So...found this on GoogleScholar.com in the images gallery yesterday, and thought it was pretty cool. I looked all through ArtStor and couldn't find anything, even though I know there's a digitized painting of the riot floating around somewhere.Monday, March 30, 2009
In Context...
Contextual Materials
Rebecca Reed’s “Six Months in a Convent” deals with two main issues. The first one is anti-Catholicism. In the Protestant antebellum America, Catholics were regarded with no small amount of suspicion. Perhaps rightly so; the Catholic Church is renowned for keeping its own council and its rituals secret, so misunderstandings have and do occur. The more paranoid of the antebellum conspiracy theorists worried that the Vatican had designs on taking over the government.
The second issue is not directly addressed in the novel but is an integral part of the public reaction and the falling-out of the burning of the Charleston, MA, Ursuline Convent on Mt. Benedict in 1834. Catholicism—more specifically, nuns and their convents—posed a threat to the American Protestant woman’s role in society, or true womanhood. Nuns chose to remain single, thereby rejecting the husband and children that defined the woman’s sphere, and had a remarkable amount of autonomy in the community for those times.
The documents below are gathered with the intent of helping a reader of “Six Months in a Convent” understand the text in the contexts of anti-Catholicism, true women, new women, nuns, and the riot. The materials are separated under category headings.
Anti-Catholicism:
1. Billington, Ray Allen. “Tentative Bibliography of Anti-Catholic Propaganda in the United States (1800-1860). The Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Jan., 1933), pp. 492-513. http://www.jstor.org
2. Hofstadter, Richard. “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.” Harper’s Magazine, November 1964, pp. 77-86. http://www.zbths.org/1653109815561217/lib/1653109815561217/_files/Richard_Hofstadter.pdf
Hofstadter examines the history of the paranoid, conspiracy-theorist form of politics from the 1700’s to the twentieth century in America, including the anti-Masonist movements as well as anti-Catholicism. Anti-Catholic conspiracies include Maria Monk’s escaped nun tale, the belief of a Catholic-Protestant holy war sanctioned by Rome, priestly spies, and that the Pope and Europe seek to take over the government. This essay is important because these paranoid ideas were still thriving well in the nineteenth-century.
3. Griffin, Susan M. Anti-Catholicism and Nineteenth-Century Fiction. New York: Cambridge UP, 2004.
Griffin examines the role and form of Anti-Catholicism in nineteenth-century literature, as a genre. This might help a reader understand SMiaC better in regards to the genre of the anti-Catholic “escaped nun” tale.
True Womanhood:
1. Welter, Barbara. “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860.” American Quarterly, 18.2 (Summer, 1966), pp. 151-174. http://www.jstor.org
Welter’s “Cult of True Womanhood” explains exactly what the roles of nineteenth-century women were, the virtues ideal women were expected to possess, and the rationale behind them.
2. Roberts, Mary Louise. “True Womanhood Revisited.” Journal of Women’s History, 14.1 (Spring 2002), pp. 150-156. Academic Search Premier. http://ezproxy.lib.ucf.edu/login?URL=http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.ucf.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=6479854&site=ehost-live
Robert’s responds to Welter’s “Cult of True Womanhood” for not having a strong enough analytic framework, and briefly looks at the transition from the ideal True Woman to the New Woman of the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century.
New Womanhood:
Todd, Ellen Wiley. The “New Woman” Revised: Painting and Gender Politics on Fourteenth Street.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. eScholarship Editions http://www.escholarship.org/editions/view?docId=ft9k4009m7;brand=eschol
This is an eBook that can be found freely over the web. The first chapter in particular will serve as a good outline for what exactly the New Woman is. After reading the essays on true womanhood, the scandal of SMiaC will become much clearer, as the inmates of the Ursuline Convent (including Reed herself) start to resemble more the New Woman than the True Woman.
Nuns:
http://www.CatholicNunsToday.org
A brief site about what exactly nuns and sisters are and do, the roles they fulfill in their communities, and a definition of their vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience. If I were editing a new edition of SMiaC, I would certainly make sure that the diverse roles of Catholic nuns and convents in the community were explained.
