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A Trip to the Special Collections

Front Cover. Inscription reads: Herbert Baldwin Cushing, from his Teacher January 1, 1848.

Inside Page. Inscription: Presented to Edward Cushing Bessly for good reading; by his Grandfather May 6, 1921

Introduction

The University of Florida’s Smathers Library is home to a great deal of historic books. When I visited on October 4th, I was fortunate enough to view items pulled from the university’s Children’s Literature Collection. One book in particular caught my eye; it was a small, unassuming book by the name Uncle Thomas’ Stories for Good Children: Phebe the Blackberry Girl. When I examined the book, I found two inscriptions, to my great delight. The first one was present on the front cover, indicating that the book was originally given to a pupil by his teacher on January 1st, 1848. The second one gave a clue to the history of this particular book after the initial gifting; written on an internal page, it was a note from grandfather to grandson, commemorating the latter’s “good reading”. The date on the inscription indicated that the book was given on May 6, 1921. There is something inexplicably profound in realizing the handwriting one is reading is over a century old, and I knew that I must find out more about this small text.

History

Not much is known about this particular work, unfortunately. I reached out to the curator who was in charge of the items I viewed, Neil Weijer. According to him, this book was part of a common practice during the Golden Age of Children’s Literature (19th and early 20th century)  in which several poems and short stories were bound together for the sole purpose of entertaining younger audiences. Often, the authors of these works were not credited. In this book, “We Are Seven” is the only poem with a writing credit, with it given to William Wordsworth. Dr. Weijer also provided me with information about the publisher, Edward Livermore. Livermore was only in business between 1846 and 1854. He owned a small bookstore in Worcester, Massachusetts. In addition to children’s books, he published books about carpentry and agriculture. More of his work can be found here. You can read Livermore’s ledgers from the American Antiquarian Society here.

Analysis/Comparison

While perusing the pages of Phebe the Blackberry Girl, I realized how different it was from other literature I had read from this time period. More specifically, it stood in sharp contrast to The Boy’s Guide to Usefulness by William Alcott. Alcott’s work treated boys as though they were simply small adults. He instructed his audience to avoid certain material in their literary endeavors; he recommends staying away from fiction altogether, with very few exceptions. Excitement comes from non-fiction, Alcott believed, although certain nonfiction should be avoided. Biographies about Napoleon Bonaparte, for example, are not approved of by Alcott. Phebe the Blackberry Girl stands in opposition to just about everything William Alcott warns his young audience about. The work is a series of poems and short stories, assembled not for the purpose of directing its audience, but for pure entertainment. While both works have some sense of morality to them, Phebe the Blackberry Girl softens the delivery, decorating the narrative with characters and rhymes. It serves in purpose in being a gift; no doubt a child would rather read poems than be told what not to do by a book.

If you are interested in reading Phebe the Blackberry Girl, here is the link.

If you are interested in A Boy's Guide to Usefulness, here is the link.

Happy fall and happy reading!

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Demonstration of gender roles changing over time

Read Anne of Green Gables and Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret back-to-back. 

The timeline for Anne of Green Gables begins in the 1870s. (For the novels, at least; movie and TV adaptations vary.) 

This would be before the birth, or during the early life, of the author, Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942). It was a contemporary setting at the time, and therefore probably reflected cultural norms as she knew them, rather than being an interpretation of the culture by a later author writing historical fiction. 

The exact year of Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret is deliberately vague, probably to keep the story relatable over time since it, too, was meant to have a contemporary setting. The book was first published in 1970. 

This would be during the early adulthood of the author, Judy Blume (born 1938, still alive at time of posting), and so again reflects cultural norms as the author knew them when the book was written. 

There is a roughly 100-year gap between the two books. Over this century, the gender role associated with teaching changed. 

One of the plot points of Anne of Green Gables is when the Avonlea schoolhouse gets a new teacher, Miss Muriel Stacy. Several characters express surprise that the teacher is a woman, and wonder whether a woman can do that job well. 

