We call them Victorians, as though that one word says it all. It doesn’t. The women of 1861 were not born Victorians. They created American Victorianism. And despite our tintype image of “proper,” these women were not frigid or sour prudes shaking a moral finger at their men. Women in 1861 were neither asexual nor naive about the birds and bees.
To understand them and their culture, we have to put them into context within their time and place. Look at the 20th century. You would never expect a woman born in 1920 to look, think or act like a woman born in 1960 or that a woman living in Los Angeles will mirror the viewpoint of one residing in Kansas City or Atlanta. The same variances were true of the 19th C. Women were not cookies cutters then or now! They differed as to region, experience, decade, personality and education.
And we must remember that there is a great chasm between ideal and actual. People rarely live up to their cultural image or behave in the proscribed manner. Whatever cultural evangelists – preachers, politicians, doyens of society – demanded of their women, they received a human patchwork quilt.
The first three decades of the century were a carry-over from the 18th. Before 1830 twenty percent of brides were with child. Using this as a base, math wizards have computed that couples
“anticipating the marriage vows” were 35% or higher. Practices such as bundling were encouraged by family and community and young people were given lots of courting privacy. A favored New England broadside song of 1829,
“In Favor of Courting” advised
“Let coats and gowns be laid aside, Let breeches take their flight.”
Once the wedding vows were spoken numerous pregnancies after marriage were also the norm. However, repeated child bearing was killing women. Figure it out! A fertile girl marrying at 14 could experience 20 plus pregnancies by age 35. They were physically and mentally exhausted which often shortened their lives.
This made widowers and second families commonplace. Women were truly breeding machines supplying a labor force to the raw, new country. By the end of the 18th century women began to balk and cry out. In 1794, a popular almanac proclaimed that hundreds of women satirized the biblical Rachel’s plea:
“Give me no more children, or else I die.”
While women were demanding a better quality of life, young men were becoming wage earners in urban areas where large families were an encumbrance rather than an asset. Large families were going out of style and by 1830 the birth rate had declined to 3.3 from 7.9 in 1790. How did they do it?
First, society encouraged delaying wedlock from the teens to the 20s. Secondly, young marrieds attempted to control their reproduction. This led to an explosion of advice pamphlets with detailed instructions on contraceptive methods. This literature was advertised in newspapers and openly hawked in crowded lecture halls throughout the country. Early lectures tended toward the ribald and titillating, making the lecture circuit a kind of try-out for new, radical and sometimes outrageous movements. Nonetheless lectures on anatomy, conception and physiology were the hottest tickets in towns across the country. It was entertainment wrapped as edification.
John Wieting who provided advice on the rhythm method in the 40s & 50s along the eastern seaboard, advertised his appearances as
“exhibitions and entertainments.” Audiences flocked to see his life-size French manikens that could be disassembled on stage to show more than seventeen hundred parts of the human body, colored models of every organ and twelve skeletons, some six feet tall. To increase the climactic visual effect, he also included dramatic lighting and staging.
In the 50s, the lecture circuit became more staid, but fertility control remained the hot topic. Presbyterian minister, Henry Clarke Wright lectured and wrote from the 1840s to the 60s on
“the crime of undesigned maternity,” and the
“unwelcome child.” He advised courting couples to discuss reproduction and possible methods well before marriage, and
“maydens should shun suitors who avoided such conversations.” He repeated often and in print,
“Wives! Be frank and true to your husbands on the subject of maternity and the relationship that leads to it. Interchange thoughts and feelings with them, as to what nature allows or demands in regard to these.”.”
Frederick Hollick was probably the most popular author/lecturer. In 1844 he began lecturing in New York City and soon traveled through Ohio, the Mississippi River valley and along the eastern seaboard. His published lectures appeared in 1845 followed by several more books. Hollick also provided a variety of products for fertility control, which he sold via printed inserts tucked into his books. He offered personal advice by mail as well as a “superior” brand of condoms for $9 and a syphilis preventative for $10. Like Wieting, Hollick also used anatomical models and presented risqué information, but avoided offending his middle-class clientele. Still his paper mache’ models
“from Paris” were so natural they caused a sensation. The success of using visual aids insured that all lecturers on the circuit during the 1850s promised talks,
“illustrated with life-sized manikens.”
