THE DIARY OF ANNE SUSAN JUMPER, REVELATIONS OF A RURAL WOMAN 1844-1846 A PROJECT SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN NEW ENGLAND STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN MAINE, NEW ENGLAND STUDIES DEPARTMENT BY MONA ANN ERVIN 1992 FINAL APPROVAL FORM THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN MAINE NEW ENGLAND STUDIES 19- We hereby recommend that the project of Mona Ann Ervin entitled "The Diary of Anne Susan Jumper, Revelations of a Rural Woman, 1844 - 1846" be accepted as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. Advisor Reader Accepted: Dean, College of Arts and Sciences iii Acknowledgments In the course of working on this project I became indebted to many people. On the local level I wish to thank Robert Taylor, Executive Secretary of the Androscoggin Historical Society, for allowing me fire reign of Society materials and assistance in genealogical research. I thank Cheryl Logan for introducing me to Marge Downing and Frank Downing. They provided information on the history of Minot along with numerous pictures, maps, and access to other contacts in Minot. In particular, I owe a great debt of gratitude to Marge Downing for the use of her marvelous scrapbooks, the many anecdotes, uncounted cups of coffee, and tours of Minot. On the academic level, I wish to express my sincere appreciation to Ardis Cameron and Joseph Conforti for their valuable suggestions for this manuscript in its various stages of composition. Without their encouragement this project would not have come to fruition. On a personal level, I wish to thank my son Joseph Ervin and daughter-in-law Nanae Ervin for technical assistance in completion of this project, also Bill Reilly, Dick Brouillette, and especially Dave Bowie. I thank my son Timothy Ervin for occasionally putting up with cold meals, left overs, pizza money, and an absentee mother while I pursued this project. Finally, words cannot acknowledge the constant support, encouragement, and love that I received from my husband Jim Ervin. Never one to stand in the way of my goals, he has been my rock and my strength, my constant source of support. Auburn, Maine, April 1992 Mona Ervin Preface In the fall of 1989, 1 started my graduate work in the New England Studies Program at the University of Southern Maine. Almost from the beginning the professors discussed thesis/project options. With each reading assignment, new questions and avenues of investigation arose as thesis/project possibilities. The range of topics for additional research was endless. However, I could not decide upon a topic until I read the compelling 1990 work, A Midwife's Tale. The Life of Martha Ballard Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812, by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. I was thoroughly fascinated by this intimate look into the life of Martha Ballard. As I began to consider editing a diary for my thesis, Professor Joseph Conforti encouraged me to read similar published works. -The Journal of Esther Edwards B by Carol Karlsen and Laurie Crumpacker and Religion and Domestic Violence in Early New England. the Memoirs of Abigail Abbot Bailey by Ann Taves confirmed my interest in women's diaries. With the knowledge that I wanted to work with a diary, I visited the Androscoggin County Historical Society in Auburn, Maine. Much to my surprise and delight, the society had several diaries in its collection, some dating back to the early eighteenth century. After a careful examination of the available diaries, I made a selection. Based upon length, condition, gender, and time period covered, I chose to work with the diary of Anne Susan Jumper of Minot, Maine. I transcribed Anne Susan's diary, which was hand written in two volumes between 1844 - 1846. Along with the transcription I have included an introduction and annotations. Two themes emerge from Anne Susan's diary - - religion and sisterhood. She maintained a deep faith in Congregationalism and valued her many female relationships, particularly one with her friend Clarissa Marie Jones. v These two themes intertwine throughout the diary. As religion and these so-called "homosocial" I relations were of importance to Anne Susan, I have included, in the introduction, a brief discussion of these themes as they applied to women in the nineteenth century. A grasp of these will enable the reader to better understand and appreciate Anne Susan's life. Furthermore this allows for a contextualized approach to the study of women in the nineteenth century. Throughout much of her life, Anne Susan used her pen to define her feelings, thoughts, and emotions as well as record daily occurrences. The Androscoggin County Historical Society has two volumes of her original poetry that date from 1843. In 1841 she began keeping a diary. However, only two volumes remain, dating from May, 1844, to May, 1846. Additionally, her husband, Oliver, kept a diary in which he wrote intermittently from January 1, 1850, to 1859. Some years he recorded only one entry. On January 7, 1861, Anne Susan began to record entries in his diary. The last recorded entry is in November, 1869. VI Table of Contents 1. Final Approval Form iii 2. Acknowledgements iv 3. Preface vi 4. Table of Contents ix 5. Introduction "The Crown of New England" 1 "There, My Name is Jumper" 7 "I Ought to Receive Chastisements" 15 "Who Could Not Love Such a Model" 22 6. Conclusion 38 7. Text of the Diary 41 8. Appendices A Population Change in Minot, 1800 - 1850 124 B Town of Minot, Maine 125 C July 4,1845 Walk to Mt. Hijah 126 D October 24, 1845 Walk to Uncle John's127 E Sample Diary Page, Anne Susan Jumper 128 F Sample Poetry Page, Anne Susan Jumper129 G Sample Diary Page, Oliver H. Brown 130 H Nicholas Jumper, Teacher, Medical Studies 131 1 Account Book of Dr. Nicholas Jumper - 1816 132 J Poem to Clara 133 9. End Notes 134 10. References 142 vii Introduction "The Crown of New England..." We have met on this occasion To commemorate the Town 'Mat we love and know as Minot That's raised men of great renown, And it spreads its scenic Mantle O'er its hills of rocks and rills, On its homes, its schools, and churches Thus today our hearts are thrilled.2 (Pulsifer, "Our Heritage") The above lines, part of a poem celebrating the 150th anniversary of the founding of Minot depicts a town steeped in New England tradition. In its entirety, the poem is a tribute to the staunch sons and daughters of Minot who tamed a rugged frontier and established homes, churches, and schools. The true story of Minot is one that is fascinating yet not atypical of frontier communities founded after the American Revolution. The area of land presently known as Minot was part of the Massachusetts General Court's Bakerstown Grant of 1765. This was the second Bakerstown Grant. The first one was voided in 1741. This second grant was made to the proprietors of the "township last'"-3 as the original grant was designated. The second Bakerstown grant included large parts of the present day towns of Poland, Mechanic Falls, and Auburn, along with Minot. The original survey of the area contained several errors that led to overlapping claims of the Bakerstown and Pejepscot Grants. This resulted in a lengthy period of litigation that was resolved by the Supreme Judicial Court at Portland on June 10, 1792.4 Not long after, in 1795, Bakerstown was incorporated as Poland. In spite of the difficulty in securing titles to the land, caused by the surveying error, settlers moved into the area. The present-day Minot section of Bakerstown attracted many settlers. It had no high elevations, was dotted with many gentle hills, and contained rich soil for farming. Water power was generated from the waters of the Little Androscoggin River as it wound its way through Minot. The first settlement in what is now Minot began in 1712, when Moses Emery arrived. Moses settled along the Little Androscoggin in a section now known as Minot Comer. There he operated a ferry, a saw mill, and a grist mill. Minot Comer quickly became a central business location, home to among others, a tannery, saddler's shop, blacksmith shop, and general store. Over the years the area has been known as Emery's Mill, Payne's Mill, Dunn's Mill, Grovesnor's Comer, and Minot Comer. At one time it was the largest settled area on the Little Androscoggin River and was often referred to as "The City" -5 by the residents. Three miles away from the river, another section of Minot known as Minot Center was attracting settlers, but for different reasons. This was the soil-rich farming area. The first settler in this vicinity was Samuel Shaw who arrived in 1776. As word of the fertile soil spread, settlers came quickly. Most of the new settlers came from areas in Massachusetts such as Cape Ann, Duxbury, Abington, 2 and Halifax. The third section of Minot is known as West Minot. A grist mill was operational there after 1790. A 22 foot drop on Bog Brook made this an excellent area to generate water power. Numerous enterprises flourished in this part of Minot. Over the years, the boundaries of Minot have been significantly altered. On February 18, 1802, Minot was set off from Poland and incorporated as a separate town, the one hundred and twenty-ninth in Maine. The residents had chosen Raymouth as the town name. However, Minot was the name that appeared on the Bill of Incorporation. This name was chosen by the town agent, Dr. Jesse Rice, in honor of Judge George Richards Minot, a member of the General Court who helped to secure passage of the Bill of Incorporation. On February 24, 1842, Minot was reduced in size when a portion of it was included in the newly -incorporated town of Auburn. Minot was again reduced in 1893 when a portion of it and Poland were combined to create the town of Mechanic Falls. In its early years, Minot grew rapidly. By 1790 the three sections were connected to one another