The Struggle for Equal Adulthood: Gender, Race, Age, and the Fight for Citizenship in Antebellum America

by Corinne T. Field

Overview

In the fight for equality, early feminists often cited the infantilization of women and men of color as a method used to keep them out of power. Corinne T. Field argues that attaining adulthood—and the associated political rights, economic opportunities, and sexual power that come with it—became a common goal for both white and African American feminists between the American Revolution and the Civil War. The idea that black men and all women were more like children than adult white men proved difficult to overcome, however, and continued to serve as a foundation for racial and sexual inequality for generations.

In detailing the connections between the struggle for equality and concepts of adulthood, Field provides an essential historical context for understanding the dilemmas black and white women still face in America today, from "glass ceilings" and debates over welfare dependency to a culture obsessed with youth and beauty. Drawn from a fascinating past, this book tells the history of how maturity, gender, and race collided, and how those affected came together to fight against injustice.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781469618142
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	09/02/2014
Series:	Gender and American Culture
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	260
Sales rank:	325,404
Product dimensions:	9.20(w) x 6.10(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Corinne T. Field is a lecturer in the Corcoran Department of History and the Women, Gender, Sexuality Program at the University of Virginia.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction 1

Prologue: Liberty and Maturity in Enlightenment Thought 12

1 Adult Independence and the Limits of Revolution 22

2 Democratic Citizenship as a Stage of Life 53

3 Chronological Age and Equal Rights 77

4 The Voyage of Life and Equal Opportunity 96

5 Competing Measures of Mature Citizenship 127

6 Perpetual Minority and the Failure of Reconstruction 158

Epilogue: Aging and Inequality 172

Notes 175

Bibliography 209

Index 235

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

In this book, Corinne T. Field not only illuminates a significant issue for feminists and abolitionists, but she also shows how adulthood united these two movements, if only fleetingly. A pleasure to read and an important contribution to the history of women, race, and citizenship in the United States."—Carol Faulkner, Syracuse University

The Struggle for Equal Adulthood is intellectually and conceptually brilliant. A gratifying, tightly focused, and rigorously argued text, it approaches its topic with clarity and verve. Corinne T. Field has written a compelling book that will contribute to both women's and African American history.—Barbara Dianne Savage, University of Pennsylvania

Editorial Reviews

Sheds new light on the early women's rights movement in the United States. . . . Essential reading for anyone interested in nineteenth-century reform and in women's history.—Journal of American History

An admirable contribution, refreshing, strongly argued, and insightful.—American Historical Review

An innovative intellectual and cultural history of the relationship between rights, sex, race, and age.—Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth

Field's accessible and important book reveals the possibilities and limitations of broad movements for equality.—North Carolina Historical Review

A cultural history that blends the intellectual and the social to uncover how reformers sought to meet their goal, and [Field's] analysis of thought is meticulous and enlightening..—The Historian

From the Publisher