Women Working - 1824 "Proper" Occupaions for Women in America

From James Fenimore Cooper, Notions of the Americans

NEW-ENGLAND. 1824. On the Proper Occupations of Women in America.

Edward Lamson Henry (American Painter, 1841-1919) Woman with a Baby

There is something noble and touching, in the universal and yet simple and unpretending homage with which these people treat the weaker sex. I am sure a woman here has only to respect herself in order to meet with universal deference. I now understand what Cadwallader meant when he said that America was the real Paradise of woman...The condition of women in this country is solely owing to the elevation of its moral feeling. As she is never misplaced in society, her influence is only felt in the channels of ordinary and domestic life.

 Charles Courtney Curran (American painter, 1861-1942)  Shadows

I have heard young and silly Europeans, whose vanity has probably been wounded in finding them selves objects of secondary interest, affect to ridicule the absorbed attention which the youthful American matron bestows on her family; and some have gone so far in my presence, as to assert that a lady of this country was no more than an upper servant in the house of her husband...To me, woman appears to fill in America the very station for which she was designed by nature.

Jerome Thompson (American genre artist, 1814-1886) Gathering Wildflowers

In the lowest conditions of life she is treated with the tenderness and respect that is due to beings whom we believe to be the repositories of the better principles of our nature. Retired within the sacred precincts of her own abode, she is preserved from the destroying taint of excessive intercourse with the world.

 J Bond Francisco (American painter, 1863-1931) The Sick Child 1893

She makes no bargains beyond those which supply her own little personal wants, and her heart is not early corrupted by the harmful and unfeminine vice of selfishness; she is often the friend and adviser of her husband, but never his chapman. She must be sought in the haunts of her domestic privacy, and not amid the wranglings, deceptions, and heart-burnings of keen and sordid traffic.

Henry Bacon (American-born artist, 1839-1912) Peeling Apples

So true and general is this fact, that I have remarked a vast proportion of that class who frequent the markets, or vend trifles in the streets of this city, occupations that are not unsuited to the feebleness of the sex, are either foreigners, or females descended from certain insulated colonies of the Dutch, which still retain many of the habits of thier ancestors amidst the improvements that are throwing them among the forgotten usages of another century.

John George Brown (American genre paintere, 1831-1913)   The Cherry Picker

The effect of this natural and inestimable division of employment, is in itself enough to produce an impression on the characters of a whole people. It leaves the heart and principles of woman untainted by the dire temptations of strife with her fellows. The husband can retire from his own sordid struggles with the world to seek consolation and correction from one who is placed beyond their influence.

 Thomas Eakins (1844-1916) Spinning 1881

The first impressions of the child are drawn from the purest sources known to our nature; and the son, even long after he has been compelled to enter on the thorny track of the father, preserves the memorial of the pure and unalloyed lessons that he has received from the lips, and, what is far better, from the example of the mother...

John Leon Moran (American painter, 1864-1941) Cabbage Pickers 1883

  I saw every where the utmost possible care to preserve the females from undue or unwomanly employments. If there was a burthen, it was in the arms or on the shoulders of the man. Even labours that seem properly to belong to the household, were often performed by the latter; and I never heard the voice of the wife calling on the husband for assistance, that it was not answered by a ready, manly, an cheerful compliance.

William Sidney Mount (American painter, 1807-1868) Cracking Nuts 1856

The neatness of the cottage, the farm-house, and the inn; thc clean, tidy, healthful, and vigorous look of the children, united to attest the use fulness of this system. What renders all this more striking and more touching, is the circumstance that not only is labour in so great demand, but, contrary to the fact in all the rest of christendom, the women materially exceed the men in numbers. This seeming depature from what is almost an established law of nature is owing to the emigration westward. By the census of 1820, it appears, that in the six States of New-England there were rather more than thirteen females to every twelve males over the age of sixteen.
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John George Brown (American genre paintere, 1831-1913)   Home Comforts


William Sidney Mount (American painter, 1807-1868) Eel Spearing at Setauket Fishing Along the Shore 1845


 Thompkins H Matteson (American painter, 1813-1884)  The Christmas Day Turkey Shoot (see Cooper's Pioneers) 1857


Edward Lamson Henry (American Painter, 1841-1919) Flower Girl Gathering Water 1880


Enoch Wood Perry (American painter, 1831-1913) Women Weaving Baskets


 Elizabeth Nourse (American painter, 1859-1938) Tennessee Woman Weaving 1885


 Harry Roseland (American painter, 1867-1950) An Important Letter 1898


William Aiken Walker (American painter, 1839-1921) Charleston Vegetable Seller



Jerome Thompson (American painter, 1814-1886) Taking Lunch to the Workers Noonday in Summer 1852


Thomas Hicks (1823–1890) Kitchen Interior with Woman Preparing the Food


Harry Roseland (American painter, 1867-1950) Tending a Sick Child, A Serious Case 1899


 Guy Orlando Rose (American painter, 1867-1925) Gathering the Potatoes 1891


 John Eastman (American Painter, fl 1842-1880) Mother Comforting a Child


Harry Roseland (American painter, 1867-1950) The Dressmaker 1900


 Thomas Waterman Wood (American painter, 1823-1903) Collecting the Mail at the Village Post Office 1873


Harry Roseland (American painter, 1867-1950) Feeding the Children or One More Spoon 1889


Linton Park (American painter, 1826-1906) Flax Scutching Bee 1885


 William Henry Snyder (1829–1910) Tutoring the Children at a Quiet Time


Thomas P Rossiter (American painter, 1818-1871) Welcoming the Husband Home to the House on the Hudson 1852


William Sidney Mount (American painter, 1807-1868) Woman Fortune Telling 1838


Frank Waller (1842-1923) Harvesting Hops near Cooperstown, New York


Theodore Robinson (American painter, 1852–1896) Haying, 1884


 Thomas Waterman Wood (American painter, 1823-1903) Seeking Advice (Gathering Eggs)  1882


Thompkins H Matteson (American painter, 1813-1884) Making Ammunition 1855


James Goodwyn Clonney (American artist, 1812–1867) Offering Baby a Rose


 Thompkins H Matteson (American painter, 1813-1884) Hop Picking 1862


Pinckney Marcius-Simons (1865-1909) The Writer