Charleston Convent:
"Burning of the Charlestown Convent," Boston Evening Transcript, 12 August, 1834.
http://www.yale.edu/glc/archive/949.htm
This site contains a transcript of the Boston Evening paper regarding the burning and fall-out of the burning of the Ursuline Convent in Charleston. The site is a part of the Yale “Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition.”If I were editing a new edition of SMiaC, I would definitely seek to include these papers.
Rebecca Reed’s “Six Months in a Convent” deals with two main issues. The first one is anti-Catholicism. In the Protestant antebellum America, Catholics were regarded with no small amount of suspicion. Perhaps rightly so; the Catholic Church is renowned for keeping its own council and its rituals secret, so misunderstandings have and do occur. The more paranoid of the antebellum conspiracy theorists worried that the Vatican had designs on taking over the government.
The second issue is not directly addressed in the novel but is an integral part of the public reaction and the falling-out of the burning of the Charleston, MA, Ursuline Convent on Mt. Benedict in 1834. Catholicism—more specifically, nuns and their convents—posed a threat to the American Protestant woman’s role in society, or true womanhood. Nuns chose to remain single, thereby rejecting the husband and children that defined the woman’s sphere, and had a remarkable amount of autonomy in the community for those times.
The documents below are gathered with the intent of helping a reader of “Six Months in a Convent” understand the text in the contexts of anti-Catholicism, true women, new women, nuns, and the riot. The materials are separated under category headings.
Anti-Catholicism:
1. Billington, Ray Allen. “Tentative Bibliography of Anti-Catholic Propaganda in the United States (1800-1860). The Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Jan., 1933), pp. 492-513. http://www.jstor.org
2. Hofstadter, Richard. “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.” Harper’s Magazine, November 1964, pp. 77-86. http://www.zbths.org/1653109815561217/lib/1653109815561217/_files/Richard_Hofstadter.pdf
Hofstadter examines the history of the paranoid, conspiracy-theorist form of politics from the 1700’s to the twentieth century in America, including the anti-Masonist movements as well as anti-Catholicism. Anti-Catholic conspiracies include Maria Monk’s escaped nun tale, the belief of a Catholic-Protestant holy war sanctioned by Rome, priestly spies, and that the Pope and Europe seek to take over the government. This essay is important because these paranoid ideas were still thriving well in the nineteenth-century.
3. Griffin, Susan M. Anti-Catholicism and Nineteenth-Century Fiction. New York: Cambridge UP, 2004.
Griffin examines the role and form of Anti-Catholicism in nineteenth-century literature, as a genre. This might help a reader understand SMiaC better in regards to the genre of the anti-Catholic “escaped nun” tale.
True Womanhood:
1. Welter, Barbara. “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860.” American Quarterly, 18.2 (Summer, 1966), pp. 151-174. http://www.jstor.org
Welter’s “Cult of True Womanhood” explains exactly what the roles of nineteenth-century women were, the virtues ideal women were expected to possess, and the rationale behind them.
2. Roberts, Mary Louise. “True Womanhood Revisited.” Journal of Women’s History, 14.1 (Spring 2002), pp. 150-156. Academic Search Premier. http://ezproxy.lib.ucf.edu/login?URL=http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.ucf.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=6479854&site=ehost-live
Robert’s responds to Welter’s “Cult of True Womanhood” for not having a strong enough analytic framework, and briefly looks at the transition from the ideal True Woman to the New Woman of the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century.
New Womanhood:
Todd, Ellen Wiley. The “New Woman” Revised: Painting and Gender Politics on Fourteenth Street.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. eScholarship Editions http://www.escholarship.org/editions/view?docId=ft9k4009m7;brand=eschol
This is an eBook that can be found freely over the web. The first chapter in particular will serve as a good outline for what exactly the New Woman is. After reading the essays on true womanhood, the scandal of SMiaC will become much clearer, as the inmates of the Ursuline Convent (including Reed herself) start to resemble more the New Woman than the True Woman.
