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THE VOICE OF FANNY FERN

By
Wendi A. Alger

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of American Studies

1995

ABSTRACT

THE VOICE OF FAN NY FERN

By

Wendi A. Alger

Art in a democratic society often answers varying needs. Four
nineteenth-century writers, Louisa May Alcott, Harriet Beecher
Stowe, Henry David Thoreau, and Fanny Fern used their literary
creations to satisfy a subcultural need for an alternative definition of
individualism. Alcott, in Little Women, and Stowe, in Oldtown Folks,
sought to circumvent masculine repression while remaining within
an acceptable feminine realm. Thoreau, in Walden, sought to define
individualism by privileging his imagination. Fern, by privileging
her readers voices, attempted to extend individualism to a broader
audience. Fern's articles identified her readers needs, recognized
cultural problems within her society and created strategies to
address both. Fern's Ruth Hall fuses the domestic realm and
marketplace together through the theme of motherhood, forming the
basis of a moral capitalism. Fern's literary creations revise the
notion of art in a democratic society: Art is that which entertains

while acting for the good of society.

Copyright by
WENDI ANN ALGER
1995

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 1

CHAPTER I ................................................................................................................... 4

CHAPTER H ................................................................................................................. 3 8
CHAPTER HI ............................................................................................................... 6 6
CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................ 8 6
BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................................... 9 3
GENERAL REFERENCES ............................................................................................. 9 6

iv

INTRODUCTION

We are tired...of the piled up horrors with which some novelists
bait for readers. Anybody can introduce a ghost or a bloody head;
it takes genius, and that of the very highest order, to make what
are called "common-place" events and persons interesting.
(Fanny Fern, New York Ledger, April 20, 1861.)

Now if there is one word in the English Language that I hate
more than another, it is the word genteel. No matter where, or
how, or to whom, or by whom it is applied, my very soul sickens
at it. It is the universal and never failing indorser of every sham
ever foisted upon disgusted human nature. (Fanny Fern, Folly As
It Flies, 1868.)

Fanny Fern, the first woman newspaper columnist, popular
novelist, and a creator of American culture, offered entertainment to
a large spectrum of people. With her abhorrence of "genteel values"
and her unceasing allegiance to a Democratic ideal in America, she
acted as a champion for the common people who composed America:
a voice for the voiceless in society.

Fanny Fern's contributions to American culture became
possible in part due to the commercialization and democratization of
literature in America. Mass produced print which flooded the
country from the 1820's on, brought increasingly high literacy rates,
which in turn invested the individual reader with autonomy through
the freedom of choice.

The newspapers that Fanny Fern wrote for represented a link

between the commercialization and democratization of literature and

2

leisure. The Industrial Revolution, through time and labor saving
technology as well as shortened work days, gave at least some people
more leisure time. Reading as an affordable medium of

entertainment could easily and cheaply be found through the penny
papers, subscription libraries and periodicals. Further, this leisure
activity could be snatched in brief intervals of free time at the
convenience of the reader. These newspapers and periodicals in turn
served as avenues for the dissemination of genteel values and
morays predetermined by the cultural and publishing elite.

Fanny Fern rejected this cultural hegemony of the elite; with
sensitivity and clarity, she redirected her readers' attention to the
everyday events and people in American society. She "remembered
the ladies" in a manner that the founding fathers did not.1 She
wrote compassionately about social criminals and offered modern
solutions for reform. She realistically described the plight of the
urban poor. Although some of her early writings capitalized on
sentimentality, her use of sentimentality reflected deliberate
manipulation in order to garner a large audience. Finally, her barbs
directed at the "genteel" class unerringly found their marks, allowing
millions of readers to laugh with her at the ridiculous pretensions
and hypocrisies of elite society. Fanny Fern, in her sometimes witty,
sometimes serious, and often biting prose, found a place in the hearts

of many nineteenth-century feminine readers, and through a

 

1Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams, March 31, 1776 pleading for
more equitable treatment of women: "I desire you to Remember the Ladies, and
be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such
unlimited power in the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be
tyrants if they could." John Adam's April 14, 1776 reply to his wife
unequivocally rejected her plea. Cathy N. Davidson, Revolution And The Word
(New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 110.

3

rhetorical medium of entertainment, offered these readers vicarious
participation in the creation of American culture.

The artistic sketches of ordinary people which captivated
millions of readers served as the foundation for the social
commentary Fern rendered in her novel, Ruth Hall. The use of an
American vernacular perpetuated the democratization of literature
and aided Fern in transcending the class barriers inherent in her
diverse audience. Fern used Ruth Hall to extend the possibilities of
self-reliance to women by demonstrating that women could adapt
successfully to the business world, thereby broadening the definition
of individualism for women.

Finally, Fern in Ruth Hall attempted to reconceptualize the
definition of literary genius in a democratic society. The text
examines the plight of a woman artist in a society which definitively
rejects the notion of feminine genius. Enormous book sales bolstered
by popular demand and gratifyingly positive fan mail projects a
revised notion of artistic success. Fern's primary intent to educate a
mass audience depended upon on her ability to garner such an
audience; thus reaching the masses with a novel which radically re-
envisions power structures in American society becomes Fern's
model of artistic success: Art is that which entertains while acting

for the good of society as a whole.

Chapter I

Work early and work late, if you would excel. Never rely on
natural genius; none but a natural fool ever does that. (Fanny
Fern, Musical World and Times, Nov. 19, 1853.)

The concept of artistic value in the nineteenth-century must be
examined in light of the rapid growth of the nation and economy
experienced during the first half of the nineteenth-century. This
growth shaped the careers of writers and the place of literature in
American society. Before 1820, aspiring writers could not hope to
earn a living by their pen, because a lack of capital, high production
costs, an inefficient system of distribution, poor transportation, and
an absence of a predictable literary market inhibited the growth of
an American based publishing industry.2 Publishers, in light of an
uncertain market, sought to cater to the dual demands of a split
audience. Travel books, captivity narratives and histories satisfied
the demand for literary entertaintment. Religious tracts and self
improvement books catered to those seeking religious reading
materials.3 Publishers and writers perhaps found the growing
nation's cultural insecurity even more disturbing. American

publishers sought to alleviate this tension by attempting to establish

 

2Mary Kelley, Private Woman, Public Stage. Literary Domesticity in
Nineteenth-Century America (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1984), p. 7-8.

3Cathy N. Davidson, Revolution And The Word, The Rise of the Novel in
America (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 18.

5

a superior literary tradition. However, until the third decade of the
nineteenth-century, America remained culturally dependent on
England for literature, relying on reprints of British fiction.4
Technological advances in the printing industry from 1820 to
1850 radically changed the opportunities for printers, publishers and
writers in America. Revolutionary developments in presses,
typecasting, typesetting and paper coupled with an increasingly
adequate supply of capital, enabled publishers to produce more
books at less cost to the consumer.5 In order to get these books in
the hands of readers, publishers offered generous discounts to
booksellers.6 Booksellers, in turn, became more sensitive to the
book-buying needs and interests of the people.7 Subscription
libraries sprang into existence, making the pursuit of reading more
accessible to larger numbers of people and at the same time,
enhancing the publisher's and author's profits. Periodicals and
literary magazines such as McCalls became popular. Newspapers,
already widespread, became ubiquitous as they linked with

emerging political parties.8 Finally, literary critics and publishers,

 

41bid., p. 11. Davidson states that the novels most Americans read during
and directly after the Revolutionary period were texts borrowed directly or
indirectly from European authors.

5Kelley, Private Woman, Public Stage. p. 8. Developments in transportation
added to the emergence of an American printing industry. Philadelphia, New
York, and Boston, accessible by either waterways or railways, became
publishing centers. These centers themselves deve10ped new methods of
promotion designed to attract a large audience of American readers.

6Ibid., p. 9.

7For more, see Cathy Davidson, Revolution and the Word: "The Book in the
New Republic."

8Ibid., p. 160. Davidson cites that by 1810, 22 million readers were being
served out of 376 newspapers.

6

exploiting newspapers as a forum for reviews and advertisements,
pushed authors and the publishing business into prominence.

While the nation's economy and the American publishing
industry enjoyed increasing prosperity, the spectrum of people
demanding various forms of reading materials increased. One
estimate calculates that by the early nineteenth-century,
approximately 90% of the white adult population in the Northern
Republic was literate.9 Although historians differ on the criteria that
constitutes literacy, most agree that by the early nineteenth-century,
more people were reading and hence, demanding more reading
materials. By mid-century, the struggle to implement a system of
education open to all, regardless of wealth or status, was first won in
the Northern states. The Western states followed suit and the South,
beginning in the 18505, worked to establish free public school
systems, as well as numerous private academies and colleges. The
increase in the number of schools and students facilitated literacy for
at least white students.10 This democratization of literacy, coupled
with technological progress in the printing industry, led to the rise of
reading as a form of commercialized leisure.11

The growing industries in urbanized centers in America

brought with its technological advances, increasing concern over the

 

9Kelley, Private Woman, Public Stage, p. 10.
10Alice Felt Tyler, Freedom's Ferment (New York: Harper & Row, 1944). For
more, see pp. 227-264.

llPublishing as a big business seemingly represented an ascendancy of
commercialization over leisure activities. The publishing elite could feasibly
control the reader in their pursuit of enjoyable literature, However, this view
essentially ignores the primacy of the reader in his or her ability to choose
from the proliferation of reading material being distributed in America
during the second half of the nineteenth-century. For more, see Davidson,
Revolution and the Word.

7

decaying morality in American society. Ministers, educators and
reformers banded together to inculcate genteel values of self-control,
industriousness and earnestness in what they perceived to be an
unruly mass of immigrant urban working-class, thereby preserving
virtue and purity in America. The alliance between the genteel
reformers of elite society and the middle-class entrepreneurs
facilitated the dissemination of this genteel culture to a large

audience:

As nineteenth century cultural entrepreneurs sought to develop a vast
new market, they p0pularized genteel values and conceptions of art.
The editors of the leading popular magazines and monthlies, the new
mass publishers, the most widely respected writers and artists

participated in the commercialization of American culture.12
By attempting to control the kinds of reading materials that reached
the public, social reformers and editors alike sought to use literature
as a tool of social control.

Despite the genteel reformers intense struggle to maintain their
elite cultural hegemony, their efforts met with resistance among the
working class and the immigrants who sought to retain their own
values.13 Fanny Fern, a woman representing a new form of writing,
refused to adhere to the demands dictated by the cultural elite.
Despite this, editors, particularly newspaper editors, remained
anxious to publish her articles because of popular demand. Her
articles dramatically bolstered newspaper subscriptions, highlighting

the appeal she held for ordinary people. She artistically captured in

 

12John. F. Kasson, Amusing The Million, Coney Island at the Turn of the
Century (New York: Hill & Wang, 1978), p. 5.

”ma, p. 5.

8

print the very aspects of American society that the reformers
attempted to obliterate.

Fanny Fern's rejection of the hypocritical mainstream culture
reflected only one response to cultural tensions. The function of
literature provoked a wide range of often conflicting responses. Art
in a democratic society sometimes acts as a medium through which
artists can conceivably re-define societal values or morays. Harriet
Beecher Stowe, Louisa May Alcott, and Henry David Thoreau each
used his or her writing to address a subcultural need for an
alternative definition of individualism. These writers sought to re-
configure the majority culture's definition of individualism in an
attempt to achieve a viable state of self-reliance. Louisa May Alcott
and Harriet Beecher Stowe used their writing to fashion a feminine
individualism which attempted to circumvent masculine repression
while remaining within a realm deemed socially acceptable for
women. In other words, both writers wrote to reform the existing
domestic sphere in a manner which allowed more autonomy. These
authors' evolving definitions of feminine self-reliance differed,
however. In Little Women, Alcott focuses specifically on economic
gains made through the fruit of labor, while Stowe, in Oldtown Folks,
concentrates on escaping intellectual and spiritual oppression in a
patriarchal society. Henry David Thoreau lived on the periphery of
nineteenth-century American society, and his writing also reflected
an attempt to define an alternative individualism, albeit in a
radically divergent way. He sought to define individualism by

privileging his imagination. Thoreau, in Walden, enters nature to

9

allow the individual imagination ascension in carving out a complete
state of spiritual, intellectual and physical self-reliance.

All three authors wrote to delineate an individualism which
liberated the self. These writers employed a variety of strategies in
their artistic re-creations. Alcott and Stowe sought to redefine the
status quo through covert means; by writing in a feminine manner
and by addressing subject deemed appropriate for women. Thoreau
offered alternatives by overtly rejecting status quo. While the
agendas of these three writers reflected societal inequities which
clamored for resolution, and as such, intersected with the needs of
their society, they nevertheless attempted to define and achieve a
state of self-reliance which worked well for themselves. Fanny Fern,
like these writers, attempted to offer an alternative individualism
based on her own experiences and resulting needs as a marginalized
member of her society. Like Alcott, Fern recognized the need for
material economic gains for women, and like Stowe, Fern rejected the
intellectual and spiritual oppression she identified in patriarchal (and
often hypocritical) religious institutions. Fern's writing also
paralleled the radicalism of the individualism evinced by Thoreau in
that she completely rejected marriage as a viable means of security
for women.

Fern's writing differed from these authors in the scope of her
aims. Her newspaper articles represent the forum in which she
identified with her readers needs, recognized cultural issues and
problems within her society, and employed a myriad of strategies in
responding to both. In her novel Ruth Hall, Fanny Fern brings the

domestic realm and marketplace together by merging a woman's

10

need for economic independence with her special capabilities as a
mother. Motherhood, instead of providing a barrier to the
marketplace, becomes the basis for a moral capitalism which in turn
ensures the viability of a virtuous Republic. Ruth Hall becomes the
text which synthesizes Fern's own goals, her readers needs, and
cultural ambiguities inherent in societal inequities to formulate a
radical individualism which seeks to completely overturn the

previously masculine perogative of self-reliance.

Louisa May Alcott used her writing to formulate a feminine
individualism. She based this individualism on a work ethic which
emphasized the importance of financial independence, but which did
not entirely reject her society's emphasis on feminine self-sacrifice.
The standard view of Alcott’s artistry describes her father, Bronson
Alcott, as configuring largely in her development as a writer.
Certainly, his ineptitude in financial matters coupled with his desire
to instill a superior education while demanding complete
subservience fostered in Alcott an internal conflict which she
seemingly attempted to resolve through her writing.14 Alcott, as a
writer, was overwhelmingly preoccupied with making money: " I

can't do much with my hands; so I will make a battering ram out of

 

14Louisa May Alcott, Alternative Alcott, Edited with an Introduction by
Elaine Showalter (New Brunswick and London: Rutgers University Press,
1988), p. xi. Stern, in the introduction of Behind A Mask notes that Bronson
Alcott's "inability to earn a living became proverbial even among the high-
minded and unworldly Transcendentalists." Louisa May Alcott remarked in
her journal that he "possesses no gift for money making."

11

my head and make a way through this rough and tumble world."15
However, she never pursued wealth for her own benefit. She
worked primarily to support her family while living plainly herself.
Further her endeavors to live morally invariably found expression in
her writings. Thus, while Alcott's perpetual conflict with her father
left her emotionally scarred with a sense of inferiority, he
nevertheless shaped her character and her career. Louisa May Alcott
redefined the role of women in her society by emphasizing the
importance of work in becoming self-reliant. In doing so, she also
recognized a need for a re-envisioning of masculine roles. By
offering an alternative example of marriage union based on equality,
Alcott wrote to privilege a woman's right to individualism through an
extension of her autonomy inside and outside of the home. Little
Women operates as the workplace for her ideals.

Alcott wrote Little Women as an autobiographical novel, and
the father figure, Mr. March, appears conspicuous in his absence.
Alcott packs Mr. March off to the Civil War before the novel opens,

H

and the tomboyish daughter, Jo, announces herself as the man of
the family."16 Alcott refuses to summon Mr. March's appearance
until Chapter 24, the beginning of Part 11. His activity, after his
auspicious re-entry into the March household, consists of reading
philosophy, uttering a few moral platitudes, walking the eldest
daughter, Meg, down the aisle to get married and holding his wife's

hand as the third daughter, Beth, dies.

 

15Ednah D. Cheney, Louisa May Alcott, Life, Letters, and Journals (Boston:
Roberts Brothers, 1889). p. 60.

16Louisa May Alcott, Little Women, Edited with an Introduction by Elaine
Showalter (New Brunswick: Penguin Books, 1989), p. 5.

12

Mr. March offers his advice to Jo about her writing on a few
occasions, and Alcott, as both the narrator and the character Jo,
leaves the reader with a glimpse of her feelings towards Bronson
Alcott. Mr. March, like Bronson Alcott, equates living morally and
striving for truth with religion. Materialistic concerns mean little to
either; only by striving to obtain lofty ideas of an "inspired nature"
can Jo live up to Mr. March's religious values. As Jo jubilantly shows
her family a check for her first prize-winning story, everyone
appears happy for her, except Mr. March, who promptly puts a
damper on the party's spirits by saying "You can do better than this,
Jo. Aim at the highest, and never mind the money."17 Later, Mr.
March again offers his advice to Jo concerning the revision of her

first novel:

Don't spoil your book, my girl, for there is more in it than you
know, and the idea is well worked out. Let it wait and ripen," was
her father's advice; and he practiced as he preached, having
waited patiently thirty years for fruit of his own to ripen, and
being in no haste to gather it, even when it was sweet and

mellow.18
Clearly, Alcott intended a stab at her own father's lack of
productivity. Further, this comment reflects dual functions of art in
a democratic society. At one level, the novel fulfills the need for
economic independence. On a very different level, the novel as art

can instigate and benefit from a dialogue with its audience”.