by roads. A road also connected Minot with the coastal area of Portland. The census of 1820 recorded 2,525 residents of Minot. By 1850 that number had dropped due to the incorporation of Auburn. Statistics of the nineteenth-century include Mechanic Falls, so they do not accurately reflect the area of Minot, but they do show a degree of prosperity in the area. In 1835 there 3 were twenty schools, some of which were located in private homes. The town also boasted six grist mills, three tanneries, nine saw mills, several churches representing five denominations, four post-offices, and various other businesses. -6 With the coming of industrialization after the Civil War, Minot began to decline in population and importance. The rapidly growing communities to the northwest of Auburn and Lewiston attracted people from the surrounding rural areas such as Minot. One by one the small mills and other establishments closed as business waned. This pattern of expansion and decline in Minot was replicated nationwide in the antebellum period. Studies by Mary Ryan in Oneida County, New York and Hal Barron in Chelsea, Orange County, Vermont indicate I that many frontier communities experienced expansion and contraction as commercialism forced communities to deal with the realities of market fluctuations. Additionally, rural communities had to compete against towns that were developing along rapidly flowing waterways that were more suitable to new large scale industrialization. In the early years of its history, several issues generated controversy in Minot. One area of frequent discussion and argument was temperance. Generally intemperance was viewed by men during the era of emerging commercialism, in the early nineteenth- century, as a vehicle for downward mobility. In search of respectability, economic security, and social status, businessmen and workers shied away from liquor and advocated temperance. Women who were the recipients of violence committed by men while under the influence of liquor also strongly supported temperance. One argument used by opponents of temperance in Minot was that "plenty of good cider throughout the cold months was good for the liver, heart, muscles, and sluggish blood. " -7 In spite of this logic, the town selectmen were instructed on March 7, 1845 to refuse to "liscense [sic] any 4 persons to sell spirituous liquors except for medical and mechanical purposes.,, 8 Minot thus became a temperance town. In all probability this was the result of the efforts of the Reverend Elijah Jones the pastor of the Center Minot Congregational Church and one of the more influential members of the community. In 1846, one year after Minot refused to license the sale of liquor, the state legislature passed a similar law banning the sale of whiskey and other hard liquors except for medical purposes. Maine became the first state to do so. A second issue of controversy centered around the separation of the District of Maine from Massachusetts. Ibis politically charged issue involved Federalists against Democratic-Republicans and Congregationalists against religious dissenters. According to Stephen Marini, Federalists generally aligned themselves in a traditional power relationship with Congregation- alists. Democratic -Republicans found support among independent subsistence farmers who either worshiped in dissenting churches or did not worship at all. 'Me population of Minot reflected religious diversity by the time of statehood. Methodists and Baptists co-existed in the community with the Congregationalists and by 1827 a Universalist Society had been established. Marini feels that religious diversity carried over into political dissent. When the voters of Minot decided on the issue of separation from Massachusetts on July 26, 1819 the vote was 100 to 95 in favor of separation. If we are to accept Marini's thesis of religious and political dissenters operating hand-in-hand, this vote would indicate growing dissatisfaction with the Congregationalist establishment and the Federalist elite. 9 Another issue of great controversy involved the division of the Center Minot Congregational Church. The history of Congregationalism in Minot is long and colorful. By 1805 the town contained two rival Congregational Churches. One 5 was the East Meeting House (now West Auburn), whose minister was the Reverend Jonathan Scott of Nova Scotia. Ile other was the West Meeting House at Minot Center. The minister of this church from February 1811 to August 1819 was the Reverend William Pidgin. Reverend Scott died in 1819 at age seventy -five. He had preached for fifty-one years, twenty-six of them in Minot. In the same year of Scott's death, the Center Meeting House dismissed Mr. Pidgin. At this point the two churches became one and extended a call. to Reverend Elijah Jones, a graduate of the Theological Seminary at Bangor, to be pastor. He preached alternately in the East and Center Meeting Houses until May, 1844, at which time the two churches were once again separated. Throughout the 1840's, the members who worshiped at the East Meeting Hous requested separation. Church records indicate sometimes heated and bitter discussions over this issue. In May, 1844, two years after Auburn was set off from Minot, the new church was organized as the West Auburn Congregational Church, taking eighty-six members and leaving one hundred and sixty-three. Church records of the May 6, 1844, meeting read as follows,: "Church in Minot met in the meeting house. A very peaceful meeting such as in former times, the contentious members having been incorporated into the other church." 10 At the time of separation in 1844, members of the Minot Center Church considered it larger than necessary, improperly heated, and in need of repairs. Th members voted to demolish it and rebuild it on a smaller scale in the same locatio Demolition began on June 1, 1846. The church was carefully dismantled and the lumber re-used when suitable. The new church was dedicated on November 25, 1846. Mr. Jones preached until his death in 1869, the second and last resident pastor. This was the community where Anne Susan Jumper lived. It was a bustling, I growing community that experienced rapid change in its first fifty years. Like other frontier communities that brought together people of diverse religions, politics, social ideas, and occupations the diversity stimulated social tensions. In spite of the tensions it was a good place to live and raise a family. Religion was an important part of people's lives, even though controversial at times. Judging by the number of schools, education was valued by the residents. There were numerous economic opportunities for the hard working, ambitious person. The soil was fertile. Business ventures were encouraged by the availability of water power from the Little Androscoggin River and Bog Brook. Minot was connected to Portland by roads which allowed for the transportation of the products of this rural community. Conversely, products from afar made their was to Minot. In the 1840's Minot was a place to grow and mature. "There, my name is Jumper!"11 Originally Dutch, the first Jumper emigrated to the American colonies in the early eighteenth century. According to family lore, passengers on board the ship that transported the new immigrants agreed to change their name upon arrival in their new homeland. Anne Susan's great, great grandfather jumped from the vessel, explaining as he did, "There, my name is Jumper!" This first Jumper settled in Massachusetts on Cape Ann. Around 1778, a descendant, Edward Jumper moved to what is now Minot, then Bakerstown in the District of Maine. He settled on what is known locally as the Rice Place in Center Minot and married Elizabeth Noyes, daughter of Simon Noyes, a prominent man in the area. Edward died in 1791, leaving a wife and seven children. Tragically, Elizabeth died three years later leaving the children orphaned. The family was 7 broken up and scattered. John and Nicholas, twins, were taken in and raised by Mr. True Woodman of Minot. Very little is known about the childhood of Nicholas Jumper, the father of Anne Susan. What is known about him comes at a later time in his life, from the records of the Center Minot Congregational Church and town records. Nicholas was active in the Congregational church between 1818 and 1826, in spite of having been raised by True Woodman, who was Methodist. True had been among the first to subscribe to the Covenant of the Congregational Church in September 1791, but he left the Church by 1796 or 1797. He was "censured for breach of covenant in forsaking the Church and Ordinances of God in the Church." 12 According to church records, True "turned Methodist!" 13 John, Nicholas's twin brother, chose to subscribe to Methodism, while Nicholas followed Congregationalism. This raises the issue of whether sibling rivalry was at work, whether one brother was rebelling against his upbringing, or whether this was the result of conviction. In December of 1807, one month shy of his twenty-first birthday, Nicholas began teaching school in Minot. He continued to do this until November 30, 1811, at which time he began an apprenticeship in the study of medicine with Dr. Chandler of Minot. Due to limited financial resources, he remained with Dr. Chandler for just one week. He returned to teaching in order to earn money to continue to pursue his studies. By 1816 Nicholas had a medical practice in Minot and was referred to as Dr. Jumper. 