Undergraduate Study Guide

Domestic Architecture: A Reflection of Women’s Changing Roles in the New Republic,1790-1840

In this unit we will examine:

·         the analogy between a woman’s home and her body

·         the way that the physical domestic architecture of the new republic embodied new freedoms and status for women

·         how legal inheritance policies and new emphasis on housework ultimately diminished these freedoms and status, preventing further advancement

Before Class

1. Think of a home you lived in as a child. Picture it in as much detail as possible. Draw a floorplan. Label the floorplan with the names of the rooms, how they were used, and which members of the household used them most.

2. On our webcourses portal, you will find John Stanford's sermon "Sacred Architecture, or The Design of Jehova in Building the Temple of Solomon, A Sermon." Read the following pages: first unnumbered page of sermon - page 2, pages 16-19, page 26 paragraph 1, and pages 28-29. Consider.
• According to Stanford, what made architecture necessary?
• Where can you find feminized language?
• How does Stanford relate architecture to the body and spirit?
• What does the sermon say about the profession of architecture in America in the early 1790's?

3. Use this link to find Lynne Walker's article "Home Making: An Architectural Perspective." Read the first 8 paragraphs, which are the introduction and discussion of Victorian domestic architecture. Make sure to view the embedded floorplan. http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.ucf.edu/ehost/detail?sid=dc146b57-fa9a-4750-9954-f70c6b1bac8b%40sessionmgr104&vid=4&hid=119

4. Go to Fiske Kimball's book Domestic Architecture of the American Colonies and of the Early Republic. Read Pages 155-162. Scroll through other photos and floor plans of houses from this era. Note room use and placement. If you can, print one or two floorplans to bring to class. http://books.google.com/books?id=ApwsAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA145&lpg=PA145&dq=new+republic+domestic+architecture&source=bl&ots=MXfNhWnxMd&sig=YBiBp6WS4eLU8pxvDY9MxaO71Xk&hl=en&ei=D5vATruIEMaTtweQzeWvBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&sqi=2&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false 

5. Read Pages 31-32 of Pauline E. Schloesser's book The Fair Sex: White Women and Racial Patriarchy in the Early American Republic. http://books.google.com/books?id=aUCGdEEEOiEC&pg=PA31&dq=widow's+dower+early+republic&hl=en&ei=MKHATo3oN9G5tgeCseyuBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=widow's%20dower%20early%20republic&f=false

During Class

Finding our cultural lens:

1.      We will start by sharing the floor plans we created for our childhood homes. In groups of 3, discuss your floor plan and which household members used which spaces the most. Note any similarities or unexpected findings.

2.      We reconvene as a class and discuss our findings, noting trends in terms of room placement and which genders most used those rooms, as well as any surprises.

Discussion Questions:

·         When do you think the home you drew was built? How does that compare with those in the same and other time frames?

·         What does the placement of rooms say about gender roles, if anything?

·         What conclusions can we draw about how architecture reflects our contemporary view of genders?

Looking through a new lens:

1.      In the sermon “Sacred Architecture; or the Design of Jehovah in Building the Temple of Solomon,” Reverend John Stanford draws parallels between the House Carpenters’ trade and the divine work of building a house for God. He introduces his sermon by naming architecture the most “useful and ornamental” of the mechanical arts (5). In his next breath, however, Stanford pronounces architecture “absolutely necessary” because of “the introduction of sin,” which “pierced and impregnated the human breast,” making the body vulnerable to weather, pollution, and all of heaven’s frightful “artillery” (5).

Discussion Question:

·         How did ideas about architecture and gender differ at the outset of the new republic from how we see them now?

2.      In Memory’s Daughters, Susan Stabile concentrates on the loss of the childhood home of Deborah Norris Logan, built in 1755 in the Georgian style. Stabile quotes London builder Richard Neve who wrote in 1703, “Pass a running Examination over the whole Edifice, according to the Properties of a well shapen Man; as whether the Walls stand upright, upon a good Foundation; whether the Fabric be of a comely Stature” (26).

According to the science of the European Enlightenment, Stabile observes, that domestic architects saw “interior spaces as expressly feminine” because “a woman’s body was considered naturally weak and her manner passive,” so “she was conveniently confined within the house” (27, 241).

