Revolutionary conceptions : women, fertility, and family limitation in America, 1760-1820 / Susan E. Klepp.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Klepp, Susan E.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Birth control--United States--History--18th century.

Birth control.

Women--United States--Social conditions--18th century.

Women.

Social conditions.

History.

United States--Social conditions--To 1865.

United States.

Physical Description:

vi, 312 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, [2009]

Summary:

In the Age of Revolution, how did American women conceive their lives and marital obligations? By examining the attitudes and behaviors surrounding the contentious issues of family, contraception, abortion, sexuality, beauty, and identity, Susan E. Klepp demonstrates that many women-rural and urban, free and enslaved-began to radically redefine motherhood. They asserted, or attempted to assert, control over their bodies, their marriages, and their daughters' opportunities.

Late-eighteenth-century American women were among the first in the world to disavow the continual childbearing and large families that had long been considered ideal. Liberty, equality, and heartfelt religion led to new conceptions of virtuous, rational woman-hood and responsible parenthood. These changes can be seen in falling birthrates, in advice to friends and kin, in portraits, and in a gradual, even reluctant, shift in men's opinions. Revolutionary-era women redefined femininity, fertility, family, and their futures by limiting births. Women might not have won the vote in the new Republic, they might not have gained formal rights in other spheres, but, Klepp argues, there was a women's revolution nonetheless.

Contents:

Introduction. first to fall: fertility, American women, and revolution

Starting, spacing, and stopping: the statistics of birth and family size

Old ways and new

Women's words

Beauty and the bestial: images of women

Potions, pills, and jumping ropes: the technology of birth control

Increase and multiply: embarrassed men and public order

Reluctant revolutionaries

Conclusion. fertility and the feminine in early America.

Notes:

"Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia."

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780807833223

0807833223

9780807859926

0807859923

OCLC:

317929508