Domestic Broils: Shakers, Antebellum Marriage, and the Narratives of Mary and Joseph Dyer

Preface

PrefAce i first worked with mary marshall Dyer’s story as a graduate student in american and new england studies at Boston university. seeking a paper topic for a course on women and nineteenth-century law and at the behest of my husband, a rare book dealer, i began to read and to take seriously the published works of a woman whose fifty-year campaign against the shakers most other historians had taken as evidence of mental instability. instead of the ranting of a frenzied and insane mind, i saw a desperate, and charismatic, woman. i encountered a woman who found herself socially and legally invisible and whose preaching aspirations were fulfilled, ironically, not by preaching for a faith but rather by speaking against one. as my research into what became my dissertation and later, a biography, deepened, i discovered an intelligent and tenacious woman who was the very linchpin of a loose, but nonetheless organized , anti-shaker movement. this collection presents mary Dyer’s first published work, A Brief Statement of the Sufferings of Mary Dyer (1818) and the response of her husband, Joseph, who published A Compendious Narrative in 1819. publishers , responding to a frenzy of interest in this private domestic dispute made public, urged customers to “read Both sides!” indeed they did. reading these two works together presents a unique opportunity to examine one marriage, one family, and one experience with the shakers from two different perspectives. touching on issues of the rights and responsibilities of spouses to one another and of parents to their children, the role of print in the new nation, and the limits of religious toleration, the Dyers’ texts have relevance two hundred years later, as we continue to debate the “proper” and “best” american family, the credibility of the media, and the presence of alternative religious and secular groups.¬ xi ¬ the introduction provides background on shakerism and anti-shakerism , popular print genres of the day, and divorce practices in the early nineteenth century. the endnotes point the reader to additional sources in these areas. A Brief Statement, a thirty-five page pamphlet, was published first in concord, new hampshire, and then, as the Dyer debate gained widespread public attention, shortly thereafter in a nearly identical edition in Boston.1 mary Dyer’s original text is transcribed here from the 1818 Boston edition. Joseph Dyer’s A Compendious Narrative, an eighty-eight-page pamphlet, was written in 1818, but illness in the printer ’s family delayed publication until february of 1819. many surviving copies of Joseph’s text indicate (erroneously) 1818 as the date of publication . for chronological clarity, in my discussion of this work i refer to the publication date as 1819.2 in both cases i have retained the grammar , spelling, and punctuation of the original, except in cases where nineteenth-century punctuation or spelling obscures the meaning, and to correct obvious typographical errors. an earlier version of the introduction was presented at the new england historical association meeting in the fall of 2002 and at the 2004 annual meeting of the organization of american historians. fellow panelists candace kanes, mary Beth sievens, and lisa Wilson provided helpful comments and insights from their own work on marital troubles. i’m very grateful for the assistance of Beth rose gould, who typed the text of A Brief Statement, cacie miller Willhoft, who labored with Joseph’s Compendious Narrative, and camille smalley, who proofread and formatted the entire manuscript. christian goodwillie, mary ann haagen, and scott De Wolfe continue to keep me well supplied with fugitive references to mary Dyer and her much-discussed activities. mary marshall Dyer spent the majority of her life fighting for what she called “the just rights of women.” she took particular care in shaping her argument to gain sympathy from women and action from men. that today her words are being read by a new generation of readers—including women who preach, divorce, live as single mothers, undertake careers, and participate in the crafting and passage of laws—would no doubt give her a great deal of pleasure. preface xii ¬ Domestic Broils¬ ...