 

17Ibid., p. 268.
181bid, pp. 269-270.

19Davidson, p. 14. Davidson demonstrates that the novel in the early
Republic derived its power from such a reciprocal relationship with individual
readers: "Psychologically, the early novel embraced a new relationship
between art and audience, writer and reader, a relationship that replaced the
authority of the sermon or Bible with the enthusiasms of sentiment, horror, or
adventure, all of which relocate authority in the individual response of the
reading self."

13

Significantly, Mrs. March answers Mr. March's advice with the
remark that "criticism is the best test of such work, for it will show
her both unsuspected merits and faults, and help her to do better
next time." 20 These different stances about art also reflect
divergent conceptions of art. Bronson Alcott wrote to produce works
which satisfied his own goals, and worked to establish himself as a
source of authority among his small transcendental circle. His
writing never appealed to a mass audience. Louisa Alcott, with her
drive to support both herself and her family, deliberately catered to
public interests and publisher demands. Mrs. March urges Jo to
submit the novel for publication, saying that she could learn from
criticism.

Despite the example of a strong woman provided by Abigail
May Alcott, Louisa Alcott nevertheless inhabited a world shaped by
feminine self-sacrifice. Abigail May, increasingly embittered by her
husband's financial ineptitude, sacrificed health and peace of mind in
keeping her family solvent. Louisa Alcott, in turn, worked to provide

for her family as she grew older:

Mother is to be cosey if money can do it. She seems to be now, and
my long-cherished dream has come true; for she sits in a pleasant
room with no work, no care, no poverty to worry, but peace and
comfort all about her, and children glad and able to stand

between trouble and her. Thank the Lord? I like to stop and
"remember my mercies." Working and waiting for them makes

them very welcome.21

The peculiar combination of self-reliance and self-sacrifice facilitated
Alcott's efforts to nurture her beloved mother who had an arduous

life struggling to maintain her family, highlighting the republican

 

20Alcott, Little Women, p. 270.
21Cheney, Louisa May Alcott, Her Life, Letters and Journals, p. 261.

14

implications behind Alcott's drive to become economically self-
sufficient. Financially solvent women potentially worked for the
good of the larger community by supporting family structures.
However, the dichotomy between the societal emphasis on female
self-sacrifice and barriers to female self-reliance often created
burdens of anxiety and guilt in women's lives.

The conflict between self-sacrifice and self-reliance manifests
itself in Louisa's characterization of John and Meg's traditional
marriage in Little Women. After a domestic spat with John,
Marmee's advice to Meg on the subject of keeping peace with her

husband advocates self-sacrifice:

Be careful, very careful, not to wake this anger against yourself,
for peace and happiness depend on keeping his respect. Watch
yourself, be the first to ask pardon if you both err, and guard
against the little piques, misunderstandings, and hasty words that

often pave the way for bitter sorrow and regret. 22
The husband's respect appears more important than the wife's and
Mrs. March's advice places the responsibility of marital happiness on
the woman: the woman should be the first to ask forgiveness and
the woman should be careful of her words. The woman bears the
responsibility of smoothing over misunderstandings. Mrs. March's
advice is not happily remembered by Meg, however. She has a

difficult task in sacrificing her self-esteem:

"I will be the first to say 'forgive me,"' but he did not seem to hear
her; she went very slowly across the room for pride was hard to
swallow, and stood by him, but he did not turn his head. For a
minute, she felt as if she really couldn't do it; then came the
thought, "This is the beginning, I'll do my part, and have nothing
to reproach myself with," and stooping down she softly kissed her

husband on the forehead. 23

 

22A1cott, Little Women, 279.
231bid., p. 280.

15

Meg, in order to end the argument, lays aside her pride in a
"penitent" kiss. Furthermore, although John "laughingly" apologizes
for making fun of Meg's jellypots, Alcott insinuates that this type of
relationship is pitiable. Although Meg seems to find contentment in
her domestic little world, Alcott rejects this world as the "shelf on
which young wives and mothers may consent to be laid."24

Alcott seems unable to find enough relief by portraying Mr.
March as an ineffectual figure; she decisively replaces him, thereby
re-envisioning men's roles in society. She creates a substitute father
and mate in the guise of Mr. Bhaer. Mr. Bhaer possesses nurturing
qualities usually identified with women: he raises and supports two
little orphan nephews. In addition to his fondness for children,

Bhaer also exhibits a willingness to perform some domestic tasks:

...there he stood in his dressing gown, with a big blue sock on one
hand and a darning-needle in the other; he didn't seem at all
ashamed of it, for when I explained and hurried on, he waved his

hand, sock and a11.25
The reader cannot help but like Mr. Bhaer, and Alcott deliberately
makes him a likable character by bestowing him with matriarchal
qualities. "The children went to him like bees to a honey-pot; and,
establishing themselves on each knee, proceeded to captivate him by
rifling his pockets, pulling his beard, and investigating his watch,
with juvenile audacity."26 Children flock around Mr. Bhaer as if he
is a type of mother figure, and more importantly, Bhaer is at home in

this domestic atmosphere.

 

241bid., p. 399.
251hid.. p. 338.
26Ibid., p. 451.

16

Alcott did not disapprove of marriage or motherhood: she
disliked the social restrictions imposed on women by the
conventional types of marriages in her day. The union of Jo and Mr..
Bhaer represents a marriage based on equality. Jo is not emotionally
or intellectually stifled by Mr. Bhaer, and Alcott refuses to define her
as the weaker counterpoint to male dominance. Friedrich describes
Jo as a "strong-minded lady."27 While Jo agrees to marry Mr. Bhaer,

she refuses to relinquish her right to work:

I may be strong-minded, but no one can say I'm out of my sphere
now,--for woman's special mission is supposed to be drying tears
and bearing burdens. I'm to carry my share, Friedrich, and help
to earn the home. Make up your mind to that, or I'll never go, she

added, resolutely.28
This passage, in acknowledging the burden of work Louisa's mother
carried in sustaining the Alcott family, re-envisions womans role
both inside and outside of the home. Jo significantly refuses to give
up her right to work, which acts as a sustaining force for Louisa and
forms the basis for a reformed self-reliance. Louisa May Alcott, in
Little Women, provides an alternative marital union: "Though it
came in such a very simple guise, that was the crowning moment of
both their lives, when, turning from the night, and storm and
loneliness, to the household light, and warmth, and peace waiting to
receive them with a glad "Welcome home," Io leads her love in, and
shuts the door."29 Jo leads Friedrich into the home; she takes the
initiative, and Bhaer does not seem to object to Jo's strength of

character. Alcott recognizes the insecurity inherent in the traditional

 

27lbid., p. 470.
281bid., p. 480.
291bid.. p. 480.

17

nineteenth-century marriage and attempts to empower women by
envisioning a feminine self-reliance through the creation of a marital
union based on equality.

Just as Louisa May Alcott used her writing to limit her father's
influence and carve out an alternative definition of individualism
based on a work ethic, Harriet Beecher Stowe also attempted to
mitigate her father's repressive influence by creating a self-reliance
which emphasized the need for spiritual and emotional autonomy.
As an affectionate and active father, Lyman Beecher evinced an
overwhelming concern for his children's spiritual salvation, amply
demonstrated by his drive to "put his children through the
exquisitely painful exercises necessary to wrest their hearts from
Satan and give them to God."30 Beecher's overzealous concern sowed
the seeds of doubt, guilt and anxiety in Stowe's mind, and she began
writing to ease the anxiety which had left her torn since adolescence.

The repressive nature of Calvinism gnawed more deeply at
Stowe's conscience as she grew older, and writing proved to be a
creative outlet to channel her sufferings in a positive direction.
Tragedy precipitated most of her major novels. As a maternal
woman, the deaths of three sons affected her deeply. None of these
sons died converted and as she struggled to overcome anguishing
doubt about the security of their souls, she wrote some of her major
novels. The Minister’s Wooing , written in the aftermath of Henry
Beecher's death, clearly singles out women as the pathetic victims of

extremist Calvinistic theology, evincing her own despair at losing an

 

3OMarie Caskey, Chariot of Fire (New Haven and London: Yale University
Press, 1978), p. 15.

18

unconverted son. Oldtown Folks reflects Stowe's attempt to negate
doctrines which cause guilt and suffering. In this novel, she asserts
her own spiritual autonomy in creating a Christ-centered religion
based on maternal qualities.

Oldtown Folks, a novel of local tradition, describes the scene
and atmosphere of Stowe's youth, New England society. The text
provides an invaluable glimpse into the thought and traditions of
Puritan culture, and more importantly, a glimpse into Stowe's own
feelings towards the religion of her father and of the New England
fathers. Here she identifies the psychological damage New England

Calvinism caused women:

With many New England women at this time period, when life was
so retired and so cut off from outward sources of excitement,
thinking grew to be a disease. The great subject was, of course,
theology; and woman's nature has never been consulted in
theology. Theologic systems, have, as yet, been the work of man
alone. They have had their origin, as in St. Augustine, with men
who were utterly ignorant of moral and intellectual
companionship with woman, looking at her only in her animal
nature as a temptation and a snare. Consequently, when, as in
this period of New England, the theology of Augustine began to
be freely discussed by every individual in society, it was the
women who found it hardest to tolerate or assimilate it, and many
a delicate and sensitive nature was utterly wrenched in the

struggle.3 1
This passage represents key issues which fosters Stowe's drive to re-
define the traditionally masculine perogative of individualism
through her writing. She points out that society's refusal to view
men and women as "moral and intellectual" equals demoralizes only
women. Theology, only concerned with the depravity of woman's

physical nature, ignores the development or well-being of woman's

 

31Harriet Beecher Stowe, Oldtown Folks (Boston: Fields, Osgood, & Co., 1869),
p. 438.

19

emotional state. Stowe feels that the intellectual woman, prevented
from taking part in the making or interpretation of doctrine, often
becomes crushed by its repressiveness.

Esther Avery, the daughter of the minister in Cloudland (and
something of a combination of Harriet and Catharine Beecher)
possesses the combination of sensitivity and intellect which
Calvinism tortures. Esther inherits from her ancestors both the
intellectual capacity to reason as well as "exquisite moral

perceptions":

The consequence of all this was the internal strife of a divided
nature. Her heart was always rebelling against the conclusions
of her head. She was constantly being forced by one half of her
nature to movements, inquiries and reasoning which brought

only torture to the other half.32
Stowe obviously thought of her own and her daughter Hattie's
emotional reactions to Calvinism as she depicted Esther's repressed
character. Stowe unceasingly strove to reconcile her emotional needs
with the cold forceful logic presented by Beecher's religious
teachings. Unfortunately, as an intelligent woman, Stowe found this
logic difficult to transcend and subsequently, she turned away
Calvinism on emotional grounds.

Ironically, Stowe describes the "key—note" of Mr. Avery's
theology as "the free agency of man." Mr. Avery exhorts his
parishioners to escape their state of depravity through their own
volition: "Every line of his sermons said to every human being, 'You
are free, and you are able.'"33 Despite this assertion, Esther is

anything but free as she remains bound by guilt. Mr. Avery's

 

321bid., p. 439.
33lbid., p. 441.

2O

concern for her salvation and his smothering love for her cannot
rescue Esther from her despondency. Mr. Avery's zealousness allows
Esther no quarter; no room for her own religious growth. Stowe
rescues Esther, and perhaps herself, by creating a character named
Harry who presents Esther with a different type of religion, one
which replaces the doctrine of guilt with the nurturing love of Christ.
Harry, a young orphan, possesses a religion which centers
around Christ's love and an awe-inspiring, but forgiving God.
Whereas Mr. Avery's Calvinism relies on the cold analytical process
of reasoning, Harry's religion operates on emotional responsiveness,

and the trust that God, although powerful, is benevolent:

"Reasoning!" said Harry, impatiently; "we must trust the
intuition of our hearts above reason. That is what I am trying to
persuade Esther to do. To me it is an absolute demonstration, that
God never could make a creature who would be better than
himself. We must look at the noblest, best human beings. We
must see what generosity, what tenderness, what magnanimity
can be in man and woman, and believe all that and more in God.
All that there is in the best fathers and best mothers must be in

him."34
By placing man and woman side by side in addressing those traits
which mark godliness, Stowe, through Harry, reforms or changes the
patriarchal structure of power in New England Calvinism. Stowe does
not reject men, rather she rejects the efforts of men to control the
intellectual, spiritual and emotional development of women.

Stowe's revised religious order clearly upholds the premise
that a matriarchal power structure offers more potential for
salvation and spiritual fulfillment. She effectively creates a more

democratic religious system by allowing women increased autonomy

 

34lbid., p. 440.

21

in doctrinal interpretation and equal access to God through a
maternal, Christ-centered influence. Harry's love leads Esther to God:
"his simple faith in God's love was an antidote to her despondent
fears. His mind bore hers along on a current. His imagination
awakened hers."35 Although it might seem as if Stowe simply places
Esther under a different man’s direction, thereby upholding
masculine control, she creatively negates this interpretation with
dual strategies. First, Stowe describes Harry's love and religion in
maternal terms: "his conclusions were all intuitions. His religion was
an emanation from the heart, a child of personal experience, and not
a formula of the head."36 Further, she clearly assigns Esther an

equally important role in obtaining salvation:

The most auspicious and beautiful of all phenomena that ever
diversify this weary life is that wonderful moment in which two
souls, who hitherto have not known each other, suddenly, by the
lifting of a veil or the falling of a barrier, become in one moment
and forever after one. Henceforth each soul has in itself the
double riches of the other. Each weakness is made strong by
some corresponding strength in the other; for the truest union is
where each soul has precisely the faculty which the other

needs.37
Through her depiction of Harry and Esther, Stowe delineates the
need that men and women have for each other, and as such, re-
envisions woman as man's "intellectual and moral companion,"38
thereby overturning Calvinism's doctrinal emphasis on woman's
"animal nature." Harry also upholds the need for religious
individualism in his words to Mr. Avery: "it is right and proper that

our minds should be forced to think on all these subjects; but I have

 

35Ibid., p. 466.
36lbid.. p. 466.
37lbid., p. 466.
381bid., p. 438.

22

not thought and cannot think like your, nor exactly like any one that
I know of. I must make up my opinions for myself."39 Finally, by
re—defining Esther's role as an equal in both temporal and spiritual
relationships, she asserts the right to feminine autonomy and
individualism in her own intellectual and spiritual development.

Stowe and Alcott clearly saw democratization and
individualism as linked. Both women keenly felt their marginalized
status as limiting not only their social privileges, but also their
artistic potential; therefore, individualism could only be possible by
extending the privileges of democracy to women as a collective.
Henry David Thoreau did not share the identification of
individualism with democracy. For Thoreau, individualism was of
the individual's making. For men, self reliance and assertiveness was
not only expected, but also rewarded. Therefore, democracy
represented not that which needed to be extended to more people,
but that which was simply to be taken as a natural right.

Henry David Thoreau, in Walden, created a radical
individualism which rejected not only the majority cultural
definition, but also those literary definitions formulated by his
contemporaries. He displayed contempt for "happy novelists" like
Louisa May Alcott, and he rejected newspapers like the ones Fern
wrote for as delusional. Like Stowe, Thoreau expressed the need to
cultivate the individual intellect and the importance of developing
one's own spirituality. However, unlike Stowe, he saw no need for
men and women to work cooperatively together in finding

intellectual and spiritual fulfillment. Thoreau envisioned the

 

39lbid., p. 460.

23

ultimate self-reliance as the prerequisite for individualism by
simplifying his life and stripping away the superfluous. Although
Thoreau addressed problems that he saw in his society such as
pretentiousness and hypocrisy, as well as a dearth of intellect, he
was not concerned with the adequacy of his solutions to society as a
whole. Thoreau's Walden evinces a radical individualism which rests
solely on the primacy of developing his own imagination.

Despite Thoreau's intent to give his imagination full rein in
both his experience on Walden Pond, and subsequently in the
descriptive narration of these experiences, Thoreau's style lends
Walden substance. Further, the use of a common vernacular conveys
Thoreau's sense of democratic usefulness. Language operates as an
important transmittor of cultural values and human morality: "What
men say is so sifted and obliged to prove itself as answering to a
common want, that nothing absolutely frivolous obtains
currency...The analogies of words are never whimsical and
meaningless, but stand for real likenesses. Only the ethics of
mankind, and not of any particular man, give point and vigor to our
speech."40 Thoreau's use of language reflects a democratic
sentiment by preferencing the common laborer's words over "the
scholar's labored sentences": "He hated writers who did not speak
out of a full experience but used torpid words, wooden or lifeless
words, such words as "humanitary" which have a paralysis in their
tails."41 To Thoreau, the most important task for a writer was to

breathe life into deadened words; to use language in a manner which

 

40F. O. Matthiessen, American Renaissance (London: Oxford University
Press, 1941, p. 86.

