City of Women: Sex and Class in New York, 1789-1860 / Edition 2

by Christine Stansell

Overview

Before the Civil War, a new idea of womanhood took shape in America in general and in the Northeast in particular. Women of the propertied classes assumed the mantle of moral guardians of their families and the nation. Laboring women, by contrast, continued to suffer from the oppressions of sex and class. In fact, their very existence troubled their more prosperous sisters, for the impoverished female worker violated dearly held genteel precepts of 'woman's nature' and 'woman's place.'
 
City of Women delves into the misfortunes that New York City's laboring women suffered and the problems that resulted. Looking at how and why a community of women workers came into existence, Christine Stansell analyzes the social conflicts surrounding laboring women and they social pressure these conflicts brought to bear on others. The result is a fascinating journey into economic relations and cultural forms that influenced working women's lives—one that reveals at last the female city concealed within America's first great metropolis.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780252014819
Publisher:	University of Illinois Press
Publication date:	09/01/1987
Edition description:	Illini Books ed
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Christine Stansell is Stein-Freiler Distinguished Service Professor Emerita at the University of Chicago. Her books include American Moderns: Bohemian New York and the Creation of a New Century.

 

Editorial Reviews

"This is an immensely important book for historians. Rather than study women in isolation, Christine Stansell has put them into their political, moral, and social worlds. Her work will help bring studies of women out of their separate sphere and into the mainstream of American history."—Martha Saxton, New York Times Book Review

"A remarkable achievement—subtle, sophisticated, and amply rewarding."—Walter Kendrick, Village Voice

"Christine Stansell's highly original work takes a close look at working-class women in early nineteenth-century New York, and shows both the strengths and the vulnerabilities of this ‘city of women.' Describing the specific moral and economic circumstances of individual female lives, Stansell makes vivid historical sense of what until now has been obscured by generalization, abstraction, and oversimplification."—Jean Strouse

"A fascinating, subtly intelligent work of scholarship."—Barbara Ehrenreich

"An important and exciting contribution. This is truly innovative and responsible social history." —Elaine Showalter

"Stansell brings nineteenth-century New York's working women out of the shadows. A brilliant and original book."—Katha Pollitt

From the Publisher

How women emerged as a distinctive class in the burgeoning society of New York City in the postCivil War era is explored from an original viewpoint in this interesting study. Female class relations, ``ladies'' and working women, were symbiotic. The laborers had their sexual and social demeanor regulated by their middle-class sisters, who had the leisure to act as ``self-appointed exemplars of virtue.'' The women of the working class come to life in Stansell's identification of their lot. Adrift from family ties, they entered the labor force, many resorting to prostitution and crime, which provoked the philanthropy of genteel bourgeois women, social reformers and the rise of the settlement house movement. The neighborhoods of the poor, the tenements and bawdy houses of 19th century New York are portrayed as important elements in women's history. Stansell teaches at Princeton University. (October 29)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Pre-Civil War New York City was in many ways unique; at the same time, it was a microcosm of the nation. The study of its social historyfamily life and street life, factory work and housekeeping, innocent pleasures and viceprovides an opportunity to examine questions of broad significance: trade union attitudes towards women, the issue of the family wage, the discrepancy between middle-class ideals and daily life in poor households. Stansell's perceptive analysis of these and other topics is skillfully worked into a rich and colorful portrait of working-class New York, with unforgettable sketches of its life. Without losing sight of the hardships of poverty she insists that working-class women possessed a degree of independence. Her study reveals a vigorous female culture that thrived in neighborhoods and in work groups. An important book that provides a fresh look at relations between sexes and classes. Mary Drake McFeely, Univ. of Georgia Lib., Athens

Library Journal