#breaking new ground

[cirilee]

i have a feeling our main audience on webtoon might be teens and not the usual tumblr gremlin who is already well versed in the appreciation of middle aged babygirls

i love spreading the old man yaoi gospel <3

[dwellordream]

“The market for farm products increased dramatically in urban areas because city dwellers had less ability or need to produce farm goods themselves. Before 1800, town and city dwellers often kept poultry and livestock in their backyards or on the town common, and they kept a well-stocked garden going as well. As cities grew, leading citizens worked to ban animals that had become health problems and nuisances. As land became more scarce and more expensive, the working class was forced into crowded tenement apartments.

Because of these changes, women in cities like Boston and New York were no longer making the farm products that their grandmothers had. But the new manufacturing technology had done little to transform life for most city women. For working-class women, the new cash economy made life harder and meaner. Then as now, women earned far less than men and were grouped into industries, such as textile, millinery (hat-making) and shoe-making, that were recognized as primarily ‘women’s work.’ A New York charity reported in 1817, ‘The great disproportion which exists between the price of labor of men and women is a matter of serious regret.’

…The problem was that conditions for working men were not much better than for women. Although they were paid more than women, most working-class men brought in just enough money to provide the basics. Any unforeseen emergency, such as a medical problem, could send a family to the poorhouse. If the man was too sick to work, or injured on the job, the family could starve. With little access to medical care, and with abysmal working conditions, death was an ever-present possibility. Such protections as unemployment insurance, Social Security, and Medicare were a century away. Given these pressures on the head breadwinner, many a man abandoned his wife and children for a fresh start in another town. His family, meanwhile, was left with few ways to survive.

…After 1800, elite society came to expect that ‘ladies’ would refrain from menial chores around the house. One domestic writer observed, ‘Women might work, but not ladies; or when the latter undertook it, they ceased to be such.’ There was thus an ever-widening gulf between mistress and servant during this period, and the domestic was made to understand this difference in rank. The growing distance between mistress and domestic led to numerous tensions between the two. Advice about the home in the newly popular magazines written for women increasingly described the role of the lady of the house as being a manager. She was to ensure that those beneath her performed their duties exactly as she prescribed them.

…Many working women chafed under such tight supervision. They felt that while domestic work paid well, the job just wasn’t worth it. Many women fell back on domestic work when all other options were unavailable. Some domestics even chose prostitution rather than submit to the orders of a mistress. Though opportunities for prostitution ranged from high-class hotel establishments to the lowest waterfront saloon side-rooms, all prostitutes were vulnerable to a wide range of sexual diseases. Those women plying their trade independently, or in the less genteel establishments, were especially vulnerable to violence by customers, proprietors, or criminals.

When working women chose prostitution over domestic service, they were rejecting in no uncertain terms the moral assumptions of middle-class America. It was a choice most mistresses explained away by pointing to the ‘natural’ moral laxness of the poor. Certainly, upper-class women were not ready to admit that servants were so scarce because working conditions were so trying. Domestics became even more scarce in the 1820s, after the development of power mills in New England. These mills provided American women with their first opportunity at respectable, relatively safe work at reasonable wages.

…Mill workers believed they were in a partnership with the owner--subordinate partners, to be sure, but nonetheless members of the company who were crucial to the success of the business. When owners responded to increased competition and poor business conditions with sharp reductions in wages and increases in the rents they charged in their boardinghouses, many women workers were outraged, As conditions continued to decline during the 1840s, mill owners began to turn to recent immigrant women, such as the Irish, who would accept lower pay and more work.

…Slave women, of course, had even less choice of jobs and working satisfaction. Their master or mistress usually determined which tasks they would perform. Women were sent to the fields just as men were, and they were expected to do their share of the work. Slaveholders cared little about preserving a ‘women’s sphere’ for field workers. …A small percentage of the slave work force, about 5 to 10 percent, worked in the ‘Big House,’ as the plantation manor was called. Most of these workers were women, who labored as cooks or maids.

…White southern plantation women, while certainly benefitting from slave labor, also were responsible for much of the plantation’s labor. Whereas the master hired an overseer to do much of the dirty work, the mistress was in effect the overseer of the Big House, including the tending of livestock and poultry and the production of food and clothing. Additionally, the mistress took on a number of tasks for which she did not trust her slaves. Even the most privileged mistress had to take on fairly strenuous tasks from time to time, such as processing the various by-products of slaughtered animals.”

- Michael Goldberg, “Working in the Home, Working in the Fields, Working for Wages.” in Breaking New Ground: American Women, 1800-1848

[philamuseum]

In one week, we make history. Be a part of it by visiting our open house on Thursday, March 30. General admission will be Pay What You Wish.

