new modern woman for less oppressive circumstances and basic human rights. It stated that, “That woman is man's equal—was intended to be so by the Creator, and the highest good of the race demands that she should be recognized as such” (Rutgers). Unfortunately, the document was met with severe criticism from the public depended on marriage for her livelihood and over the course of the years more pressing issues, such as war, seemed to outrank the concern for a women’s voice (History).
Within these contexts, Faustina was still a mother and a wife. She detailed her responsibilities and desire to care for her family despite any complicated personal endeavors she was experiencing within her lifetime. At one point, she admits that, “many a time [she had] wished [she] had the courage to die, but that would not ease [her daughter’s] future suffering and [she] still [has] a few duties to perform to [her]” (Whitaker 11-12). One of the biggest obstacles for any person to overcome is the pressing desire to take their own life and here, Faustina resists for the sake of continuing to care for her children. Her duty as a wife made her strong without compromising her status as a women’s rights activist. To further this dedication as a mother, she admits to trudging through every minute of the endeavor of motherhood even though, inevitably, she will lose her children. Children, as they do for all parents, “grow away from you” as Faustina claims hers have done (Whitaker 9). Her children become her means for living despite the fact that she knows they will leave her in time. She will the lose the precious connection to her children with time and warns her daughter that she “must soon be separated from them” after mothering and caring for them for so long (Whitaker 9). This strengthens the woman figure even more. She is placed in a position where her importance in society is dependant on living beings that she only nurtures so that they can leave her.
A man’s obligation to his family is detailed in a different manner. Faustina describes her daughter’s future as needing to work “all day in the kitchen and care for the children and have a husband come from town at night with never a voluntary word and maybe only a short gruff answer will be your greeting” (Whitaker 9). After the woman’s role is explained through heartbreaking separation the man’s role is one of someone who has various connections at work or in town that will not leave him as a child does to a mother and then arrives home to a wife who, as he has done, worked all day in her domestic field only to be disrespected. She is dismissed and seemingly unwanted as detected by the manner which he treats her. Furthermore the man,“has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her conscience and her God” (Rutgers). She is dismissed and she is enslaved by the specific obligations that the men of society have elected belong to her. This sparks the desire to rewrite what it means to be an American woman and, despite remaining devoted to their domestic roles, the women like Faustina, become activists for the sake of their future family members (History).
Finally, despite being isolated into sphere, a family feels together. As Faustina expresses: “Family ties are strong, (6). This means that when one family acts out enough to be noticed by the community, the family as a whole feels the communities response. The shame or pride a family experiences as a result of this stress from an outside party, causes these close individuals to press each other when a poor decision is made. Faustina tells Emma that she “ actually shrinks when the neighbors speak [Emma’s] name” (Whitman 12). Her refusal of a man has created such a stir in social conversation that the family feel the disapproval together. Decisions cannot be made selfishly within a family. Similarly, women can not act out without their engendered family as a whole feeling the social lash back.
For her placement in time, Faustina is a great representation for how a forward thinking woman was within her reality. She was confined by the law, by her neighbors and yet she still fought to free women politically and socially. This letter does not undo her social activism, but instead places an important historical construct around the reality under which these women with these ideas had to survive in. Lurana Faustina, like many other women, had ideals, but knew that in the current given circumstances of women, these ideals were not reasonable means to survive by. She therefore appealed to her daughter, one to whom she had probably unloaded her ideals into, realistically, calling attention to the actual circumstances of life rather than the imagine dream of women activists.
Works Cited
Cokely, Carrie L. "Declaration of Sentiments." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, 4 Aug. 2016. Web. 16 Oct. 2016.
"The Emergence of "Women's Sphere"" Ushistory.org. Independence Hall Association, 2008.
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History.com Staff. "19th Amendment." History.com. A&E Television Networks, 2010. Web. 16
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"Landscapes, Classical to Modern Curriculum (Education at the Getty)." Landscapes, Classical
to Modern Curriculum (Education at the Getty). The J. Paul Getty Museum, n.d. Web. 16
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"Romanticism." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Ed. Editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
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Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. Declaration of Sentiments. Saint Louis: Printed at the Gazette Office,
1841. Print. http://ecssba.rutgers.edu/docs/seneca.html
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