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Learning to Stand and Speak: Women, Education, and Public Life in America's Republic
Education was decisive in recasting women's subjectivity and the lived reality of their collective experience in post-Revolutionary and antebellum America. Asking how and why women shaped their lives anew through education, Mary Kelley measures the significant transformation in individual and social identities fostered by female academies and seminaries. Constituted in a curriculum that matched the course of study at male colleges, women's liberal learning, Kelley argues, played a key role in one of the most profound changes in gender relations in the nation's the movement of women into public life.
By the 1850s, the large majority of women deeply engaged in public life as educators, writers, editors, and reformers had been schooled at female academies and seminaries. Although most women did not enter these professions, many participated in networks of readers, literary societies, or voluntary associations that became the basis for benevolent societies, reform movements, and activism in the antebellum period. Kelley's analysis demonstrates that female academies and seminaries taught women crucial writing, oration, and reasoning skills that prepared them to claim the rights and obligations of citizenship.
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Education played a decisive role in recasting women's collective experience in post-Revolutionary and antebellum America. Asking how and why women shaped their lives anew through education, Mary Kelley measures the significant transformation in individual and social identities fostered by female academies and seminaries. With a curriculum that matched the course of study at male colleges, women's liberal learning, Kelley argues, cultivated one of the most profound changes in gender relations in the nation's the movement of women into public life. Kelley's analysis demonstrates that female academies and seminaries taught women crucial writing, oration, and reasoning skills that prepared them to claim the rights and obligations of citizenship.
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By the 1850s, the large majority of women deeply engaged in public life as educators, writers, editors, and reformers had been schooled at female academies and seminaries. Although most women did not enter these professions, many participated in networks of readers, literary societies, or voluntary associations that became the basis for benevolent societies, reform movements, and activism in the antebellum period. Kelley's analysis demonstrates that female academies and seminaries taught women crucial writing, oration, and reasoning skills that prepared them to claim the rights and obligations of citizenship.
<!--copy for
Education played a decisive role in recasting women's collective experience in post-Revolutionary and antebellum America. Asking how and why women shaped their lives anew through education, Mary Kelley measures the significant transformation in individual and social identities fostered by female academies and seminaries. With a curriculum that matched the course of study at male colleges, women's liberal learning, Kelley argues, cultivated one of the most profound changes in gender relations in the nation's the movement of women into public life. Kelley's analysis demonstrates that female academies and seminaries taught women crucial writing, oration, and reasoning skills that prepared them to claim the rights and obligations of citizenship.
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312 pages, Paperback
First published September 4, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 11, 2022
Mary Kelley's book explores the impact of the American Revolution and the antebellum period in shaping the lives of women (one should read elite white women here). Kelley takes a unique perspective in that she examines the role of education on these changes. Learning to Stand and Speak argues that educational benefits allowed women to redefine themselves and their relationship to what Kelley labels civil society. Civil society being all elements of the public sphere except politics.
Kelley argues that her book is different and unique because it “challenges the familiar model that divides the nineteenth century into private and public, feminine and masculine, household and marketplace.” [1] In Kelley's opinion it was the advent of female academies and seminaries which allowed for both students and teachers to simultaneously dismantle these binary ideas instead linking them to the rights and obligations of citizenship. It was, in Kelley's opinion, this education which allowed women to contribute to national discourse regarding religious doctrine, politics, women and domesticity and the nation's potential.
Kelley argues education should be seen as the reason some women were able to play leading roles in the public space and influence the outcomes. Yet, Kelley's work also demonstrates that women's education suffered from a compromise in which a female education was made dependent on her fulfillment of gendered social and political obligations. Kelley supports the idea that a woman's education was focused on preparing her for her role as a wife and mother. Kelley's book focuses on the ways that women used these expectations to create a new narrative and role for themselves. She believes that women appeared to conform to gendered expectations but instead used these ideas to justify their presence in civil society. She believes that in this way women made themselves crucial to the republican experiment and helped construct the gender, race and class systems of the 19th century.