14 The extremely limited medical education that Nicholas had was not untypical of American medical training in the eighteenth and nineteenth-century. American medical schools were few in number and they served primarily to supplement the training a young man received while apprenticed to a successful practitioner. The 8 usual period of apprenticeship was three years, although this varied greatly. During this time the prospective doctor studied from medical books and assisted the physician- teacher. At the completion of the apprenticeship the new physician received a certificate of proficiency and good character. This is apparently the only type of medical training Nicholas received. In May of 1818 a scandal of major proportions affected the Second Church at Minot, now called the Center Minot Church. Few town residents were unaffected and Nicholas played a major role in the affair. He may have been active in the church prior to this event but the available records do not indicate any activity on his part. The Reverend William Pidgin, pastor of the church was brought before an Ecclesiastic Council and charged with eight counts of "gross indecency in exposing himself and uncovering his nakedness to grown women." 15 Several women testified before the Council which was composed of pastors from the New Gloucester, Falmouth, North Yarmouth, Turner, and Otisfield Congregational Churches. Cynthia Verrill and Susan Shaw both testified that Pidgin used a chamber pot while directly facing them. Emmy Verrill related that Pidgin did "expose to her those parts which distinguish the sexes,"16 as did Betsy Allen. Sarah Shaw and Ruth Jumper accused Pidgin of attempted seduction. According to Ruth, Pidgin came to her while in bed and put his hands under her clothes. On another occasion he kissed her. Each of the women had been in Pidgin's home as "watchers" over his wife who was ill. The women of Minot who testified against Pidgin did so prior to the growth of the Female Reform Societies. Their testimony indicates an awareness of their own sexuality, issues of privacy, and a disdain for licentiousness by an esteemed individual such as Pidgin. Modesty aside, the women's testimony asserted their 9 rights to control their bodies and their sexuality. Their testimony also indicates an unwillingness to accept the double standard which punished females who violated Puritan standards of morality, but rarely punished males. Several persons came forward to speak in Pidgin's defense. Hannah Caswell testified that she had lived with the family for four years. She stated that she had never witnessed any indecent behavior by Pidgin. Several of the nearest neighbors also testified on his behalf On May 22, 1818, the Ecclesistical Council voted that the testimony had supported the charges of gross indecency. It recommended the church remove Pidgin from "all exercise of his pastoral duties for a term of six months." 17 After six months, with majority approval, Pidgin could be reinstated if he gave "suitable evidence of humiliation and repentance 18 The sentence handed down was in line with traditional Congregational views on repentance; the sinner was excluded from the community until proper remorse for past sins was evident. In December of 1818 Pidgin requested the reinstatement. A committee of church members was appointed to evaluate the situation and make a recommendation. Members of the committee were Deacon Allen, Moses Bradbury, William Ladd, John Chandler, and Nicholas Jumper. This is the first recorded involvement of Nicholas in church matters. At the time he was 31 years old. The committee recommended the "church not receive Mr. Pidgin again as their pastor." 19 Nicholas and John Chandler voted against the report. Apparently they favored a reconciliation. Significantly, Nicholas's future wife Huldah was a Chandler. Perhaps his vote was an attempt to gain favor with his future in-laws or perhaps it was simply a reflection of his belief in Pidgin. Pidgin requested a second Ecclesistical Council, hoping to overturn the decision 10 of the first. The Second Council met from May 12 - 14, 1819 and it refused to retract the original decision. On August 4, 1819, Pidgin was formally dismissed as pastor of the Second Congregational (Center Minot) Church. Although this incident involved members of the Second Congregational Church, it was probably discussed in all parts of Minot by persons of all denominations. Two Jumpers, Ruth and Nicholas, played prominent parts, she by her damaging testimony and he by his role on the Church committee. Perhaps because of this notoriety and with a sense of shame, John Jumper chose to change his name from Jumper to Jasper.20 We next learn about Nicholas from town records. On March 22, 1823, he announced his intentions to marry Huldah Chandler. He was 36 years old, she 33 years old. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth-century weddings were not the gala events they would evolve into by the late nineteenth and twentieth-century. Parties and gatherings were rare. The young couple could be married by a justice of the peace or a minister if one or both were members of the town and their wedding intentions publically published for a set period of time. Having fulfilled their obligations, Huldah and Nicholas were married on April 15, 1823, by Joseph Keith, Justice of the Peace. Shortly after their marriage on June 9, 1823, Huldah, as the wife of Dr. Nicholas Jumper, made application for admission to the Center Minot Church. The church voted to receive Huldah and on July 13, 1823 she was "publically received into the covenant with Christ and his church." 21 Within a year she gave birth to a daughter, Anne Susan. Little is known about the family between 1823 and 1832. Nicholas remained active in church matters. On May 26, 1826, he was appointed to serve on a committee with William Ladd and others to make arrangements for accommodating the Cumberland Conference to be held June 13 and 14. Also, an interesting, 11 undated letter appears among the church records. Apparently Nicholas had been away from the church for some time, having been in Jay. Upon his return, he did not attend service for reasons of in health, bad weather, and negligence. In the letter he explained that he was lame, suffering from infirmity, and that God had taken from him the use of one limb. He asked the congregation for forgiveness for his wanderings from God. He went on to beg the young members to "be awakened to their undone situation while in a state of nature." 22 He said that he was "destitute of a house as home, dependant [sic] on the kindness of friends and neighbors." 23 The infirmities that Nicholas spoke of were probably caused by illness or injury rather than old age, as he died in 1834. He was only 47 years old. We do not know if this letter was written before or after his marriage, whether he was alone in his suffering or whether his wife and daughter suffered as wen. The next information about Nicholas comes from the census of 1830 which lists a Nicholas Jumper in Parkman, Maine. This may be the same Nicholas who had gone north in the hope of establishing himself there. Indeed, on January 2, 1832, Huldah and Nicholas were dismissed from the Minot Church to join the Sangerville Church. Sangerville is only five miles from Parkman. Nicholas may have gone north two years before his wife and daughter in order to establish a practice and find a home. At the time of the move, Anne Susan was eight. Again, information about the family is limited. In her diary Anne Susan recounts pleasant days of her youth spent in St. Albans which is about twenty miles from Sangerville. One has to ask if Nicholas moved the family again. Nicholas's occupational mobility was typical for the time. America offered the hard working individual unlimited opportunities for occupational and financial advancement. Many people subscribed to the success ethic and moved frequently in search of business advancement while fewer sought professional success. 12 (page 13 is missing) lameness, infirmity, and inability to use one limb affected his quest for economic security. As a young girl Anne Susan attended school and acquired an education befitting a culture that accepted the idea of Republican motherhood. An educated girl became a mother, whose duty it was to be an efficient home economist; a fit companion for her husband; an example of Christian morals; and most importantly, the first teacher of the rudiments of liberty and democracy to her sons. Women's education based on its usefulness to society, led many communities, Minot among them, to encourage female education. According to the census of 1840 there were twenty-eight primary and common schools in Minot, each housing all grades from the first to the ninth. Anne Susan attended the Noyes school where she studied English, reading, spelling, grammar, and handwriting. She was also familiar with the classics, mythology, and some Latin and French. On February 28, 1851, when she was 26, Anne Susan's marriage intentions were announced. Her intended was Oliver Hubbard Brown. They were married on March 20, 1852, by Reverend Elijah Jones, pastor of the Center Minot Church. Oliver joined the Church in June 1852, having transferred from the Saccarapa Congregational Church. 25 He became very active in the Church, serving on numerous committees and as a delegate to conferences between 1853 and 187 1. He also served as the church assessor and church clerk from 1867 to 1873. Anne Susan and Oliver raised seven children. 