'Female instruction and improvement': Education for women in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia, 1785-1835.

摘要

This study examines the development of women's education in the Upper South in the early national period. Its purpose is to study changes in women's education, the factors causing these changes, the ways in which women used their education, and the impact that educated women had on society in the Upper South.;This dissertation focuses on the education of black and white women in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia during the period 1785 through 1835. It relies for evidence upon newspaper advertisements, school circulars, published advice books and textbooks, and manuscript letters and diaries.;This study illustrates that the culture and the education structure that developed in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia in the early national period differed in important ways from those of the North and of the Lower South. The Upper South was more urbanized than the Lower South, and began to develop both a white middle class and a free black middle class early in the nineteenth century. Unlike the northern states, however, the social and economic systems of the Chesapeake region remained rooted in slavery. The combination of these characteristics resulted in the development of new ideas about women's roles, and the formation of distinctive educational systems that reflected regional ideals. Thus, neither the education of the southern belle nor the training of the Yankee school marm adequately explains the experiences of young women living in the Upper South.;The dissertation concludes that, although the education available to young women in the Upper South varied by race and by class, women actively sought improved education because they desired increased knowledge, hoped to improve the intellectual quality of their lives, and realized that education would better allow them to control their lives and make intelligent decisions about marriage, motherhood, and even employment. Women used their education to acquire paid jobs, to engage in benevolent work, and to lay a foundation for future learning. Through relationships established at school, in organized benevolent activities, and in reading groups, young women in the Upper South began to create female networks in the early national period.