The industrial and transportation revolutions of nineteenth-century America separated work from home (at least for the growing middle class) and intensified the development of masculine and feminine spheres devoted to success and domesticity, respectively. This development tended to reduce the husband’s traditional patriarchal roles to that of provider only, while leaving the wife and mother with enhanced authority over household management and child rearing, a development with consequences for feminism. This article examines two extreme cases of separation of work from home: absent husbands, respected professional men, who left their wives alone for months or years and, while they provided financial support, surrendered all household authority to ‘‘single’’ wives.
Benjamin Thomas , Abraham Lincoln (New York: Knopf, 1952), 94. Leaving Mary to contend with the household management and the children, Lincoln annually spent several months on the Eighth Circuit during both spring and fall terms. Going back to the colonial period such behavior had long been typical of lawyers. John Adams did much the same.
2.
Polyglot Bible, Personal copy, Family Register, n. p. Also see William Cothren, History of Ancient Woodbury, Connecticut (Waterbury, CT: Bronson, 1854), 597.
3.
Cothren, 773, 777; Sixth Census of the United States, 1840, National Archives and Records Administration, Litchfield County, CT, M704, Roll 25, p. 151, listed Elmore Judson with his wife and three children in Woodbury. Why he should have been in Coles County is perplexing as it was an area heavily settled by southerners and mid-westerners.
4.
Mary Ryan, Cradle of the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York, 1790-1865 (Cambridge University Press, 1981), 231; also see Jack Larkin, The Reshaping of Everyday Life, 1790-1840 (New York: Harpers, 1989), 204-31.
5.
Stephanie Coontz, Marriage: A History; How Love Conquered Marriage (New York : Penguin, 2005), 166.
6.
Coontz,162, 175; John Demos, The Changing Faces of Fatherhood,’’ in Past, Present and Personal: The Family and the Life Course in American History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), chap. 3. Demos discusses how ‘‘for the first time the central activity of fatherhood was sited outside one’s immediate household’’ and shrank the hitherto extensive paternal role to ‘‘father as provider’’ (52).
7.
Ryan, 192, 223. At any one time, 25 percent of women in Utica were either widows or spinsters.
8.
Coontz, 168-9.
9.
Ryan, 191.
10.
Coontz, 165; Nancy F. Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood: Woman’s Sphere in New England, 1780-1835 ( New Haven: Yale University Press1977), 9.
11.
Andrew W.Young, History of Chautauqua County, New York (Buffalo: Matthews and Warren , 1875), 486-7; Alvah Bradish, Memoir of Douglass Houghton (Detroit: Raynor & Taylor, 1889), 1-8. The village of Fredonia, located two miles south of Dunkirk, is technically part of the Town of Pomfret.
12.
Fredonia Academy, 1826-1837, Directory of Students, Typescript, Historical Museum of the Darwin R. Barker Library, Collections, Fredonia, New York.
13.
Bradish, Memoir , 9, 10, 21-23, 45; [Bela Hubbard], ‘‘A Memoir of Douglass Houghton,’’American Journal of Science and Arts, 5 (May 1848), 224, 217.
14.
For the early history of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute see, www.rpi.edu/about/history/html.
15.
Bradish, Memoir, 10, 13, 15. Bradish failed to mention that Benjamin Silliman, probably the nation’s leading scientist, was then teaching at Yale College.
16.
Hubbard, 218; Bradish, Memoir, 13-4; Helen Wallin, ‘‘Michigan’s First State Geologist, 1837-1845,’’ Pamphlet 1, Michigan Geological Survey (Lansing: Michigan Department of Natural Resources, 2004), 6.
17.
Hubbard, 218; Bradish, Memoir, 16-17, 15; Young, Chautauqua, 487, says Houghton studied with Dr. Walworth, another local physician. He probably studied with both.
18.
Bradish, Memoir, 17; Douglass Houghton to Richard Houghton, June 15, 1831, and Houghton to Henry Schoolcraft, April 3, 1832, in Schoolcraft’s Expedition to Lake Itasca, ed. Philip P. Mason (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1958), 287-90, 295-6. For Houghton’s full account, see Appendix D in Mason, 242-86.