26 In January, 1854, with money Oliver received from an inheritance, they purchased property on the Ladd Estate, where the family resided from February 1854, to December 1874. At that time they were dismissed from the Center Minot Church to join the High Street Congregational Church in Auburn, Maine. Anne Susan died on January 24,1881 at the age of 56. She is buried in the Center Hill Churchyard Cemetery along with 14 her parents and her first child, a son who died in childbirth. Oliver continued to reside in Auburn until his death in October 1909. He is buried in Auburn.27 "I ought to receive chastisements The first several decades of the nineteenth century saw New England churches experience a revival known as the Second Great Awakening. An impressive aspect of the Second Great Awakening was the overwhelming number of female converts. Some estimates maintain that three-fifths of the converts in the New England revivals between 1798 and 1826 were female. Another feature of the Second Great Awakening was the youthfulness of the female converts, especially from ages twelve to twenty-five. At the time of the Second Great Awakening the average age of marriage for young women was twenty-two or twenty-three. Since most of the converts were younger than this we can presume that the majority were unmarried young women. The young women who participated in the revivals did so for a number of reasons. As Nancy Cott has argued, women who were displaced from the traditional home- based economy, who faced an uncertain financial future, separation from family, and other insecurities embraced a religion that provided them with "ideological ballast useful to stabilize their lives and identities." 29 Some women were attracted to the Calvinist theology because it provided a vehicle for justifying their traditional position of submissiveness to male authority. Others accepted the teachings of revivalist ministers who preached that women had the freedom of choice, that they were free agents who could affect their own salvation. By doing so, women placed themselves in a direct relationship with God that allowed them to by-pass the authority of mortal men. The Second Great 15 Awakening thus provided women spiritual equality with men and empowered them to act assertively on behalf of religious causes. Women expressed their religious fervor in a variety of ways, through diaries, poetry, novels, handicrafts, and creative works of art, based on religious themes. Diaries of religious women are particularly revealing. These written records frequently reveal the tensions women faced in a rapidly changing world. Their writings also reflect their adaptation to the changes. The Protestant tradition produced two types of diaries. One was a terse recording of tasks performed with limited religious inclination, such as the diary of Martha Ballard. The second was an explicit self-examination of one's life in search of evidence of grace. This type of diary might also include some daily events. The diary of Anne Susan Jumper is one such diary. Religious women wrote diaries for several reasons. One of the earliest reasons for women's religious writing was didactic. Very often the writers dedicated their works to their progeny to serve as models of proper and acceptable modes of conduct. One such example is the writing of Anne Bradstreet in the mid seventeenth-century. In her diary, Anne Susan Jumper made it clear that she did not intend it for posterity. On February 3, 1846 she wrote that she planned to "secure safe from all eyes, these volumes of all my hopes and feelings, joys and sorrows."30 Women also kept diaries as signs of friendship with one another, sharing them often as signs of a special friendship. Like many other young women, Anne Susan and her beloved Clara often read one another's diaries. In addition, Anne Susan wrote her diary "for sake of remembrance." 31 She feared that in her old age she would not be able to recall the events of her youth. Her diary was a means of doing so. A most important reason for diary writing was a quest for spiritual self 16 -examination in order to find evidence of divine blessing. As early as 169 Cotton Mather had encouraged women to record their religious experiences. e private diary provided Anne Susan and other religious women with a vehicle for intense frequent self-appraisal. As such, this was a major reason for religious women's diaries. As a Calvinist, Anne Susan was intensely concerned with her salvation and finding evidence of grace. With each examination, particularly in the entries of the first year, she found herself lacking in grace. She chided herself for her state of sinfulness, and placed her salvation in the hands of God. On May 13, 1845, she wrote, Oh, how wicked I have been! Like a sinful child that is determined to have its own way - to be satisfied with nothing but the thing its parent sees best to withhold! Oh! wicked, wicked heart ... I humbly entreat Thee, oh my God to pardon this sin - these great sins, for Thy own Name's sake and glorify Thyself here.32 In seeking to assemble evidence of divine favoritism, Anne Susan agonized over the wickedness of her ways and asked, indeed at times begged, for mercy and salvation. The acceptance from God that she sought, signified by psychological and moral change, was not immediately discernible. Her introspective searchings were consistent with Calvinist theology. Many followers of Calvin pursued a course of self-examination in quest of grace for an Indeterminate length of time. This suggests that the followers of Calvin could never be completely assured of salvation and had to be constantly on guard. In searching for evidence of salvation, as in all other things, the Calvinists, particularly women, placed their complete trust in God. Throughout her diary, Anne Susan gave evidence of her submission to t he will of God. On May 2, 1844, she wrote, I trust my all with him." 33 Again on December 31, 1844 she 17 wrote, "He will do right and time will show every cause that I know not now."34 Humility, self-doubt, and total dependence on God were basic to Calvinism and were clearly evident among the young women converted in the early nineteenth century. The feminine sentiment of complete submission was considered the "highest of female virtues.- 35 By submitting to God, women played out their proper role in society, brought credit to themselves, and ultimately the hope of salvation. Susan Juster, Barbara Epstein and other scholars suggest that submission and conversion strengthened women's sense of personal autonomy and self-worth and imbued them with the power to pursue religiously sanctioned moral reforms such as, temperance, peace, and the abolition of prostitution and slavery. During the Second Great Awakening, some revival ministers began to stress the doctrine developed by theologian Nathaniel Taylor, that an individual's actions could affect his or her salvation. The concepts of human depravity and original sin seemed harsh and conflicted with nineteenth century democracy. Thus the view that people could affect their own destiny, by doing good gained acceptance, particularly with women. Individuals were obliged to "do all they were able, just as much as if they could save themselves by their own works.- 36 Earlier this belief had been condemned as Arminianism. In the ensuing years of the nineteenth -century, however, the belief that persons had the "power to the contrary"37 gained acceptance. As women, in large numbers made up the congregations, new or altered theologies had to fit the new conditions. Religion became "more domesticated, more emotional, more soft and accommodating - in a word, more feminine." 38 Added to the concept of doing good was the idea of usefulness. By serving others and being useful one could achieve salvation, not only through piety 18 but through one's own actions. Ideas of doing good and usefulness presented a dichotomy for many Calvinists. One the one hand, these ideas held out the hope of salvation and heavenly reward, but at the same time de-emphasized the doctrine of predestination. The tensions these ideas created is evident in the diary of Anne Susan. In the early entries she appears to accept the absolute will of God - predestination. Time and time again she submits herself to the will of God,: "God has ordained it, I believe it and I trust in Him to perfect it."39 In the early years she dwelled at length and with great emotional intensity on what she regarded as her state of sinfulness. On January 26, 1845, in a lengthy entry, she identified herself as an "Unfaithful -unfruitful and miserable being of earth! Amass of corruption and uncleanness." She added, "Everyday I live, I increase in pollution!"40 She continued the entry, asking why she was allowed to live. Her reference here to death is repeated several times in the diary after a particularly negative search for evidence of salvation. As a Christian, she accepted the existence of an afterlife, and as a Congregationalist, she could not be assured of a heavenly place. Anne Susan appears to have relieved the tensions by her acceptance of the ideas of doing good and being useful. She first made reference to these ideas more than one year after commencing the diary. Although this may be skewed, it may have taken her more than several years to accept these ideas, as the first volumes of the diary are missing., With this apparent acceptance there was a noticeable change in the tone of the diary. Her introspection continued, but her proclivity for self -derision decreased. Though she still found herself sinful, she found that she was not as evil as she once feared. Her sins were those of "slothfulness" and "inactivity." 41 'Me tensions of the first year were no longer as evident. In the final entry she recorded: 19 Another - the fifth year seems to have closed since I began this journal. I think I can truly say this has been the happiest of the five. I have had griefs and vexations, but they were as nothing and vain and I forget them now that they are past. May the next be spent more profitably, to myself and others. 42 Susan Juster would argue that the emotional transformation of Anne Susan, and others like her, from a young woman on an uncertain quest for evidence of grace, to a mature woman, more secure in herself and her faith, gives evidence of an androgynous model of regeneration. Barbara Welter would view the apparent acceptance of a degree of personal control over her salvation, culminating in a decrease in tensions, as indications of a softer, more heartfelt, feminine, approach to religion. This benevolent, more feminine approach to religion is also seen in the diary in Anne Susan's references to God. In the early years of the Congregational Church, God was viewed "as the creator and supreme ruler of the universe, so far above his creation that he was unseen and incomprehensible. "43 By the nineteenth century, this view of God had been significantly altered by liberal theologians. Essentially, God and man were brought together. 