Synopses & Reviews
By exploring the intersection of gender and politics in the antebellum North, Michael Pierson examines how antislavery political parties capitalized on the emerging family practices and ideologies that accompanied the market revolution.
From the birth of the Liberty party in 1840 through the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln in 1860, antislavery parties celebrated the social practices of modernizing northern families. In an era of social transformations, they attacked their Democratic foes as defenders of an older, less egalitarian patriarchal world. In ways rarely before seen in American politics, Pierson says, antebellum voters could choose between parties that articulated different visions of proper family life and gender roles.
By exploring the ways John and Jessie Benton Fr„mont and Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln were presented to voters as prospective First Families, and by examining the writings of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lydia Maria Child, and other antislavery women, Free Hearts and Free Homes rediscovers how crucial gender ideologies were to American politics on the eve of the Civil War.
Review
"[A] beautifully written volume. . . . Meticulous attention to detail. . . . Insightful readings of antislavery fiction"
NC Historical Review
Review
"Pierson's argument that political affiliation was not only based on ethnic and religious beliefs but also on conceptions of family and gender is a very important one. This book will interest those who are interested in antebellum America as well as those who are seeking new ways of thinking abut politics and party loyalty.
(Julie Roy Jeffrey, author of The Great Silent Army of Abolitionism: Ordinary Women in the Antislavery Movement)"
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. [223]-243) and index.
About the Author
Michael D. Pierson is assistant professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.