Republican Motherhood, championed by leaders like Benjamin Rush, was an 18th-century ideology that aimed to unite public and private responsibilities for women. It was a feminine ideal that allowed women to be involved in politics and raise children in Republican ideals with education. However, it did not allow them to venture into political activity outside the realm of a woman.
The ideal of “Republican Motherhood” was a 20th-century term for an 18th-century attitude toward women’s roles present in the emerging United States. The key idea of republican mothers was that women were responsible for the early education of boys who would someday become voting citizens. While most historians focus on the positive side of this role, the letters to John Adams highlight both a darker side.
The model republican woman was a mother, dedicated to the service of civic virtue and educated her sons for it. The great majority of women’s lives were changed by the American Revolution, as they were increasingly drawn into the political debate as household producers. Some historians view republican womanhood as a symbol of women’s progress after the war, bridging the gap between the public and private.
Much scholarship has been written detailing the role these women played in attaining American independence while still continuing to support their husbands and husbands. Republican Motherhood was a concept that legitimized a minimum of political sophistication and interest, and only of a most generalized sort.
📹 Women in the 19th Century: Crash Course US History #16
In which John Green finally gets around to talking about some women’s history. In the 19th Century, the United States was …
📹 Episode 33: Covid Crisis and Republican Motherhood
In this episode, Brooke and Kelsie discuss the impact that COVID-19 has had on moms and the possibilities for future changes to …
Dear Crash Course team, Im currently in New York and what seems to be a blizzard that will keep me in front of my tv for the remainder of the weekend. I thought that I would take this opportunity to be a productive law student and begin my readings that are due Monday, only to find myself nodding off and dreaming about how much fun it would be playing outside. After waking up, I decided to try and trick myself into believing that this subject is not as boring as my body wants me to believe. I googled constitutional interpretation articles and the first episode of your articles came up. Four gin and tonics and sixteen articles later I am not only experiencing a pleasant inebriation, I am also extremely excited to continue bing watch the remaining episodes, either until I finish the series or until these libations have me passed out on the couch. Thank you
The lack of ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment is one of the most staggering issues I had ever read about, mostly because some of the loudest voices against it were women. People like Phyllis Schlafly who openly heckles feminists at speeches. Her logic is what really baffles me, that the ERA would potentially remove things like widow reperations for husbands KIA during war, or maternal leave. And here lies the giant flaw in that logic: Don’t make those gender bound. The fact male soldiers that die grant reperations to their widows, but female soldiers that die are not recongized the same way to their husbands. That is a program that needs ammending, it wasn’t likely to ever go away. Funny thing about equality: IT’S MEANS EQUAL, FOR BOTH PARTIES.
I love Crash Course . Closed captions would be great . I have EL Students and poor readers as well as hearing impaired students. The automatic cc just don’t work and end up confusing some students even more. I’ve created pre viewing guides but I like sneaking in the reading element Thank you for doing these..
In the recent movie Lincoln there’s an excellent scene on the house floor where they’re discussing freeing all slaves through the 13th amendment. They’re discussing the slippery slope where if you free the slaves what next? They go on to make comparisons by saying next the freed slaves will want to vote which caused a stir in the house. After that they take this point to an “extreme” by suggesting that now women will want to vote after this is done. At that point the house floor totally erupts into wild outrage. I thought that was an interesting scene that really demonstrates during that time period much of what peoples feelings were about women, like you’ve discussed in this article.
I don’t understand the beef with the discussion of feminism. This isn’t the modern man-hating third-wave feminism, this is the original emancipation of women. The liberation of women to the status of human. It seems a lot of people simply can’t understand just how repressed women were in those days. Not being able to own property, not being allowed to earn money, complete obedience to husband, no vote of course. This is the shit we rail against Saudi Arabia for. The only reason the abolition of slavery overshadows this in history is because it started a war. But because the two movements are intertwined, and are the formation of our modern ideals, of equal rights for all, this discussion of feminism is extremely fucking relevant to history.