Kelley argues that though women had a voice it came at a cost: the submission to patriarchal ideals. Kelley's work demonstrates the complex situation that women of the 19th century faced. She showcases that these women were innovative in using education--with its benefits and restrictions--to create change by manipulating aspects of patriarchal ideals to make themselves appear less threatening. “Decade by decade, they revised and elaborated the choices they made… they became influential makers of public opinion. In all this they enacted a transformation in women’s relationship to public life that has proved an enduring legacy.” [2]
[1] Mary Kelley, Learning to Stand and Speak: Women, Education, and Public Life in America's Republic (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 25.
[2] Mary Kelley, Learning to Stand and Speak, 279.
Kelley argues that her book is different and unique because it “challenges the familiar model that divides the nineteenth century into private and public, feminine and masculine, household and marketplace.” [1] In Kelley's opinion it was the advent of female academies and seminaries which allowed for both students and teachers to simultaneously dismantle these binary ideas instead linking them to the rights and obligations of citizenship. It was, in Kelley's opinion, this education which allowed women to contribute to national discourse regarding religious doctrine, politics, women and domesticity and the nation's potential.
Kelley argues education should be seen as the reason some women were able to play leading roles in the public space and influence the outcomes. Yet, Kelley's work also demonstrates that women's education suffered from a compromise in which a female education was made dependent on her fulfillment of gendered social and political obligations. Kelley supports the idea that a woman's education was focused on preparing her for her role as a wife and mother. Kelley's book focuses on the ways that women used these expectations to create a new narrative and role for themselves. She believes that women appeared to conform to gendered expectations but instead used these ideas to justify their presence in civil society. She believes that in this way women made themselves crucial to the republican experiment and helped construct the gender, race and class systems of the 19th century.
Kelley argues that though women had a voice it came at a cost: the submission to patriarchal ideals. Kelley's work demonstrates the complex situation that women of the 19th century faced. She showcases that these women were innovative in using education--with its benefits and restrictions--to create change by manipulating aspects of patriarchal ideals to make themselves appear less threatening. “Decade by decade, they revised and elaborated the choices they made… they became influential makers of public opinion. In all this they enacted a transformation in women’s relationship to public life that has proved an enduring legacy.” [2]
[1] Mary Kelley, Learning to Stand and Speak: Women, Education, and Public Life in America's Republic (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 25.
[2] Mary Kelley, Learning to Stand and Speak, 279.
October 21, 2014
In Learning to Stand and Speak, Mary Kelley shows how women created educational opportunities for themselves and expanded their roles in the shaping of public opinion in the early American republic. Although women were shut out of politics and government, they still impacted the public sphere by becoming educated, forming social networks, and engaging in civil society. Education and activism empowered women, but traditional gender roles and obligations still compelled women to portray their own public involvement as intended for the common good and compatible with traditional gender roles.
Kelley shows that women in the early republic had unprecedented access to quality education. Between 1790 and 1830, she reports, “182 academies and at least 14 seminaries were established exclusively for women in the North and the South” (p. 67). Female academies and seminaries did not simply prepare women to be demure, deferential, pleasing wives and mothers, although curricula did include some typically feminine skills. Rather, these schools believed in the Enlightenment view of the potential intellectual equality of men and women. Consequently, they filled the curriculum with intellectually challenging subjects that mirrored the courses of study at male schools, including sciences, humanities, and classical languages. They encouraged female students to be rational, sensible, persuasive, and committed to doing good in their lives. The expansion of women’s education enabled thousands of women to develop what Kelley calls “subjectivity,” a clunky term for individual identity and a sense of purpose. She uses letters and diaries to give us rich details into the inner lives of these women whose education transformed the way they viewed themselves and their place in society.