44 The worshipers, primarily female, came to think of Jesus in human form. In this anthropomorphizing process, God was most often viewed by women as a family member or friend. In this human guise, Anne Susan saw God most frequently as the father she did not have. She referred to God as Father, Father of the Fatherless, Heavenly Parent, Protector of the Orphan, Savior, and Redeemer. At other times her humanizing of God took the form of a good friend. She used the terms Heavenly Friend and God and Guide to the Motherless and Fatherless in reference to God. 20 Only rarely did she refer to God in the more masculine terms of King, Lord, and Sovereign Redeemer.45 The humanizing of God allowed women an opportunity to forge a personal spiritual relationship, a "heightened emotional communion with Christ."46 This view of and commitment to God proved so satisfying to many young women uncertain about their future that they set out to proselytize. Indeed, women were more likely to press others into religion then men. This activity gave women a reason and a purpose in life. For Anne Susan, fatherless, with little visible means of support, few skills, and with no marriage prospects, this activity gave her an opportunity to be, a reason to exist she would try to win others to God. While some young women set out as missionaries to distant lands, Anne remained in Minot, trying to gain converts among friends and relatives. Her efforts, while not often outwardly apparent, consisted of frequent prayers and petitions to God asking for the conversion of loved ones. On July 7, 1844, she wrote in her diary: "And I long for the salvation of those for whom I have so long prayed. 0, when shall my prayers become effective, when shall my words make any impression on their hearts? 0, when shall my prayers be heard [.]"47 Her pleas and petitions continued throughout the diary, yet she occasionally wrote of her joy when a convert was gained. "To hear the word pronounced that united her forever to the Church of Christ, oh, I could not with composure. I strove to hide it, but the tears would come."48 Nineteenth century Congregationalism was fraught with many new liberal ideologies. One of the new ideologies involved an altered stance on the Bible. Increasingly ministers preached sermons from the text of the New Testament rather than the Old Testament. 'Me Old Testament, consisting of Jewish law, history, poetry, and words of the prophets, was deemed less appropriate for the benevolent 21 optimism of the era. God, less frequently viewed as a tyrannical being, was viewed as a loving, caring, nurturing Savior. The New Testament with its emphasis on the life and message of Jesus was more relevant to the times. It is apparent that Anne Susan was affected by the emphasis on the New Testament. Throughout the diary she has quoted the New Testament over twenty times, with far fewer quotations coming from the Old Testament. The diary of Anne Susan can be seen as a microcosm of the lives of many nineteenth century evangelical women. Through her writings we see a gradual change in her outlook. Begun as an instrument for personal introspection that revealed the dark side of her nature, the diary became the means by which, through personal scrutiny, she matured emotionally and spiritually. The embittered girl who began the diary emerges as a more self-assured young woman. She became a woman who believed in a loving, fatherly God who looked with favor on her attempts to take an active role in her own salvation. Anne Susan heard the promising sermons from the New Testament and accepted the call to bring others to God. She was similiar to her middle class sisters in the larger commercial areas, who were exposed to the promising Gospel that liberal ministers preached. "Who could not love such a model?"49 "Hers was not the wisdom of words - but the pure and steady light of kindly affections - of a meek and quiet spirit and generous self-devotion. Ever assiduously endeavoring to promote the welfare of others, she demanded nothing for herself."50 This portion of an obituary for a Mrs. Sprague, recorded in the diary of Anne Susan, tells a great deal about nineteenth-century social views toward "true womanhood." Using numerous adjectives the obituary described the 22 female qualities deemed appropriate in women of Mrs. Sprague's position. She was "calm, benignant, self-controlled," and she exhibited "patience and humility." 51 As Nancy Cott argues, "eulogies of women unfailingly focused on their hearts, regardless of their other substantial achievements."52 By the nineteenth century, gender distinctions had assigned to women qualities not of the head, but of the heart that, according to Cott, included the abilities to "express affections, sympathies, consideration and tenderness toward others, in short to love." 53 Female obituaries also defined the proper relation between husbands and wives where the highest praise was awarded the wife who was submissive and obedient. Women's supposedly obedient and submissive qualities were tied to religious ideology. As early as the seventeenth-century, Congregationalists taught that God had decreed women to submissiveness, pain in childbirth, and other failings because of the sin of Eve. Women were taught that they had no choice but to accept their lot in life and that their pain and suffering made them more tender, more compassionate, and more loving. They were guided by qualities of the heart, not the head. The identification of women with the heart implied that woman's sphere was the home. Here she was to raise her children in a loving, caring, nurturing environment and at the same time provide a safe-haven for her husband from the competitiveness of the world away from home. By the nineteenth-century references to the sin of Eve had ceased. However, true women were still judged by themselves and society according to the virtues of piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity.54 The most feminine virtue, that of submission, was expected of women in all their roles. From the 1820's changing economic and religious conditions led to the doctrine of separate spheres which relegated women to the home. This in turn led to the articulation of new rules of conduct and spheres of activity for men and women. 23 Women who had previously assisted their husbands in fanning, shoemaking, and other crafts found their labors no longer needed as production moved out of the home. Popular literature, which in the nineteenth-century was both didactic and prescriptive, stressed new Republican motherhood roles for women. Catherine Beecher in her Treatise on Domestic Economy published in 1841, established herself as an authority on the American home. She accepted and justified women's continued submission to men for reasons appropriate to the nineteenth-century. Beecher viewed the early nineteenth- century as one in turmoil - socially, politically, and economically. As a way of limiting the tensions, Beecher sought to remove women from competitive society. She thus explained women's submissive role, not as one they were best suited to because of gender differences, but one that women should accept for the good of society. Thus women's submissiveness was a political necessity for the maintenance of democracy. Fulfilling their roles as the subordinate, affectionate, nurturing sex true women were to assume full responsibility for the home and for the physical, spiritual and moral needs of their children. Additionally women were to provide the rudiments of an education for the children. True women were to make a comfortable, loving, stress-free home for their husbands. They were to establish loving relationships with their own mothers, sisters, daughters, sons, other relatives and friends. According to Cott, women were told and many believed that their source of happiness derived from the love they received from others. "My happiness consists in feeling that I deserve the love of my ftiends,"55 wrote Sarah Connell in her diary. True women were thus defined and judged not on their individual merits but in "relation to other persons" and their role in helping the American experiment succeed. At its highest level, womanhood involved women's ability to establish well-grounded affective relationships, particularly in the separate female 24 sphere. White, middle-class women, socialized to view themselves as more spiritual than men, found it easy to develop these ties, given the emphasis on their more heartfelt qualities. Sustaining true women in their roles as republican mothers was religion. Stressing the idea that Catherine Beecher would popularize a decade later, The Young Lady's Book: A Manual of Elegant Recreations. Exercises and Pursuits in 1830 advised women to work in co-operation with the Redeemer in order to bring the world back "from its revolt and sin."56 Religion, domesticity, submission and America's success were thus linked. Identifying women with the heart served to balance the driving, competitive nature of men striving for success in the era of industrial capitalism, and thus stressed the complementary nature of the two sexes. True women's traits and qualities were to uphold the values that appeared to be neglected or crushed by the industrial order. Although the character traits were meant to be complementary, women remained subordinate to men in many areas such as education, employment, and control of procreation. Emotionally separated from the world of men, women turned to one another. According to Cott: The sex-role division of the eighteenth century impelled women toward friendship and sisterhood with one another for two corollary reasons. Women characterized by 'heart' presumably would seek equivalent sympathies in their friends. And just as women were viewed as inferior to men in rationality, men could not be expected to respond in kind to women's feelings."57 As Carroll Smith-Rosenberg has pointed out in her classic essay, "Ile Female World of Love and Ritual," the patterns of friendship that developed between women during the antebellum period continued to evolve through to the latter part of the nineteenth century as women's "devotion to and love of other women 25 became a plausible and socially acceptable form of human interaction." 