19.
Hubbard, 218; Bradish, Memoir, 18, 38, 41.
20.
Bradish, Memoir, 20; Silas Farmer, History of Detroit and Michigan (Detroit: Farmer, 1884),710-1; Julius MacCabe, Directory of the City of Detroit and its Environs for the Year 1837 (Detroit: Hausha, 1837), 32-3, 93.
21.
Fredonia Censor, September 18, 1833; Eighth United States Federal Census, 1860, M653_563; Page 0, image 786 lists Harriet as age 50 and living in Ypsilanti, MI with her second husband Ransom Richards, her two daughters, a male ward, and an Irish servant. Harriet does not appear in the 1870 census.
22.
Bradish, Memoir, 18, 11, 49; Farmer, History, 48-51; Hubbard, 219; Larkin, 84-5. The Asiatic cholera epidemic arrived in the United States in 1832. Cities were especially hard hit.
23.
Farmer, 839; Detroit City Directory for 1837, 33; Bradish, Memoir, maintains Houghton was ‘‘absolutely temperate’’ (55).
24.
Bradish, Memoir, 20; Wallin, 8.
25.
Sarah Russell to Thomas Russell, January 16, 1845, quoted in Demos, 54; Bradish, Memoir, 24.
26.
Douglass Houghton to Jacob Houghton, December 20, 1834, April 2, 1836, in Bradish, Memoir, 121-3, 125-6; also see Jacob Houghton to Douglass Houghton, February 21, 1836, Manuscript Collections, Barker Historical Museum. The letter discusses the opportunities for land purchases in and around Fredonia.
27.
George N. Fuller, ed., Geological Reports of Douglass Houghton: First State Geologist of Michigan, 1837-1845 (Lansing: Michigan Historical Commission, 1928); Lawton T. Hemans, Life and Times of Stevens Thomson Mason: The Boy Governor of Michigan (Lansing: Michigan Historical Commission, 1920), 258.
28.
Hubbard, 221. Hubbard, who called himself a ‘‘practical surveyor’’ and a ‘‘student of mineralogy and geology’’ was Houghton’s right hand man on most of the expeditions. James L. Carter and Ernest H. Rankin, eds., North to Lake Superior: The Journal of Charles W. Penny, 1840 (Marquette, MI: Longyear Library, 1970), 42, 60. Houghton invited Penny, to join the expedition as a ‘‘supernumerary.’’ He was also an Episcopalian and with Houghton a founder of the Temperance Society. For additional description of the surveys, see Bradish, Memoir, 30-8.
29.
Penny Journal, 11, 34, 47-8, 14-5. For a contemporary parallel to their behavior, see Kathryn Ann Farr, ‘‘Dominance Bonding through the Good Old Boys Sociability Group,’’ Sex Roles 18, nos. 5-6 (March 1988): 259-77; According to Farr, ‘‘Members of GOBS groups share successful class and gender histories, and plan and engage in events that reflect dimensions of masculine play learned in boyhood’’ (259).
30.
Hubbard, 224; Bradish, Memoir, 35-6. According to Bradish Houghton was off ‘‘in the woods’’ when he was elected mayor (51). Not only did Houghton suffer health problems including severe rheumatism from these repeated expeditions, he even spent some of his own money when state appropriations fell short. See Penny Journal, Introduction, xxiii.
31.
Hubbard, 223; Bradish, Memoir, 38; Wallin, 11; J. Fairbairn Smith, Michigan Masonic Tracing Board, 1764-1976-A Panorama of Masonic History (Detroit,1976), 31.
32.
This organization founded in Philadelphia on April 2, 1840, was the root organization for the current American Association for the Advancement of Science. See Edward H. Kraus, ‘‘The Future of Mineralogy in America,’’ American Mineralogist 6 (1921): 23-34.
33.
Hubbard, 223, 226.
34.
Bradish, Memoir, 65-6; Obituary in American Journal of Science and Arts 1, 2nd series (May 1846), 150-2.
35.
Democratic Free Press, May 15, 1846; Wallin, 13.
36.