The “self-transformation” women experienced at these schools prepared them to “transform civil society in their communities, their regions, and…their nation” even if they were blocked from mainstream politics or government (p. 153). They took up careers as writers, editors, and teachers. By the mid-19th century, Kelley concludes that “America’s classrooms were rapidly becoming a woman’s domain,” giving women immense influence in shaping the views of future adult citizens (p. 10). Many female scholars wrote histories of women that portrayed women as central actors in shaping public opinion in events like the American Revolution and provided role models for contemporary female activists. They also formed “extra-institutional” literary societies, reform associations, and letter-writing partnerships to remain engaged in intellectual life and to make their voices heard on pressing social issues. Networks and organizations emerging from these schools and “extra-institutional” organizations would play pivotal roles in abolitionism, temperance, charity, missionary activity, and women’s rights.
Although Kelley portrays an expansion of educated women’s role in intellectual and public life, she also shows that these women had to balance their public lives with gender expectations. As the editor of the Edinburgh Review said in 1820, “If the stocking is blue, the petticoat must be long” (p. 243). He meant that if a woman was going to display her intellect publically, she had to do so in an unostentatious way that would not directly challenge male authority nor assault their presumed intelligence. Just as importantly, an educated woman had to precisely perform feminine gender expectations in order to avoid a label like bluestocking, which implicitly questioned a woman’s sexual purity. Men and women alike lambasted Mary Wollstonecraft as the exemplar of an impure bluestocking because she had openly called for the legal equality of women, challenged traditional gender roles, and besmirched her and her husband’s honor by having an affair and an illegitimate child. They used Wollstonecraft to assert the dangers of women becoming too involved in public life and challenging the gender hierarchy.
Women further balanced gender expectations with active public lives by portraying their involvement in civil society as dedicated “not to self-actualization, but to social improvement” in order to justify their activity, even though said activity certainly created individual fulfillment (p. 102). Women would otherwise be portrayed as selfishly and improperly positioning themselves in the public domain and thereby directly challenging the gender hierarchy. Finally, most educated women had to balance the demands of domesticity with their activism and intellectualism. These obligations severely limited the time educated women could devote to reading, writing, and activism to the great consternation of many of the women Kelley presents. Nevertheless, Kelley demonstrates that the early republic was an unprecedented time of women’s involvement in public and intellectual life, marking a significant transformation from the limited opportunities available to colonial women. Women had to show deference to gender roles and ideologies, but doing so actually expanded their role in shaping public opinion by legitimating their public speech and action.
Kelley’s outstanding scholarship works nicely with other scholars to give us a more complete picture of women’s inner and public lives in the early republic. In Revolutionary Backlash, Rosemary Zagarri argues that men reacted to growing calls for women’s political rights and participation by successfully pressuring women to eschew partisan politics in the interest of national unity. Zagarri and Kelley agree that educated women responded by redirecting their energy into civil society. Kelley adds to this understanding by showing us how women educated themselves and built social networks in order affect change in civil society. Kelley also gives us a clearer understanding of the yearning for education and public life among educated women. This helps us comprehend how women reacted internally to the “revolutionary backlash” against their involvement in politics. Read together, Zagarri and Kelley paint an inspiring picture of early American women who navigated between their own desires for a life of thinking, speaking, and public action with what their societies expected them to do.
Kelley shows that women in the early republic had unprecedented access to quality education. Between 1790 and 1830, she reports, “182 academies and at least 14 seminaries were established exclusively for women in the North and the South” (p. 67). Female academies and seminaries did not simply prepare women to be demure, deferential, pleasing wives and mothers, although curricula did include some typically feminine skills. Rather, these schools believed in the Enlightenment view of the potential intellectual equality of men and women. Consequently, they filled the curriculum with intellectually challenging subjects that mirrored the courses of study at male schools, including sciences, humanities, and classical languages. They encouraged female students to be rational, sensible, persuasive, and committed to doing good in their lives. The expansion of women’s education enabled thousands of women to develop what Kelley calls “subjectivity,” a clunky term for individual identity and a sense of purpose. She uses letters and diaries to give us rich details into the inner lives of these women whose education transformed the way they viewed themselves and their place in society.