4llbid., p. 86.

24

conveys the intensity of the experience it reflects. He insisted that
"the theme is nothing, the life is everything. All that interests the
reader is the depth and intensity of the life excited."42 Thoreau
wanted to create an effect with his language; an effect which
transcended mere physical description but which nevertheless
conveyed solidity. He sought to construct "sentences which suggest
far more than they say, which have an atmosphere about them,
which do not merely report an old, but make a new impression;
sentences which suggest as many things and are as durable as a
Roman aqueduct."43 Walden exemplifies Thoreau's meticulous
concern for detail in creating a narrative which seeks to stimulate
intellectual and spiritual growth within the individual who possesses
the ability to hear his words..

Thoreau's concern for what he viewed as a lack of intellectual
development in his society led him to reject the artistry of his
literary contemporaries. He levied one of his diatribes against the

effects inherent in the "easy-reading" created by "happy novelists":

The result is dulness of sight, a stagnation of the vital
circulation's, and a general deliquieum and sloughing off of all
the intellectual faculties. This sort of gingerbread is baked daily
and more sedulously than pure wheat or rye-an-Indian in almost

every oven, and finds a surer market.44
The "dulness" and "stagnation" caused by readings novels fostered
the opposite effect of life that Thoreau strove to create in his own

writing. Rather than expending energy on what Thoreau perceived

"

to be soul enriching nourishment found in the worthies of

 

421bid., p. 89.
43lbld., p. 91.

44Henry David Thoreau, Walden and Civil Disobedience, Edited with an
Introduction by Michael Meyer (New York: Penguin Classics, 1983), p. 151.

25

antiquity,"45 the public ostensibly prefered the unwholesome and
sickly sweet "gingerbread" provided in nonsensical novels: "All this
they read with saucer eyes, and erect and primitive curiosity, and
with unwearied gizzard, whose corrugations even yet need no
sharpening..."46 Thoreau directly attacked the literary world that
Alcott contributed to with her novels aimed at a young and primarily
female audience. Thoreau viewed public demand for this type of
literature frightening because he felt that the attention which many
readers lavished on the trivialities found in novels collectively

damaged the potentials of a democratic society:

We are under-bred and low-lived and illiterate; and in this
respect I confess I do not make any broad distinction between the
illiterateness of my townsmen who cannot read at all and the
illiterateness who has learned to read only what is for children

and feeble intelleets.47
Individual illiteracy caused by obdurately refusing "solid reading"
destroyed the very fiber of society. Only the efforts of the individual
could rectify such intellectual deterioration. After an individual
identifies a lack of intellect and culture in his life and subsequently
endeavors to improve himself through the riches found in good
reading, he helps to enrich society by securing "for his children that
intellectual culture."48 By negating the value of the "frivolous" and
stripping away harmful effects of "light reading," Thoreau identified
a potentially richer intellectual state for the individual.

Not only did Thoreau reject the work of feeble novelists, he

also refuted the validity of the newspaper realm that Fern inhabited.

 

451bid., p. 152.
46Ibid., p. 152.
“mm. p. 152.
“mm. p. 152.

26

He particularly despised the habit of reading the newspaper over the
morning coffee, as this habit undermines intellectual growth:

After a night's sleep the news is as indispensable as the

breakfast. "Pray tell me any thing new that has happened to a

man any where on this globe,"--and he reads it over his coffee

and rolls, that a man has had his eyes gouged out this morning on

the Wachito River; never dreaming the while that he lives in the
dark unfathomed mammoth cave of this world, and has but the

rudiment of an eye himself.49

The newspaper, or the "penny-post" held no value for Thoreau; he
described it as an "institution through which you seriously offer a
man that penny for his thoughts which is so often safely offered in
jest." Further, newspapers prohibit a development of individualism
because an individual will not see for himself, relying on
sensationalized accounts of events. Newspapers offer only
"delusions" while nature holds out a "fabulous" reality.50 If one
perceives the newspaper to be a necessity, than at the very least,
readers need to avoid "sucking the pap of neutral family papers, or
browsing 'Olive-Branches' here in New England" and seek out
material from all of the learned societies.51

While Thoreau wrote Walden as a wake-up call to heed and
perhaps repair cultural problems, he appeared unconcerned about its
acceptance within his society. Thoreau merely advises his readers to
accept what parts of Walden which they might find useful: "As for
the rest of my readers, they will accept such portions as apply to

them. I trust that none will stretch the seams in putting on the coat,

 

49lbid., p. 155.
501bid., p. 139.
“Md, p. 155.

27

for it may do a good service to him whom it fits."52 While offering
Walden as a guide for those who might wish to simplify their
material existence while simultaneously enriching individual
spirituality, Thoreau spoke primarily to and for himself.

Thoreau manifested less concern for the well-being of
individuals within society than fear of the moral disintegration of the
potentials of society. He seemingly evinced more concern for his own

autonomy and spirituality:

It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to
the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong...but it is
his duty, at least to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no

thought longer, not to give it practically his support.53
Ever concerned with human potentiality, Thoreau nevertheless cared
more for preserving a fertile environment for his own spiritual
growth than seeking to draw the masses towards intellectual
fulfillment. He offered words of wisdom, but cared little for fame or
popularity. A comparison of his authorship drawn to an Indian
attempting to sell baskets in an increasingly capitalistic, consumer-

oriented society vindicates the value of disinterested self-sufficiency:

I too had woven a kind of basket of a delicate texture, but I had
not made it worth any one's while to buy them. Yet not the less,
in my case, did I think it worth while to weave them, and instead
of studying how to make it worth men's while to buy my baskets, I

studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them.54
Thoreau assiduously avoided any action which led to dependency of
any type. While he found writing a worthwhile enterprise, he wrote
primarily for his own satisfaction. He disdained the necessity of

selling his words in order to financially support himself.

 

52161d., p. 46.
53Ibid., p. 393.
“Md. p. 61-2.

28

The act of writing for Louisa May Alcott, Harriet Beecher Stowe,
Henry David Thoreau and Fanny Fern served as an avenue of self-
definition. The restrictions that Alcott, Stowe and Fern faced as
female artists in a society which rejected the notion of feminine
genius underlay their common goal of claiming the voice as a "pre-
condition for autonomy."55 Despite this shared need, Fern's
definition of individualism differed radically from these women
writers. Fern's complete rejection of marriage as a viable option for
feminine fulfillment, exposes her belief that women needed to be
economically independent. In this way, her definition of
individualism more closely resembles Thoreau's extreme notion of
self-reliance. While Fern agreed with Thoreau that carving out one's
own place and resultant role in society was essential to physical and
spiritual well-being, she nevertheless more clearly than Thoreau
recognized the inapplicability of this maxim to marginalized
members of American society. This recognition directed Fern's work
in actively privileging the voices of the powerless. Her writing
attempted to redefine economic structures by transforming both the
marketplace and the criteria for entering the business world. In
addition, Fern re-envisioned the family unit by focusing on women's
ability to act as both nurturer and provider, thereby altering social
structures in American society. Finally, the transformations Fern
envisioned in both economic and social structures inevitably
guaranteed a radically altered political status for women. The

differences manifested in Fern's and Thoreau's writing due to Fern's

 

55Nancy Walker, Fanny Fern (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993), p. 62.

29

sharper awareness of political disenfranchisement and its societal
ramifications inevitably led to differing conceptions of artistic genius.

The shared bonds that Alcott, Stowe and Fern shared as
politically disenfranchised members of their society led these women
writers towards a quest of self-authentication. All three women
came from middle class families who were well known, and deeply
spiritually oriented. Each author grew up in an environment where
intellectual development was considered a priority, and as such, all
three received a superior education in light of the limited educational
opportunities available to women. Further, despite their privileged
familial backgrounds, all three women experienced fairly severe
economic and emotional deprivation which fostered an identification
of their subordination. Women writers, such as Stowe, Alcott and
Fern, faced dilemmas which Thoreau in his privileged status as a
male writer would not have recognized.

As women writers, literary critics denied these women any
claim to genius on the basis of sex. The struggles that Jo March faces
as a writer in Little Women mirror Alcott's own efforts to obtain
artistic freedom. Although Jo finds moderate financial success as a
writer, she exerts no real power over her publishers. For that
matter, she finds herself pushed around by the opinions of the
various men in her life. When Jo decides to take the manuscript of
her first novel to three publishers, she "trembles" as she submits "it
with fear."56 One of the publishers agrees to publish the work if Jo

would "cut it down by one-third and omit all the parts which she

 

56Alcott, Little Women, p. 269.

30

particularly admired."57 Her father advises against editing; "let it
wait and ripen" was his advice. Jo decides "with Spartan firmness" to
lay "her first-born on her table and chop(ed) it up as ruthlessly as
any ogre."58 She does, however, leave a portion of the novel in
which her father admires, even though she has her own "doubts"
about it. Hence, Alcott juxtaposes the initiative Jo displays in seeking
to publish her works with her meek acquiescence to masculine
demands. Further, the maternal images in this passage insinuate
that women artists must sacrifice the traditional feminine roles of
wife and mother in seeking an artistic career.

Women writers in the nineteenth-century wrote to earn a
living. Bronson Alcott's insolvency forced Louisa Alcott into the role
of a provider. Likewise, the death of a husband and the subsequent
rejection by her family left Fern a penniless widow with two small
children. Stowe also consistently strove to supplement her family's
meager income with sums earned through her writing. Thoreau's job
as a surveyor insulated him from deprivation; therefore he was more
free to stimulate and feed his personal intellectual and spiritual
growth.

Although these women writers sought and found economic
prosperity with varying degrees of success, they were denied artistic
freedom. Nina Baym, in Women’s Fiction: A guide to Novels By and
About Women in America, 1820-1870 discusses the lack of first rate
literature produced by talented women. She attributes this deficit as

a product of the feminine writers' image of themselves: "they saw

 

57lbid., p. 269.
581bid., p. 270.

31

themselves not as 'artists' but as professional writers with work to
do and a living to be made from satisfactory fulfillment of an
obligation to their audience."59 This obligation represented at least
two agendas, the first being entertainment for a mass audience and
the second in providing an education for women. Emotional conflict
and insecurity probably further limited their artistic freedom. Mary
Kelley, in Private Woman, Public Stage, identifies the doubt and
confusion as arising from the conflict between the divergent roles
these writers found themselves forced to fulfill. The strain of finding
themselves in the limelight as enormously popular writers, yet
unceasingly hampered by their society's feminine ideals undoubtedly
influenced women's writing. Kelley also states that the "invisibility
of females in their ancestry, contributed to and heightened their
insecurity and sense of illegitimacy as public writers."6O While
Kelley focuses on internal factors hindering artistic freedom, Baym
points to an external hindrance.

Baym describes a tacit bargain between editors, reviewers and
women writers as hindering women's artistic freedom: "Women may
write as much as they please providing they define themselves as
women writing when they do so, whether by tricks of style--
gracefulness, delicacy; by choices of subject matter--the domestic,
the social, the private; or by tone--pure, lofty, moral didactic."61
Alcott found a safety valve for her emotions through anonymous and

pseudonymous writings. Madeleine Stern emphasizes that Alcott

 

59Nina Baym, Woman's Fiction: A Guide to Novels by and about Women in
America 1820-1870 (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1971), p. 16.

6OKelley, Private Woman, Public Stage, p. 37.
61Baym, Woman's Fiction, p. 21.

32

knew "the exposure of feminine anger and passion made for less
respectable reading; in short, if writing constituted a safe means of
expressing anger, publication did not.62 Thus, while publishing
under her own name, Alcott acquiesced to publisher and reviewer
demands through the latter part of her writing career. Little Women,
written as a didactic moral handbook at the request of her father's
publisher, represented a capitulation to the desires of the publishing
elite. Nevertheless she managed, through covert feminism, to convey
a fairly radical commentary of the traditional marriage.

Fern differed from most nineteenth-century women writers in
that she displayed no apprehension about putting her anger in print.
Ruth Hall, a fictionalized biography written from the depths of
personal anger, asserted Fern's beliefs that women had the right to
feel and express emotion in print. The feminist anger in Ruth Hall,
while not new, deviates from the anger in most sentimental fiction
by suggesting that women are best left unmarried and economically
independent. Harris agrees, in her reading of Ruth Hall with Ann
Douglas's observations that "Fern built her work openly on the
defiance her fellow authoresses labored to conceal."63

Fern, far from accepting to literary critic's dictums, criticized
their arrogance and ignorance. Instead of chopping up her

manuscripts (like Io March) to satisfy male critics, she bitingly

 

62Lynette Carpenter, " 'Did They Never See Anyone Angry Before?': The
Sexual Politics of Self-Control in Alcott's 'A Whisper in The Dark' ". Legacy, 3:2
(Fall, 1986), pp. 31-41. Carpenter refers to Tompkin's argument that domestic
novels use "submission and self-control" as instruments of female power. She
argues that Alcott had no illusions about the potential for power in the face of
masculine, temporal authority. Women paid dearly for the submission to man
and for the suppression of their emotions.

63Susan K. Harris, 19th Century American Womens Novels, lntrepretive
Stratiegies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 34.

33

satirized these men in a manner which rendered their complaints
ridiculous. For example, the following letter, which Ruth receives

from a male critic in Ruth Hall attacks the notion of feminine genius:

You are not a genius-mo, madam, not by many removes;
Shakespeare was a genius--Milton was a genius--the author of
'History of the Dark Ages,‘ which has reached its fifteenth
edition, was a genius--(you may not know you have now the
honor of being addressed by him;) no, madam, you are not a
genius, nor have I yet seen a just criticism of you writings; they
are all either over-praised or over abused; you have a certain sort
of talent, and that talent, I grant you is peculiar, but a genius--
no, no, Mrs., or Miss, or Madam Floy--you don't approach genius,
though I am not without a hope that, if you are not spoiled by
injudicious, sycophantic admirers, you may yet produce
something creditable; although I candidly confess, that it is my
Opinion, that the female mind is incapable of producing

anything which may be strictly termed literature.64

Instead of passively accepting this criticism , Ruth laughs it off as
vanity. Further, she highlights the shallowness of this male critic's
opinion by juxtaposing his letter with the voluminous amount of fan
mail enthusiastically endorsing her book. Fern condemned unfair
literary criticism which allowed an author's book to be "reviewed on
hearsay, by persons who never looked between the covers," causing
a woman artist to "either weep in silence over such injustice, or do
violence to her womanly nature by a public contention for her
rights." 65 This comment reflects not only a critique of gender-
biased interpretations of literary genius, but also the inadequacy of
constructed expectations of womanhood which only allow "weeping

in silence" as an appropriate response to injustice.

 

64Fanny Fern, Ruth Hall and Other Writings, edited with an introduction by
Joyce Warren (New Brunswick and London: Rutgers University Press. 1986). P.
166.

65161d.. p. 172.

34

Fern leaves no doubt that career and motherhood are not
mutually exclusive roles. Publication day of Ruth's first novel is
marked by memories of each articles contribution to her children:
"Little shoeless feet were covered with the proceeds of this; a little
medicine, or a warmer shawl was bought with that."66 Despite her
shared subordinated status with other women writers, Fern's
definition of individualism differed radically from Alcott or Stowe.
Fern's experience with deprivation due to a lack of male support
coupled with her new found ability to independently provide for her
children led her to reject marriage as a means of economic
sustenance.

Fern's definition of individualism comes the closest to
Thoreau's in their common assertion that extreme self-reliance
provides the basis for self-definition. Thoreau's writing develops out
of the intensely private identity which he creates for himself: "inside
Thoreau's private configuration, there was only himself." Thoreau
created an identity for himself which kepts "other men out and parts
of himself in"67 , thereby preventing him from relating fully and

personally to the problems of his society.

Our stock in life, our real estate, is that amount of thought which
we have had, which we have thought out. The ground we have
thus created is forever pasturage for our thoughts...If you have
ever done any thought with these finest tools, the imagination
and fancy and reason, it is a new creation, independent on the
world, and a possession forever. You have laid something up
against a rainy day. You have to that extent cleared the

wilderness. (J., ix, 350)68

 

65Ibid., p. 175.

67Frederick Garber, Thoreau's Redemptive Imagination (New York: New
York University Press, 1977), p. 16.

“rpm. p. 12.

35

Thoreau sees clearing the wilderness or getting "rid of the excess
baggage whose excesses burst our boundaries" 69 as a necessary step
towards self-definition. It is an act that "men do best when they are
full themselves." 70 The only tools men need to realize the creation
of their own consciousness are the "imagination, and fancy and
reason." In essence, Thoreau believes that men can live and think
freely, completely independent of social obstacles.

What distinguishes Fern's writing from Thoreau's is the
recognition that while men not only have the right, but also the duty
to clear a space physically, intellectually and spiritually, women have
spaces carved for them. Women, corrupted by a lack of opportunity
to extend their being, find no creative outlets for their energies or
opportunities of being their best. While Thoreau "organizes his
perceptions of himself and his world," women too often perceive
themselves through society's eyes, perpetuating a personal
dishonesty.

