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6. “So Material a Change”: Revisiting Republican Motherhood
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139 Chapter 6 “So Material a Change” Revisiting Republican Motherhood In the eyes of her son-in-law Samuel B. How, Jane Bayard Kirkpatrick “came as near to perfection as any human being I ever knew.” Jane fulfilled her various roles “as daughter, sister, wife, mother, and mistress of a family” with “propriety and grace.” Samuel reserved particular praise for Jane’s intellectual attainments: “Her mind was naturally strong, and she had diligently cultivated and improved its powers. She was remarkable for the union of a lively imagination, with a solid judgment.” Through all stages of her life, “at all times,and in all places and company,she was the accomplished lady.” As the quintessential “accomplished lady,” Jane Bayard Kirkpatrick’s intellectual development did not end when she finished her education or on her marriage. Throughout her life, Jane “was incessantly engaged in some necessary or useful occupation.” As a wife and mother, she devoted her educational energies to raising her children and creating a warm circle of family sociability. Jane was also active in the work of benevolence, supporting a variety of educational and charitable endeavors in her home city of New Brunswick, New Jersey. As she engaged in these various activities , Jane found time for literary expression, either in her journal or, as her daughter recalled, by “committing to paper sketches of interesting events which came under her observation.”1 Samuel How’s admiring description suggests that Jane Bayard Kirkpatrick was an ideal “republican mother” who devoted her intellectual and 140 CHAPTER 6 moral energies toward her family and community. As Linda Kerber notes,the idiom of republican motherhood was an ideological response to the American Revolution that sought to constrain women within the domestic sphere. Historians have expanded and challenged Kerber’s model to include evidence of women’s participation in the vibrant political and print cultures of the era, reminding us that motherhood was one of many possible roles for early national women. Yet the intersections between the prescriptive models and women’s lived experiences as mothers remain relatively underexplored. How did women respond to the contradictory messages inherent in republican motherhood, which advocated advancements in women’s education while simultaneously promoting a prescribed sphere of domesticity?2 Was republican motherhood compatible with educated women’s search for mere equality? As we have seen, educated women approached their various personal and social relationships with a sense of optimism, confident in the egalitarian rhetoric of the era. Yet, for many women, the duties of motherhood tested their youthful claims to mere equality. Although determined to pursue lives marked by continued intellectual development, motherhood compelled educated women to confront the realities of difference. Their everyday experiences of family life—childrearing was mother’s work, whereas breadwinning was father’s work—often contrasted sharply with their visions of mere equality and shared experience. The experiences of Jane Bayard Kirkpatrick illustrate the key tensions that women experienced—as mothers and in their other social roles—as the early national experimentation with mere equality buttressed against the nineteenth-century rhetoric of difference and separate spheres. In her efforts to enact the role of an “accomplished lady” to perfection, Jane Kirkpatrick developed a model of womanhood increasingly shaped by difference. In both its rhetoric and practices, motherhood presented challenges to any woman seeking to live merely as the equals of man. “The Improvement of the Mind and Heart” A brief examination of Jane Bayard’s childhood and youth allows us to trace how early national notions of equality, education, and difference shaped her transition into marriage and motherhood. Jane Bayard was the eldest daughter of Martha Hodge Bayard and Colonel John Bayard,a successful merchant noted for his patriotism during the Revolutionary War.3 The Bayards made their home in Philadelphia and the surrounding Pennsylvania countryside. As a young girl, Jane received “the best education”available at the time. Her father employed a teacher for his children and several neighboring families. [34.204.196.206] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 23:04 GMT) “SO MATERIAL A CHANGE” 141 As Jane later recalled, “It was a great matter in those days of desolation to have such a resource.” Jane also studied “languages and music from private teachers in NewYork”while on an extended visit with relatives. Jane was an “an apt scholar, possessing unusual powers of mind, a quick perception, fine imagination, and a very retentive memory.”4 In 1788, when Jane was sixteen, John Bayard moved his family to New...