When Lizzie Vought and Lester Ward became engaged in 1861, Lester was too embarrassed to raise the question of birth control directly. On a walk with Lizzie, he brought along Hollick’s marriage guide and left it with her. The book apparently had unexpected results. According to Lester’s diary, he and Lizzie went from hand holding hands to kisses on
“her sweet breasts.” Guilt and fear set in, however, and both vowed to refrain from amorous play. It did not last. In a few months Lester confessed to his diary,
“she received me in her arms of tenderness and pressed me to her form of honey . . . That evening and that night we experienced the joys of love and tasted the felicity which belongs to married life alone.”
By the 1850’s contraceptive information was widely available to anyone who wanted it, even those living in remote outposts. Along with advertising, word of mouth and letters carried the information far and wide. Some self styled experts advocated withdrawal, others preferred the vaginal sponge, douching or condoms often combined with the rhythm method. Barrier methods grew in popularity as the century wore on. In 1846 “The Wife’s Protector” a diaphragm was patented and pessaries were being sold in drug stores nationwide.
In 1861, the NY Times advertised Dr. Power’s French Preventatives (condoms) for $5/doz and other papers soon followed suit. The most common birth control, however, remained the age-old coitus interruptus or withdrawal. It was free, private and easily understood. Some men managed to get very good at it and even incorporated it as an erotic stratagem. The downside was that it required the full cooperation of both husband and wife to be effective. If they were not in accord, women developed their own prevention systems in secret.
Dr. Edward Bliss Foote author of Medical Common Sense (1858) introduced his “Womb Veil in 1864. His advertisement read, “an India-rubber contrivance to be placed in the vagina before copulation and which spreads a thin tissue of rubber before the mouth of the womb so as to prevent the seminal aura from entering.” Foote became one of the most influential proponents for “Love without Fear” and exhibited a sophisticated attitude toward women in his literature. After explaining application of his Womb Veil, he promoted a benefit specifically for the ladies,
“The husband would hardly be likely to know that it was being used. . .” adding:
“It places conception entirely under the control of the wife, to whom it naturally belongs for it is for her to say at what time and under what circumstances, she will become the mother and the moral, religious, and physical instructress of offspring. . .” Gee I’ll bet even Betty Friedan would approve of his advice.
Throughout the first half of the century, couples collaborated on preventing conception. In 1860 James Cormany recorded efforts to postpone childbearing with his wife Rachel.
“Wife and I had a long talk on childbearing – we differ on some points but sweetly agree to disagree and avoid any risks by continued abstinence.”
Surgical abortion for family limitation was dangerous and the choice of last resort. Abortifacients were another matter and widely used. Lizzie Nesbett wrote her husband in 1864 declaring her fears and demanding:
“don’t start home without a good quantity of pulverized Ergot and as good a syringe as you can find. Richardson’s No. 1 that I described to you long ago is the best I know of.” There were a variety of both folk remedies as well as commercial products available.
After 1840, the commercial abortifacients were marketed through newspaper ads as “Woman’s Friend”, “Periodical Drops”, “Female Regulator,” and many other brand names. These ads were generally blatant although euphemistic gibberish was attempted.
The ad for Graves Pills for Amenorrhea is an amusing dance around required delicacy. The label read:
“These pills have been approved . . . as a never-failing remedy for producing the catamenial or monthly flow. Though perfectly harmless to the most delicate, yet ladies are earnestly requested not to mistake their condition as Miscarriage would certainly ensue.” Naturally, few missed the real reason for Graves Pills or any of the other promoted products that carried this “warning of consequences.”
Being a little skeptical about newspaper ads, I checked the Appleton (WI) Crescent of 1859, and Grave’s Pills were there on the front page of every issue, center column and boxed. Skimming the issues through 1865, I couldn’t find any front pages with it missing except for those announcing war and Lincoln’s assassination.