Thoreau advocates simplification within one's own physical
environment as an important step in clearing the consciousness to

facilitate intellectual and spiritual growth:

Simplification involves a clearing of the ground for the self, that
is, the establishment of the selt‘s own place...The result would be
self-circumscription, the establishment of precise personal

perimeters." 7 1

Thoreau sees clearing one's space by removing that which is

superfluous to the boundaries necessary because true genius resides

 

69ihid., p. 15.
7olbid., p. 11.
7llbid. p. 15.

36

within the self, within the cleared space. This is precisely Fern's
point from an antithetical angle. Despite the potentialities for
personal genius, women cannot remove excess baggage because the
baggage is not of their own making. Women live cluttered lives,
enclosed within an often smothering domesticity, fettered by the
restrictions of wifehood, motherhood and societal morays which
govern every aspect of their lives from dress to birth control.
Further, women fear the edge of the clearing because society fails to
provide their sex with adequate tools or skills to challenge the
boundaries determined for them. Frederick Garber in Thoreau’s
Redemptive Imagination says that according to Thoreau, "it appears
that when the activity of living is fullest and richest, the talent
creates grounds for the mind's pasturage, making a clearing out of
part of the mindless wilderness which surrounds it."72 Again, Fern
concurs with this; constricted feminine lives lead to feeble minds and
barren landscapes. For women, however, simplification is impossible
because independence is impossible due to an inability to find
economic autonomy.

Fern equates conquering the marketplace with clearing the
wilderness. Women, becoming self-reliant through a moral
capitalism which would operate for the good of society, could
conceivably find fulfillment on several levels. The most basic level
of finding physical sustenance, invariably leads to the ability to
define one's own place in society. Opportunities for self-definition
open up possibilities for spiritual and intellectual personal growth.

Fern also envisions the extension of women's moral qualities into the

 

72161d., p. 12.

37

marketplace, perpetuating a republicanism through capitalism.
Women, notably mothers, who find economic independence can
potentially exercise their voice in a manner which articulates social
reform. Fern's own newspaper articles serve as a forum in which she
articulates social concerns and offers creative solutions for social
reform. Finally, Fern's writing exemplifies another important legacy
of feminine self-reliance; the realization of feminine potentialities of
artistic genius. Thoreau himself views his material job as a surveyor
as vital to his artistry: "his talents as a surveyor, the commercial
activity by which he lived and protected his genius, put him out at
the line where the clearing stood."73 While he complained of having
to keep the job "simply for self-support," this self-support provides
Thoreau with the independence necessary to ensure intellectual and
spiritual development. For Fern, self-support represents the first

crucial step in the clearing process.

 

73lbid., p. 13.

38

Chapter 11

Why shouldn't women work for pay? Does anybody object when
women marry for pay?--without love, without respect, nay with
even aversion?...How much more honored is she who, hewing out
her own path, through prejudice and narrowness and even
insult, earns honorably and honestly through her own
independence. (Fanny Fern, New York Ledger, July 16, 1870)

Fanny Fern, born as Sara Payson Willis on July 9, 1811, was the
daughter of Nathaniel and Hannah Willis. Although she was born in
Portland, Maine, the family soon moved to Boston where they
acquired recognition as a literary family. Nathaniel Willis published
The Recorder, the first religious newspaper in America. He later
began The Youth’s Companion, the first children's periodical.74
Fern's brothers, Nathaniel P. and Richard Willis both became
prominent newspaper editors.75 Sara herself received a superior
education at Catharine Beecher's Seminary in Hartford, Connecticut
before marrying into a prominent Boston family. Personal
misfortune soon struck Sara. Her husband, Charles Eldredge died,
leaving Sara and her two young daughters penniless. Her father

coerced her into a second marriage with Samuel P. Farrington who

 

74Joyce Warren, Fanny Fern: An Independent Woman (New Brunswick and
New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1991), p.

75Fem later wrote many articles about newspapers; reading newspapers, as
well as writing about publishing in newspapers. Her family background in
the periodical print greatly influenced her career. For more, see Warren,
Fanny Fern, An Independent Woman.

39

physically mistreated her. She finally left him, despite vociferous
opposition from her family.76

Fern's difficult personal circumstances provided her with keen
insight into the lives of two classes. She was born and married into
middle-class families with upper-class aspirations. Marital disaster
left her enduring as dire economic hardship as the people she later
described in her newspaper articles. Sara's father, father-in-law, and
brother, (Nanthaniel P. Willis), refused to help her economically or
otherwise. As a result, Fern explicitly renounced the feminine
subordination dictated by societal values and customs which favored
masculine perogative. Sara Eldredge, in her superior education,
writing ability and identification of herself as a subordinated
member of the population, held a unique place in American society.
She had the vision and the voice to levy a social critique of her
society. Sara began to write newspaper articles to support herself,
and Fanny Fern was born.

Fern immediately asserted a new artistic individualism through
her writing style. In June of 1851, she sold one of her articles to the
Reverend Thomas F. Norris of the Boston Olive Branch for fifty
cents.77 He perhaps agreed to print her article because her writing

adhered to his own ideas of good prose:

Say it in plain old English, use the most easy words and forms of speech
in your power, do not use obsolete or out of the way terms, use no
exordium, come directly at what you aim, and give the largest possible
numbers of ideas in the fewest possible words. Use no circumlocution,
and when you have done, stop; an article is never too short when the
writer has comprehended his subject; any verbose additions only take
from the force of the article...We beg our contributors all to learn how

 

76Ibid, Chapter, 5, "Dark Days.
77Ibid., p. 92.

40

to say much in a few words...Persons gifted with a concise, forcible, yet
graceful and easy style, never fail of success. Daguerreotype your
subject, and leave your reader to study the picture. (Olive Branch, May

3, 1851)78
Norris's advice in this article proved prophetic; Fanny Fern's easy,
direct style contributed greatly to her overwhelming success.
Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, a popular periodical, heralded Fern
as the welcome harbinger of a new writing style, marking the end of
the "stilted rhetoric" and "parade and pomp" of literature.79 She
breathed life into her subjects, describing their lives with clarity and
humanity. Her directness, simplicity and down-to-earth-style both
brought the world of literature to many new readers while
simultaneously making this new class of reader, the ordinary people,
newsworthy.

Fern's style reflected her purpose in writing. Fern despised the
pretensions and hypocrisies of genteel society and often openly
displayed her intent to expose such hypocrisies. Fern always came
"before the public stark naked"80 without the restraints that
Victorian society demanded. While literary critics, particularly

anxious to disseminate their visions of genteel society, condemned

 

78rbid., p. 98.
79lbid., p. 277, from Harper's New Monthly Magazine (July, 1854).

80Ibid., p. 1. After Nanthaniel Hawthorne condemned the "damned mob of
scribbling women" who cornered the literary mass market during the decade
known as the feminine fifties, he softened the blow somewhat by praising
Fern: "In my last, I recollect, I bestowed some vituperation on female authors.
I have since been reading 'Ruth Hall'; and I must say I enjoyed it a good deal.
The woman writes as if the devil was in her; and that is the only condition
under which a woman ever writes anything worth reading. Generally women
write like emasculated men, and are only distinguished from male authors by
greater feebleness and folly; but when they throw off the restraints of
decency, and come before the public stark naked, as it were--then their books
are sure to possess character and value. Can you tell me anything about this
Fanny Fern? If you meet her, I wish you would let her know how much I
admire her." Nanthaniel Hawthorne, Letters to William Ticknor, [851-1869, ed.
C. E. Frazer-Clark, Jr., 2 vols. (Newark, N.J.: Carteret Book Club, Inc., 1972), 1:78.

41

Fern's vulgar lack of femininity, publishers generally found the
willpower to quell any approbation they may have felt about
promoting such vulgarity. Her book sales more than compensated
these entrepreneurs for the ineffectual wrath of literary critics.

Fern deliberately exploited the buying power of the masses in
her quest to re-define women's roles in society, thereby allowing
more opportunity for feminine self-definition. Although Fern's slang,
fresh prose and radical views represented the cutting edge in
journalism, the mediums in which she chose to express her views
were conventional. Both nineteenth-century novels and newspapers
were produced for mass consumption, and Fern's use of these
mediums reflected her intent of securing a large audience. Because
Fern's emphasis on "everyday people and events" overturned the
cultural views of the elite, her subject matter spoke to a much
broader audience of middle and working-class people, accounting for
her widespread appeal. Jane Tompkins, in Sensational Designs states
that "the text that becomes exceptional in the sense of reaching an
exceptionally large audience does so not because of its departure
from the ordinary and conventional, but through its embrace of what
is widely shared."811 Fern's efforts to reach a large audience
reflected her intent to uphold the culture of ordinary people, and
used their support to overturn elitist dictums, thereby altering the
balance of power in American society.

Fern's reformist goals necessitated first capturing an audience

and sparking a sense of injustice in her women readers, leading to an

 

81Jane Tompkins, Sensational Designs, The Cultural Work of American
Fiction 1790-1860 (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985). p. xvi.

42

awakening of a class consciousness. Fern used a variety of
techniques in reaching a feminine audience. She often spoke directly
to women, approaching her subject humorously, using a black humor
antithetical to women and particularly to the role of a middle-class
woman in a genteel society. The humor exemplified in the following
letter to a female admirer highlights a subversive feminine capacity

for violence:

My dear Eva:--Bless your soul, I can't love a woman! Ihad as lief take a
dose of physic!...Women never made decent friends to their own sex;
they are always telling each other's secrets, and pulling each other's
caps and characters to pieces...Besides...you labor under the impression
that I felt merry when I wrote all that nonsense! Not a bit of it; it's a
way I have, when I can't find a razor handy to cut my throat! (Olive

Branch, Jan. 31. 1852)82
This letter demonstrates plural purposes inherent in most of Fern's
writing. On the most superficial level, her writing entertained people
who could, perhaps, forget the daily grind of unending work. The
working class might get a laugh at the expense of genteel women
who seemingly have nothing better to do than "pulling each other's
caps and characters to pieces." This ridicule of the upper class
exposes Fern's second and more serious agenda; that of undermining
cultural dictums which have little relevance in the lives of people
struggling to survive. Finally, by minimizing the influence the social
elite, she paved the way for a re-envisioning of women's roles.
Women, confined within unfulfilling lives could become carping and
undesirable. The inability to release frustrations in a socially
acceptable manner might lead to violence turned inward, implicit in

the threat to "cut [her] throat."

 

321bid., p. 100.

43

Nancy Walker, in A Very Serious Thing: Women's Humor and
American Culture, emphasizes that women are not supposed to be
humorous: "For women to adopt this role means that they must
break out of the passive, subordinate position mandated for them by
centuries of patriarchal tradition and take on the power accruing to
those who reveal the shams, hypocrisies, and incongruities of the
dominant culture." Walker further contends that feminine humorists
potentially face serious economic ramifications: "To be a woman and
a humorist is to confront and subvert the very power that keeps
women powerless, and at the same time to risk alienation those upon
whom women are dependent for economic survival."83 Fern never
feared alienating authorities; she bitterly learned through her own
personal hardship to rely on no one for sustenance. Impoverished
and friendless, responsible for feeding two children, Fern fought her
way out of poverty. Her struggle to survive transformed her from a
helpless, dependent, young girl into a strong, not easily intimidated
woman.

Fern addressed the problems working women faced in
asserting their right to individualism. The Industrial Revolution
offered more job opportunities for women; however, most of these
jobs as seamstresses, domestic servants, or factory workers, payed
little for long strenuous hours. "A Bit Of Injustice" describes the
unfairness of paternalistic attitudes and restraints which kept

women dependent and helpless:

 

83Nancy Walker, A Very Serious Thing, Women's Humor and American
Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), p. 9.

44

"AS A GENERAL THING there are few peOple who speak approbatively of
a woman who has a smart business talent or capability. No matter how
isolated or destitute her condition, the majority would consider it more
"feminine" would she unobtrusively gather up her thimble, and,
retiring into some out-of—the-way-place, gradually scoop out her coffin
with it, than to develop that smart turn for business which would lift
her at once out of her troubles; and which, in a man so situated, would
be applauded as exceedingly praiseworthy." (New York Ledger, June 8,

1861184
Fern's sarcastic tone displays no humor; she herself was forced to
develop an acute business sense to survive. Further, she found
businessmen only too willing to take advantage of her helpless
position as a female in the male-dominated business realm. Fern
praised those women strong enough to struggle for economic
independence, for no matter what hardships they might endure in
obtaining complete economic autonomy, she maintained that "N a
crust so tough as the grudged bread of dependence."

Daily physical hardship prevented many working class women
from developing a sense of individualism, and by artistically
sketching their plight, Fern spoke directly to middle and upper—class
women. "The Working Girls Of New York", obviously hopes to
engender sympathy for less fortunate women, thereby cementing an
alliance between women which crosses class boundaries. By evoking
the middle-class rhetoric surrounding the "vicitimized" working
woman, Fern exploited one of the socially constructed images of less
fortunate urban sisters in order to gain a middle-class audience. She
described the morning procession of young women towards their
jobs:

They shiver as the sharp wind of early morning strikes their temples.

There is no look of youth on their faces; hard lines appear there. Their
brows are knit; their eyes are sunken; their dress is flimsy, and foolish,

 

8"'Fern, Ruth Hall and Other Writings, p. 318

45

and tawdry; always a hat, and feather or soiled artificial flower upon it;
the hair dressed with an abortive attempt at style; a soiled petticoat; a
greasy dress, a well-worn sacque or shawl, and a gilt breastpin and
earrings. Now follow them to the large, black-looking building, where
several hundred of the are manufacturing hoop-skirts... You could not
stay five minutes in that room, where the noise of the machinery used
is so deafening, that only by the motion of the lips could you
comprehend a person speaking...Why, these young creatures bear it,
from seven in the morning till six in the evening; week after week,
month after month, with only half an hour at midday to eat their dinner
of a slice of bread and butter or an apple...Pitiful! pitiful, you almost sob
to yourself, as you look at these young girls. Young? Alas! it is only in

years that they are young. (Folly As it Flies, 1868).85
After sparking her readers' attention through images which would
appeal to her audience, Fern procedes to tell the story with keen
insight from the working class-perspective. Although Fern sketches
the barrenness of the girls' living quarters, the meagerness of their
food, and the inadequacy of their salaries, she also tells her readers
that the young girls prefer their positions in bleak factories over
domestic house service because of the limited autonomy domestic
jobs offer: "when six o'clock in the evening comes they are their own
mistresses, without hindrance or questioning, till another day of
labor begins...they stroll the streets; and who can blame them?
There are gay lights, and fine shop windows. It costs nothing to wish
they could have all those fine things. They look longingly into the
theatres, through whose door happier girls of their own age pass,
radiant and smiling, with their lovers. Glimpses of Paradise come
through those doors as they gaze."86 Fern understood far better
than many members of her own class that this bit of leisure time
facilitated a sense of autonomy; because for at least a small portion

of their day, working girls could act as their own mistresses. Fern's

 

85Fanny Fern, Folly As It Flies; Hit at by Fanny Fern (New York: G. W.
Carleton, 1868), p. 221-222.

36lbid., p. 222.

46

efforts to understand and write about urban labor problems from a
working class-perspective was important because her efforts
reflected an attempt to make behavior, viewed by the middle-class
reformers as either victimized or merely perverse, seem
understandable without denying a portion of agency to these
women.87 In this way, Fern worked to establish a universal
sisterhood which transcended the immutable and unobtainable true
womanhood promulgated by well-intentioned, but misinformed,
middle-class white women.

Kathy Peiss in Cheap Amusements discusses the desires of
young women to procure excitement or entertainment in the late
nineteenth-century as well as the problems they faced in doing so.
She echoes Fern's earlier observations that young women preferred
factory work over domestic house service because such jobs
seemingly offered more autonomy. However, as Peiss points out,
exploitive conditions of many factory jobs left young women with
little free time, energy or money to pursue entertainment. "Fatigue
and poor health were more often their lot than finery and

entertainment."88 Christine Stansell in City of Women points to the

 

87Christiue Stansell, City of Women, Sex and Class in New York 1789-1860
(Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press,1987). Stansell discusses the
varying uses of "testimonies to female victimization" in nineteenth century
New York. By 1851, the labor movements in New York leaned heavily on
middle-class notions of true womanhood in seeking to make labor gains for the
men which would (ostensibly) allow working women to stay home. Further,
moral reformers also relied on this same rhetoric when deciding which
worthy poor to help. Brightly dressed Bowery Girls, intractable Irish servants
and unrepentant prostitutes (despite the measure of agency these women
exerted in their lives ) were not candidates for middle-class sympathy. The
timid, pallid seamstress represented a (partially constructed) object for
potential and profitable reform.

88Kathy Peiss, Cheap Amusements (Philadelphia: Temple University Press,
1986), pp. Peiss points out that middle class mistresses often encroached on
their servants free time, thereby hindering any pursuits of leisure time.