Luke had a more physical connection to the force, where as Leias was more metaphysical. While Leia had metal force abilities, (like the ability to mentally connect with her mother) Luke had the ability to connect with the physical aspects of the force, which was why he had the capability to become a Jedi. Leia lacked that ability. Rey on the other hand #UltimateForceUser.
I like how you touched on the subjects that were important to women of the day. I used to love the book “Eight Cousins” by Louisa May Alcott and this vid helps me to understand more clearly that she was actually writing about the conflicting influences of the time and how she tried to steer girls into valuing things that were ultimately more important like true friendship and health rather than what would make her fit in to society better.
Hahaha I loved how you mentioned Star Wars. Recently, Lucasfilm was bought by Disney (and was passed on to a female CEO, though I’m not sure if that’s too significant considering the growing conscientiousness of people regarding sexism these days), and the new Star Wars films feature the unsexualized Ray as our main protagonist that she may embark on the hero’s journey males have traditionally undertaken. Not just that. Man, I’m giggling just thinking of it… The first people (and main characters, as it turns out) featured in the Force Awakens was a black guy and Latino guy. Disney has been TRYING to produce media that features a diversity of characters. I can see that, and it’s especially giggle-worthy to see it in much of kid’s media these days. But to take the popular and seminal franchise of Star Wars and do THAT… it’s unbelievable. The next thing is to make a Legend of Zelda series that has Zelda as our main protag instead of Link. Immensely popular, big franchises have such great power. It’s when I really feel that artist’s can actually have a massive voice. On a different note, kid’s toys need to have an overhaul of male and female marketing. Like, my school still separates the classes for boy’s toys and girl’s toys. Ridiculous. I’m just puking opinions now, just cuz this article got me so excited… but I can feel great and terrible change approaching. Something to do with millennials and globalization and the U.S. being such a melting pot and its infrastructure on immigration.
Here’s the thing- we’re talking about women here. Nobody’s deliberately excluding men. There are plenty of topics where really only men are discussed. Is it so much to ask for to have one article just about women, where we discuss their achievements and oppression- which, by the way, because of people like the ones in the comments? In case this is too confusing for you, let me explain it simply. Many articles about men. No problem. Lots of discussion about men. Fine. Many things about both men and women in general, fine. One article about women- not excluding men, because many articles about man already. Got it?
They trained Luke and not Leia for two reasons. The first one being that Luke had a stronger connection to the force. The other reason was that Leia was a key member in the rebel alliance and training her would have jeopardized it. Futhermore people knew Anakin Skywalker. Lukes name gives away that they were related. However only two people knew that Leia was the daughter of Anakin and they didn’t want to reveal that Anakin had two children Also in the alternative ending in the force unleashed II it is shown that if Luke was to be turned to the dark side or get killed Leia would be trained in the ways of the force
Americans do not get as wasted anymore because rich people found out it is possible to turn corn and other sources of booze like apples and grain into sugar. It is like they found a way to legally sell alcohol to children too. PS Originally Lucas was going to make Leia the main character. Why he changed his mind I do not know. The special features on my DVDs do not say
Love your vids! I’ve mentioned you in my newest article as one of my fave YouTube websites, in celebration of YouTube Comedy Week! A lot of the comments support why it’s so important to include women in history and how we are still quite messed up when it comes to gender and misogyny. Crash course is a force for good 🙂
I only came down to the comments to see whether anyone else thought John was completely misinterpreting the Mystery Document, since it seemed to me a bitter denouncing of the hypocritical status quo rather than a “buying in” to it. For some reason I honestly believed the comments for Crash Course would be un-terrible and thus such a discussion would be here to read. But alas.