3.       This exterior/interior dynamic reflected not only social norms but also the reproductive anatomy of the sexes, with the interior of the home corresponding to the enclosed interior of the female body (Walker 826).

4.      Look over these floor plans of Georgian homes from Fiske Kimball’s work (74).

            Discussion Questions:

·         How do you think the different rooms were used? Why?

·         In what way does the Georgian/Federal plan exemplify the masculine/feminine binary? Consider the ideas of Stabile and Walker in your answer.

New concerns for the home in the new republic:

1.      Fiske Kimball examines the developing concern with the tension between the spiritual and the civic in home design (145). He states, “The Revolution… brought a far more fundamental change in American domestic architecture than is generally appreciated” (xx). The new nation, allied now more closely with France than with Britain, sought to develop national identity through the revival of Greek and Roman democratic ideas (Kimball 145).

2.      If you printed floor plans from Kimball’s work, take some time to compare them to these examples:

 

Plans of the Woodlands, Philadelphia, 1788, illustrating use of the rotunda. Source:

Kimball, Fiske. Domestic Architecture of the American Colonies and of the Early Republic.

 USA: Dover, 2001. Print. Figure 109.

Plans of the Harrison Gray Otis house, 1807,  illustrating use of the rotunda and temple. Source:

Kimball, Fiske. Domestic Architecture of the American Colonies and of the Early Republic.

USA: Dover, 2001. Print. Figure 110.

            Discussion Questions:

·         How do these floor plans differ from the Georgian style?

·         Why do you suppose citizens of the new republic were interested in reviving the Greek style?

·         What does this say about the importance of gender in the design of domestic space during this period?

·         How does this compare to earlier attitudes?

·         Discuss this in terms of what we’ve already learned about women’s responsibilities and opportunities (education, public voice, etc.).

The legal side of it:

1.      Pauline Schloesser says that over the course of the 1700’s, women were less likely to be sole heirs of property and that “after 1750, there was an increase in the proportion of wills that gave wives no interest in land, or gave them only a lifetime interest rather than outright ownership of the property” (31). She goes on to discuss the diminishing widow’s dower, or proportion of the property legally owed to the wife if the husband left no will (31-2).

Discussion:

·         How did the change in inheritance laws leading up to the new republic years affect a woman’s claim to her home?

·         If a woman’s home is an analogy for her body, in what way did a reduced stake in the home affect the value of the woman herself?

·         What does it mean to have “lifetime” ownership of a portion of the home (31)?

·         How did these laws and practices relate to the roles of women at the end of the new republic years?

Suggested Readings

Greenberg, Joshua R. Advocating the Man: Masculinity, Organized Labor, and the Household in

New York, 1800-1840.  0-231-50951-0. Gutenberg<e>, Columbia University Press. 2006.

http://www.gutenbert-e.org/greenberg/Chapter2JRG.html. Web. 11/24/2011.

Herman, Bernard L. Town House: Architecture and Material Life in the Early American City,

1780-1830. North Carolina: The U of North Carolina P, 2005. Print.

Kelly, Mary. “Female Academies and Seminaries and Print Culture.”

Kelley, Mary. Learning to Stand and Speak: Women, Education, and Public Life in America’s

Republic. North Carolina: The U of North Carolina P, 2008. Print.

“Otis House.” historicnewengland.org. Historic New England, n. d. Web. 12/8/2011.

Stabile, Susan. Memory’s Daughters: The Material Culture of Remembrance in Eighteenth-

Century America. New York: Cornell U P, 2004. Print.

Works Cited

Kimball, Fiske. Domestic Architecture of the American Colonies and of the Early Republic.

USA: Dover, 2001. Print & Web. 12/9/2011.

Schloesser, Pauline E. White Women and Racial Patriarchy in the Early American Republic.

            New York & London: NY U P, 2002. Web, 11/13/2011.

Stabile, Susan. Memory’s Daughters: The Material Culture of Remembrance in Eighteenth-

Century America. New York: Cornell U P, 2004. Print.

Stanford, Rev. John, M.A. Sacred Architecture; or the Design of Jehovah in Building the Temple

of Solomon: A Sermon. New York: T. & J. Swords, 1793. Early American Imprints,

Series 1: Evans, no 26201. Web.

Walker, Lynne. “Homemaking: An Architectural Perspective.” Signs, 27.3, 2002, 823-825. Web.

            10/23/2011.