47

same issues occuring at an earlier time period. Her discussion of the
Bowery girls in New York City during the antebellum period exposes
harsh living conditions operating alongside of a striking assertion of
female autonomy through dress and entertainment. Fern's
descriptions of factory girls blended the rhetoric of suffering, which
had roots in legitimate poverty, with the effort to express a feminine
individualism through an autonomous use of leisure time and
flamboyance in dress: "Despite their poverty, however, these young
immigrant women, with their gaudy costumes, promenades and
evenings at the theater, had their own notions of where to seek the
makings of womanhood."89 Although Fern, in recognizing both harsh
living conditions and a desire for autonomy leads her to address the
plight of working girls with gravity, she often employed other
strategies in bringing these women to the attention of literate
America.

Fern used a sarcastic humor to describe working women in
"Feminine Waiters At Hotels."90 On seeing a newspaper article
stating that some "leading hotels are considering the policy of

employing female waiters, Fern satirically notified her female

working-class readers of an opportunity for better employment:

GOOD news for you, poor pale-faced sempstresses! Throw your thimbles
at the heads of your penurious employers; put on your neatest and
plainest dress; see that your feet and fingers are immaculate, and then
rush en masse for the situation ousting every white jacket in
Yankeedom. Stipulate with your employers, for leave to carry in the

 

Although factory jobs offered young women an opportunity to get out of the
home, the fifteen to eighteen hour workday with small wages left them with
little free time and barely enough money to pay for food and rent.

89Stansell, City of Women, p. 168.

90Fanny Fern, Fern Leaves From Fanny's Portfolio, Second Series (New
York: Mason Brothers, 1854), p. 332.

48

pocket of your French apron, a pistol loaded with cranberry sauce, to
plaster up the mouth of the first coxcomb who considers it necessary to
preface his request for and omelette, with "My dear." (Fern Leaves,

Second Series.)91

Although the article offered practical advice to young women in
handling the perils of waiting on "unmitigated snobs," and advised
these young women to enjoy watching fools a "kind Providence
sends," her biting satire unequivocally condemned the constricted
lifestyles women faced as a result of men's behavior. Women must
restrain themselves in both dress and manners to avoid unwanted
advances by men. Men's behavior definitively operated to
circumvent individuality for women.

"A Soliloquy Of A Housemaid", written from the perspective of
a domestic servant, provides an intimate peek at the drudgery young

women often experienced:

Oh Dear, Dear! Wonder if my mistress knows I'm made of flesh and
blood? I've been up stairs five times, in fifteen minutes, to hand her
things about four feet from her rocking-chair! Ain't I tired? Wish I
could be rich once, just to show ladies how to treat their servants! Such
a rheumatiz as I've got in my shoulders, going up on that shed in the
rain. It's "Sally do this," and "Sally do that," till I wish I hadn't been
baptized at all; and I might as well go farther back while I'm about it,
and say I don't know what I was born for!...Now, instead of ordering me
round like a dray-horse, if they'd look up smiling like, now and then, or
ask me how my rheumatiz did; or even say good morning, Sally--or show
some sort of interest in a fellow-cretur, I should know whether it was
worth while to try to live or not. A soft world would ease the wheels of
my treadmill amazingly, and wouldn't kill them, any how! (True Flag,

Sept, 11, 1852)92
Household servants, subjected to dehumanizing treatment by
employers did not possess the ability to assert either autonomy or

individuality. Dependent on jobs which necessitated catering to the

 

91Fanny Fern, Fern Leaves From Fanny’s Portfolio, Second Series (New
York: Mason Brothers, 1854), p. 332.

92Fem, Ruth Hall. p. 237.

49

whims of the "genteel" for bare economic subsistence, domestic
servants could not be self-reliant. Fern brought the actual world of
working-class people to the forefront of society by writing of their
plight; poor working conditions, homelessness, starvation, and
perhaps most importantly, their intrinsic worth as human beings.
Fern contradicted images of unruly Irish servants rendered through
the complaints of middle-class mistresses, and in doing so, presented
the very humaness of the working-class that she wrote about. These
people had feelings, desires, and needs and Fern upheld the validity
of those needs.

Marriage and motherhood constituted two central facts in a
woman's life in the nineteenth-century, especially for middle-class
women. Fern's scathing satire condemned masculine self-
centeredness too often found in the traditional nineteenth-century

marriage. She emphasized that "matrimonial tears are poisonz"

Smile! It flatters your husband. He wants to be considered the source of
your happiness, whether he was baptized Nero or Moses. Your mind
never being supposed to be occupied with any other subject than
himself, of course a tear is a tacit reproach. Besides, you miserable little
whimperer, what have you to cry for? A-i-n-t y-o-u m-a-r-r-i-e-d?
Isn't that the summum bonum--the height of feminine
ambition?..."Smile!" you simpleton! (Olive Branch, Aug. 28. 1852)93

This article attacks the limited opportunities for feminine fulfillment
only too apparent in the circumscribed domestic environment.
Women often found themselves denied intellectual stimulation due
to both limited educational opportunities and the endless drudgery
of household work and child-birth. Although Fern spoke directly to

woman readers in this passage, her biting satire unequivocally

 

93Ibid., p. 236-237.

50

condemned male selfishness. The article also criticizes the complicity
of middle-class women in adopting and relying upon the domestic
ideology of true womanhood. The reliance on such images and
rhetoric for an assertion of autonomy was damaging for both
working-class and middle-class women. The circumscribed domestic
arena, with its lack of intellectual stimuli that Thoreau found
damaging, could lead women to concentrate on misplaced arenas for
reform. Stansell points out that the efforts of middle-class women to
reform their unruly servants often fostered frustration, while
making little marks on the domestic help.94 Many of Fern's articles
insinuate that the traditional marital institution or socially
constructed gender roles would provide more useful targets for
reform in mitigating undesirable behaviors attributable to both
sexes.

Fern's next step towards mitigating the influence of socially
and psychologically damaging constructed gender roles was less
subtle. She suggested an assertion of individuality might necessitate
discarding all binding and unfair rules; telling women to "make a
bon-fire of all the 'Hints to Young Wives,‘ 'Married Woman's Friend,’
etc. and throw in the authors after them." She personalized the
following article with a description of her life with "Mr. Fern,"

highlighting the effects of men's chicanery on women's self-esteem:

Mr. Fern came home one day when I had such a crucifying headache
that I couldn't have told whether I was married or single, and threw an
old coat into my lap to mend. Well, I tied a wet bandage over my
forehead, "left all flying," and sat down to it--he might as well have
asked me to make a new one; however I newly lined the sleeves, mended
the button-holes, sewed on new buttons down the front, and all over the

 

94Stansell, City of Women. For more, see Chapter 8, "Domestic Service." pp.
154-168.

51

coat-tails--when finally it occurred to me (I believe it was a suggestion
of Satan.) that the pocket might need mending; so I turned it inside out;
and what do you think I found? A love letter from him to my dress-
maker! I dropped the coat, I dropped the work-basket, I dropped the
buttons, I dropped the baby (it was female, and I though it just as well to
put her out of future misery) and then I hopped up into a chair in front
of the looking-glass, and remarked to the young woman I saw there, "F-
A-N-N-Y F-E-R-N! if you---are---ever---such---a---confounded fool

again"---and I wasn't. (Olive Branch, Feb. 1852)95
This particular piece, like the earlier article which sarcastically
dismisses the notion of feminine conviviality, rejects middle-class
notions of sisterhood which might operate as a source of emotional
sustenance for women. Rather than defining the mother as a
maternal role model, Fern prefers to "put her {the daughter} out of
future misery" by dropping her. Although obviously commenting on
the shoddy behavior of "Mr. Fern," she offers a warning to her
feminine readers; namely not to trust men like Mr. Fern, and to
protect oneself. Reliance on men or other women offers little
potential for emotional or physical sustenance. Implicitly, a woman
must shoulder at least part of the responsibility for personal
happiness by refusing to blindly trust others.

While motherhood ostensibly reflects the highest honor a
woman can achieve, "Sunshine and Young Mothers" deliberately
mocks the Victorian idealized vision of motherhood. Fern allows
women to laugh both at their own, less than desirable predicament
and the absurdity of their society's blindingly exalted vision of

motherhood. She precedes the article with the following quotation:

"Folly--For girls to expect to be happy without marriage. Every woman
was made for a mother, consequently, babies are as necessary to their
'peace of mind,‘ as health. If you wish to look at melancholy and
indigestion, look at an old maid. If you would take a peep at sunshine,
look in the face of a young mother."

 

951bid., p. 224—225.

52
Fern continues to write "NOW I WON'T STAND THAT! I'm an old

maid myself; and I'm neither melancholy nor indigestible! My
"PIECE of mind" I'm going to give you, (in a minute!) and I never
want to touch a baby except with a pair of tongs! The latter part of
the article is worth printing in full, as it humorously juxtaposes the
leisurely quality of a husband's morning with the exhaustive chaos of

a young mother's morning:

"Husband" gets up in the morning and pays his "devours" to the
looking-glass; curls his fine head of hair; puts on an immaculate shirt
bosom; ties an excruciating cravat; sprinkles his handkerchief with
cologne; stows away a French roll, an egg, and a cup of coffee; gets into
the omnibus, looks slantendicular at the pretty girls, and makes love
between the pauses of business during the forenoon generally. Wife
must "hermetically seal" the windows and exclude all the fresh air,
(because the baby had the "snuffles" in the night;) and sits gasping
down to the table more dead than alive, to finish her breakfast. Tommy
turns a cup of hot coffee down his bosom; Julianna has torn off the
string of her school-bonnet; James wants to know if she'd like a joint of
mutton; the milkman would like money; the ice man wants to speak to
her "just a minute;" the baby swallows a bean; husband sends the boy
home from the store to say his partner will dine with him; the cook
leaves "all flying," to go to her "sister's dead baby's wake," and
husband's thin coat must be ironed before noon. "Sunshine and young

mothers!!" Where's my smelling-bottle? (Olive Branch, July 3, 1852).96
This article, appealing to middle-class women readers in the sharp, if
over exaggerated, delineation of the separate spheres, mocks the
"man's" intrinsic value to the household through the use of
quotations marks. In this context, at least, the man's workday
appears enjoyable, while the woman's day consists of unending work
and little enjoyment. Further, this article provides an insightful
response to Thoreau's assertion that simplification represents a
necessary prerequisite for self-definition. Women who find every

minute of their day devoted to other people's needs cannot exercise

 

96lbid.. p. 231.

53

any agency in clearing away the superfluous. All of the seemingly
trivial incidents which demands a woman's full and unending
attention must be taken care of in order to fulfill the values of
domesticity prescribed by middle-class definitions of womanhood.
Obviously, the subject of this article possesses no resources or energy
to become self-reliant in either an intellectual or spiritual sense
within the home, or in an economic sense outside of the home.
Fern captured all classes of women in print. However, unlike
her vindication of working and middle class culture, Fern
sarcastically portrayed elite women as "genteel" snobs. Being
thoroughly familiar with both Boston and New York, Fern took
special pains in describing the elite women of these cities. She was

especially critical of the New York woman:

The New York Woman doteth on rainbow hats and dresses,

confectionery, the theatre, the opera, and flirtation...The New York
woman thinketh it well-bred to criticize in an audible tone the dress and
appearance of every chance lady near her, in the street, shop, ferry-
boat, car, or omnibus...She scometh to ride in an omnibus, and if driven
by an impertinent shower therin, sniffeth up her aristocratic nose at
the plebian occupants, pulleth out her costly gold watch to--ascertain
the time! and draweth off her gloves to show her diamonds...On Sunday
morning, the New York Woman taketh all the jewelry she can collect,
and in her flashiest silk and bonnet, taketh her velvet-bound, gilt-
clasped prayer-book out for an airing...After church, she taketh a turn
or two in Fifth Avenue, to display her elaborate dress, and to wonder
"why vulgar peOple don't confine themselves to the Bowery." (Fresh

Leaves, 1857)97
Fern uses pompous, stilted language to describe a pompous,
hypocritical lifestyle. This article represents a rejection of not only
the ridiculous ostentatious display of wealth, but also the triviality of

the wealthy woman's life.

 

97Fanny Fern, Fresh Leaves (New York: Mason Brothers, 1857),
"Knickerbocker and Tri-Mountain," p. 99-100.

54

The Boston upper-class woman fares little better in Fern's

scathing commentary:

The Boston woman draweth down her mouth, rolleth up her eyes,
foldeth her hands, and walketh on a crack...She dresseth (to her praise
be it spoken) plainly in the street, and considereth india-rubbers, a
straw bonnet, and a thick shawl, the fittest costume for damp and cloudy
weather..She is well posted up as to politics--thinketh "as Pa does," and
sticketh to it through thunder and lightening. When asked to take a
gentleman's arm, she hooketh the tip of her little finger circumspectly
on to his male coat-sleeve. She is prim as a bolster, as stiff as a ram-rod,
as frigid as an icicle, and not even matrimony with a New Yorker could

thaw her. (Fresh Leaves, 1857)98

Whereas Fern characterizes the New York woman as ostentatious in
both dress and mannerisms, she describes the Boston woman as
proper and circumspect. Fern portrays both types of elite women,
however, as narrow-minded, concerned only with their own lives
and interests. Fern's satirical words "the Boston woman walketh on a
crack" clearly reveals her condemnation of such a limiting lifestyle.
At the same time, she seemingly pities these women who, in
different ways, are as trapped by paternalistic restraints as working-
class women. The Boston woman "thinketh as Pa does" implies that
these women were unable to think for themselves. The jewels
displayed by the New York woman merely represent the gilt bars of
a societal cage. Both types of genteel women remain subject to
masculine authority in a narrowly prescribed world. Further, both
types of women were cut off from a universal sisterhood by their
inablity to understand the world that their less fortunate sisters
inhabited.

Many women, whether trapped by economic deprivation,

chained to abusive husbands, or insulated within protective and

 

9816id., "The Boston Woman," p. 100-101.

55

smothering marriages often found themselves emotionally
unfulfilled. Fern identified and addressed a need for feminine

leisure activities:

Women lead, most of them, lives of unbroken monotony, and have much
more need of exhilarating influences than men, whose life is out of
doors in the breathing, active world...Sirs! if monotony is to be avoided
in man's life as injurious, if "variety" and exhilaration must always be
the spice to his pursuits, how much more must it be necessary to a

sensitively organized woman?99
This passage identifies the dangers of underdeveloped potential as
damaging to feminine self-esteem. Further, "lives of unbroken
monotony" prohibit feminine self-definition. Fern's writings brought
the necessity of creating enjoyable leisure activities for women to the
attention of those responsible for shaping American culture.

Fern's unique vision stemmed from her own experiences with
poverty. As a result, her vision became sharper and more attuned to
the concerns and problems of different classes. Her attempts to
facilitate a universal sisterhood took her sympathy with the ordinary
people of America a step farther than even many of her friends
found possible to condone. Her views on prostitution and criminal
reform brought personal censure from members of her own class.
Fern wrote a series of articles titled "Blackwell's Island." These
articles unflinchingly exposed the sadistic prison conditions of
nineteenth-century America. Fern offered modern solutions for
reform and empathized with the poor living conditions which led
many of these people to a life of crime. "Blackwell's Island No. 3"

candidly discusses a topic which no "nice" woman should mention:

 

99Fern, Ruth Hall and Other Writings, p. 308.

56

prostitution. She begins the article by telling the "fastidious Mrs.

Grundy" to step aside:

I ask no leave of you to speak of the wretched girls picked out of the
gutters of New York streets, to inhabit those cells at Blackwell's Island. I
speak not to you of what was tugging at my heartstrings as I saw them,
that beautiful summer afternoon, file in, two by two, to their meals
followed by a man carrying a cowhide in his hand, by way of reminder;
all this would not interest you; but when you tell me that these women
are not to be named to cars polite, that our sons and our daughters
should grow up ignorant of their existence, I stop my ears. As if they
could, or did!...As if they could ride in a car or omnibus, or cross in a
ferry-boat, or go to a watering-place, without being unmistakably
confronted by them...Most consistent Mrs. Grundy, get out of my way
while I say what I was going to, without fear or favor of yours...You say
their intellects are small, they are mere animals, naturally coarse and
groveling. Answer me this--are they, or are they not immortal? (New

York Ledger, August 28, 1858)100

This article roundly condemns those who turned their faces away
from this type of social criminal, maintaining that prostitutes are
"naturally depraved and irredeemable." Fern attributes much of the
blame for prostitution on those members of society who perpetrate it
by either refusing to help the victims or condone it by neglecting to
ostracize irresponsible young men who often seduce these women.

Fern highlights the capacity for feminine violence in the article
"Have We Any Men Among Us?" Upon reading an advertisement
proclaiming "Men Wanted," she replies with, "Well, they have been
'wanted' for some time; but the article is not in the market, although
there are plenty of spurious imitations." This articles operates on
dual levels. First, the sketch offers vicarious, if vengeful, power
through amusing anecdotes. Although most sentimental or domestic
novels expressed their attempts to gain power covertly through their

superior moral qualities such as complete submission, Fern openly

 

1001bid., p. 306.