I love to read which is what brought me to Crash Course Literature, the first of several of your courses that I have enjoyed. I don’t understand why Uncle Tom’s Cabin is not considered good literature but The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is? Language wise they are both fairly difficult to read, yet both evoke the same emotions for the characters and the time, at leat for me. I’m a true student and fan of Crash Course and I think you and Hank are AWESOME 👍🏽☺️
The only thing I will say about any of this for fear of what is happening in the comments (I’m afraid to even look) is that the most likely reason that women who wore shorter skirts and pants were ridiculed was because in the 1800s…those were children’s clothes. That was what toddlers and young children wore, so OF COURSE they were laughed at. I mean, it’s back to that whole part about needing a change in attitude, but I do feel it necessary to point out that most of these people ridiculing them weren’t like, “HA stupid women trying to be like men, how dare they!” and were more like, “HA, my 4 year old daughter has that same outfit- And she wants to be taken seriously in that?” In fact a lot of the suffragettes that are still well-known/mainstream were extremely against a radical change in dress because it made people take them less seriously. Because to the people of the 1800s, they looked ridiculous.
Why did they train Luke? Because Luke was expendable and was a warrior. Leia, even at the height of her powers, was never as strong as Luke in combat and most force skills. Leia was more valuable as a diplomat and politician. Luke did not have the life-long training of how to run an inter-galactic government. This is why Luke went on to train new Jedi at the new Jedi academy, and Leia went on to become the Prime Minister of the New Republic as the successor to Mon Mothma.
John Green, you are mainly focusing on the white women’s movement. There were several separate movements ran by minority women because they were not welcome in the white women’s movement because of their race. Many of these minority women women had lived very different lives than that of the middle class women, which meant they fought for different things based on their different experiences. All fought for equality, but had very different ways of getting there. These early minority women movement groups are rarely mention in America high school education because of people belittling the groups at their times of creation due to racism. Discrimination still plays a part in the teaching of feminist movement because of the near sole focus on white women’s movements in the first and second waves of feminism only. Many of the minority women’s roles in the history of America are not taught until college, and even than it is often solely focus upon by Women’s Study majors and minors. And, minority women are still fighting for equal say in our discourse of American society. Many minority scholars are force to co-write with “white” scholars because their word is not held equal to that of someone who is white. So please looking some of these minority movements next time please because minority women’s history is just as important has white women’s history.
The problem with many feminist movements is that instead of promoting men and women as equal they promote women > men and call it “fair”. For example a boys high school baseball team raised money through things like mowing lawns for several months in order to buy more badly needed bleachers as well as a new scoreboard. The boys and girls baseball teams recieved equal funding. The extra stuff the boys team bought came from outside money they all worked for. Unfortunately a feminist organization sued the school calling it “unequal”. They won. Today the paid for, ready to use bleachers are roped of and the paid for scoreboard is unplugged for “fairness”. Because of feminist some high school guys learned the hard lesson that hard work dosen’t always pay of. This is what passed for “equality”. There are other similar stories if you’d like to search such as another organizations efforts to make it illegal to critisize feminism (I’m not joking). I’m not saying that there are no true feminist promoting equality but the LOUDEST ones are complete hypocrites. I sincerely hope this changes before the entire movement is coated in this stigma.
Let me understand it…basically he’s making a crash course…he dismisses greek culture and roman hitsory ina couple articles…rapping up 4000 years in 3-4 articles…AND THEN HE SPENDS 12 MINUTES RAMBLING ABOUT FEMINISM??? Who is gonna ask you questions about feminism in a fucking history test??? Its a specific subject, why do they put so much enphasis on feminism in these articles? What would you think if they had constant referrals in the articles about…let’s say…MARTIAL ARTS….its afucking specific argument that cannot take so much space in an history crash course…
Wait…You mean to tell me that some women actively took a part in building the “Patriarchy” (4:55) and it’s not actually all Men’s faults? But that would mean that not only are all men evil, but so are at least some of the women. Nah, can’t be. Tumblr clearly tells me all the things I should hate and the most important thing for me to hate is myself for being a man. So I’ll just completely forget that piece of history mentioned there in (4:55).