58 Women were also bound together by traditions of reciprocity and mutual exchange and such female physical functions as: the cycle of pregnancy, childbirth, nursing, weaning, menses, menopause, and other biological realities. Within the framework of the cult of domesticity women fashioned a world of supportive, affectionate, intimate same-sex, homosocial relations. 59 A wealth of manuscript evidence suggests that eighteenth and nineteenth-century women frequently formed deep same-sex relationships. Women wrote to and of one another in loving affectionate terms, and often hugged and kissed one another and slept together. These same-sex relations must be viewed in the context of nineteenth century society. To attempt an explanation of these relationships without knowledge of the social and economic conditions of the time would be to mis-interpret or mis-represent their value to women. One would draw incorrect conclusions about women's same sex relationships and the importance women ascribed to them. Carroll Smith-Rosenberg has concluded that far from being deviant, women's relationships were accepted by American society and regarded as legitimate behavioral norms for a society that placed strict limitations on intimacy between young men and women. Placed within the context of middle class women in the nineteenth century, the diary of Anne Susan Jumper indicates that along with many other women of her position and generation she maintained close, affectionate, same sex ties with female friends. She engaged in the female ritual of visitations so richly described by Carol Smith-Rosenberg. Smith-Rosenberg has written that urban and town women devoted daily time for visits, teas, or shopping trips and that rural women developed patterns of extended visitations. Anne Susan also ascribed to the growing belief in "single blessedness.- 60 26 Marriage, while considered the best vocation for women was not essential. Magazines of the antebellum period such as Ladies' Repository, Ladies' Literary Cabinet, Godey's, and Peterson's Magazine as well as Catherine Beecher advised that no marriage was preferred to an unhappy one. Unmarried women were also true women if they gave of themselves as teachers, ministers to the sick or moral preceptors. The diary of Anne Susan Jumper serves as a mirror, a reflection of the lives of white, middle-class, native- born women who grew to maturity in the nineteenth century. Female networks centered both around kinship ties among mothers, daughters, sisters, first cousins, and aunts and through these relations extended to female friends. These homosocial ties allowed women to function in support of one another's emotional needs. Women could develop a sense of inner security and self-esteem. Central to this network of female love and ritual were the bonds between mothers and daughters. As both Mary Ryan and Carroll Smith -Rosenberg argue, affection between girls and their mothers was the most enduring of all ties. Anne Susan Jumper was deeply attached to her mother, Huldah. She frequently used "beloved" and mother together when writing of her mother. That she would feel a strong attachment to her mother is not atypical of most nineteenth century mother-daughter relations, given that the "cult of domesticity" emphasized the home and child rearing as within the female domain. Left fatherless at a young age, Anne Susan's attachment to her mother no doubt deepened. "My mother is a true friend, "61 she wrote on September 21, 1844. In describing her relationship with her mother and her good friend Clara she rhetorically asked, "Are they not all the world to me?"62 62 Illness was always a threat to any relationship, but when Anne Susan's mother was taken ill, she wrote fearfully in her diary, " Mother my 27 dear Mother is very sick. I tremble lest I lose her. I feel agonized, I know not what to do or how I do." 63 Of great importance to the mother-daughter relationship was the mastering of domestic skills by the daughter as taught by the mother. Magazines of the time advised mothers to train their daughters for a future of wifehood and motherhood. Mothers Magazine, for example, counseled that "when your daughter is old enough to be your companion and friend allow her to participate in your cares and duties. It is the affectionate daughter and kind sister who will make the self -denying wife, and devoted mother." 64 From her mother Anne Susan learned brewing, cooking, cleaning, cap-making, quilting, sewing, and washing and together they cared for sick neighbors and kin. Huldah's training of Anne Susan was not only advised but was necessary for women who could be left suddenly without male support. As she grew, Anne Susan used her sewing skills to help support both her mother and herself. She would travel as far as Auburn to sew for others. Her work was in demand by the prominent Little family with whom she stayed for weeks at a time doing seamstress work. When she herself had daughters, they in turn received from her the training she had received from her mother. Anne Susan described her eldest daughter Alice at age nine as a "great helper," and added, tenderly worried about her daughter's labors, "I fear she has worked more than she ought she is so kind and tender of her mother."65 Huldah also guided her daughter's spiritual life. As was typical of frontier communities that experienced revivals, mothers rather than fathers exerted influence and control over the religious fife of the young. Increasing a mother's ability to influence her daughter's religious life was the fact that women more than men were drawn to religion and revivals as men were too caught up in commercial pursuits. Huldah's widowhood increased her ability to influence Anne Susan's 28 religious indoctrination. In the relationship between Anne Susan and her mother there are no indications of hostilities that today we might call a generation gap. Indeed, after an absence of three weeks Anne Susan's first entry in her diary expressed her pleasure at her return home, "Glad to greet my beloved mother.- 66 The bonds that held mothers and daughters together were forged by the economic necessity of co-operation, the shared realm of domestic activity, and the knowledge that daughter's lives would repeat those of their mother's. Along with her mother, Anne Susan maintained close affectionate ties with a host of other female relatives and friends. An important aspect of these female relationships in a world divided by gender was that women treated one another as equals. A woman could love her father, a wife love her husband, but nineteenth century male-female relations were nevertheless hierarchical if complementary. Little such disparity existed among women. As Kathryn Sklar argues, gender diffused class and race conflicts. Anne Susan spent time with the prominent Little family in Auburn, sewing and doing other chores. Eventually she viewed Mrs. Little, her social and economic superior, as a friend. On several occasions after she had worked for Mrs. Little, the two women met and greeted one another as friends and not as employee-employer. Another diarist, Nancy Thompson was encouraged by her conversations with the hired girl in her family, even though the girl was inferior to her in "talents, education and circumstances." 67 Cott maintains that women's "peer relationships"68 were an outgrowth of the democratic values and rhetoric of the American Revolution, the egalitarianism of the Ja cksonian era, and the renewed emphasis on equality before Christ that was preached by revivalist ministers. The traditional male dominated society relegated women to subordinate status; thus women valued the peer relations with others of their sex with whom they could identify and freely confide. They viewed 29 themselves in relation to other women not as appendages, such as sisters, daughter or wives, to men. According to Cott, the intense attachments between young women were often rooted in shared or similiar conversion experiences. Attendance at church and participation in church activites fostered the development of women's relationships. Anne Susan and Clarissa Marie Jones maintained such a friendship. Theirs was a friendship that deepened in intensity when Clara joined the Center Minot Congregational Church. On October 4, 1844, when she learned of Clara's conversion Anne Susan wrote in her diary: "0, my dear Clara! My heart is full I cannot describe the feelings that have pervaded my soul since I knew of her determination! I once thought I could not love her more oh my God, let me not love her more than Thee." 69 Anne Susan's fond feelings toward Clara are expressed throughout the diary. Clara was her "beloved." When separated from her friend Anne Susan wrote, "0, my God, that Thou soon return her to me.- 70 On another occasion Anne Susan wrote in her diary: "Spent the past week with my beloved Clara very pleasantly. It is so sweet to be once more by her side and hear again her to me, soul thrilling voice! Dear girl - I know I love her all to well.