57

emasculated her targets, exemplified in her description of cowardly

men who refused to defend their female relatives from slander:

Time was, when milk—and-water husbands and relatives did not force a
defamed woman to unsex herself in the manner stated in the following
paragraph:
'MAN SHOT BY A YOUNG WOMAN,--One day last week, a young lady
of good character, daughter of Col. , having been
calumniated by a young man, called upon him, armed with a
revolver. The slanderer could not, or did not deny his allegations;
whereupon she fired, inflicting a dangerous if not a fatal wound
in his throat."
Yes; it is very true that there are "MEN wanted." Wonder how many 1854

will furnish. (Musical World and Times, Sept. 24, 1853)101

 

Fern's readers may have enjoyed articles of this type because they
opened a realm definitively closed to women who were not supposed
to feel or show violent emotions, let alone violent behavior.
However, the article also emphasizes that undesirable behavior on
the part of women stems directly from the behavior of men. Further,
many of her readers no doubt were aware that Fern often wrote
from personal experiences, thereby engendering trust within her
readers.102

Acutely aware of the limitations society imposed on feminine
lifestyles, Fern subscribed to and advocated a pragmatic feminism.

She emphasizes that the question of "female rights" was a "debatable

 

10116id.. pp. 262-263.

102Fern herself suffered from slander. Samuel P. Farrington, Fern's
second husband, damaged Fern's reputation by spreading rumors about her
supposedly adulterous liaisons, although Farrington's own brother publicly
denied the validity of any such rumors. Despite her quiet, secluded lifestyle,
the public perpetuated the rumors, scandalized at Fern's presumptuous
behavior in leaving her husband. Fern's own family, particularly her
brother Nathaniel P. Willis and her father, not only refused to help her
economically, they also contributed to the already rampant slander. Fern,
being a woman, possessed no legal recourse; she could not prevent the slander,
nor could she bring charges against Farrington for physical or verbal abuse.
For more, see Warren, Joyce: Fanny Fern, An Independent Woman, and Fanny
Fern, Rose Clark (New York: Mason Brothers).

58

ground; what you may call a vexed question." Fern then tells her
readers that demanding "rights" would only threaten male

dominance, thereby tempting men to tighten restrictions on women:

In the next place (just put your car down, a little nearer), granted we
had "rights," the more we "demand," the more we shan't get 'em. I've
been converted to that faith this some time. No sort of use to waste lungs
and leather trotting to S igh-racuse about it. The instant the subject is
mentioned, the lords of creation are up and dressed; guns and bayonets
the order of the day; no surrender on every flag that floats! (Olive

Branch, Dec. 1852)103

Fern refers to the third National Woman's Right Convention held in
Syracuse, New York, in 1852. Although she personally applauded the
heroism of the women who fought for women's suffrage, she knew
that the fight for suffrage strikes at the reins of power still firmly
held by men. Women had little leverage to force men into
acquiescing to feminine demands. She knew the immediate hopes of
obtaining the vote for women remained slim, and therefore opted for
a course of action which would net more expedient results.

Her writing reflects a pluralistic agenda in obtaining practical
gains for women. The first important goal encompasses attracting a
large audience which she does by deliberately utilizing mediums of
writing designed to entertain. The second step towards more
equitable feminine treatment is fostering a sense of group
consciousness which underlines feminine shared bonds as
subordinated members of society. She wrote of her desires to break
out of the prescribed feminine role in the New York Ledger: "1 want
to do such a quantity of "improper" things, that there is not the

slightest harm in doing. I want to see and know a thousand things

 

103Fern, Fanny. Ruth Hall and Other Writings. p. 243.

59

which are forbidden to flounces--custom only can tell why--I can't."
(New York Ledger, July 10, 1858).104 The third goal Fern evinces
manifests itself in the drive to educate her readers. She teaches her
readers to both anticipate masculine opposition and offers viable
avenues of change through practical advice: "The only way left is to
pursue the "Uriah Heep" policy; look 'umble, and be almighty
cunning. Bait 'em with submission, and then throw the noose over
the will. Appear not to have any choice, and as sure as gospel you'll
get it. Ask their advice, and they" be sure to follow yours. Look one
way, and pull another! Make your reins of silk, keep out of sight,
and drive where you like!"105

Although Fern's advice might sound suspiciously like the
methods of the women who espoused the cult of true womanhood in
advocating submission and deference, some crucial distinctions must
be made between two.106 Whereas some women reformers and
writers advocated complete submission in order to gain power and
recognition, Fern suggested "baiting" men with humility. The cult of
true womanhood sought to bring the outside world into the home
where the wife and mother exercised moral hegemony, whereas Fern
sought to disarm men in order to get out of the home. While her
advice could potentially help some women in gaining a measure of
practical freedom, she nevertheless remained aware of its limitations

in physically abusive marriages.

 

104Warren, Fanny Fern, An Independent Woman, p. 185.

105rbid., p. 243.

106Tompkins, Sensational Designs, pp. 81-85. Tompkins states that "by
ceding themselves to the source of all power, they bypass worldly male
authority, and as it were, cancel it out.

60

In speaking out for victims of physical or sexual abuse, Fern
spoke directly to her readers in a manner completely devoid of wit.
She offered more than sympathy for these women, she also firmly
advocated definitive action by these women to better their lives. "A
Word On The Other Side" advises wives to leave brutal husbands,

imparting a radical message to women in the 1850's:

What I say is this: in such cases, let a woman who has the self-
sustaining power quietly take her fate in her own hands, and right
herself. Of course she will be misjudged and abused. It is for her to
choose whether she can better bear this at hands from which she has a
rightful claim for love and protection, or from a ninedays-wonder-
loving public. These are bold words; but they are needed words--words
whose full import I have well considered, and from the responsibility of

which I do not shrink. (New York Ledger, Oct. 24, 1857).107
Laws failed to protect women from abusive marriages. Further, the
militant stance for feminine rights at this time could offer no
protection for abused wives, and women who viewed submission to
male dominance as a representation of their moral superiority
actually left themselves vulnerable to potentially abusive situations.
Fern, on the other hand, bypassed male authority. If a woman found
herself in an abusive marriage, she should remove herself from the
repressive influence. Although many women might have found the
obstacles created by such a radical action seemingly insurmountable,
Fern emphasized that it is for a woman to decide if she wants to bear
abuse from a "nine-days-wonder-loving public" or from the her
husband from whom "she has a rightful claim for love and
protection."108 Fern blazed a path of independence in leaving an

abusive husband, and set a positive example for those women who

 

107Fern, Ruth Hall and Other Writings, p. 294.
108mm. p. 294.

61

found themselves locked into degradation and abuse that the law did
nothing to prevent.

Fern believed that women should pursue careers and economic
independence despite the cost of public censure. Fern's article "Mrs.
Adolphus Smith Sporting The Blue Stocking" humorously reflects the
difficulties that middle-class feminine writers might encounter in

juggling careers and families:

WELL, I think I'll finish that story for the editor of the "Dutchman." Let
me see; where did I leave off? The setting sun was just gilding with his
last ray--"Ma, I want some bread and molasses"--(yes, dear,) gilding
with his last ray the church spire--"Wife, where's my Sunday pants?"
(Under the bed, dear,) the church spire of Invemess, when a--"There's
nothing under the bed, dear, but your lace cap"--(Perhaps they are in
the coal hod in the closet.) when a horseman was seen approaching--
"Ma'am, the pertators is out; not one for dinner"--(Take some turnips.)
approaching, covered with dust, and--"Wife! the baby has swallowed a
button"--(Reverse him, dear--take him by the heels,) and waving in his
hand a banner, on which was written--"Ma! I've torn my pantaloons"--
liberty or death! The inhabitants rushed en masse-~"Wife! WILL you
leave off scribbling? (Don't be disagreeable, Smith, I'm just getting
inspired.) to the public square, where De Begnis, who had been
secretly--"Butcher wants to see you, ma'am"--secretly informed of the
traitors'--"Forgot which you said, ma'am, sausages or mutton chop"--
movements, gave orders to fire; not less than twenty-—"My gracious!
Smith, you haven't been reversing that child all this time; he's as black
as you coat; and that boy of YOURS has torn up the first sheet of my
manuscript. There! it's no use for a married woman to cultivate her
intellect.-—Smith, hand me those twins. (Fern Leaves, Second Series,

1854)109.
This article obviously appealed for middle-class women. Fern
describes interactions with servants that working class women would
not have had, and further, working class women would most
probably would have even less time for "scribbling", even if they had
an education. While women writers faced a myriad of domestic

problems in juggling a career and a family, they faced far worse

 

109rbid., p. 265.

62

difficulties created by crossing the boundaries from the domestic
sphere to the market place.

Fern set an example for women aspiring towards finding
fulfillment outside the sanctioned institution of marriage. In
attempting to earn a living, she found herself thrust into the brutal,
capitalistic world of business. Several publishers initially took
advantage of her by paying her far less than her articles were worth
if measured by the increased circulation's rates of newspapers
engendered by her articles. Her talents were further exploited by
editors across the country who reprinted her articles without her
permission and certainly without any remuneration. Fern knew that
this type of larceny confirmed her talents and she boldly used the
newspaper to address the thefts. In 1852, Fern responded to a male
imitator, Harry Honeysuckle: "Did you know, my dear "Honeysuckle"
that plants sometimes choke each other? You'll die of the F ern-
strangle one of these days, if you don't leave off shooting round a
corner at my "model" factory! Don't you suppose every body else
sees them? and does any but the genuine coin ever get counterfeited,
hey? Don't I appreciate the unintentional compliment? "Steal my
thunder?" They can't do it, Harry. It has "my mark" on it. Every
body sees the theft." (Olive Branch, Oct. 16, 1852)110

Fern became particularly adept at operating in a capitalistic
society. Further, she set an example for other women writers to
guard their business interests. After becoming a successful
columnist, the firm of Derby and Miller in New York approached Fern

about publishing a collection of her articles. In 1853, James Cephas

 

110Warren, Fanny Fern, An Independent Woman, p. 113.

63

Derby offered Fern the sum of one thousand dollars or ten cents on
each copy sold.111 Although Fern, destitute at the time, needed the
money to support her children, she refused to give in to the motherly
urge which demanded a capitulation of the copyright. She astutely
perceived that the book would be successful; Fern Leaves From
Fanny’s Portfolio sold over 70,000 copies in the first few months.112
Fern assisted other women writers in their careers through her
business-like refusal to release the copyrights of her publications.
While Fern's defiance made her life as an artist difficult, she refused
to succumb to hardship. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in the suffragette
paper The Una, wrote: "The great lesson taught in Ruth Hall is that
God has given to woman sufficient brain and muscle to work out her

own destiny unaided and alone."113

Although Fern identified with the demands continually placed
on middle-class women in maintaining a household, and understood
the emotional and intellectual oppression facing upper-class women
in their restricted lifestyles, she also sympathized with the different,
yet equally restraining, problems that faced working-class women.
"The Working-Girls Of New Yor " describes the harsh economic trap
these girls find themselves in as a result of their desire to pursue
work outside the home.114 The article also clearly underlines the
pervasiveness of masculine hegemony that cuts across class lines:

"Jostling on the same pavement with the dainty fashionist is the

 

llllbid., p. 108.
112161d., p. 109.
113lbid., p. 140.
114Fern, Folly As It Flies; Hit At By Fanny Fern, p. 219.

64

care-worn working girl. Looking at both these women, the question
arises, which lives the more miserable life--she whom the world
styles "fortunate," whose husband belongs to three clubs, and whose
only meal with his family is an occasional breakfast, from year's end
to years end; who is as much a stranger to his own children as to the
reader;...Or she--this other woman--with a heart quite as hungry and
unappeased, who also faces day by day the same appalling question:
Is this all life has for me?"115 Fern astutely observes that the
woman trapped in a marriage for economic reasons might be just as
chained by lack of autonomy as the working girl who often

fruitlessly sought a better life. Fern wants her feminine readers to
identify and commiserate with each other, whether these readers are
members of the working-class or elite society. She hopes to offer
comfort to working-class women, while fostering an understanding of
the working-girls plight in the elite reader, thereby cementing an
alliance between all classes of women.

Fern's articles, in their compelling portraitures of ordinary
American lives, challenged traditional gender roles. Unfortunately,
the scope of Fern's goals in challenging gender roles has not been
fully appreciated. David Reynolds, in Beneath the American
Renaissance, asserts that "conscious manipulation of attitudes and
gender roles is sought by Parton for its own sake," and that she
suggests through her writing that "woman's highest power is the
ability to manipulate others while eluding definition, and that the

highest manipulative act is that of flexible writing."1l6 Fern's

 

1151bid., p. 219.

116David Reynolds, Beneath the American Renaissance (Cambridge,
Massachusetts and London, England: Harvard University Press, 1988), p. 403.

65

articles describe conditions which inhibit or prevent feminine self-
definition. While Fern's feminism, for example, advocates the "Uriah
Heep" policy in manipulating socially constructed attitudes, her
advice reflects the need to circumvent masculine oppression to
facilitate a feminine individualism. Fern's flexible writing in her
descriptive and revealing portraits depict individuals and their
problems from all stratas of American society. The snapshots of life
presented in the articles of the New York Ledger define democratic
artistry by validating the needs and worth of the everyday people in

American society.

66

Chapter 111

Take your rights, my sisters; don't beg for them! Never mind
what objectors say or think. Success will soon stop their mouths.
Nothing like that to conquer prejudice and narrowness and ill-
will. (Fanny Fern, New York Ledger, July 16, 1870.)

Ruth Hall represents a literary text of enormous artistic
creativity. Fern uses literary art in a democratic society as a forum
for disseminating the views of the peOple, listening to and often
sorting through their needs and goals. Literary art also operates as a
means of satisfying alternatives needs for self-definition. These aims
necessitate an assessment of societal inequities and their root causes
in offering reconstructive strategies. Finally, writing provides Fern
with the opportunity to assert her own artistic individualism.
Essentially, Ruth Hall operates as a unique literary text which
synthesizes Fern's own goals and her readers needs in a manner
which attempts to offer solutions to cultural problems.

In Ruth Hall, Fern extends the hitherto masculine perogative of
individualism in the market place to women in their search for self-
definition; if one is consumed by economic deprivation, one is unable
to define themselves and his or her resultant role in society.117

The issues which inhibit a feminine self-reliance, sketched in the

 

117Gillian Brown, Domestic Individualism (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1990), p. 140. Brown identifies that Fern's Ruth Hall "discloses
the economic and social insecurity of domestic individualism for women and
advocates that women should pursue individualistic interests outside of the
home}

67

individual portraitures of Fern's articles, become grafted together in
Ruth Hall, articulating a radical re-envisioning of women's roles. The
means by which Fern believes women can potentially effect such a
transformation reflect both radical subversiveness and creative
resourcefulness on her part. The issue of family is central in Ruth
Hall as is the issue of female individualism and self-sufficiency, not
only in establishing the right to enter the commercial realm, but also
through a woman's active choice in doing so. Fern fuses these issues
together through the theme of motherhood: Motherhood becomes
not the barrier to the marketplace, but rather, the foundation of a
moral capitalism.

In order to reach an audience with her radical re-envisionment
of women's roles, Fern must employ flexible writing strategies in
reaching a large audience. In her writing, she exposes the shams
inherent in a hypocritical society and highlights both the unfair
constraints with which society binds women and the potentially
harmful social ramifications which these constraints cause. The goals
of her strategies, however, reach for far larger end results than mere
exposure of societal inequities or manipulation of gender-roles. Fern
employs a myriad of techniques and strategies not merely for the
pleasures of manipulation; but rather she manipulates conventions to
make feminine gains. She seeks to extend the privileges of a
democracy to women and in order to do this, she must first reach a
large audience and educate the audience. As discussed earlier, Fern's
choice in utilizing the newspaper reflects her intent to garner a mass
audience. Fern's exploitation of the novel as a popular means of

rhetorical entertainment also represents her intent of procuring an

68

exceptionally large audience. Her primary intent, however, is not to
entertain, but to educate and present a restructuring of society. Fern
openly states in her preface that Ruth Hall should not be read as a
novel; she merely uses the form to attract a large audience: "I
present you with my first continuous story. I do not dignify it by the
name of "A novel"...Still, I cherish the hope that, somewhere in the
length and breadth of the land, it may fan into a flame, in some tried
heart, the fading embers of hope, well-nigh extinguished by wintry

fortune and summer friends."118

Fern employs dual narrative voices in Ruth Hall in depicting a
deeply feminine heroine while leading this heroine on a journey
towards independence. She uses a sentimental voice to describe and
address Ruth at the beginning of the novel. This voice has several
functions. The sentimental voice operates as a descriptive
instrument depicting Ruth's helplessness as a young woman. Fern
also exploits the sentimental voice to disguise her primary goal of
espousing Ruth's journey towards self-assertion and power. In this
way, Fern alleviates cultural tensions by creating a domestic
atmosphere and feminine author that her Victorian audience can
identify with. Fern's association of Ruth with flowers appeals to an
audience's constructed perceptions of womanhood: "by associating
Ruth with flowers and piety Fern creates a protagonist her readers
will recognize as deeply feminine, a woman who feels as a woman

should feel, and who therefore qualifies as a heroine the general

 

118Fern, Ruth Hall and Other Writings. p. 3.

69

culture can accept."119 In this way, Fern uses the same strategy
that she frequently employs in her articles. She manipulates middle-
class ideas of womanhood to draw in a specific ( middle-class)
audience.

