Benevolent America: Rural women, physical recreation, sport and health reform in ante-bellum New England

Abstract

In mid-nineteenth century New England, rural reformers, consisting of middle and upper class reformers sympathetic to farm women's harsh physical condition, women farm journalists, and farm women themselves, sought to alleviate the plight of women on the farm and the gender strain they faced by amending their heavy work load in farm life. In the gendered viewpoints of rural reform, women desired to alter the conditions linked to their poor health and to renovate their physical fitness on the farm. Farm women perceived that voluntary physical activity of wholesome outdoor sport could replenish women's robust health, while required physical activity of laborious domestic chores depleted it. By walking, horseback riding, cultivating fruits and flowers, swimming, and pursuing winter sports like ice skating, the farm woman could renovate her health. This primary research on antebellum rural women's health reform and sporting activities analyzes the farm press, diaries and letters, and material culture. The historical study of antebellum rural women, often neglected by sport and health historians, explores social changes rural women promoted that enhanced their physical well-being and power in the farm family.