Grab some snacks to fuel up for some first-come, first-served behind-the-scenes tours. One of the spaces you can see is the Vaulted Walkway, which hasn’t been open to the public in more than forty years.

Learn more here. 

[dwellordream]

“Before the American Revolution, New Englanders viewed the family as a strict hierarchy, an arrangement in which power flowed from top to bottom: The father was ruler of all, the mother was underneath him, and the (theoretically) obedient children were at the bottom. After 1800, however, that ideal changed. Book and magazine writers began picturing families in which men controlled the public realm of politics and business, but women took responsibility for the private sphere of the home. A marriage was viewed more as a partnership; true, the woman was still the junior partner, but the older model of the man as an absolute ruler was no longer fashionable among middle-class Northeasterners. 

…Because the man felt he was putting so much on the line by proposing, a ‘proper’ woman was expected to return a well-reasoned reply within a short period of time. A woman knew, however, that her response was perhaps her last chance to have control over her life. Once she said ‘yes,’ the legal cards would be stacked against her, regardless of the declarations of love by her suitor. Because the expectations of middle-class marriage had been raised so high, women found reports of marital disasters very disconcerting. One married woman wrote to a single friend that marriage was a ‘sad, sober beverage’ that brought ‘some joys, but many crosses’. 

…Once married, the suitors often cooled the fiery protestations of love found in their letters. Although many couples developed strong, deep bonds of affection, the idea of separate spheres--that women should stay at home, and men go out in the world--kept them apart for many hours of their lives. Advice books and religious sermons emphasized that wives were to make the home a haven of restfulness for their husbands. 

This separation of duties provided women with other companionship, however. The split between home and work strengthened friendships between women as they came to understand what they shared with each other and how their lives differed from men’s. Unlike a wife’s relationship with her husband, a friendship with another woman was based on equality. Although women developed networks of friends and relatives, intense relationships between two women were not uncommon. 

…Although divorces were growing faster among the urban northern middle class than any other group, such separations were still rare. Within the United States, only one in a thousand marriages ended in divorce before the Civil War. If a woman successfully sued for divorce, she would soon be wondering what price she had paid for her freedom. Alimony, or money paid regularly by a husband to his former wife, was rarely awarded, although judges occasionally ordered one-time cash settlements to women who had been abused by their husbands. If a woman had brought property into the marriage, she was not likely to take it back out. Once she and her husband said their ‘I do’s,’ her husband legally controlled all she owned. Her chances for finding work were few, especially if she was approaching or beyond middle age. 

…The nature of farming meant that women and men worked the same land, that women helped produce food and earn cash. Women thus saw the farm as a mutual effort. Frontier women were also less concerned than their eastern contemporaries with raising perfect families. On the frontier, children were valued as workers and companions. These conditions made for a more pragmatic approach to child rearing. Children were an important part of the work force on a prairie farm. While the size of northeastern middle-class families was shrinking dramatically during this period, frontier families were holding steady, averaging around seven children each. Compared to northeastern women, frontier women married earlier, had children earlier, and continued to give birth for more years--often past the age of 45. 

…Marriage relations between enslaved African Americans in the South changed little during the early 19th century. Legally, a master owned a slave and could compel that person to do whatever he wished. However, most slaveholders wanted their slaves to pair off and often sanctioned slave unions with their blessing, but marriages between slaves were not recognized legally. Nonetheless, most slave owners had at least one eye on their finances in supporting a slave’s choice in marriage. A typical plantation manual advised slaveholders that a slave marriage based on love would add ‘to the comfort, happiness, and health of those entering upon it, besides ensuring greater increase.’ Such marriages produced both stability and more slaves, two requirements of a successful plantation operation.

…Although many black couples exhibited as much restraint as middle-class couples up North, it was not uncommon for children to be born out of wedlock because slave culture did not make outcasts of unwed mothers. Instead, the slave community expected the new father and mother to wed, whereupon the newborn was immediately accepted into the community. Black couples made an extra effort to respect personal boundaries in an effort to replace some measure of the self-respect their owners tried to strip from them. Indeed, a number of white observers noted that while slave couples often adhered to Christian notions of sexual restraint, their aggressive masters frequently did not. 

…Southern plantation women married earlier than northern women, usually around the age of 20. By their mid-20s, when middle-class Northerners were marrying, single plantation women were being labeled ‘old maids.’ The southern ‘belle’ was spared nothing by her doting parents--she could purchase the latest fashions, then quickly discard them for a new ensemble. She lived in a sheltered world, punctuated by frequent balls and daily rounds of social calls to other fashionable women in the neighborhood. 