Ideas about family limitation were not as warmly embraced in the south as elsewhere. However, the realities of wartime conditions forced many to resort to whatever remedies were available. Worried about conditions at the home front, a Confederate general sent his wife abortifacients procured from his camp surgeon. It can be assumed that this was not an isolated case of a Southern man encouraging his wife to either take precautions or to find relief in more extreme measures. **
Mrs.William Dorsey Pender visited her husband General Pender,
CSA, three times from April 1861 until his death at Gettysburg. After each visit Mrs. Pender left pregnant. When one pregnancy resulted in a miscarriage she declared that she did not want any more children. The general responded with a sigh of resignation,
“Surely if you do not want children you will have to remain away from me, and hereafter when you come to me I shall know you want another baby.” Obviously, the General did not believe in practicing withdrawal the one easily available preventive, even in the ravaged Confederacy.
Upper and middle class women were the first to use the information on family limitation, but the working class soon followed. In 1867 Reverend John Todd noted,
“There is scarcely a young lady in New England – and probably it is so throughout the land – whose marriage is announced in the paper, without her being insulted within a week – by receiving through the mail a printed circular, offering information and instrumentalities . . .”
By the time of the CW all the women that we read about had been raised in a more sexually open society than those who followed. Promiscuity and immorality did not run rampant, but society was liberal and realistic about natural urgings. Sexual discussions with courting couples became even more explicit as the country entered the war. We know a great deal about the women who sent their men to war and the marital intimacy they enjoyed with their soldier husbands through the letters and diaries they left behind. It was an age that cherished the art of written communication with private missives and journals lovingly tucked away for future generations to find. While preferring private codes and double entendre to express their sexual need, the meaning of their message is generally obvious.
Harriet Jane Thompson wrote her husband Billy serving as an officer with the 20th Iowa Volunteer Infantry:
“I have very pleasant times with you in my dreams and that is every night . . . Do you not think of our bed at home when you lay down on your cot?” Later Harriet fantasized:
“Oh how I wish I could sleep with you tonight. Would yo like to sleep with me? But I can only dream of being with you and that is very pleasant for I see you every night in my dreams.”
Libbie Custer’s letters leave no doubt that she and Autie enjoyed a creative and passionate intimate life. After a packet of her letters were captured, Autie cautioned restraint, but Libbie declared,
“I don’t care if fifty rebels read this letter. I miss your kisses.” Joshua Chamberlain was also open about his carnal desires,
“Would that you might lie here under my one little piece of shelter tent - in a cosy cleft of rocks . . .” he wrote in 1862.
Joseph and Laura Lyman were explicit as well.
“I anticipate unspeakable delight in your embrace,” Joseph wrote and imagined her,
“caressing hands and voluptuous touch.” Laura responded with equal enthusiasm,
“Oh how I long to see you . . .I’ll drain your coffers next Saturday night I assure you.”
Men and women wrote and teased according to the comfort level of their relationship. Mrs. John B. Gordon was certainly at ease with her husband and their intimacy when writing,
“Your note was short but o so sweet . . . I pulled down my veil & under it hid from all eyes, I pressed to my lips over & over the spot that yours had touched, & tried to imagine I could feel your own precious lips & that dear moustache that I love so much.”
The letters that we have from the CW were often censored following the war. The culture of the time demanded that private matters be kept private and women often burned intimate letters or took a scissors to the offensive passages. Fortunately, many letters were hidden away intact. It is interesting to note that while all of General Grant’s letters have survived, none of Julia’s has ever surfaced. Could she have destroyed them to keep them from prying eyes?
If a wife was confident and brassy, she often expressed herself in ribald terms void of the euphemism others used. Alice Baldwin, a respectable army wife, was far from reserved when she knew her husband was coming home for a brief leave,
"Oh how rejoiced I will be to see your dear face once more to feel myself clasped in your sheltering arms. Those dear strong arms have always loved and comforted me." Alice even felt at ease when reporting being flashed on a train. Unperturbed by the experience, she wrote.
"There was a man showed his 'conflumux' to me at one station . . . I thought he might have saved himself the trouble because I had seen one before . . ." Alice was even more vulgar when she learned that Frank had debated marrying her or Nellie Smith.
"I thought I held undivided your love. . . Nellie Smith don't know what she escaped. She would have been killed at one nab of your old long Tom!!"
