Nineteenth-Century Advice Literature
Lesson Plan:
This ADVICE LITERATURE LESSON
is an example of how primary source document analysis can be used to connect
to students' lives to the past while enhancing their critical thinking and
writing skills.
It was designed by Karen Board Moran an eighth grade history teacher at
Auburn Middle School in Massachusetts and tested on her class. There are
a number of different suggested exercises and assignments which require
the use of the table of contents, illustrations, and portions of the The
Young Man's Guide and The Young Woman's Guide by William Andrus
Alcott, which can be found online (links are included).
Mabel Ross, the Sewing Girl:
By evaluating pictures, the introduction, and the table of contents students should make connections from the available information to social conditions in the U.S. at that time. This novel provides several interesting insights into the role of a young working woman in mid-nineteenth century United States. An interdisciplinary LESSON PLAN suggests activities for practical applications in a classroom.
Sine Qua Non
The Latin phrase, "Sine Qua Non," (literally "without which not") expresses one woman's revelation concerning the necessity of a domestic education. When she moves to "the west" with her husband, she finds her "classic" education useless in comparison to her need to make bread. Since she was never educated in the finer arts of bread-making, or house keeping, her adventures in domestic life provide practical reasons for the love of a domestic education, as Alcott supports (see domestic bliss, below).
Some excerpts have been chosen from the texts below to offer a better
understanding of the position of women in society in mid-nineteenth-century
America. The topics chosen have been arranged into categories that follow
and also separated according to the books from which they were taken (below).
Some topics in advice literature during the mid-nineteenth century include
descriptions of which behaviors and characteristics are accepatable for
women to possess in order to become an "ideal" woman according
to her role in society. The following categories provide opinions that rationalize
the importance for women to incorporate these characteristics into their
personality as well as suggestions for doing so according to nineteenth
century ideals.
While not everyone held the same opinions concerning the definition of an ideal woman, the ideas presented in the advice books support the popular image of a woman's role. Many of the books that preach the "right" place for women in society were written by men. In Harper's New Monthly Magazine, a man expresses his opinions on women who fit the ideal description and those who do not.
In response to the standards established for women and the assumption that she will marry, one woman shares her thoughts on the experineces that she is denied because she is a woman. She questions the established rules that women are expected to follow to become ideal. A Young Lady's Soliloquy presents the voice of a young woman whose motivation is not to find a husband and be a good wife as society says it should.
Here we have put the excerpts from each book together for those searching for material from the same source.
William Andrus Alcott. The Boy's
Guide to Usefulness. Boston: 1844.
--------. The Young Wife. Boston:1842.
--------. The Young Woman's Guide. Boston: 1840.
--------. The Young Man's Guide. Boston: 1846.
Bean, James. Advice to a Married Couple. American Tract Society. Boston: 1856.
Arthur Freeling. The Young Bride's Book.. New York: 1849.
Mrs. Louisa C. Tuthill. The Young Lady's Home. Boston: 1847.
The Young Man's Evening Book.. Boston: 1838.
By a Gentleman. Advice to a Young Gentleman on Entering Society. Philadelphia: 1839.
The Young Ladies' Book: A Manual of Elegant Recreations, Exercises and Pursuits. Boston: 1830.
By a Lady. The Young Wife's Book: A Manual of Moral, Religious and Domestic Duties. Philadelphia: 1838.