One of the plot points in Are You There, God? It’s Me Margaret is Margaret’s sixth-grade class having a first-year teacher, Mr Miles Benedict. Several characters express surprise that the teacher is a man, and wonder whether a man can do that job well. 

(Obviously two data points are not sufficient to indicate a pattern, but this works for a quick demonstration.) 

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Some Thoughts about the Hundred Acre Woods

To a grown adult, a place like the Hundred Acre Woods sounds whimsical at best and outright ridiculous at worst. Most of its inhabitants have neither brain nor blood, but are able to walk and talk as if they were human.  Time and space don’t have much meaning either, with days melting away and seconds stopping in their tracks. The extraordinary circumstances of the Hundred Acre Woods makes The House at Pooh Corner easy to dismiss as valueless except in the function to amuse children. In a sense, the stories are meant to do exactly that. However, being used to entertain children does not detract from the value of The House at Pooh Corner. In fact, the very opposite is true. The stories of Pooh stumbling and bumbling around his home are able to reach human beings in one of the most critical developmental periods  of their lives. The stories send a message that nobody is perfect, yet everything gets accomplished in the end, no matter the mistakes along the way. The stories also explore issues that are present in childhood, such as  anxiety regarding the world at large and what change really means. This essay will examine how through the characters and events of The House at Pooh Corner, A.A. Milne was able to explore and validate common experiences of childhood.

The first experience that A.A. Milne explores is the anxiety of the surrounding world. This is accomplished through the character of Piglet. Simply put, Piglet exists in a near-constant state of fear.  Throughout all of the Winnie The Pooh stories, the pint-sized companion expresses his desires to not do whatever the characters are thinking about doing. One instance is when Owl’s house is tipped over in Chapter Eight of The House at Pooh Corner. In order to right the situation, Piglet must be attached to a string and lifted by Owl. By asking “Suppose it does?” (Milne 281) to Owl’s reassurance of the string not breaking, Piglet openly expresses his reservations about the situation. While seemingly small, this is an incredibly important detail. At times, childhood can be frightening. Every problem seems monumental, and that's because each issue is monumental. There is no pre-existing knowledge to work upon, and the chances of an adolescent, particularly a very young one, having critical thinking skills already are slim. Therefore, it is easy to become overwhelmed or unnerved. By having Piglet be the perpetually spooked character that he is, Milne is validating the fears of childhood by giving his readers a character to relate to. The relationship between Pooh and Piglet furthers the validation. Where Piglet is afraid, Pooh is confident, and makes sure that he reassures his small friend. Going back to the incident of Chapter Eight, Pooh says “[The string] won’t break...because you’re a Small Animal, and I’ll stand underneath...”(Milne 281). Furthermore, Pooh promises Piglet that if Piglet saves them all, he’ll write a Pooh song detailing how brave Piglet. In this moment, Pooh is doing something very important: he is acknowledging his friend’s fears, but then uses logic to reassure and even offers the possibility of a reward. The relationship between Piglet and Pooh acts as a one-two act in seeing the fears of children. Piglet acts as the acknowledgement, while Pooh acts as the reassurance that things will be okay. For young readers, the dynamic between Piglet and Pooh can act as a source of security, as they are given permission to be anxious and the safeguard against it.

