Post #4 Interpretation

My interpretation and the most important message from the primary source is to inform all, especially women, that the clothing and activities that women partake in, along with the expectations that societies hold for women, do not allow for women to be healthy. In fact, women are far from healthy, and with the wardrobe fashion, women's bodies are becoming deformed, and they are passing these deformities on to their children. Of course, at some point in time, Catharine Beecher's warnings were heard and change was made on the wardrobe choices of women. However, at the time women were dressing in ways that brought on sickness and disease and deformities to their bodies. Women's shoulders and hips were being affected by corsets because corsets were bound so tightly around women's abdomens that it affected the rest of their body poorly. Because of women and others such as Catharine Beecher, changes were made, and now women are not expected to wear clothes that show off inappropriate parts of the body and cause illness when weather is cold. 



My thesis both agrees with and disagrees with what my secondary source said. My secondary source is a review on a book written to talk about Catharine Beecher's ideas on sex roles and social change. On one hand, the review goes to show that Catharine Beecher wanted to help others and help to exploit all of the problems that she was seeing, but at the same time, the secondary source went on to talk about how Catharine Beecher did not practice what she preached. Sex Roles and Social change suggested that Catharine Beecher was not as much of a help because she was not a good example. In fact, the review goes on to say that Catharine Beecher leaned greatly on men in her life, and was dependent on them for her success and health when times got hard. I do not so much agree with the secondary source that Catharine Beecher was not a help. It was because of her persistence that things were changed for women. I believe she was of great help and importance.

Most of my evidence is strictly what can be seen today. Women are clearly no longer forced to wear clothes that exploit their breasts and make them ill, and along with that, women no longer have to wear corsets that bind their middles so tight that it moves their organs around and makes it so that their shoulders and hips do not work as they should. Also, Catharine Beecher talks mainly about women's health in her letters. She talks about how many women are seen as unhealthy because of the things they are expected to do and the clothes they are expected to wear, even if it is detrimental to them. It is clear in Catharine Beecher's letters that women's health is her greatest worry.

Post #3 Investigation

Upon reading my primary source (http://www1.assumption.edu/WHW/Hatch/Beecher/BeecherLettersonHealth.html), most of my questions centered around how she got credibility and trust to do some of the research that she did in order to teach people about what she was seeing. Catharine Beecher refers to surveys she did on women to show what kind of health she was in. I had questions regarding how she got women to agree to participate in these surveys and answer these questions. At that point in time, women did not really have credibility to do research and teach others what they were learning. So it interests me that she had such an impact on people and I am interested in knowing how she earned that trust. I also want to know what kinds of education she had to get in order to form her opinions. Also, why did women's health strike her interest so much that she went out to find other people's sights on things.



Before reading this article, I did not have a lot of knowledge about the issues on women's health that Catharine Beecher was concerned with. I was aware that many women were wearing corsets at that time, and that corsets were detrimental to health. They made it difficult for women to breathe, and they also moved women's organs around which affected their health. It also affected the children that they gave birth to. I was aware that women's breasts were often prominent in wardrobe choices back in those days. However, I was not aware that it was causing so much sickness among women. The letters make more sense once you realize the sickness that the sexual appeal of women was causing.



The secondary source I am using came from a Review on a Catharine Beecher book about sex roles and social change. It was published in 1974. This secondary source confirms, in the thesis, that Catharine Beecher worked to create hegemony for females, but also cultural homogeneity. Professor Sklar recognized Catharine Beecher as someone founding women's importance in the household but also in society. Sklar began to point out that Catharine Beecher played an important role in showing how culture could change for females once they began to think outside the frame of mind that is more social than theological. Sklar also wanted to make it known that Catharine Beecher, though seen as successful and important, struggled in her own ways. Even though Beecher was well educated about domestic economy, she had no home, she also had no children, and she refused to teach. However, she urged others to be educated on and practice these manners, though she did not necessarily practice them herself. These times were not easy, and everyone struggled. Catharine Beecher wanted it to be less of a struggle for women though, and did research because of it.

The secondary source I used is http://www.jstor.org/stable/2701660?seq=3&Search=yes&searchText=Beecher&searchText=Catharine&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoAdvancedSearch%3Fq0%3DCatharine%2BBeecher%26f0%3Dall%26c1%3DAND%26q1%3D%26f1%3Dall%26acc%3Don%26wc%3Don%26fc%3Doff%26Search%3DSearch%26sd%3D%26ed%3D%26la%3D%26pt%3D%26isbn%3D&prevSearch=&item=6&ttl=616&returnArticleService=showFullText&resultsServiceName=null

Post #2 Pre-Investigation

The woman I have chosen to write about and use her letters as a primary source is Catharine Beecher. The primary source I have chosen are particular letters from Letters to the American People on Health and Happiness. These posts have a main subject of women. She tells of unhealthy things that she sees being done with women and explain why they are bad or unhealthy. She shows a sense of worry for women, especially for the things she sees wrong about sexual exploitation. Catharine Beecher essentially just wants women to have a right and sense of fairness, and she wants her voice to be heard in doing so.















1. This primary source seems to be about Catharine Beecher has traveled around and talked to many different women about the problems she sees in their society with their health. There are letters written about how some women dress in a way that is unhealthy to them and their bodies. There are also letters written about how she surveyed women about how healthy they are, then explained what exactly was healthy. She explained that there were few women who had the best health that could be had, as many women grew tired and sick throughout the days.



2. Catharine Beecher, sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe, wrote this primary source. I believe that her motivation was that she was seeing so much sickness in women. She wanted to test and find out what exactly was making women this way, and what could possibly be done to change these things. She was seeing women parading around in skimpy clothing that constrained them to a point of moving their organs around. She saw so many things wrong and she wanted to tell people of the things she was seeing.



3. The context seems to be similar to why the primary source was written. Catharine Beecher was seeing many things that were detrimental to women and she wanted women to see what things were detrimental and WHY they were detrimental. She wanted her voice to be heard even though in those time, women had very little say in things, which was actually one of the reasons for unhealthy women...their voices were not heard.

Post One: Primary Source

http://www1.assumption.edu/WHW/Hatch/Beecher/BeecherLettersonHealth.html This is the primary source I have chosen to use. This has letters that Catharine Beecher wrote about Women and their health.

In the Life of a Puritan (Post 3)

The Puritans were a religious group. They followed religious standards and expected others to follow the same standards they did. The two biggest things that showed who the Puritans were, were their break away from the Catholic church and also the Salem Witch Trials. Both of these things greatly impacted the Puritans and the society in which they lived.

The way Puritans even came about was through the English Reformation (Roark 93). Henry the 8th started a reformation to break away from the catholic church, but really only got halfway there (93). Instead of completely breaking away, he was a head of the church in England, but was still following religious beliefs and practices of orthodox catholics (93). Some English people wanted to throw out the reformation and go back under the power of the pope, but others wanted an on-going of the reformation...and they became Puritans (93).

One of the biggest things the Puritans wanted to get away from in the Catholic Church were the "offensive features" from the Catholics (Roark 93). For one, they wanted hierarchy to be taken out of the church, they saw no need for a monarchy to be head of the church (93). Another change they wanted to make is that they wanted christians to have more control over their own religious life, it should not have to go through another person (93). The Puritans wanted more of a focus on an individual relationship with God and greater time of Bible study and prayer (93). Over time, problems arose in England with the monarchy and the reformation, so many Puritans made way to America from England (94).


(Linder))
Another widely known thing about the Puritans is that they were the ones who were part of the Salem Witch Trials. The Puritans believed that the devil was in pursuit and would attack anyone he could (National Geographic). Along with this belief, they had also heard about a case in Boston where a case of witch craft had been observed (National Geographic). The Puritans believed it to be heresy if anyone was practicing witchcraft, and the punishment for heresy was brutal (Linder). Punishments like hanging and being crushed under rocks were used (Linder). As professor Holden talked about in class, "The Puritans went on witch hunts." They wanted to find the accused and punish them (Linder). A grand total of 25 people were killed during the Witch Trials, one of which was infant born in a prison, and many others spent months in prison waiting for a trial or to be let go (Linder).

(National Geographic)


Roark, James L. ., Michael P. . Johnson, and Cohen Patricia. Cline. The American Promise. Boston: Bedford, 2003. Print.

Linder, Douglas. The Witchcraft Trials in Salem: a Commentary.

"National Geographic: Salem Witch-Hunt--Interactive." National Geographic: Salem Witch-Hunt--Interactive. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Feb. 2013.