Daniel J. Boorstin, The Americans: The National Experience (New York: Random, 1965), 113-61. Boorstin emphasizes the significant role of boosters for the growth of western cities.
37.
Hubbard, 224.
38.
Fredonia Censor, October 30, 1849. According to the 1860 Federal Census Harriet owned $11,000 of real property and each daughter owned the same. Ransom owned $11,500 of realty and $1500 personal property. See note 21.
39.
Mason, ed., Expedition, Appendix D, 242-305.
40.
Fredonia Academy Directory, typescript, Barker Historical Museum .
41.
Lydia Houghton to Mercy Mellen, April 21, 1833, Smith-Mellen Family Correspondence, Old Sturbridge Village Research Library Archives, Sturbridge, MA; Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York: HarperCollins, 2006) writes, ‘‘In America woman loses her independence in the bonds of matrimony. While there is less constraint on girls there than anywhere else, a wife submits to stricter obligations. For the former her father’s home is a home of freedom and pleasure; for the latter her husband’s is almost a cloister . . .. A girl’s amusements cannot become the recreation of the wife, and that for a married woman the springs of happiness are inside the home’’ [italics added] (592-3).
42.
Houghton to Mellen, May 16, 1833.
43.
Nancy F.Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1977), 32.
44.
Houghton to Mellen, October 8, 1833.
45.
Houghton to Mellen, January 23-27, 1834
46.
Houghton to Mellen, March 3, 1834.
47.
Houghton to Mellen, January 3, 1835.
48.
Ibid.
49.
‘‘Alvah Bradish,’’ Detroit News, April 20, 1901; ‘‘Alvah Bradish,’’ Detroit Free Press, April 20, 1901; Arthur H. Gibson, Artists of Early Michigan (Detroit: Wayne State, 1975), 59-60; Peter H. Falk, eds., Who Was Who in American Art, 1564-1975, vol. 1 (Sound View Press, 1999), 414; Nicholas Streneck, ‘‘Art, Medicine and the University of Michigan,’’ Retrospectives 2 (Fall 1993):1. For a listing of 111 catalogued Bradish portraits, see the Smithsonian Institution Web site at http://siris-si.edu/
50.
Ibid. The most complete treatment of Bradish and his peregrinations is Douglas Shepard, Alvah Bradish: Artist on the Move, Unpublished Manuscript, Barker Historical Museum.
51.
Lydia Houghton to Jacob Houghton, Jr., June 15, 1836, Houghton Manuscripts, Barker Historical Museum.
52.
Church Records from Trinity Episcopal Church, copy, Barker Historical Museum.
53.
Smithsonian Art Inventories list the portrait of the Judge as painted in 1840. The portraits of Judge and Mrs. Houghton are displayed in the Special Collections Room, Daniel A. Reed Library, SUNY Fredonia; Sixth U.S. Federal Census, 1840, National Archives, Roll 272, p. 226.
54.
Canfield and Warren’s Directory of the City of Rochester for 1845-46, 40.
55.
Fredonia Censor, August 16, 1843.
56.
[Lydia Houghton], Diary of a Lady, Typescript, Barker Historical Museum, July 5, 1844.
57.
Diary, July 10, 1844.
58.
Diary, July 5, 1844.
59.
Diary, July 5, 1844, July 10, 1844.
60.
Diary, 14-19, 3 September-30 September 1844.
61.
To secure the loan the entire family executed a deed conveying Houghton Common land to Alvah Bradish. Dated November 11, 1851, the deed was in effect a lien. If the $849 were repaid to Bradish, it would not be recorded. The deed was recorded on August 13, 1861, after Judge Houghton died. A copy is at the Barker Historical Museum.
62.
1860 Federal Census, New York, Chautauqua County, Pomfret, Roll M653_731, 502, image 508.
63.
Fredonia Censor, February 24, 1851, reprinted from the Detroit Daily Advertiser; Sterneck, ‘‘Art, Medicine,’’ 1.
64.
Fredonia Censor, September 19, 1853. The paper stated that Bradish was off for Detroit ‘‘where he proposes to stay throughout the winter.’’
65.