The second thing that A. A. Milne acknowledges in the House at Pooh Corner is the extreme relativity of time. Adults have lived longer, and therefore each minute seems to pass quickly. In fact, the older an individual becomes, the faster that time passees. That is because compared to the time that they have already lived, each moment becomes a smaller amount. If a person is 64 years old, they have already lived 23,360 days, which is also equivalent to 560, 640 hours. However, for a young adolescent, each day seems longer because they have lived less of them, and therefore is a larger chunk of their life. For example, a four year old has only lived 1,460 days, or 35,040 hours. Additionally, children’s lives do not revolve around time. Adults need to be at work by eight, get home by five, make dinner at 6, and be in bed by 11:30, and so on and so forth. Children do not have such concerns. Especially in earlier years, the lives of children are occupied by just existing and not dictated by clocks. If they need to be somewhere by a certain time, like at school by nine in the morning, a parent or other adult individual is in charge of making sure that happens. A.A. Milne demonstrates the lack of importance of time in a child’s life by making its passage a deeply unreliable thing in the Hundred Acre Woods. It is noted that Pooh’s clock had “stopped at five minutes to eleven some weeks ago” (Milne 158) in the first chapter in the House at Pooh Corner. However, neither Pooh nor any of the other residents of the Hundred Acre Wood seem to find issue with this, simply accepting it. Later on, in Chapter Three, as the characters attempt to find Small, Eeyore looks for two days without anyone telling him that their subject has been found (Milne 202). Both of these instances are somewhat comedic in nature; however, both also shed light on how children view time. A broken clock, if broken long enough, may be noticed by a child. However, it doesn't mean much to them, as time is largely irrelevant. Due to the lack of urgency, the clock does not get fixed, in both Pooh’s house and in the life of a child. As for the passage of days, two days of searching seems quite a long time for an adult, especially without rest, as it is indicated in Eeyore’s case. However, with a minimum concept of time, two days isn’t that notable. Milne’s writing ultimately plays upon the children’s view of time and validates the experience of having very little idea of what is actually going on. The Hundred Acre Woods is a unique place, with quirky inhabitants and a liquid sense of time. It’s a place of fantasy and friendship, saccharine to some readers. However, within its borders lies more than the adventures of Pooh and his friends. It’s a place of validation, where children’s anxieties and confusions are acknowledged and soothed. By creating the Hundred Acre Woods, A.A. Mine sent out a simple message to his young audience: everything will be okay.

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It takes me so much time to finish this workshop but it’s rewarding to keep learning in the process.

Today I attended a zoom lecture from a children’s lit congress and a mediator (Irina Burgos) talked about how in her zoom workshop experiences, while reading Cinderella with children, she felt the kids wanted to say something during the bit of the father marrying the stepmother but they didn’t say it. Then, a brave girl sent her a dm bashfully sharing that she thought they married so fast because they were lovers. When she shared that with the rest of the kids, they all started agreeing and saying that’s what they all thought. Irina mentioned this example to discuss how the gatekeeping of words and language as tools can alienate kids from expressing the world they perceive and that shapes them in social environments.

I love so many things about this anecdote, aside from the intended and very valid point she made. How digital tools can also provide a different way to communicate in a learning environment, instead of automatically demonizing them from the start. How I had never thought about it myself, because I jumped from reading it as a kid with little to no knowledge of that, to normalizing it entirely, to seeing it as an academic and finding the social, cultural and historical reasons for the marriage, and I totally skipped what these kids saw. How children interpret things differently at different point in history through the same stories and read in such a deconstructed way that the stories keep re-writing themselves. How the girl felt like she was sharing gossip about fairy tale characters. How the entire class read the father for filth.

It’s all just wonderful.

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ill be back again.......... someday

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Jane Austen’s work is very feminist and it irks me to no end when people say that “she was just another conformist romance writer” becuase no. She was a female writer getting published by men, being read by men, the success of her writing was dependent on men. And she was still able to critique society and write from a female perspective. She was also NOT just “another romance writer”, she was a satirist who used her writing to satirize the problems she saw in society. She was writing feminist works in a time where it had to be subtext in order to get published, and she managed to make it the most obviously thinly veiled subtext ever written.