Differences Between the North, South, and Middle Colonies (Post 2)

The most easily identified differences between the  north, south, and middle colonies are the things that helped to shape the colony's economy, because it very much affected the way the people got to live. The northern colonies were shaped mostly by fish, farming, and trade, the southern colonies by tobacco and cash crops, and the middle colonies by their wheat and trade. Depending on what helped to shape the economy of the colonies also helped to determine how well off they would be financially. In fact, as Professor Holden said in class, the southern colonies made up the wealthiest region. This has to do with the fact that they produced cash crops like tobacco.

The middle colonies, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware, mainly depended on fur trade and farming to bring money in (The Middle Colonies). Many people came to the middle colonies because of the diverse societies and opportunities (The American Promise). The middle colonies were known as the Breadbasket of North America because of the wide variety of crops (The American Promise, 133). They mainly made their money off of wheat though, as they grew it in abundance to make profit.

This barn was thought to have held tobacco and other crops  (The Chesapeake Bay Company of the Jamestowne Society)

The Southern colonies, Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas, and Georgia, made most of their profit off of tobacco and other cash crops, they made good money as they were the wealthiest region! Not only was the southern region the wealthiest, but also the largest (The American Promise, 135). Unfortunately, this is due to the amount of slaves brought in to work for people in the southern colonies (135). Looking at this, it all makes sense. There were lots of slaves in the southern colonies as well as lots of crops. The crop and land owners needed people to take care of the crops, therefore they had the slaves...slave population would continue to grow through the years, with the biggest prevalence in the southern colonies.

(Slave Law in Colonial Virginia)

The northern colonies' economies were shaped by farming, fishing, and trading (The American Promise, 127). Though the people of these colonies may not have made an abundance of money off of these things, they were able to get by. Colonists would trade extra crops with neighbors. Because of the location of the colonies, their main export was livestock (127). It was not easy to live in this area, but even under these conditions, they were better off in North America than they were in England (128).







Roark, James L. ., Michael P. . Johnson, and Cohen Patricia. Cline. The American Promise. Boston: Bedford, 2003. Print.

"The Middle Colonies." The Middle Colonies
  

The Columbian Exchange (Post 1)

The Europeans brought a lot of negative things to North America, all the while receiving many benefits from the native Americans, benefits that were quintessential to their survival. The Columbian Biological Exchange website shows in the chart that this is true. The Europeans brought so many new diseases to North America that greatly affected the natives. They brought diseases such as small pox, influenza, and the common cold. The native Americans, unlike the Europeans, were not immune to these diseases.

   (Palomar Website)

Even though the native Americans were not getting anything positive, at the time, from the Europeans, they still shared their maize with them (Public Gettysburg). As professor Holden said in class, maize was essentially the only thing keeping the European population, in North America, alive . As the Public Gettysburg website said, maize was useful to the Europeans because it could be stored quickly and easily and it also could grow faster, and in more sorts of conditions, than wheat could be. The Palomar Columbian Exchange website states that one of the reasons maize was so important to the Europeans was because it could be used in many ways other than food for the humans. They could use it as feed for their livestock, a major export, and food to keep their population alive. It could be argued that maize is the main reason Europeans were able to survive the new and harsh conditions of the new world.

(Gettysburg.edu)

According to the Palomar website on the Columbian Exchange, disease was the number one thing Europeans had to help lessen the strength of the natives. Even though the Europeans did not fully understand what they were doing, they were bringing awful diseases to a country that had no immunization or resistance to any of the diseases. This had a huge negative impact on the native Americans because they were not only losing part of their population, but they were losing great leaders as well. According to the Gettysburg website, the disease that had the greatest and worst affect on the native Americans was small pox. This was such a huge problem to the natives because it was often misdiagnosed and treated incorrectly, which led to death for tens of thousands of Indians (Public Gettysburg). Most Europeans had already been exposed to this disease and had developed at least a partial immunity to this disease, so even though it was destroying the native populations, it hardly affected the Europeans (Public Gettysburg).

(Gettysburg.edu)

"The Columbian Biological Exchange." The Columbian Biological Exchange.

 "Columbian Exchange." Palomar College. S.J. Crouthamel, 2003. Web. 12 Feb. 2013.

Malone, Cory, et. al.  "The Columbian Exchange." Gettysburg.edu. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2013.