The “self-transformation” women experienced at these schools prepared them to “transform civil society in their communities, their regions, and…their nation” even if they were blocked from mainstream politics or government (p. 153). They took up careers as writers, editors, and teachers. By the mid-19th century, Kelley concludes that “America’s classrooms were rapidly becoming a woman’s domain,” giving women immense influence in shaping the views of future adult citizens (p. 10). Many female scholars wrote histories of women that portrayed women as central actors in shaping public opinion in events like the American Revolution and provided role models for contemporary female activists. They also formed “extra-institutional” literary societies, reform associations, and letter-writing partnerships to remain engaged in intellectual life and to make their voices heard on pressing social issues. Networks and organizations emerging from these schools and “extra-institutional” organizations would play pivotal roles in abolitionism, temperance, charity, missionary activity, and women’s rights.
Although Kelley portrays an expansion of educated women’s role in intellectual and public life, she also shows that these women had to balance their public lives with gender expectations. As the editor of the Edinburgh Review said in 1820, “If the stocking is blue, the petticoat must be long” (p. 243). He meant that if a woman was going to display her intellect publically, she had to do so in an unostentatious way that would not directly challenge male authority nor assault their presumed intelligence. Just as importantly, an educated woman had to precisely perform feminine gender expectations in order to avoid a label like bluestocking, which implicitly questioned a woman’s sexual purity. Men and women alike lambasted Mary Wollstonecraft as the exemplar of an impure bluestocking because she had openly called for the legal equality of women, challenged traditional gender roles, and besmirched her and her husband’s honor by having an affair and an illegitimate child. They used Wollstonecraft to assert the dangers of women becoming too involved in public life and challenging the gender hierarchy.
Women further balanced gender expectations with active public lives by portraying their involvement in civil society as dedicated “not to self-actualization, but to social improvement” in order to justify their activity, even though said activity certainly created individual fulfillment (p. 102). Women would otherwise be portrayed as selfishly and improperly positioning themselves in the public domain and thereby directly challenging the gender hierarchy. Finally, most educated women had to balance the demands of domesticity with their activism and intellectualism. These obligations severely limited the time educated women could devote to reading, writing, and activism to the great consternation of many of the women Kelley presents. Nevertheless, Kelley demonstrates that the early republic was an unprecedented time of women’s involvement in public and intellectual life, marking a significant transformation from the limited opportunities available to colonial women. Women had to show deference to gender roles and ideologies, but doing so actually expanded their role in shaping public opinion by legitimating their public speech and action.
Kelley’s outstanding scholarship works nicely with other scholars to give us a more complete picture of women’s inner and public lives in the early republic. In Revolutionary Backlash, Rosemary Zagarri argues that men reacted to growing calls for women’s political rights and participation by successfully pressuring women to eschew partisan politics in the interest of national unity. Zagarri and Kelley agree that educated women responded by redirecting their energy into civil society. Kelley adds to this understanding by showing us how women educated themselves and built social networks in order affect change in civil society. Kelley also gives us a clearer understanding of the yearning for education and public life among educated women. This helps us comprehend how women reacted internally to the “revolutionary backlash” against their involvement in politics. Read together, Zagarri and Kelley paint an inspiring picture of early American women who navigated between their own desires for a life of thinking, speaking, and public action with what their societies expected them to do.
November 1, 2017
While this book did provide great insight in to the educational practices and the importance of reading to women between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, Kelley's organization of the book was confusing and hard to follow.
August 18, 2016
If there were fractions of stars, I would give this a 4.25/5. This just wasn't a topic in which I was interested and Kelley did not approach it in a way that changed that for me. She is not a bad writer or historian. This just isn't my thing.
December 20, 2012
A little too academic in its style to be a great read, but very valuable for anyone interested in the history of women in the early republic.
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December 6, 2018read for grad school paper
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews