Can you imagine, as a woman in modern America, not having the option to gain an education or get a job? Being expected to be nothing more than a wife and mother? While this idea might sound strange now, this was the standard life of a Puritan woman. Societal views on the roles of women were very strict, with harsh consequences for those that dared stray from “the norm”. To break away from the ideas set upon them would have been dangerous, and possibly ostracizing for these women, and very few braved this challenge. Early American writings, especially those from female writers, give a glimpse into the roles and social norms for women during that time period and demonstrate how the modern ideas of today started as small changes which evolved to have major impacts. Anne Bradstreet and Sarah Kemble Knight portray two different lifestyles of women in early America, and the stark contrasts between these two writers displays the evolution of gender roles and social normativity in a powerful way.
The role of women in Puritan America was very clearly defined, and little diversion from these set roles were allowed. Women were supposed to be wives, mothers, and homemakers, and as these roles did not require an education, most young women of that time were not formally schooled. The extent of any education they did receive would have included the information needed to run a house and raise children, along with a few subjects like reading and writing so they could pass the time. One woman that broke this stereotype was Anne Bradstreet, a Puritan woman whose father encouraged her education and gave her more intellectual opportunities than most women had access to during this time period. Her education extended far beyond the basic skills of reading and writing. Her schooling gave her the ability to write well versed poems that rivaled those of well-known male authors of the day, indicating that her knowledge of literature was vast and expansive (Baym, and Levine 207). Her published volume of poetry, titled The Tenth Muse was wildly famous in Britain, while her poem “The Author to Her Book” displays her intellectual capacity as she remarks on how unfinished her work was, and that she was not ready to have it published. However, at the same time critics in Britain were raving over the piece. Her well executed conceit in this poem of an illegitimate child being cast out into the world to be judged correlates to her feeling of her works being published without her knowledge or permission as she compares The Tenth Muse to an “ill-formed offspring…” (Baym, and Levine 225). Her accomplishment in being able to craft such a conceit highlights the extent of her education, and speaks of the level of intellectual capabilities a woman could possess. Her ability to not only write poetry, but to be a successful published poet is very telling of her intellectual capacities, and perpetuates the idea that women had the power to fulfill all familial roles, as well as have an education. Her life as a female author, and as America’s first poet was a turning point for the education of women in America.
Bradstreet was one of very few educated women during her time, but as society in America changed more and more, women began to further their education and enter the public sphere. This first major shift in the role of women happened during the “Age of Reason” when there was a greater focus on enlightenment, education, and democracy. A prominent female writer of this time, Sarah Knight, displays these new ideas in her Private Journal of a Journey from Boston to New York. In this journal, Knight documents her travel to New York to help settle an estate. Her ability to even have the knowledge to take on this task speaks volumes to her training. She held a multitude of jobs, all of which would have required an upper level of education that was unheard of for women during Anne Bradstreet’s time (Baym, and Levine 379). This shift in education, from inaccessible to accessible, and taboo to accepted for did a lot to change the view of women, and what their expected place was. In such a short time frame, this revolution signals a major shift in the role of women in society from homemaker to an agent in the public sphere.
The shift in accessible education is also marked with a shift in the jobs women were allowed to possess. In Bradstreet’s case, while she was educated and wrote poetry, she did not have employment outside the home and recognized that her job was to be a mother and wife. In her work “To My Dear Children” she states that she “was married and came to [America]” (Baym, and Levine 235) as to say that she knew her place in life was to find a husband, and provide him a house and children. Her role as a wife also meant she had to move to America when her husband decided they should. Even though she knew it would be a hard journey, and that many people did not survive the long passage overseas, she goes anyway. Her abrupt mention that she moved to America suggests that she didn’t argue, or put up resistance when her husband decided it was necessary to relocate. She also comments in this same piece that her motive for writing was that once she was dead, “…here you may find / What was your living mother’s mind.” (Baym, and Levine 235). This quote demonstrates her dedication to her roles as wife, mother, and homemaker, in that she wrote this piece so that she might still be able to assist her children even after she was gone from this Earth. Even up until her end days, Bradstreet submitted fully to her role as a mother and wife, and that her writings and poetry weren’t initially meant to be an occupation, but rather as a way to express herself and pass on knowledge to her children. In Jean Lutes’ paper “Negotiating theology and gynecology- Anne Bradstreet's representations of the female body” she states that Bradstreet was “a devoted mother and wife” (330) and that her poetry was merely a hobby.
In contrast, Knight was a hard working woman outside the home, though she also maintained her title as wife and mother. In Knight’s travel narrative she reveals the purpose for her journey was business not pleasure, when she states, “being now well recruited and fit for business [she] discoursed the person [she] was concerned with…”( Baym, and Levine 389). Her business matter she is discussing here is the settling of the estate of her cousin Caleb Trowbridge. This duty fell to her because she had performed many jobs like this in the past. The first major task she overtook was the running of household matters after her father passed away. From there she went on to hold jobs which involved working in the court system, investing in property, running a boardinghouse, and teaching school (Baym, and Levine 379). These in-depth positions in the public sphere and powerful roles in familial economics, while still a little ahead of its time, stands in stark contrast to the life of Anne Bradstreet in a manner that denotes an evolution in the social outlook of working women. Scholar András Tarnóc credits part of Knight’s success to the decline in her husband’s health that allowed her to “break out of the confines of the private sphere.” The writer praises her ability to conduct business and notes that not only was she breaking barriers as a woman in business, but that she was also a very successful businesswoman since she “left behind a substantial estate of 1800 pounds.” (Tarnóc). This amount of money was considered a fortune, and was not regular for anyone to acquire in early America, much less for a woman to gain such wealth. This was a great triumph and signaled a new found place of importance for women in the public sphere, and established the idea that women could and did have the same success levels as men.
Not only did women experience a shift into the public sphere, but their roles within the household also changed. Bradstreet’s household position was to be a loyal wife, a loving mother, and caretaker of the home. In “Here Follows Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House, July 10th, 1666” she laments over the loss of her home saying, “Here stood that trunk, and there that chest, / There lay that store I counted best. / My pleasant things in ashes lie, / And them behold no more shall I” (Baym, and Levine 233). Her house was her treasure because the worth of women during her lifetime was measured by their ability to have children and take care of a house. Right after the aforementioned quote, Bradstreet starts a succession of lines about things that will no longer occur. She is able to fully show her grief at the loss of her home as she mourns for the loss of the space that held her life. That home was the place where she entertained, and where she conversed with friends. Her grief is so heavy because her house was her whole world (Giffen 14). She worked there, slept there, and raised children there. In a sense, her house was an extension of herself, and served as a marker of her ability to perform her roles. When her house burned, part of her was lost as well, and she had to figure out how to adapt and move on because her duties within the household did not disappear with the disintegration of the physical home.
As women began to experience new found positions that took them outside the home, their role of homemaker was altered. In the case of Knight, her extensive roles outside of the physical house changed her domestic responsibilities in a way that makes them drastically different to Bradstreet’s responsbilities. András Tarnóc, a scholar on Knight, remarks that her occupations, and her journey to New York “removes the confines of the private sphere” that Knight was once subject to (Tarnóc). Knight states upon the return to Boston that she has “… this day been five months from home…” (Baym, and Levine 390). For her to take the journey by herself is one thing, but to be gone five months from her home and child says a lot about her position within the household. Unlike Bradstreet, whose sole role was to operate within the boundaries of the home, Knight was able to take on responsibilities that pulled her away from the home for long periods of time. This type of journey was only considered appropriate for men during Bradstreet’s time as her husband was often away traveling for long periods of time for business much like Knight (Baym, and Levine 379). This crossover of women into a male dominated world sped up the evolution of gender roles and helped break the barriers for women to play a more active part in society.
The transition of women into some of the roles once seen as only appropriate for men also changed the dynamic of male and female relationships and marriage. Bradstreet’s role in her marriage is one of love, loyalty, and respect. Her husband is the head of the household, and she is reliant on him providing for her and the children. She loves him dearly, and in her poem “To My Dear and Loving Husband” she explicates her love and devotion to him by saying, “If ever two were one, then surely we. / If ever man were loved by wife, than thee; / If ever wife was happy in a man…” (Baym, and Levine 226). Her devotion to her husband ties into her understanding of the bible and God. She sees her marriage with her husband and her devotion to him in a manner very similar to how she views God. Both relationships were seen as a covenant and were not to be taken lightly. She puts her husband as head of the house and submits herself to him as a dutiful wife. Thus she was considered to have “ fulfilled her God-given duty” and upheld this covenant (Dana).
Knight, on the other hand, has an entirely different role in her marriage. In her journey narrative there is not one mention of her husband, nor any indication of remorse for not being with him as Bradstreet had taken the time to do. Knight had a freedom not known to Bradstreet, a type of independence stemming from not being as confined to religious viewpoints on the domination of men over women. Knight took on jobs outside the house and earned a living for her family even before her husband became ill. In a paper about the cultural aspects of Knight’s journal, Julia Stern states that “Knight traverses the frontier as an economic agent rather than as a soul driven by divine injunction” (Stern 2). For Knight, her devotion to God was not directly tied to her devotion to her husband. This permitted her marriage to take on more aspects of a business arrangement than a heavenly covenant.
Like the changing relationship between husband and wife, the dynamic of mother and child also transformed and evolved not only from Bradstreet to Knight, but also within their own lifetimes. Societal expectations of Puritan women put pressure on many aspects of their life, such as their ability to have children. Though modern society recognizes the health implications of infertility, these colonial women were judged on their ability to have children. The lack of children, and being barren was seen as a direct action of God to punish you for some sin you had in your life. Anne Bradstreet was no exception to this, and found the idea of being barren intolerable, and that God was keeping her from having children. She laments in her work “To My Dear Children” that, “It pleased God to keep me a long time without a child, which was a great grief to me and cost me many prayers and tears before I obtained one” (Baym, and Levine 236). She struggled with having children, and this grieved her because she felt she had not fulfilled all her duties as a woman. She did go on to have children, and through her poems she can be seen loving, caring, and devoting her time to her children. Since she did not work outside the home, she was constantly with the children, and had a very traditional Puritan mother-child relationship with her children (Lutes 321).
The Enlightenment period gave a new meaning to motherhood, and established new ideas about the proper roles for mothers. Knight, an “enlightened” woman, had a very different mothering style than Bradstreet. One of the roles Knight had to take on was provider as she had to find occupations outside of the home and had to attend to business matters that pulled her away for extended periods of time. When Knight traveled to New York on business, she left “…[her] aged and tender mother and [her] dear and only child…” in Boston (Baym, and Levine 390). Her role as a woman in society did not hinder her from leaving her child to conduct business, as it would have for Bradstreet. Knight’s mothering responsibility is, out of necessity, one of providing for her family, and by doing this she creates a legacy for her daughter in an unconventional, yet still motherly, way. Knight leaving her child does not signify a removal of the mother-child bond, but rather shows that the new found position of women in the public sphere does not destroy the home, and that a woman can both hold a job, and maintain a family (Stern 4). This was important in establishing a positive view of working women, and mothers during this time.
Through the analysis of the lives of Anne Bradstreet and Sarah Kemble Knight, the evolution of the roles of women in early America can be clearly seen. Their access to education, and jobs, as well as their roles of wife, mother and homemaker changed within a few short years. These alterations to “the norm” in a Puritan time period marked the beginning of a major shift in gender positions, both in the public and private spheres. While both women recognized their place in society, both also pushed to break the barriers that stood before them. Bradstreet gained a rare education and published a popular book of poetry, and Knight took on the public sphere, making a name for herself as a savvy business woman, and intelligent investor. These women are models of the tenacity and resilience needed to become more than what society dictated they should be, and they should stand as an example to all women to push through social norms and be the spark that starts a revolution.