Alvah Bradish, Remarks on the Fine Arts Department in the University of Michigan including the ‘‘Memorial’’ Document attached to the Board of Regents (Ann Arbor, 1868), 19-32; Charles R. Morey, ‘‘The Fine Arts in Higher Education,’’ College Art Journal 3, no. 1 (November 1943), 2-10.
66.
Fredonia Censor, April 1, 1868, reprint from the Chicago Republican that Alvah Bradish was a ‘‘newcomer from Buffalo who has taken a beautiful studio on the corner of Washington Street and Wabash.’’ For the Chicago art scene see William H. Gerdts, ‘‘Chicago is Rushing Past Everything: The Rise of Art Journalism in the Midwest,’’ American Art Journal 27, no. 1/2 (1995-1996), 38-83.
67.
Fredonia Censor, June 26, 1868; E. J. Goodspeed, History of the Great Fires in Chicago and the West, (New York: Goodspeed, 1871), 278-79; Putnam’s Monthly Magazine, ‘‘Table Talk’’ 12, no. 7 (July 1868): 124-5.
68.
1870 Federal Census, New York, Chautauqua County, Pomfret (Fredonia) NY, Roll M593_913, p. 566, image 332.
69.
1870 Federal Census, Illinois, Cook County, 1st Ward of Chicago, Roll M593_198, p. 40, image 81. The census lists Thomas W. Mizer merely as a resident at the same location as Bradish.
70.
John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (New York: Harper and Row, 1988), 121-4.
71.
E.J. Goodspeed , History of the Fires of Chicago and the West (New York: Goodspeed, 1871), 278-89, reprints Bradish’s letter to the editor of the Chicago Tribune.
72.
Chicago Tribune , October 17, 1871; Gerdts, ‘‘Chicago ,’’77.
73.
Fredonia Censor , September 18, 1872. The portrait of Lydia is at the Barker Historical Museum.
74.
1875 New York State Census, Chautauqua County, vol. 2, Town of Pomfret, 721; Fredonia Censor, November 6, 1878.
75.
Farmer, 359. In 1884, Silas Farmer, Detroit city historian, wrote that Bradish had come to town ‘‘in 1837[sic] and at intervals since has resided here.’’ His name ‘‘is familiar to the older citizens.’’
76.
The Smithsonian Web site lists eleven portraits of Houghton http://www.siris.si.edu/. One was lost in the Chicago fire.
77.
Bradish, Memoir, 75.
78.
Bradish, Memoir, v, 46; The legislature purchased the portrait and it now hangs in the State Capitol in Lansing; Coontz, 185, notes Victorian male friendships ‘‘included much more physical contact and emotional intensity than most heterosexual men are comfortable with today’’ (185). D’Emilio and Freedman discuss the ‘‘middle class arena of romantic friendships’’ and the general acceptance of expressions of ‘‘affectionate desire’’ into the 1880s (121).
79.
Bradish, Memoir, 9.
80.
Fredonia Censor, June 12, 1895.
81.
Detroit Free Press, April 20, 1901. Forest Lawn Cemetery Burial Register, copy, Barker Historical Museum. Bradish was buried in Section C, Lot 10 (p. 81), Lydia in Section C, Lot 103 (p. 103).
82.
Fredonia Censor, November 2, 1881, December 3, 1884, December 7, 1898.
83.
Fredonia Censor, November 20, 1901, May 14, 1902.
84.
Diary, September 30, 1844.
85.
William H. Gerdts, Art Across America: Two Centuries of Regional Painting, 2nd ed. (New York: Abbeville Press, 1990),231.
86.
Diary, September 27, 1844.
87.
Margaret B. Macmillan,The Methodist Church in Michigan: The Nineteenth Century (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans),1967, 130-7, 152, 175. Fredonia Censor, November 13, 1849. The marriage was in Detroit.
88.
(Fredonia) Woman’s Christian Temperance Union Charter, Barker Historical Museum. The Web site of the WCTU identifies the Fredonia organization as the first to use that name, www.wctu.com/crusades.html. Nancy Cott has observed that the ideology of American feminism, rather than emerging independently, historically ‘‘depended on’’ domesticity rather than the two concepts being ‘‘functionally and abstractly’’ contradictory, Cott, 9.