…Marriage relations among the southern planter class were in many ways an exaggerated version of those among the northeastern middle class. While virginity before marriage was expected for northeastern women, southern planter society placed an absolute premium on the bride’s ‘purity’. Northeastern women were placed on a platform and praised for their selflessness and moral rectitude. Plantation women were put upon a gilded pedestal, and southern writers extolled the refinement, piety, and grace by which these women surpassed all others. The result was a tightly constrained life that offered southern women few opportunities to move beyond the boundaries their society had established for them.”

Michael Goldberg, “Reasons of the Heart: Marriage and Courtship.” in Breaking New Ground: American Women, 1800-1848

[goodoldbandit]

Breaking New Ground: The Quiet Power of Starting Fresh.

Sanjay Kumar Mohindroo Sanjay Kumar Mohindroo. skm.stayingalive.in A thought-provoking reflection on the energy that comes from doing something for the first time—and why it still matters. The Spark That Comes from Effort “There’s something about taking a plow and breaking new ground. It gives you energy.” When Ken Kesey said that, he wasn’t only talking about farming. He was talking about…

Breaking New Ground: The Quiet Power of Starting Fresh.

[dwellordream]

“Both northern abolitionist women and southern slave women put themselves at risk in opposing slavery. Though abolitionists did not always have to face angry mobs, they did continually experience both the subtle and not-so-subtle forms of harassment that befall those who champion unpopular causes. In return, they hoped to destroy the institution of slavery and return some measure of dignity to the lives of African Americans. The focus of slave women’s energies was more immediate, and the threat of violent reprisal more likely. Slave women knew quite clearly that slavery was unjust, but they were more concerned with the day-to-day struggle to survive.

…But, without running away, it was still possible to resist the daily indignities and hardships of slavery. Sometimes slave women attempted dire retribution against their tormentors. Although whites were forbidden to sell chemicals to slaves, slave women knew about the deadly effects of numerous plants. A particularly evil master or mistress might find out too late that a sampling of a poisonous plant had been added to the soup. Other slave owners might find ground-up glass in their drinks. In most cases, however, a perpetrator was either discovered or invented, and some slave paid the price with his or her life.

Some slave women retaliated against their owners when they perceived themselves to be punished beyond what they considered to be just. Ellen Cragin recalled how her mother had reacted when her master’s teenage son began to whip her for falling asleep while working the loom: ‘She took the pole out of the loom and beat him nearly to death.’ When he begged her to stop, she replied, ‘I’m going to kill you. These black titties suckled you, and then you come out here to beat me.’ Cragin noted that when her mother finally stopped, ‘he wasn’t able to walk.’

…African-American women who lived in the North realized that their freedom enabled them to fight slavery in ways that their southern sisters did not have. While northern blacks suffered enormous prejudice and occasionally violence, they also enjoyed certain basic rights and protections not accorded to slaves. The first Female Antislavery Society was organized in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1832. An outgrowth of the Colored Female Religious and Moral Society of Salem, the Female Antislavery Society pledged in its constitution to work both against slavery and for the improvement of blacks. Its combination of self-help with abolitionist activities would be replicated in other black women’s antislavery organizations.

…While some black women abolitionists preferred to work in groups separate from whites, others chose to join integrated organizations. Interracial groups such as the Boston Female Antislavery Association directly challenged northern assumptions about the need to separate the races, as the incident of the Boston mob demonstrates. The Philadelphia Antislavery Association, which had almost as many black as white charter members in 1833, attracted fierce criticism and occasional reprisals for its effrontery. In 1838, in a repetition of the Boston mob scene, an abolitionist group was surrounded at the newly built Pennsylvania Hall. After tossing stones in the window, blocking the doors, and threatening the attendees as they departed, the mob--unhindered by any police presence--burned the building to the ground. A spokesman for the mob explained that the hall had been destroyed because the ‘audience [was] promiscuous mixed up of blacks and whites.’

…Although the ‘woman question’ was not the only issue splitting radicals and conservatives in the antislavery movement, it became the wedge that forced a split. The supporters of women abolitionists came out on top, but the minority issued a bitter denunciation of the outcome that suggested the fight was not yet over. In 1840, those opposing women’s influence in the society--a group that included many powerful men--formed a separate society. This all-male society would lead the way in pressing the cause of antislavery in the political arena. Meanwhile, the American Antislavery Society quickly placed Lydia Maria Child, Maria Weston Chapman, and Lucretia Mott on its executive committee, and it continued its efforts to convince the American people of the morality of women’s participation in public debate and the immorality of slavery.”

- Michael Goldberg, “The Politics of Resistance: Women Against Slavery.” in Breaking New Ground: American Women, 1800-1848

[speakspeak]

Breaking New Ground

[inspectorspacetimerevisited]

Inspector Spacetime broke new ground again and again throughout its history,

including when the producers cast Cassie McFarlane as the first non-white Associate in the programme.