Nathan Wheeler sent out a screech of carnal need when he wrote his wife Clara complaining that he was miserable since their parting. He noted that he was like a torpedo thrown into
“such a powder-magazine as I’m discovering myself to be, especially when there’s no waterworks or any patent extinguisher within my reach.” Nathaniel left no sensual stone unturned as he fantasized,
“How much longer before I see you, feel you, look at you all over, Kiss you, hug you, put my arms around that soft little waist, draw you up close to me, closer, closer, forget everything but our two selves, then hold yo off and look again, and so to sleep with my own wife in my arms, which ache with emptiness, these long, long nights?”
The variegated tapestry of intimate marital relationships in the CW era was as textured and as rich as it is today. General Grant’s letters to Julia from the Pacific, while constantly expressing loneliness and longing, never dipped into double entendre. Yet he was desperate to have Julia with him during the CW. He even moved his headquarters to Nashville to accommodate a visit.
Grant’s staff frequently confirmed their physical relationship. According to Adam Badeau and Horace Porter who were eyewitnesses to the Grants during the war, the coupled touched frequently, whispered sweet nothin’s, teased and embraced and when caught blushed appropriately. When leaving for the last campaign in the spring of 1865, Porter reported
“The general soon after bade an affectionate good-by to Mrs. Grant, kissing her repeatedly as she stood at the front door of his quarters. She bore the parting bravely, although her pale face and sorrowful look told of the sadness that was in her heart.”
Mid-19th Century couples experienced the same wide range of sexuality, intimacy, pleasure and troubles as anywhere, anytime. Even by our 21st C standards they were open and curious, frivolous and frank, ribald and rascally. After the CW, however, the sexual landscape changed, undergoing drastic adjustments. Prostitution and abortion were outlawed, advice manuals were stuffed into “plain brown wrappers”, ****ography was prosecuted and the voices of birth control were silenced. By 1870 the gilded image of Victorianism was born and would blossom by the turn of the next century.
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** I do not know the name of the general, but am trying to find out by checking author sources. The story is on page 65 of Intimate Matters. Author referenced: Ann Firor Scott, The southern Lady: From Pedastal to Politics 1830-1930 (Chicago 1970) p38.
The rarity of southern personal sources on contraception and abortion is noted in Sally McMillen, “Mother’s Sacred Duty: Breast Feeding Patterns Among Middle and Upper Class Women in the Antebellum South,” Journal of Southern History 51:3 (August 1985) pg 348, and Clinton, Plantation Mistress pg 206.
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<u>Abortifacients</u> Though touted as natural ways to do-it-yourself abortion, such herbs are powerful drugs with potentially fatal consequences. Herbal abortifacients can vary in potency and effect. Pennyroyal, Black or Blue Cohosh and other similar herbs are toxic in excess and can easily overtax the liver and kidneys, causing headaches, extreme nausea, bleeding, or even death.
<u>Bibliography
" BORDER=0>
1. Intimate Matters, A History of Sexuality in America, John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, Harper and Row , 1988
2. Women in the Civil War (originally Bonnet Brigade), Mary Elizabeth Massey, University of Nebraska, 1966
3. Eizabeth Bacon Custer and the Making of Myth, Shirley A. Leckie, University of Oklahoma Press, 1993
4. Contraception and Abortion in the Nineteenth Century, Janet Farrell Brodie, Cornell University Press, 1994
5. Searching the Heart, Women, Men and Romantic Love in 19th Century America, Karen Lystra, Oxford University Press, 1989
6. The Story the Soldiers Wouldn’t Tell, Sex in the Civil War, Thomas P. Lowry, Stackpole Books, 1994
7. Trials and Triumphs, The women of the American Civil War, Marilyn Mayer Culpepper, Michigan State Press 1991
8. Within the Plantation Household, Black and White Women of the Old South, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, University of North Carolina Press, 1988
9. Victorian America and the Civil War, Anne C. Rose, Cambridge University Press, 1992
10. The Other Civil War, American Women in the Nineteenth Century, Catherine Clinton, Hill and Wang, 1984
11. The Reshaping of Everyday Life, Jack Larkin, Harper Perennial, 1988
12. Prudery and Passion, Milton Rugoff, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1971
13. Divided Houses, Gender and the Civil War, Catherine Clinton/Nina Silber, Oxford University Press, 1992
14. Hands and Hearts, A History of Courtship in America, Ellen K. Rothman, Basic Books Inc. 1984
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