Yes, bravo for the feminist revolution. We’ve now got thousands upon thousands of children suffering from mental health issues with the tensions between parents and divorce rate causing a shitload of single parenting, unbelievable financial stress as dual-income households jack up the cost of living making it damn near impossible to live alone, and now various horrible prejudices against men are starting to emerge yet modern feminism shows an alarming indifference to inequalities against men. Clearly this alternative is SO much better for society, can’t you just feel the joy and freedom these days?
As women gained power, starting with the temperance movement as explained here, they used that power to mutilate their male children (and ONLY their male children). Circumcision is a form of sexual handicap that was originally intended to keep men from masturbating (a form of male sexual oppression). On top of this women were responsible for outlawing prostitution and alcohol. Male genital mutilation hit an all time high (90%) at the same time as women had their sexual revolution (1960’s). Men, wake up. We are the sexually oppressed ones! Not women. They have lied to us and tricked us into believing we should lay down our lives for them when they mutilated us at birth.
Missed a good opportunity there to talk about Wonder Woman, actually. Masterson, the guy who created Wonder Woman, was inspired by the suffragettes and, if I’m not mistaken, was friends with Margaret Sanger. Or someone related to her. In any case, he was an ardent feminist, and that’s part of what inspired him to create Wonder Woman! 🙂 See the book: amazon.co.uk/Secret-History-Wonder-Woman/dp/1925106322/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1435280436&sr=8-1&keywords=jill+lepore+wonder+woman
I have been looking forward to your coverage of the reform movements after the civil war and before WWI. Please don’t skip over Eugen debs or Emma Goldman. As please cover the rise of the catholic left and Father Charles Coughlin. Dorthy Day and Helen Keller are also super interesting as political leaders. Just letting you all know some of the stuff that might be really cool to see.
suggestions for Libertage, since we’re coming into civil war soon: America: government of the people, by the people, for the people (sorta)* America: Emancipating (sorta)* since 1863. The reason why I added (sorta) is because we need to remember that Lincoln had to suspend civil liberties for some (for example habeus corpus in MD) to ultimately preserve the union for all, and that the Emancipation Proclamation only covered states in rebellion… Love the series!
I just wanted to say thank you for these articles. I am studying for my National Boards in Teaching and I desperately needed to brush up on my US history before I take my test next Friday. These articles have been wonderful. I’ll let you know in November when I get my scores back if I pass or not. If I do, I think I deserve a shout out in a thought bubble for being exceptionally genius at recognizing a brilliant resource when I see one.
Leia wasn’t trained because Senator Organa was hiding her from the Empire, while Obi Wan cared for Luke. Sure, both opposed the Empire, but only one could be trained, and Luke had more experience with the force already, so training him was the logical choice (Leis is trained in the Expanded Universe)
Hey Chris, could you tell me where you found it? I’ve seen it on one screen then can’t find it again. have you found a spell check or edit function? I try and respond to folk and attempt building honest dialogues but not being able to easily find comments or threads hampers communication and just makes me feel old. also, I agree with some of your statements, everyone has their own burdens, even rich white men.
You’re right. Although that percentage really depends on the topic (Domestic abuse, rape, child custody, etc). Men and women are equal but different. They can’t be both can’t be smushed together into one group but we can’t forget about one or the other. Not an easy topic to discuss, especially with only 400 characters. Although there’s plenty of youtubers, bloggers, and professors who discuss why they like or dislike the direction of feminism, so you’re free to come to you’re own conclusion
Something a lot of people don’t think about is how the clothes/fashion of women literally held them back. Have you ever worn a hoop skirt? You CAN’T open a door for yourself or pull out your own chair. That’s where all those old school manners come from. It’s interesting to think how much our clothes effect our lives.
MY FAVE SO FAR! I love it when guys call out patriarchy. My only complaint is that Greene wrote “female” on the board but only talked about ciswomen, which is transerasure, especially nonbinary erasure. If his intent was to only acknowledge cis women then the board should say “cis women” instead of “female”. But rly, id prefer if you kept “female” and covered nonbinary females.
