Conceiving the Future: Pronatalism, Reproduction, and the Family in the United States, 1890-1938

2. New Occasions Teach New Duties: Mary Elizabeth Lease’s Maternalist Agenda

2 NEW OCCASIONS TEACH NEW DUTIES MARY ELIZABETH LEASE’S MATERNALIST AGENDA There are no conditions in life, no questions, moral or political, no present or future, no ties, foreign or domestic, no issues, local or national, in which the mother is not equally interested with the father. Wichita Independent, 1888 18 New Occasions Teach New Duties In one of his few discussions of women and the political reforms of the Populist and Progressive Eras, historian Richard Hofstadter contrasted ideals of feminine beauty from 1860 and 1935. Where an 1860 farm journal satirized the refinement and a√ected beauty of the city girl, the 1935 Idaho Farmer advocated such beauty tips for farmer’s wives as manicured nails. Hofstadter thought that most farm women probably found such advice ludicrously out of place in a farm magazine, but he thought that the presence of such an ideal was significant. To mark that significance Hofstadter invoked Mary Elizabeth Lease, the most famous orator of the Populist Party—a woman who had had tremendous political influence. Hofstadter asked: ‘‘Would Mary Lease, who was accustomed to addressing weary audiences of farm women in faded calico dresses, turn over in her grave at the suggestion of rosy-tinted fingertips? I am not sure. What she wanted to win for the farmers and their families was more of the good things of life.’’ Indeed Hofstadter suggested that if Lease’s farmer’s rebellion had continued, farmer’s wives might become their opposite— embodiments of urban beauty.∞ Mary Lease did want to win things for farm families; economic reforms in particular topped her list. Suggesting that Lease would have embraced an ideal of urban beauty does not do justice to the Populist agenda that she advocated so forcefully. To the extent that she sought to transform women’s lives, it was with arguments for political equality and economic security. Like many women reformers, Lease was a maternalist and drew on her position as a mother to claim the moral authority to speak to issues that she thought bore on her family. Indeed, Lease’s success as a public figure depended not only on her incredible oratory skills, but also on her ability to connect the political and economic issues of Populism with issues that bore directly on women and the family. Emphasizing the farm family was a familiar tactic among the Farmer’s Alliances that preceded the Populist Party.≤ Within the Farmer’s Alliances of the 1880s, women were treated as political equals—once political issues impinged on the private sphere of the home, women were allowed and expected to speak to them.≥ At the same time, the Farmer’s Alliance supported a patriarchal model of the farm family where men were figured as economic and political decision makers. This tension between ‘‘the egalitarian political family’’ and ‘‘the patriarchal farm family’’ became more New Occasions Teach New Duties 19 significant as it became an important aspect of the Populist campaigns of the 1890s. As a political party, the Populists had to concentrate their e√orts on votes, and only men could vote.∂ While Populist e√orts in general emphasized male political agency and the patriarchal model of the farm family, Lease and other women populists continued to argue for the relevance of politics to women and the entire farm family. Lease did not reject the patriarchal model but did forcefully advocate women’s political agency and su√rage as part of her Populist agenda. From her position as a woman, Lease foregrounded the family and framed her advocacy of various issues in terms of their impact on women and children. Lease made the entire producer family relevant to Populists’ economic and political considerations at the same time that she legitimated her own role as a public figure. Both revered and reviled as the ‘‘Queen of the Populists,’’ the ‘‘Wichita Cyclone,’’ and the ‘‘Kansas Pythoness,’’ Mary ‘‘Yellin’ ’’ Lease is one of the most controversial figures in Populist historiography. Walter Nugent and O. Gene Clayton actually assign Lease the lion’s share of the blame for the Populist defeat in the election of 1896.∑ Mary Jo Wagner praises her ability to reach the people but questions the consistency of her political views.∏ Michael Goldberg’s contrast of Lease with another leading woman in Populism, Annie Diggs, portrays Lease as more masculine, more aggressive , and more mercurial.π While she may not have been...