- 71 Clara's home was described as "half mine";72 separated, Anne Susan was "depressed in mind."73 The two remained together for a week at a time; they attended school, church, and revivals. They participated in the Sewing Circle and church sings; they attended parties, picnics, and took long walks together. As was typical of other female friendships studied by Smith- Rosenberg, they each kept a diary and shared them with one another as a sign of ftiendship. To Anne Susan, Clara was a sister, indicating the close relationship they shared. Lacking blood ties, their spiritual ties united them in sisterhood. 30 As with other female friendships of the nineteenth century, the relationship between Anne Susan and Clara was long lasting. It spanned their teen years in Minot to adulthood in Auburn. In 1838 the daughters of Reverend Jones, Clara one of them, began publishing the first of three small home-made newspapers. The first was called "The Rosebud," the second was "The Weekly News," and the third was "The Iris". Using the pen name "Adelia" Anne Susan contributed poems to the papers. In "The Iris" she dedicated a poem to Clara entitled, "To Clara on her Sixteenth Birthday"74 in which she wrote of her sisterly love for Clara. Even after her marriage to Oliver Hubbard Brown in 1852, Anne Susan maintained ties to the young women who had formed her circle of close intimate friends. In particular, she and Clara remained close friends often visiting and helping one another. Clara attended Anne Susan at childbirth and remained for some time to help her care for the infant and the rest of the children. Anne Susan's fifth and sixth deliveries were particularly difficult and she remained bed-ridden for weeks after each birth. Clara, along with other female friends from their adolescence, cared for her, the infant, the older children, and made meals and cleaned house. A steady stream of female visitors provided the emotional support she, like other newly delivered mothers, needed. By the end of the nineteenth-century women in childbirth were attended to by male physicians rather than midwives and after nurses. However, after the birth, women continued to assist one another. The women who helped Anne Susan were continuing the female tradition of reciprocity and mutual exchange. Often the helping women extended their visits overnight and for several days if there was room in the house. Generally, the length of convalescence depended upon economic circumstances and the physical condition of the mother. At the time of her last two deliveries Anne Susan was over forty and physically weak. 31 The naming of children in the nineteenth-century followed certain patterns. Very often a child's name was oriented toward the past, with the parents conveying upon the newborn the name of a relative who could be living or deceased. Such a naming pattern is identified as "family of sentiment,"75 and could be matrilineal as well as patrilineal, as a child's name came from both sides of the family in roughly equal proportions. Like many other women of the time, Anne Susan named her daughters after relatives or close female friends. She named one daughter Clara Bathsheba (Clara in honor of Clara, and Bathsheba to honor Clara's mother.) Another daughter was named Hulda to honor her own mother, while another daughter was named in honor of her mother-in-law. The pattern of women naming their daughters after close friends and relatives, not uncommon at the time, indicates the closeness of the female relationships. On December 6, 1874, Anne Susan and her husband, Oliver Hubbard Brown, were dismissed from the Center Minot Congregational Church to join the Sixth Street Congregational Church in Auburn. Clara was dismissed from the Minot Church at the same time and joined the same church in Auburn! Anne Susan maintained other affectionate relationships with women, but her ties to Clara were deepest and most enduring and endearing. The affectionate relationship that they maintained helped them to face life's hardships, the crisis of adolescence, marriage, childbirth, and maturity. It was a friendship rooted in religion and gender. Most eighteenth and nineteenth century women lived in a world dominated by home, church, and the institution of visiting. Women went to one another's homes for a variety of reasons. Some went to care for the sick; to serve as watchers over the dead; to help one another with childbirth, child care and 32 domestic chores; to learn from one another, and to socialize. The visits could extend from a few hours, to overnight, to weeks. Central to this pattern of visitation was the core of kinship. Women often visited with sisters, first cousins, aunts, and nieces. Carroll Smith- Rosenberg has argued that "The emotional ties between non-residential kin were deep and binding and provided one of the fundamental existential realities of women's lives."76 Anne Susan participated in this cycle of visitations. Visiting friends, cousins, aunts and uncles, and her grandparents took up much of her time. The shorter visits were generally social or religious in nature while overnight and extended visitations of a week or more involved women in helping one another in a variety of ways. During extended visits young women frequently learned from older aunts, sisters or their mothers' friends. They were taught new skills, social graces and were introduced to new networks of female associates. Anne Susan partook in the pattern of visitations and later sent her daughter Alice to stay with Clara, who probably served as a foster or surrogate mother to her. The visitations thus fulfilled a specific task oriented need or spiritual- emotional needs. A small sampling of some of Anne Susan's visitations gives an indication of the scope of such activities: I had occasion to call at cousin Y's"; "Sat out on our four mile walk to Miss Scott's"; "Have spent the week at Aunt N's."77 Many people visited Anne Susan as the following examples would indicate: "Dear Sister C has visited me this evening"; "L and M have just called on me"; "Was very agreeable surprised by a visit from cousin C.R. this A.M."; "This A.M. Cynthia came up to see me and this P.M. I have returned the call"; "Anne E. called on her way home from school to-night. "78 All While the visitations served to reinforce kinship ties and fulfill social, emotional and spiritual needs, they also indicate a growing degree of motion and mobility, 33 particularly on the part of the young. Antebellum family life had begun to change as a result of increased economic differentiation. Production had moved out of the home and new business ventures provided opportunities away from the home. This was particularly evident in frontier communities that were experiencing economic upheavals, as old agricultural practices changed and commercialism increased. At the same time patriarchal authority decreased and the nuclear family ceased to function as it had in the seventeenth and eighteenth-century. Ministers of Protestant churches attempted to re- invigorate the faithful through a series of revivals. In this era of economic change and opportunity individuals were able to separate with greater ease from parental and community ties. Prior to actual geographic relocation away from the ancestral home, the young increased their mobility within the community, thus the active pattern of visitations by both males and females. The pattern of motion and mobility in Minot, evidenced by frequent visitations was not untypical. Young men and women in numerous frontier communities followed patters similiar to those in Minot. Mary Ryan has studied several communities such as Utica, New York, where in the 1830's one in three adult males was listed as a boarder. Minot and the New York communities studied by Ryan developed along similiar lines. The industrialization of New York Mills paralleled similiar activity in Minot Comer, Whitestown in Utica County and Center Minot were farming communities while Utica and West Minot were becoming commercialized. Throughout the nineteenth century social and economic developments and the lure of western migration gave impetus to a spirit of restlessness. Women's visitations acted out a ritual that helped frontier women bond together. While Anne Susan maintained strong affectionate ties with her mother, Clara, and other female friends and relatives, hers was not a world inhabited solely by 34 women. Far from being on the fringes of her world, men played an important part in her life. The most important man in her life was her father, although by the time Anne Susan began recording in her diary he had been dead for ten years. She wrote about him with regularity. She saw him in her imagination, recalling pleasant memories, such as being pulled along in a sleigh by him. She fantasized about him: I can now trace his steps and see his work in many things around, but 0, there is a pang within. Here I am treading, perhaps in his footprint sitting where he sat - gazing at the trees on which he gazed."79 She saw his image in her Uncle John, her father's twin brother. She wrote: "to my vision how much that recalled the resemblances of my dear long departed parent. How I longed to fling myself upon his neck and kiss his broad forehead, as if he were my own dear father.- 80 Anne Susan's relationships with men do not appear to reflect the sexual tensions, formality and stiffness that characterized nineteenth century male-female relations. 'Me lack of spontaneity and emotional intimacy that Carroll Smith -Rosenberg has written about is not readily apparent in the sexually integrated world that Anne Susan wrote about in her diary. Males and females formed friendships while at school, attending church, or in mixed-sex social groups, such as sings, the sewing circle, donation parties, and social gatherings. These events occurred with regularity, bringing the young together quite frequently as apparently rural life did not preclude social activity. 