I wouldn’t say that. I would argue that it set the stage for quite a lot of what women were facing in the 1930s- particularly since the Women’s Rights Movement really started gaining ground and momentum in the 1840s and especially in the 1880s. Also, by 1921, we gained the right to vote in the U.S. That would not have been possible without all of the groundwork that came during this time period.
In EU Leah was trained in the force but for some reason in canon she isn’t, and the reason why she was never trained in the original trilogy was because she was a fail safe in case Luke died. Leah’s connection to the force and her connection to Darth Vader had to be kept secret even to her because no one except Yoda, Leah’s adopted parents, and Obi Wan were to know of Leah’s force abilities to keep her safe from the Empire.
To be fair, that woman’s “opinions” were pretty accurate. The bad part was that she seemed to be in favor of women remaining defenseless and thus holding onto the perks of chivalry. But she was right about it being a trade-off. If women seek ambition, power and self-determination, then they can no longer expect men to pamper them and give them special privileges for being of “the fairer sex”.
He is right in one thing. If a woman gets pregnant and want to have the child, but the father doesn’t, people will blame the father by not supporting the child. Although he never wanted a child (at least not that time), he still has to support it, because the mother can’t wait some time or go to another friend/husband. In this situation, the man gets the blame and is miserable, but he cannot change. (And of course there are other situations, but if we only look at this one…)
The 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection clause requires the gov’t not to treat women differently than men. But the Court uses 3 different levels of scrutiny to analyze Equal Protection cases. Cases involving race, for example, get “strict scrutiny,” so it’s hard for the gov’t to get away with blatantly discriminating against people of a certain race. Gender cases get “intermediate scrutiny,” which means the government can discriminate somewhat, but they need an “important” reason for doing so.
Wait, wait, wait, John did I hear you say that we don’t read Uncle Tom’s Cabin in Literature Class, because we do. I have not yet had the misfortune myself but I have seen it on the reading list of several high school Language Arts Classes. Oh and Nathaniel Hawthorne is revered in our high school Literature classes as well. Sorry for whatever distress this may cause you.
Just this week my Survey of English Literature class finished Uncle Tom’s Cabin, but to be fair, the class is not so much about literature as it is about how bad slavery was (but to be fair, should make it not survey of english literature but a history lass, as John said or at least survey of abolition literature).
I re-read what I wrote (finally), and noticed where I went wrong: I meant over 20 words, not over 20 genders (depending of course whether you’re a constructionist or post-structuralist or not, that difference becomes void): in total, there are – according to my course in Genderstudies – 23 terms denoting a gender in Basa Ugi (compared to, for instance, three in Dutch, my native language), varying between actual sexes, gender roles and gender expressions.
If we’re going Star Wars on this subject, I would like to point out that in the (old) extended universe (now Star Wars Legends) there are plenty of kick-butt women (Bastilla and Satele Shan, Jaina solo, Nomi Sunrider, Darth Treya, etc). (Also Luke trained Leia after Return of the Jedi, but she still spent more of her time on politics.) If the point here is to claim that there are no Star Wars stories with awesome female characters, I would disagree. If the point you’re making is that there aren’t a lot of women in certain popular media, then please disregard the previous sentences of this comment, and proceed to delve into Star Wars Legends. Love the vids, cheers 🙂
from “Alright.” “…women choose to not work in the sciences…advertisement is funded for women to join.” When major universities and colleges started accepting. Yale: 1969 Princeton: 1969 Cornell: technically 1872, but as a practical matter 1970 Brown: 1971 (when its women’s college, Pembroke, merged with Brown) Dartmouth: 1972 Harvard: 1977 (when Harvard & Radcliffe merged) Columbia: 1981 (although Barnard students were allowed to attend certain Columbia courses as early as 1955) (cont.)
There has been slavery at different times and in many different forms. But I must salute America, the way they have documented slavery, no one has done it. It sometimes makes me feel uncomfortable about america but slavery related struggle and information is one of the most important lessons for human beings.