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#Girlboss: Scarlett O’Hara and the Cult of True Womanhood

Much like death and taxes, the judgement of women by American society is a constant of life. The standard by which the female sex is held is ever-changing; what might be the ideal woman in one decade could be considered an insult to femininity in the next. In fact, for some, the desire to be akin to Venus herself can reach a fever pitch. America experienced such an obsession in the 19th century, particularly in the South. During this time period, the concept of “the Cult of True Womanhood” emerged. The ideology was relatively simple, yet extraordinarily taxing. In order to be the perfect woman, one must possess purity, be submissive to their husbands, be pious, and be able to maintain the affairs of her household. Christian theology was laced generously throughout the Cult of True Womanhood; according to Barbara Welter, the goal was to become “another, better Eve” (152). It is important to note that membership to the cult was applicable to only a subset of Americans: wealthy, white women. White women of lower class and women of color were excused, or rather excluded, from obtaining the title of the perfect woman. As with any popular facet of society, the Cult of True Womanhood started to become present in the literature of the time. When thinking about a character that conforms to the ridiculous standards of the elite, Scarlett O'Hara may come to mind. This thought has merit, at least on the surface. After all, the infamous O'Hara is the exact type of woman that the status of “true woman'' is built for: white, rich, and beautiful. There is little reason, according to the ideology, that O'Hara shouldn't be able to be Eve incarnate. However, throughout Gone With the Wind, the opposite occurs. Despite being an ideal candidate, the character of Scarlett O’Hara repeatedly exposes the contradictions in the Cult of True Womanhood.

Essay below the cut

The overarching theme in the Cult of True Womanhood was women being dedicated to their husbands, households, and children. The whole system was driven by the abstract notion of honor--not just the honor of the women who were subjugated to the high standards of perfection, but also the men in their lives (Faverty 17). When diligently filling the role of wife and mother, women were protecting their own honor, as well as that of their husbands and even their fathers. If a woman were to resist the role offered to her by society, it “threatened her reputation and both her individual and familial honor” (Faverty 18). However, providing for a family and continuously subscribing to the notion of protecting one’s honor--or the honor of male family members--is often in conflict with one another. This is especially true when considering the concept of honor in the Confederate South, which dictated that rich white women were not to engage in manual labor or violence. Scarlett O’Hara demonstrates the conflict in Chapter 26 of Gone With the Wind, when she kills the Yankee soldier that dared to set foot in her beloved Tara. When the Yankee is first detected, O’Hara has a choice: preserve her honor by fleeing, thus not engaging in any “unladylike” behavior, but leaving the other residents of the plantation undefended, or protecting her family and violate the honor of her late husband, father,  and herself. While in the first moments of panic, the heroine thinks to “hide in the closet, crawl under the bed, fly down the back stairs and run screaming to the swamp, anything to escape [the soldier]” (Gutenberg), she ends up shooting the Yankee with her late husband’s gun. How this violates her own honor is simple: she engaged in violence, thus directly rejecting the role of passive female. How the action violates the honor of her late husband Charles and her father is a little bit more complicated. Mitchell takes care to note that Charles’ gun had never been fired,  at least by him; she describes the pistol as something he had “worn, but never fired” (Gutenberg). By taking the pistol and using it herself, O’Hara is taking a symbol of his masculinity and appropriating it for her own purposes. Additionally, if a man never found a reason to shoot his own gun, his wife doing so would be a direct insult to his competency. As for her father, O’Hara does not even attempt to call for his help or even alert him to the situation. The male is supposed to be the protector, and by taking matters into her own hands, she is deciding that her father is not capable of helping his own family. While this is true, as her father has become senile following the death of his own  spouse, it is not supposed to be a decision that O’Hara makes. In protecting herself and loved ones, Scarlett O’Hara condemns the men in her life.