'Me contacts do not indicate formality or stiffness but rather affection, care, and jocularity. In describing a mixed social gathering Anne Susan related that the group had "a merry time over L's chair, which we thought must be very literary after having spent five years in college, we went into the house where again we found topics enough for merriment.- 81 The young men and women mentioned in the diary enjoyed 35 themselves in unabashed pleasures; they "quarrelled, laughed, talked, complimented, told stories, and jested."82 They played games and engaged in serious conversation. Only rarely in the diary did Anne Susan mention any alienation toward men. On April 22, 1845, she wrote in the diary: It has just occurred to me that this is the fourth anniversary of a day that brought to me my first distrust of man. Till then I distrusted the professions of none - since then I have scarse [sic] dared to believe any - almost doubting sometimes, the truth of my dearest friends. 83 She did not give any indication why she began to di strust men nor did she cease to care for certain individuals such as her male cousins. Anne Susan's professed distrust of men may have contributed to her desire to live a life of "single blessedness." By the early nineteenth century the single woman was no longer regarded as an anomaly. Due in part to changing demographics of New England, the early decades of the nineteenth century saw an increase in proportion of single women in all American history. By 1880 the negative view of the single woman as spinster or old maid had been redefined by society. Popular literature, woman's romantic literature, and religion affirmed the new role of single women. Within set parameters these women were valued for the useful, morally uplifting lives they lived. They were to be true to traditional gender roles of submission, self-abnegation and helpfulness. Within these guidelines they aided their own families, the poor, the sick, and the orphaned. In so doing they were deemed acceptable by society. Literature romanticized the A. dutiful and self-less woman as the "Maiden Aunt" and the "Sister of Charity."84 Nineteenth century women remained single for a variety of reasons. Some 36 I were encouraged to do so by ideas of romantic love, family responsibility, poor choice of mates, the death of a loved one, the lure of economic advantage, desire for independence, or to pursue career or vocational goals. On December 5, 1844, Anne Susan wrote in her diary, I do not think an unmarried the most 'unpleasant' life in the world."85 Allthough she did not state her reasons for desiring "single blessedness" she did leave clues as to why she and Clara agreed to spend their lives in that state. First, her distrust of men may have been a contributing factor. Second, marriage itself was undergoing a new scrutiny as many marriages in the nineteenth century were not based on romantic love but rather on social and economic considerations. As a reader of romantic literature she may have viewed wives in unromantic marriages as unjustly subjugated to their husbands. Some writers saw that, in effect, those women had chosen bondage. As an independent woman, who earned wages, and was accustomed to coming and going as she pleased, the fear of matrimonial entrapment may have been a determining factor in her rejection of marriage at the time. Knowing that ideal marriages were the exception, she may have chosen not to compromise her integrity for the sufferings and miseries of a bad marriage. Although she rejected marriage for herself, at the time of the writing of the diary, she echoed advice given by Catherine Beecher and advised wives to submit to their husbands in order to have a prefect marriage. The more a woman studies and endeavors to gratify the wishes of her husband, the more he will seek, and meet hers; the more she submits, the more she confides, the more completely and unreservedly she resigns herself to him, the more he will respect her, love her, please her, and protect her."86 A third possibility for her refusal to marry may have been the desire on her part and Clara's to have "perfect creatures," "perfect heroes," as mates. They desired 37 men who possessed "all the good qualities in one.- 87 Having determined to seek perfection in a mate they desired the same in themselves. Yet they found themselves to be "imperfect, giddy girls." 88 -[bey agreed "to emulate the other in effort at perfection." 89 Desiring perfection in themselves they desired nothing less in the ideal mate. Each of the reasons or a combination of reasons may have contributed to Anne Susan's desire for the single life. Significantly, many other women rejected marriage during the early years of the nineteenth century. The diary of Anne Susan Jumper is vivid in its depiction of woman's "love and rituals"90 in the nineteenth century. Faced with isolation from the community at large, restricted to the home, and deemed heartfelt, women were inevitably drawn together. Additionally, their unique biological functions brought women together to help one another in difficult times of pregnancy, childbirth, childrearing, and menopause. They created a world rich in companionship, cooperation, sympathy, and affection. They provided one another with moral, emotional, physical, and spiritual support. That they would correspond to one another and write of one another in sensual, romantic terms seems only appropriate. Mary Grew, writing of her relationship with Margaret Jones Burleigh, could be addressing all female relationships when she wrote, "Love is spiritual, only passion is sexual."91 Conclusion Conditions in America during the antebellum period were in nearly constant flux. Economically the underpinnings of industrial capitalism were beginning to emerge, with all its ramifications; politically America was beginning to embrace democracy on a larger scale as the common man came into his own. The 38 upheavals caused by changing economic and political conditions altered American society in innumerable ways. It is not the intent-of this paper to discuss the causes in great detail. Suffice it to say, the changes began to affect the way of life of the American people, most of whom lived on farms and in small villages and towns. The frontier community of Minot, Maine, in the antebellum period, represents the majority of small American towns that were not industrial satellites. These towns appeared to be balanced in terms of economic development, not dependent upon a single economic activity. The people engaged in diversified agriculture, small commercial ventures, and artisan crafts. Although a small interior community, Minot was not isolated from larger cities. Roads connected Minot with the coastal areas of Portland and Brunswick. In her diary Anne Susan Jumper wrote about friends and neighbors who traveled to Boston and other distant cities. Certainly big city ways, attitudes, outlooks, and ideas were not unfamiliar to the residents of Minot. Religion played a prominent part in the lives of the people of Minot. However, the latter decades of the eighteenth-century saw a decline in New England church attendance. Religious leaders, in a attempt to revitalize the faithful and gain new converts, began a series of revivals beginning in 1798 that continued intermittenly until the 1830's. As in many small rural communities, the revivals in Minot met with success. By 1835 churches representing five denominations attracted large numbers of Minot's residents to their doors, many of whom were young women who had been raised in families of some piety. Anne Susan Jumper was one such young, female, convert. Both her parents had joined the Congregational Church, and her father had played a prominent role in the church in the first decades of the nineteenth-century. The antebellum period saw the growth of education in America. As early as 1803, the residents of Minot voted to raise $600 for the support of public 39 education. That sum was increased by $100 each year until the annual allotment was $1000. 92 Notwithstanding the arguments raised in opposition, women's education did go forth in Minot. Anne Susan and other young men and women of Minot could attend school in more than twenty schools from grade one through high school. Changing economic conditions in the antebellum period left many young women uncertain about their futures. These same conditions, along with others, contributed to the development of separate spheres for men and women. Faced with limited contact with male members of society, women who had been drawn to the revivals formed intense attachments with one another that were rooted in similiar conversion experiences. As Nancy Cott has argued, "When academy education was combined with religious revival the impulse toward female friendships was doubly strong." 93 Although the schools in Minot were not academy schools they served to bring young women together with one another. Women formed these strong friendships for a variety of reasons and maintained them in numerous ways for great periods of time, often a lifetime. The diary of Anne Susan Jumper can be read on many levels. It is an interesting account of the daily activities of young middle class women in the antebellum period. It describes women's work in the era. It is also reflective of middle class young women's religiosity and the friendships that these women formed in the antebellum period. 40 Courtesy of BY MONA ANN ERVIN (c) 1992 and the Androscoggin Historical Society (c)1998 * * * * NOTICE: Printing the files within by non-commercial individuals and libraries is encouraged, as long as all notices and submitter information is included. Any other use, including copying files to other sites requires permission from the submitters PRIOR to uploading to any other sites. We encourage links to the state and county table of contents.
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