After she has lured in an audience, Fern then uses sentimental
language to attack her society's idealized version of femininity. As
Susan Harris's 19th-Century American Women’s Novels points out,
"in exploiting and subverting a rhetorical mode not only closely
associated with women's writing but also commonly held to be
reflective of woman's nature itself, Fern was actively challenging the
prevailing nineteenth-century view of the ideal woman."120 Many
nineteenth-century women writers used the novel to uphold the
socially sanctioned image of the true woman. Barbara Welter
describes the attributes of the true woman as "divided into four
cardinal virtues—-piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity."121
The Wide, Wide World by Susan Warner exemplfies this trend. Jane
Tompkins in Sensational Designs describes Warner as using
submission as a means of increasing feminine power: "submission is
first of all a self-willed act of conquest of one's own passions," one
that is solely a woman's perogative. Further, the act of doing God's
will, through "ceding themselves to the source of all power, they
bypass worldly (male) authority and, as it were, cancel it out."122

Despite the limited gains such ideology offered middle or upper-class

 

119Harris, 19th Century Women's Novels, p. 113.

1201bid., p. 112-113. For more, see Chapter 4; "Inscribing and Defining the
Many Voices of Fanny Fern's Ruth Hall."

1213arbara Welter, "The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860." American
Quarterly , 18, (1966). pp. 151-174. p. 152.

122Tompkins, Sensational Designs, p. 162-163.

ohm...“ r
. ' O

70

women, as Fern points out in her articles, the ideology of true
womanhood perpetuated class conflict rather than fostered a
universal sisterhood.

The use of one's own voice represents a crucial first step
towards self-definition, and Fern also uses the sentimental narrative
voice to highlight her protaganist's muteness. Ruth's attitude during
the early, discordant days of her marriage provides an example of
her passive voicelessness, precipitating the narrator's intervention:

Still, Ruth kept her wise little mouth shut; moving, amid
these discordant elements, as if she were deaf, dumb, and blind.
Oh, love! that thy silken reins could so curb the spirit and

bridle the tongue, that thy uplifted finger of warning could calm

that bounding pulse, still that throbbing heart, and send those

rebellious tears, unnoticed, back to their source.

Ah! could we lay bare the secret history of many a wife's
heart, what martyrs would be found, over whose uncomplaining

lips the grave sets it unbroken seal of silence. 123
Ruth, powerless to change her situation, can only resort to tears as a
means of emotional release. Silently enduring mistreatment from
her in-laws and servants, she represents the type of sentimental
heroine commonly found in nineteenth-century domestic literature.
The sentimental language, depicting a helpless, victimized
protagonist, reflects Fern's own scathing critique on not only the
plight of such victims, but also the conventional portrayal of women
through literature.

Fern juxtaposes the sentimental voice with a cynical one, and
as Ruth matures into an assertive mature woman, the narrative
sentimental voice intercedes less often. Indeed, Ruth having found

her voice, speaks more often, replacing the narrator. As Ruth

 

123Fern, Ruth Hall and Other Writings. p. 23. Hereafter cites for Ruth Hall
will appear in text.

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confronts the harsh reality of her economic plight, thereby
conquering both the internal problems of her own emotional state
and the external forces in the business world, the narrative voice
becomes abbreviated, business-like and forceful, reflecting a new,
not easily intimidated woman.

Fern carries this strategy of using dual voices to undermine
conventions into her use of nature, always marking pastoral
descriptions with some hint of darkness. Just as Fern undercuts the
sentimental voice with the cynical one, so she juxtaposes the life-
giving qualities of nature with reminders of death. Fern's luxurious
descriptions of nature reflect her intent of dispelling any false sense
of security the reader might have, exemplified in the following
passage describing the woods and fields where Ruth and Daisy "love

to linger":

...where the pretty clematis threw the graceful arms of youth
'round the gnarled trunk of decay; where the bearded grain
swaying to and fro, tempted to its death the reaper; where the red
and white clover dotted the meadow grass; or where, in the damp
marsh, the whip-poor-will moaned and the crimson lobelia
nodded its regal crown; or where the valley smiled in its beauty
'neath the lofty hills, nestling 'mid its foliage the snow-white
cottages; or where the cattle dozed under the broad, green
branches, or bent to the glassy lake to drink; or where, on the
breezy hill-tops, the voices of Childhood's came up, sweet and
clear, as the far-off hymning of angels,--there, Ruth and her
soul's child loved to linger. (30).

This passage evokes images of purity with its descriptions of the
graceful arms of youth, the lofty hills, and the snow-white cottages.
Fern essentially paints a scene of heaven on earth, complete with
saintly children and singing angels. Fern herself places no faith in
finding such a haven, however, and she deliberately, if subtly,

distorts the peaceful image with buried harshness. Fern juxtaposes

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the image of youth's gracefulness with the image of decay. She
describes the peaceful sway of the "bearded grain" only to remind
the reader of its imminent death by the reaper. While the angels
sing hymns, the whip-poor-will moans. Fern definitively places a
serpent in her Eden. She aligns descriptions of society with these
pastoral scenes, seemingly warning the readers to be wary of
deceptive appearances.

After each death in the novel, Fern, as the sentimental
narrator, intercedes with descriptions that mar the beauty of nature
with tragedy. Just as Harry and Ruth find contentment after their
daughter Daisy dies, Fern undercuts the possibilities for peace and
happiness in description of nature ostensibly reflecting the fullness
of their married life. Harry and Ruth linger in the countryside,
enjoying the beauty in "the circling leaves, that came eddying down
in brilliant showers on the Indian summer's soft but treacherous
breath." (52). However, Fern implies that one cannot and must not
be naively trusting. Just as nature in all its beauty remains
inexorable and indifferent to sorrow, so the deceptively glittering
human society often turns away indifferent to the plight of less
fortunate persons. Just as Ruth finds happiness, this passage
foreshadows larger tragedy yet to come.

Harry, of course, also dies, leaving Ruth and her two daughters
penniless. Equally expected, neither Harry's parents, nor Ruth's
family offer much in the way of financial help or even emotional
support. After Harry's death, Fern herself relentlessly intercedes

with another narrative commentary:

73

Oh, Earth! Earth! with thy mocking skies of blue, thy placid silver

streams, thy myriad, memory-haunting odorous flowers, thy

wheels of triumph rolling--rolling on, over bleeding hearts and

prostrate forms--maimed, tortured, crushed, yet not destroyed.

Oh, mocking Earth! snatching from our frenzied grasp the life-

long coveted treasure! Most treacherous Earth! are these thy

unkept promises? (64).

Nature's beauty, similar to the beauty Ruth finds in her marriage,
remains unreliable and unpredictable. Death, an inexorable part of
nature, destroys the illusory peace Ruth had found in her refuge with
Harry. Just as the blue skies and fragrant flowers haunt Ruth in her
grief, so society taunts her in her despair. Fern, in asking why

nature cruelly refuses to honor promises of happiness, highlights the
cruelty of an indifferent society turning their backs on an
impoverished, grieving widow with two young daughters. These
descriptions reflect Fern's intent to awaken and educate her audience
to naiveté which prohibits feminine self-reliance.

Fern particularly warns her feminine readers to beware of so-
called natural options for women. Marriage, the primary option for
women offers little protection and fulfillment. Ruth finds marriage
easily in the devoted guise of Harry Hall. While most sentimental
novels culminate in marriage, Ruth Hall begins with the union of
Ruth and Harry. Fern, however, refuses to allow her readers to
rejoice easily in Ruth's impending marriage. Ruth, on her bridal eve,
questions the "dim, uncertain future." (17). Even as Ruth yearns for
an "ark of refuge," she feels fear. Fern, as the sentimental narrative
voice, expresses her own reservations towards the future: "Tears,
Ruth? Have phantom shapes of terror glided before those gentle

prophet eyes? Has death's dark wing even now fanned those girlish

temples?" (17). Fern describes Ruth's eyes as "prophet eyes"

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insinuating that Ruth somehow has the ability to peer into the future,
giving Ruth's fears credence. Fern already implicitly questions the
validity of marriage as a haven for young women, insinuating
through the sentimental voice that the "ark of refuge" is unreliable.

Ruth marries Harry Hall, and at first, enjoys a sort of
independence, a "new freedom" in "being one's own mistress." (18).
However, Fern crushes Ruth's illusions of her newly found
independence rather quickly. Ruth, as a newly married wife, finds
herself as economically dependent on others as she was before her
marriage. The freedom she hoped to find with Harry turns into an
unceasing effort on her part to bury her own desires. Harry seems
oblivious to her pain: "he little dreamed of the self-conquest she had
so tearfully achieved for his sake."(21). Ruth, constrained by prying
and ruthlessly critical in-laws, fails to realize the potential fulfillment
that she hoped to find in marriage.

Fern also displays mistrust of idealized views of motherhood.
She refuses to view children as the sole means of providing
emotional fulfillment for a woman. Reformers, politicians, and
ministers alike placed an inordinate amount of emphasis on the child
as a means of preserving a virtuous republic in the nineteenth-
century. Many women saw their roles as child nurturers and
teachers as a means of indirectly exercising power. Since the woman
carried the burden of raising sons to be virtuous citizens, she
vicariously participated in the maintenance of preserving democracy

in America124. Many women, in emphasizing their roles as child

 

124A mass of literature flooded America from the 1830's addressing the
problems of child-rearing and education. Catharine Beecher, Lydia Maria
Child, And Almira Phelps are a few of the many reformers who attempted to

75

nurturers, ceased attempting to fulfill their own emotional and
physical needs. Further, many female writers placed an inordinate
amount of emphasis on women's exalted roles as mothers and the
saintliness of children.

Fern exploits these commonly held nineteenth-century views
to introduce Ruth to motherhood, using sentimental and idealistic

language to describe the scene to the reader:

Hark! to that tiny wail! Ruth knows that most blessed of all hours.
Ruth is a mother! Joy to thee, Ruth! Another outlet for thy
womanly heart; a mirror, in which thy smile and tears shall be
reflected back; a fair page, on which thou, God-commissioned,
mayst write what thou wilt; a heart that will throb back to thine,
love for love. (24).

Fern presents the reader with the traditional and acceptable model
of a mother with a "womanly heart." Women, conceived of by society
as mothers, valued for their nurturing qualities, often find
themselves recognized only in their roles as mothers. The reader
must remember, however, that Fern uses this sentimental language
to describe a dependent, silent and impotent Ruth, reflecting the
imprisonment of many women in the nineteenth-century. Futher,
this emphasis on woman's exalted motherhood and child-like
saintliness precluded an understanding of working class women's
dilemmas. Just as Fern's own children became a financial burden in
her poverty-stricken years, Ruth's children later become another link

in her feminine bondage. Although Ruth loves her children, her

 

resolve the contradictory desires to abolish old agencies of social control while
consolidating new ties of social obligation and economic interdependence to
preserve a virtuous democracy in America. Many of these reformers resolved
this contradiction through the creation of a child rearing philosophy
emphasizing character formation. By 1860, character formation dominated
moral teachings in America, and women assumed the role of moral teacher.
For more see: Kathryn Kish Sklar, Catharine Beecher; A Study in Domesticity
(New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1976).

76

initial inability to provide adequate care causes great emotional
suffering.

Fern immediately dispels any sentimental images of sainted
motherhood that the reader might have accrued. Fern, always a
realist, unhesitatingly juxtaposes this vision with a more revealing
scene, one which hints at the burdens mothers cope with: "But Ruth
thinks not of all this now, as she lies pale and motionless upon the
pillow, while Harry's grateful tears bedew his first-born's face. She
cannot even welcome the little stranger."(24) Ruth finds her "most
blessed of all hours" exhausting and painful. Fern relentlessly forces
on the reader a glimpse of a mother, too tired to hold her child,
looking more dead than alive.

Further, although Fern portrays Harry as a tender, grateful
husband, she implicitly condemns the societal attitudes which value
a woman's role as a mother more than the woman herself. "Harry
thought her dear to him before; but now, as she lies there, so like
death's counterpart, a whole life of devotion would seem too little to
prove his appreciation of all her sacrifices."(24) Harry, although he
loved Ruth before she gave birth to Daisy, feels even more devotion
towards her through his gratitude that she made him a father.

Fern renders an explicit message to both Ruth and the reader,
warning both of the personally dangerous consequences of living

solely for another:

Ah, Ruth! gaze not so dotingly on those earnest eyes. Know'st
thou not,

The rose that sweetest doth awake,
Will soonest go to rest? (30).

77

Mothers who place their hearts solely within their children,
neglecting their own needs and their own identities, are often
destroyed by their consuming love. Ruth's daughter Daisy dies, and
she finds herself overwhelmed by grief.

After Harry's death, Ruth's two children become not only the
point of contention for family disputes, but also the cause of
economic deprivation. Ruth cannot take care of her children, and yet
she cannot bring herself to give them up. While Harry's parents and
Ruth's father clearly "wash their hand of her,"(66) the Halls express
their desire to take Ruth's children. Ruth collapses after the funeral,
while "the frightened children huddle breathless in the farther
corner."(67) Fern says that Ruth's "bitter cup was not yet drained,"
(67) for she has no knowledge of the Hall's scheme. Ruth's father
informs her that the Halls most generously offered to take both
children and support them(68)

The fear of losing her children pushes Ruth to stand on her
own: "I can never part with my children," replied Ruth, in a voice
which, though low, was perfectly clear and distinct.(68) Fern points
to this as a first, though somewhat faltering step towards
independence, through both the overt action of Ruth standing up to
her father, and less directly through her brief, concise use of
language. However, Ruth still has a long journey towards self-
support and her confrontation with her father once again renders her
impotent. Ultimately, Ruth can only reply to her father with tears.
She asks for his pity, and receiving none, finds herself unable to take

any decisive action.

78

It was sight to move the stoutest heart to see Ruth that night,

kneeling by the side of those sleeping children, with upturned

eyes, and clasped hands of entreaty, and lips from which no

sound issued, though her heart was quivering with agony; and

yet a pitying Eye looked down upon those orphaned sleepers, a

pitying Ear bent low to list to the widow's voiceless prayer. (69)
Although Ruth's fear of losing her children pushes her towards self-
assertion, she is still passive, still mute, and dependent on those who
will not help her.

At this point, the children become the catalyst for Ruth's
transformed goals. They provide her with the motivation to assert
herself and pursue self—sufficiency through the marketplace. The
final rejection of Ruth by her family sparks her decision to live. Her
decision to write newspaper articles for wages provides a literal and
figurative representation of survival. Through her writing, Ruth
finds her voice, and thus takes control over her own life. The wages
she earns ultimately provide her with the means of economic
freedom. Ruth asks her brother, Hyacinth, a prosperous editor of the
Irving Magazine, to help her begin a literary career. Instead, he
writes that she should seek some other "unobtrusive" form of
employment. Fern describes the "bitter smile" that "struggled with
the hot tear that fell upon Ruth's cheek." (116) The bitter smile won
out over the useless tears this time, and Ruth finds the resolve to
stand up to the odds stacked against a woman in the nineteenth-

century. Her words reflect her resolve: "No talent!" "At another

tribunal than his will I appeal."

But they shall be heard of;" and Ruth leaped to her feet. "Sooner
that he dreams of too. I can do it, Ifeel it, I will do it," and she
closed her lips firmly; "but there will be a desperate struggle
first," and she clasped her hands over her heart as if it had
already commenced;...Pride must sleep! but--" and Ruth glanced at

79

her children--"it shall be done. They shall be proud of their
mother. (116)

Katy, Ruth's daughter, notices the sudden change in her; she notices
her uncharacteristic animation and energy. Ruth tells her daughter
that she will remember this day when she becomes a woman. Ruth
has become a woman and in doing so, provides a positive example
for her daughters. However, Fern has revised the model of
womanhood from submissiveness to aggressiveness. Ruth finds her
voice, and Fern, from this point on in the novel, speaks for Ruth less
and less. Further, Fern's use of sentimental language diminishes.
Ruth speaks out for herself, and in a strong and abbreviated manner.
This incident exemplifies Fern's transformed definition of
motherhood. Mothers who act aggressively and assertively in their
pursuit of economic independence provide positive examples for
their daughters.

Ruth, in order to attain the economic independence she desires
and needs, thrusts herself into a male dominated business world.
After many rejections, she finds a small newspaper, The Standard,
willing to print her articles. She wonders whether the future will be
brighter, and as she thinks of her children, "said again with a strong
heart-~it will." (121) Ruth refuses to let herself slide back into
despondency; she keeps her thoughts firmly on the tasks ahead and
her will strong enough to pursue the work. Ruth intends to "earn
that crust" of bread for her children. Ruth finally finds the
determination to earn autonomy; her children provide the motivation
for her struggle. Ruth's determination reflects Fern's message that
identity and autonomy are not freely handed out to all; one must

actively work to obtain a state of self-reliance. Further, self-reliance

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and individualism operate hand in hand; although women lead
restricted lives, autonomy can be earned. Women must not,
however, wait for others to act, but should actively pursue personal
goals.