Nuns:
http://www.CatholicNunsToday.org
A brief site about what exactly nuns and sisters are and do, the roles they fulfill in their communities, and a definition of their vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience. If I were editing a new edition of SMiaC, I would certainly make sure that the diverse roles of Catholic nuns and convents in the community were explained.
Charleston Convent:
"Burning of the Charlestown Convent," Boston Evening Transcript, 12 August, 1834.
http://www.yale.edu/glc/archive/949.htm
This site contains a transcript of the Boston Evening paper regarding the burning and fall-out of the burning of the Ursuline Convent in Charleston. The site is a part of the Yale “Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition.”If I were editing a new edition of SMiaC, I would definitely seek to include these papers.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
And the Hunt Continues
I'm not sure if I'll be using all the things that I've dug up--sources keep trickling in. One here, one there. I think I'm coming down with Academic Shiny Ball Syndrome/Kleptomania: "Oooh, that looks cool! *snatch*" Whether or not it may be useful, I grab it. 'Cause it's there, you know?
Anyway, here's a few more things that I have to wade through:
Billington, Ray Allen. “Tentative Bibliography of Anti-Catholic Propaganda in the United States (1800-1860). The Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Jan., 1933), pp. 492-513. http://www.jstor.org
~This was something of a welcome find--and check out the dates on this thing! Anti-Catholic Propaganda 1800-60 in the title and the bib. was published in 1933. This made me feel like I found something good. :-)
Cohen, Daniel A. “Alvah Kelley’s Cow: Household Feuds, Proprietary Rights, and the Charleston Convent Riot.” The New England Quarterly, Vol. 74, No. 4 (Dec., 2001), pp. 531-579. http://www.jstor.org
~ I love Cohen. This is the 3rd or 4th article of his that I've found.
Hillery Jr., George A. “The Convent: Community, Prison, or Task Force?” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Spring, 1969), pp. 140-151. http://www.jstor.org
Pagliarini, Marie Anne. “The Pure American Woman and the Wicked Catholic Priest: An Analysis of Anti-Catholic Literature in Antebellum America.” Religion and American Culture, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Winter, 1999), pp. 97-128. http://www.jstor.org
I'm still working on contextual sources. Certainly "The Cult of True Womanhood" is one. Also up for consideration is
1. "An Answer to Six Months in a Convent" the Catholic return-fire to Reed's narrative, and
2. "A Review of the lady Superior's reply to "Six Months in a Convent" being a vindication of Miss. Reed" by Mary Edmond St. George, Sister.
Getting a hold of these looks like a pipe-dream, (especially since they are often in microfiche) but at least we know they exist.
Anyway, here's a few more things that I have to wade through:
Billington, Ray Allen. “Tentative Bibliography of Anti-Catholic Propaganda in the United States (1800-1860). The Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Jan., 1933), pp. 492-513. http://www.jstor.org
~This was something of a welcome find--and check out the dates on this thing! Anti-Catholic Propaganda 1800-60 in the title and the bib. was published in 1933. This made me feel like I found something good. :-)
Cohen, Daniel A. “Alvah Kelley’s Cow: Household Feuds, Proprietary Rights, and the Charleston Convent Riot.” The New England Quarterly, Vol. 74, No. 4 (Dec., 2001), pp. 531-579. http://www.jstor.org
~ I love Cohen. This is the 3rd or 4th article of his that I've found.
Hillery Jr., George A. “The Convent: Community, Prison, or Task Force?” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Spring, 1969), pp. 140-151. http://www.jstor.org
Pagliarini, Marie Anne. “The Pure American Woman and the Wicked Catholic Priest: An Analysis of Anti-Catholic Literature in Antebellum America.” Religion and American Culture, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Winter, 1999), pp. 97-128. http://www.jstor.org
I'm still working on contextual sources. Certainly "The Cult of True Womanhood" is one. Also up for consideration is
1. "An Answer to Six Months in a Convent" the Catholic return-fire to Reed's narrative, and
2. "A Review of the lady Superior's reply to "Six Months in a Convent" being a vindication of Miss. Reed" by Mary Edmond St. George, Sister.
Getting a hold of these looks like a pipe-dream, (especially since they are often in microfiche) but at least we know they exist.
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