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Article: A Very Social Time: Crafting Community in Antebellum New England.
- Article from:
- The Historian
- Article date:
- June 22, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 Phi Alpha Theta, History Honor Society, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In this study, Karen V. Hansen explores the social dimension of the world of literate, antebellum New England working people. From a feminist perspective she focuses on the social as a mediating structure within the framework of private and public spheres. While affirming the reality of a gendered social and economic division of labor, she shows that working men and women lived their lives enmeshed in an intricate web of activities and relationships in a "gender-integrated environment." Thus, the "cult of true womanhood," expressed in period prescriptive literature and sermons, required separate spheres of activity and influence for men (public) and women (private) and it ...