Fern, through Ruth, demonstrates that women innately possess
the qualities necessary for successful capitalistic enterprise.
Although Ruth "was a novice in business-matters, she has strong
common sense," (131-132) and this common sense enables Ruth to
succeed as a writer and as a business woman. One editor, Mr.
Tibbetts, shrewdly knowing her worth as a writer, attempts to coerce
her into writing exclusively for his paper, or writing under another

name. Ruth, just as shrewdly, rejects his offer:

"With regard to your first proposal," said Ruth, "if I have
gained any reputation by my first efforts, it appears to
me that I should be foolish to throw it away by the
adoption of another signature; and with regard to the last,
I have no objection to writing exclusively for you, if you
will make it worth my while." (132)

Ruth refuses Mr. Tibbetts exclusive offer, and agrees to furnish the
paper with two articles a week under the same name that she uses in
writing for The Standard. The episode exemplifies Ruth's ability to
cope with the aggressive pressures of the business world.

Women also possess the aggressiveness needed to survive in
the competitive business world. But, unlike their male counterparts,
mothers find the motivation to succeed through their desires to help
others, namely their children. Ruth finds her ability as a business
woman tested when her publisher offers her eight hundred dollars
outright or a percentage on the copyright. She wants to have her

daughter, who is currently residing with the Halls, returned to her.

81

Without the immediate financial means to bring Katy home,
accepting the percentage would necessitate separation from her
daughter for a longer period of time. Although desiring the quickest
resolution to her financial difficulties for her children's sake, Ruth
refuses to give in the motherly urge which would demand a
capitulation of the copyright. By putting her desires for immediate
gratification aside, Ruth provides long term economic stability for her
children. Further, in retaining the copyright, Ruth not only displays
an astute business acumen, she begins to assert herself in an
unwomanly manner. Fern extends the business feminine
individualism by entering the masculine dominated marketplace.
Further, as this episode describes her own personal experiences as a
woman writer facing sexual bias and unfairness in the marketplace,
she begins to revise the notion of artistic genius by making the
private feminine realm public. In this way, she extends the
definition of artistic individualism for women writers by writing in
an unfeminine manner about unwomanly subjects through the
publification of her personal life.

Ruth shrewdly perceives that she could make more money in
the long run by retaining the copyright, and at the same time, she
expresses the very unfeminine desire to prevent her money from
lining publisher's pockets: "$800 copyright money! it was a
temptation; but supposing her book should prove a hit? and bring
double, treble, fourfold that sum, to go into her publisher's pockets
instead of hers? how provoking!" (153) This self-assertion
represents a new behavior for a sentimental heroine. Most

sentimental protagonists never indulge in assertive behavior,

82

particularly if this behavior contains even a hint of self-

interestedness.

No, I will not sell my copyright; I will rather deny myself a while
longer, and accept the per-centage;" and so she sat down and
wrote her publishers; but then caution whispered, what if her
book should not sell? "Oh, pshaw," said Ruth, "it shall!" and she
brought her little fist down on the table till the old stone inkstand
seemed to rattle. out "it shall!" (153)

Ruth has become a different woman. The passive, helpless Ruth
resorted to tears. The new, assertive Ruth forcefully slams her fist
down on the table.

Finally, Fern leaves no doubt in the minds of her readers that
marriage is not a viable solution for security. Ruth receives many
proposals of marriage through her fan letters, all offering to provide
financial security. Ruth waves off all of these offers with
indifference at the least, and sometimes with contempt. She tosses
one letter offering marriage to Nettie to play with saying "Oh,
pshaw!"..."Make anything you like of it, pussy; it is of no value to me."

(181) At one point, Ruth, dreaming of her husband, appears to fall

back into idealizing the marital union:

She dreams that she roves with them through lovely gardens,
odorous with sweets; she plucks for their parched lips the
luscious fruits; she garlands them with flowers, and smiles in her
sleep, as their beaming eyes sparkle, and the rosy flush of
happiness mantles their cheeks. but look! there are three of
them! Another has joined the band--a little shadowy form, with
lambent eyes, and the smile of a seraph. Blessed little trio.
Follows another! He has the same shadowy outline--the same
sweet holy, yet familiar eyes. Ruth's face grows radiant. The
broken links are gathered up; the family circle is complete! (198)

Fern, once again uses the sentimental language and the flowery
descriptions of nature to signal a fall back into feminine dependency,
emphasizing the unreliability for survival created by this

dependency. She refuses to allow either Ruth or her reader to

83

wallow in sentimental visions; Fern shocks both Ruth and the reader
awake with the sudden cry of "fire!" (198) Ruth, dreaming of her
completed family circle, finds herself and her family suddenly
threatened with death.

The end of Ruth Hall completely rewrites feminine
individualism. Ruth rejects numerous marriage proposals for which
she has no financial need, having earned ten thousand dollars in
bank stocks through her own hard work and talent. Yet, as the
numerous marriage proposals show, Ruth retains her desirability as a
woman. To highlight this, Fern portrays Ruth as the only likable
female character in the novel. Two other characters, Mrs. Skiddy and
Mary Leon, exemplify the destructive paths that women's lives often
take as a result of societal morays which inhibit or prevent a
feminine self-reliance. Through these characters, Fern delineates the
damaging reverberations of feminine dependency within society.

Mrs. Skiddy, a no-nonsense boarding housekeeper, manages to
obtain economic independence, but Fern leaves no doubt in her
readers minds that Mrs. Skiddy fails to provide a positive example of
womanhood. While her business provides for the family, Mrs.
Skiddy sees her role as a provider as a means of controlling her
husband. Tired of her husband's incessant threats of deserting her
for the freedom of gold-digging in California, Mrs. Skiddy simply
leaves her husband to care for their infant and run the boarding
house. Needless to say, the situation presents Mr. Skiddy with many
difficulties: "the premeditated malice of Mrs. Skiddy in leaving the
baby, instead of Sammy or Johnny, was beyond question. Still, he

could not believe that her desire for revenge would outweigh all her

84

maternal feelings." (94) Ultimately Mr. Skiddy manages to reach
California, and after his luck runs out, he begs his wife for return
passage fare. He wants to come home. Fern unambiguously leaves

Mrs. Skiddy with the power in their household:

Mrs. Skiddy's picture should have been taken at that moment! My

pen fails! Drawing from her pocket a purse well filled with her

own honest earning, she chinked its contents at some phantom

shape discernible to her eyes alone; while through her set teeth

hissed out, like ten thousand serpents, the word

"N-e-v-e-r!" (108-109)

Significantly, Fern uses no sentimental language in describing the
down-to-earth and independent Mrs. Skiddy. Instead, Fern paints
this woman as hardened by her desire to control her husband. By
presenting role reversals in the Skiddy household, Fern demonstrates
that desirable and undesirable behaviors indiscriminately
characterize both sexes. In her unceasing struggle to overcome
economic deprivation, Mrs. Skiddy fails to act as a positive force in
the domestic arena.

The beautiful Mary Leon depicts an example of the opposite
extreme; a dutiful, submissive wife destroyed by her husband. As
Ruth and Mary become friends, Mary reveals the depths of despair

her marriage causes:

Oh, Ruth!" and the tears streamed through her jeweled fingers--
"love me--pity me; you who are so blessed. I too could love; that is
the drop of poison in my cup. When your daughters stand at the
altar, Ruth, never compel them to say words to which the heart
yields no response. The chain is none the less galling because its
links are golden. (52)

This passage intimates the dangers women potentially face in
marriage. Mary's fate bears out the veracity of this admonition;
Mary's husband tires of her and leaves her to die, alone and

unwanted in an insane asylum. Women like Mary Leon cannot

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adequately fulfill the duties of motherhood, and consequently, cannot
act as a role model in raising children. In this case, feminine

dependence ultimately collectively damages society.

Fern's Ruth Hall differs from other sentimental fiction not only
in advocating complete financial autonomy for women, but in the
scope of power women exert over men. Fern's heroine obtains
financial independence and achieves this independence by
succeeding in a male dominated business world, often getting the
better of businessmen. Fern's snapshots of stratefied classes, grafted
with her own personal experiences of deprivation, come together to
create a novel which revises the notion of artistic genius. Her book
sales attest to a popularity which not only speaks from, but also to, a
diverse audience of readers. She performs a useful service by not
only contributing to the democratization of literature, but also by
potentially offering democracy to all through a re-envisionment of

power structures in American society in a fictional venue.

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CONCLUSION

On they go. On, how much of joy--how much of sorrow, in each
heart's unwritten history. (Fanny Fern, "Steamboat Sights and

Reflections," Fern Leaves from Fanny's Portfolio, Second Series,
1854.)

I am weary of this hollow show and glitter--weary of fashion's
stereotyped lay-figures--weary of smirking fops and brainless
belles, exchanging their small coin of flattery and their endless
genuflexions: let us go out of Broadway--somewhere, anywhere.
turn round the wheel, Dame Fortune, and show up the other side.
(Fanny Fern, "This Side and That," Second Series, 1854)

Some nineteenth-century writers used literary art to answer
needs which were not met by the majority culture. Louisa May
Alcott's Little Women, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Oldtown Folks and
Henry David Thoreau's Walden numbered among the literary texts
which sought, in some way, to re-configure society. These authors, in
these texts, sought to satisfy subcultural needs for a revised
definition of individualism. This revised definition of individualism
operated on both social and artistic levels. While all three of these
authors potentially offered avenues of self-definition to their
audiences, they nevertheless were more concerned with increasing
personal opportunities for more autonomy in carving out a definition
of individualism which worked well for the self. Fern's scope of
revision aimed at larger goals; she sought to extend autonomy on a
broader level by creating a definition of individualism which crossed

class and gender lines.

87

Fern's recognition of the often futile attempts by the voiceless
in her society to stand for themselves directly anticipates the early
realists preoccupation with social inequities fostered by a ruthless
capitalism and their depiction of the failure of individualism in this
context. The tension that Fern identifies between the morality of the
private life and the competition within the public sphere was not
new. Anne MacLeod emphasizes in A Moral Tale that "Americans of
the period lived with the paradox that the virtues of selflessness,
generosity, and cooperation such literature was meant to inculcate
were at odds with much of the social and most of the economic
behavior of the society: The material success so prized by
Americans...was plainly the reward of activities different from the
ideal behavior of a Christian. The drive for economic success
encouraged ambition, aggression, and a competitive spirit."125 The
sense of confinement due to the enclosure within the domestic realm,
and sense of exclusion due to unfair barriers to the business world,
leads Fern to re-envision gender roles and literally recreate
American society by changing the rules for participation. In this
way, she directly anticipates Charlotte Perkins Gilman's response to
glaring societal inequities in Herland (1915).

Herland, a utopian novel serialized in Gilman's monthly
publication The Forerunner126, re-evaluates gender roles and re-
envisions social relationships through the creation of a society
composed entirely of women and female children. The discovery of

Herland by three male explorers provides Gilman with an avenue for

 

125Walker, Fanny Fern, pp. 84-85.

126Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland, Edited with an introduction by Ann
J. Lane (New York: Pantheon Books, 1979). p. v.

88

her playful and humorous social commentary. Like Fern, Gilman
uses the theme of motherhood to offer alternative possibilities to the
crass individualism of the competitive business world. Motherhood
acts as a catalyst in transforming greedy individualistic enterprise
into the humanistic conception of Brotherhood, or rather, Sisterhood.
Gilman alters the concept of society by using motherhood as an
instrument of transcending class and racial boundaries to achieve a
state of collectivism. The society Gilman creates, based on a true
sense of community, completely overturns existing social, economic
and political structures in democratic America. Her revised concept
of society envisions a return to the type of spiritual and intellectual
gains that Thoreau sought, but through the radically different means
of collectivism.

Gilman follows Fern's lead in deliberately manipulating, and
subsequently rejecting, her society's definitions of gender roles. In
Herland, where men have been absent for 2000 years, women take
on a myriad of roles. Human qualities lack gender specific
connotations: "Here we found that the pressures of life upon the
environment develops in the human mind its inventive reactions,
regardless of sex."127 Men's roles and women's roles have no place
in Herland where women shoulder all aspects of labor. Further, like
Fern, Gilman views motherhood as the catalyst for positive growth in
all arenas of human life: "a full awakened motherhood plans and
works without limit, for the good of the child...that the children might

be most nobly born, and reared in an environment calculated to

 

1271bid., p. 102.

89

allow the freest growth..."128 Through this collective effort on the
part of mothers, children are raised to reap the benefits of true
intellectual and spiritual growth, free to develop individual interests,
As Gilman presents Herland, "the most impressive part of this whole
culture beyond this perfect system of child-rearing was the range of
interests and associations open to them all, for life."129

Gilman emphasizes that the infiltration of maternal influence
into the larger economic and political arena reaps positive benefits
on a national level. Motherhood, not merely important for fulfilling
the biological need for reproduction or acting as a social symbol for
morality, plays an active role in nation building: "...with their
sublimated mother-love, expressed in terms of widest social activity,
every phase of their work was modified by its effect on the national
growth. The language itself they had deliberately clarified,
simplified, made easy and beautiful, for the sake of the children."130
The concern for the well-being of children directs every action of the
women in community-building. Motherhood effects such
widesweeping consequences that even the language revolves around
the potential intellectual development of children.

The clarification and simplification of language by a nation of
mothers carries profound artistic as well as social implications.
Gilman re-envisions both the form and use of literature in Herland.
The children's literature "had the same gradation of simple repetitive

verse and story that we are all familiar with...but where, with us,

 

128lbid., p. 102.
129lbid., p. 102.
1301bid., p. 102.

90

these are the dribbled remnants of ancient folk myths and primitive
lullabies, theirs were the exquisite work of great artists; not only
simple and unfailing in appeal to the child-mind, but true, true to the
living world about them."131 Gilman re-defines the place of
literature in a democratic society by emphasizing that literary works
of art are characterized by their simplicity, truthfulness and
usefulness as an instrument of education. Her evaluation of the
function of literature stems directly from Fern's earlier emphasis of
truth in writing. Further, Gilman's assertion that literature can
educate through the captivation of an audience reflects Fern's
resourcefulness in employing strategies aimed at entertaining a mass
audience in order to ensure the largest possible audience for her
social criticism.

Literary genius in democratic America resides in a true
reflection of the people who compose the nation and the problems
which characterize their lives. Fern's drive to write truthfully
formulates the basis of her revised notion of genius. Her success as
an entertainer is measured in part by her remarkable book sales and
public acclaim.132 The wide scope of issues that Fern addresses in
both her articles and novels delineate a revised concept of the role of
literature: literary genius can be measured by the ability to reach a
large audience and the usefulness of bringing benefits to the masses

of readers captivated by the literary work. In this sense, Fern is a

 

1311bid.. p. 102.

132Warren, Fanny Fern, An Independent Woman, p. Combined sales from
Fern Leaves From Fanny's Portfolio (1853), Little Fern's for Fanny's Little
Friends (1853), and Fern Leaves from Fanny's Portfolio, Second Series (1854)
reached 180,000 by 1854. Sales of Ruth Hall climbed to 70,00 in the first six
weeks. For more, see Warren's Fanny Fern: An Independent Woman.

91

true contributor to the democratization of literature. Further, she
provides a new model for later writers to follow in using literature,
and particularly humorous literature, as a tool for social criticism.
Finally, Fern's example as a woman who refused to be silenced and a
successful artist remains inspiring today in encouraging the active
pursuit of self-definition through the articulation of one's own voice.

Fanny Fern held a unique place in American society. She
experienced first-hand both harsh economic deprivation and
phenomenal financial success. Her experiences in both the working-
class and upper-class cultures, coupled with her literary skills,
rendered her capable of creating a new medium of literary
entertainment. Fern's articles represented a link between the
democratization and commercialization of literature and leisure
because she offered a form of literary entertainment promoted to a
large audience through a medium specifically marketed to provide
enjoyment.

James Parton, Fern's third husband, summed up the most
significant aspect of her writing-her originality: "Fanny Fern is a
voice, not an echo."133 Fern's fearless championship of America's
unrecognized citizens and her originality in vindicating the culture of
"everyday" America attracted many new readers to an already
ubiquitous medium of print. Fern particularly appealed to feminine
readers because she wrote about their lives. She offered practical
advice in obtaining more autonomy, she attempted to foster a sense
of feminine consciousness that reached beyond class boundaries, and

she empathized with their plight as subordinated members of

 

133Ibid., p. 104.

92

American society. Fern offered women vicarious power in articles
that openly emasculated male hegemony. She extended the
opportunity to vicariously participate in the creation of American
culture through her continuing efforts to perpetrate a democratic
ideal in America. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, she allowed
her readers to laugh. Fern's witty and biting prose humorously
captured in print the foibles of the upper-classes. Fern's exposure of
their hypocrisies allowed the "common" people a laugh at the
expense of the elite who attempted to maintain control over

working-class lifestyles.

93

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General References

Adams, Florence Bannard. Fanny Fern or A Pair of Flaming Shoes.
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Miller, Perry. The Raven and the Whale. The War of words and wits
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Myerson, Joel. Shealy, Daniel. Stern, Madeleine. The Selected
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Myerson, Joel. Shealy, Daniel. Stern, Madeleine. Louisa May Alcott,
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Strickland, Charles. Victorian Domesticity, Families in the Life and
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97

Wilentz, Sean. Chants Democratic. New York City & the Rise of the
American Working Class, 1788-1850. New York and Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1984.

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