Widows and Orphans: Women's Education Beyond the Domestic Ideal

Abstract

While our modern assessment of the “cult of domesticity” prevalent in the early republic assumes that ideology frowned upon women engaging in activities outside the home, periodical literature on the subject of women's education shows that educational thought considered at least the possibility that a woman might need to earn wages in support of her family if her father or husband were unable or unwilling to provide. Popular educational thinking adopted the domestic ideal, and most articles published in magazines and journals focused on the need to educate girls to discharge their household and familial duties. But given a woman's precarious economic status, as well the speed at which she aged and lost her physical charms, educational thought accommodated the changing woman by insisting she develop both the character and skills she would require in old age and in adversity.