| Response sheet 22, in-class writing, Thursday | |
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Today we shall focus on a treatise on “domestic economy” by a prominent woman author in the 1840s and 1850s. We can apply some of the framing questions we asked on Tuesday to this historical text. 1. How did women fit into “the economy,” according to Beecher? 2. What were the problems that needed fixing with respect to women, versus with respect to “the economy” as a whole? In other words, how was Beecher trying to help women, and how was she trying to help “the economy”? 3. Why did Beecher treat household labor with such intense seriousness? 4. What kind of women were Beecher’s imagined audience? Race? Class? Religion? 5. What did Beecher so often compare her American women to aristocratic English women? 6. What about other women — the vast majority — in American society? What was implied about them, even if they were omitted from consideration? |