In addition to the incident described in the previous paragraph, there is a second instance within the text of Gone With the Wind that displays the glaring discrepancies within the ideology of the Cult of True Womanhood. While visiting the Fontaines, O’Hara mentions that while there is cotton in the fields of Tara, all the field hands are gone, rendering the crop virtually  useless to her and her family. When Grandma Fontaine points out the fact that O’Hara is perfectly capable of harvesting it herself, the younger woman is taken aback and exclaims “Like a field hand? Like white trash? Like the Slattery women?”(Gutenberg). O’Hara’s reluctance highlights two different problems present within the Cult of True Womanhood rhetoric. Similar to the first incident described, the novel’s heroine is caught between providing for the current residents of Tara and preserving her perceived “role” as a distinguished southern woman. Both are required in the Cult of True Womanhood; however, in order to do the former, the latter becomes impossible. On the other hand, in order to satisfy the latter, Scarlett O’Hara would allow for a critical element in restoring a semblance of normalcy to her beloved plantation to go to waste. It becomes a dilemma of reputation versus survival. To modern readers, such an internal battle may seem unnecessary and even borderline silly. However, the importance of being an esteemed Southern woman in Civil War Georgia is proven by how long O’Hara struggles with the decision. While she finally succumbs to working  in the fields, thus making the decision to abandon--at least temporarily--the elitism that is associated with being a “true woman”, the conflict that she experiences demonstrates how the standards of the Cult of True Womanhood can not coexist.

A final conflict in the Cult of True Womanhood that Scarlett O’Hara exposes revolves around the concept of piety. According to Laurie Bonventre, “women were supposed to have an especially strong religious side and it was supposed to be natural for them” (33). O’Hara shows a modicum of  religion throughout the novel. For example, after things started to improve at Tara, “she thanked God for the pale-blue sky and the warm sun, for each day of good weather put off the inevitable time when warm clothing would be needed” (Gutenberg). However, any inclination towards true piety is overwhelmingly dashed by both the  context of the prayers and the decidedly non-Christian attributes of O’Hara’s character. She prays almost solely for her own gain, rather than for the benefit of  those around her. She is vain--she marries her first husband, Charles, out of revenge and not love. Such a union violates the Christian concept of marriage, which dictates that a couple must be bonded spiritually and not for earthly reasons. Finally, in killing the Yankee, O’Hara commits a mortal sin. While arguably an act of self-defense, the action directly goes against the Sixth Commandment (Britannica). Gone With the Wind’s lead heroine is far from taking advantage of her “divine right” (Bonventre 20) of religion, and yet would be considered a true woman by many of her contemporaries. Thus, the concept of piety in the Cult of True Womanhood is not a deep one, but a performative version. As long as a rich white woman adheres to the basic traditions of a Christian life, she may qualify to be a true woman.

As established previously, the features of an ideal member of the female sex are as follows: piety, committment to family, purity, and being submissive to their male spouse. The first two qualities were most certainly found in enslaved women. Religion played a critical role in the lives of the enslaved. While some attempted to stay true to their heritage, many slaves converted to Christianity upon arriving in the United States. It was a source of hope for those who were subjected to the dreadful conditions of plantations; oftentimes, the Bible was used by abolitionists to justify rebellions. (PBS).  In addition to this, enslaved women were dedicated to the health of their families. In the South, “ [enslaved] women cooked, cleaned, sewed, and washed for their families'' (Oxford Handbook) while men hunted. The concept of submissiveness to men is a problematic topic to discuss in regard to enslaved women. Sexual coercion was common, and not just by white plantation owners. High-ranking male slaves were encouraged to procreate with the women of their choosing, which led to interactions of highly  questionable consent (Oxford Handbook). The idea of purity is nebulous; Scarlett O’Hara qualified for purity, however, after marrying twice and pursuing a third lover. Therefore, many enslaved women should also meet the standard. The truth, though, was that women of color were not considered true women by southern society. Therefore, for all of its requirements, the Cult of True Womanhood mainly cared about two things: the color of a woman’s skin and  her family’s pedigree. The fact that O’Hara would qualify even after her abandonment of the culture’s core values displays the hypocrisy.

The idea of a perfect woman was revered in the American South during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It was in this society that the Cult of True Womanhood emerged. The concept was theoretically defined by piety, submissiveness, purity, and a dedication to family. However, in Gone With the Wind, Scarlett O’Hara consistently exposees the conflicting nature of the Cult of True Womanhood. Ultimately, it was not the attributes that made a woman perfect, but her family name and the color of her skin.