I think that assuming Schlafly’s views are either internalized misogyny or unexplainable does a disservice to her as a female thinker. She’s entitled to her views without them being dismissed as illogical or given to her by someone else. Not that misogyny can’t be internalized, but just because a woman doesn’t agree with mainstream feminism doesn’t make her ideas not her own.
Don’t worry John Green Leila becomes a Jedi in the extended star wars universe. A pretty bad ass Jedi too. And her daughter is one of the most important characters in legacy of the force. But that is probably because of the point you and others have made that star wars was to put it lightly male-centeric (yes I am referring to family guy).
Sexism is “internalized” when it is sexism against your own gender. Misogyny is negative; if you have an opinion about your own gender that is based on misogyny, then there’s obviously external factors that are forcing you to unconsciously believe yourself to be inferior, therefore the feelings are “internalized.” If you were to ask Schlafly if she felt she wasn’t as good as a man she’d be insulted, but she unconsciously does believe that since she dictates others’ behavior on that assumption.
Yes, these are very few cases, but you said that “no women would be expected to talk about becoming a forced parent beforehand.”, which isn’t true. In fact, there are plenty of cases of forced pregnancies in countries where abortion isn’t allowed. I would say that a woman takes a greater risk when becoming pregnant, she is more likely to die in the process. Ultimately, one side has to be given more vote as otherwise this will become a court nightmare, and it makes sense to give it to women
There is an emerging word for this type of derogatory and sexist view towards men, it is called being a misandrist or misandry; which is, the equivalent of a misogynist. I would be careful in forming a view point that all academic feminists are misandrists and withhold the idea that equality between the sexes has been reached. Even today with our enlightened society sexism is prominent.
You are right – it does do a disservice to her as a female thinker – and rightfully so. Phyllis Schlafly actively works against efforts to give women more economic and domestic freedom, and has stated that she thinks a woman is obligated to sex when married, and cannot be raped. Sorry, but if someone works so hard to take away the rights of others, I feel perfectly entitled to dismiss their opinions as misogyny, male or female.
I liked this episode but it would have benefited from a more layered discussion of race and gender. The shout-out to Sojourner Truth is good, but this episode largely omitted the lived realities of enslaved and free Black women and their involvement in abolitionism and women’s rights movements. It also ignored the glaring racism of many women who figure in the suffrage movement (Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frances Willard, Susan B. Anthony)
I never asked for men’s problems to be covered in depth, I asked that crash course get their facts straight. I don’t disagree that women had it tough, I’m just saying that emphasizing the difficulty by comparing it to the “easy” life of a man is false. The idea of a man being the only one considered human because he’s the guard dog of the family is trivial and I expected crash course to put more thought into this topic.
He did manage to do world history already, thats slightly bigger than Africa. John has already stated that he finds European history boring, which is fair enough. A lot of it is just white men with beards and or funny hats doing war on each other but I think an overall history of Africa would be really interesting.
Perhaps not in the same way as the US, but there were many firsts in México: first nation in the continent to abolish slavery (and I mean for real), first president of African ancestry, a large international player in the process of outlawing slave trade, etc. Also México was a strong mediator between US and South America after WW2, and a pioneer in non-proliferation policy (yes, we developed weapons-grade uranium, but decided against nuclear weapons), etc. You’d be surprised.
Can we please be best friends? Okay I know it would start as a master and apprentice type relationship, but as history mostly dictates, (cue unfortunate wink) that would turn into a best friendship if you will. Of course after time I would have to defeat and surpass you.. (Unfortunately long stare) no but seriously this is my favorite YouTube website, please do this forever and maybe make longer articles please like documentaries maybe. Including many shock pen bits. Okay just one shock pen bit. 😊🤗
Can you give me a list to feminist authors that you’re referring to here? I’m interested to check them. See, all the feminist authors I’ve read were dealing with language, with power structures, with gendered thinking, with the link between biology and behaviour, with Mars/Venus type studies and faulty data regarding brain activity. The pay gap is still a problem, but it’s to do with gender roles not payment.