The Role and Perception of Women in 19th Century America
WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE CLASS IN THE 19TH CENTURY
The nineteenth century for Europe and America has been called the "century of the middle class." Growth in both power and prestige of the middle class was perhaps the most important single development in social and economic history. Prior to the nineteenth century, there was a recognizable middle class, but it was not large. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, new wealth was created, and concomitantly the middle class became the harbingers of morals, the work ethic, and numerous other characteristics that have become part of our fabric of society. Who were the middle class? It was not a homogeneous unit in terms of occupation or income, but usually one received a salary rather than hourly wages. What today we would call a white collar worker. Included in this group called the middle class were ministers, lawyers, teachers, doctors, bureaucrats, business tycoons, traders, and shop keepers. The middle class were devoted to the ideal of family and home. During this time the home displaced the church as a refuge and spiritual haven. Home became a status symbol and emotional bulwark against the rude commercial world. The father was the master of the household. Middle class family rituals helped to sustain this hierarchy, with the father at the head of the table during meals. A popular adage of the day was "children were to be seen not heard." The wife was to be subject to her husband as well, and often treated as a superior servant not as an equal. Alfred Lord Tennyson's immortal words convey the wife's task to keep the household functioning smoothly and harmoniously: "Man for the field, woman for the hearth, man for the sword and for the needle she; man with the head and woman with the heart, man to command and woman to obey; all else confusion." Home became the center of virtue and the proper life for women. The wife was not to do outside work. Historians are not certain why this happened. For centuries the
The nineteenth century for Europe and America has been called the "century of the middle class." Growth in both power and prestige of the middle class was perhaps the most important single development in social and economic history. Prior to the nineteenth century, there was a recognizable middle class, but it was not large. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, new wealth was created, and concomitantly the middle class became the harbingers of morals, the work ethic, and numerous other characteristics that have become part of our fabric of society. Who were the middle class? It was not a homogeneous unit in terms of occupation or income, but usually one received a salary rather than hourly wages. What today we would call a white collar worker. Included in this group called the middle class were ministers, lawyers, teachers, doctors, bureaucrats, business tycoons, traders, and shop keepers. The middle class were devoted to the ideal of family and home. During this time the home displaced the church as a refuge and spiritual haven. Home became a status symbol and emotional bulwark against the rude commercial world. The father was the master of the household. Middle class family rituals helped to sustain this hierarchy, with the father at the head of the table during meals. A popular adage of the day was "children were to be seen not heard." The wife was to be subject to her husband as well, and often treated as a superior servant not as an equal. Alfred Lord Tennyson's immortal words convey the wife's task to keep the household functioning smoothly and harmoniously: "Man for the field, woman for the hearth, man for the sword and for the needle she; man with the head and woman with the heart, man to command and woman to obey; all else confusion." Home became the center of virtue and the proper life for women. The wife was not to do outside work. Historians are not certain why this happened. For centuries the