Catherine Beecher and the Complex Legacy of Education

In this episode of 'Our Dirty Laundry,' our discussion centers around Catherine Beecher, an influential figure in American education history. We explore her advocacy for women's education, her writings on domestic economy, and contrasting stances on suffrage and slavery. The episode reveals Beecher's complicated legacy and her contributions to the education system, while critiquing her views on gradual emancipation and the appropriate methods of addressing moral evils like slavery. We connect these historical perspectives to contemporary issues in education and women's roles in professional fields. Join the conversation as we examine the enduring impact of Beecher's ideology on current societal structures.

Transcript

0:00

Hi, this is Mandy Griffin. And I'm Katie Swalwell, and welcome to our Dirty Laundry, stories of white ladies making a mess of things and how we need to clean up our act.

Mandy 0:15

Hi everybody.

katy 0:17

Hi, happy Thanksgiving, although I say that, and then that immediately lodges this episode in a very specific time stamp, right?

Mandy 0:28

time that we are doing it. So if you're listening to this later, months later, whenever later,

katy 0:35

On repeat to get away from your family in a closet or like locked in a room somewhere. That's fine. We see you. Yes. I What are you feeling especially grateful for? I know that's like, we've done episodes in the past about the history of Thanksgiving and now fucked up it is in what the history actually is, but I do like the idea of gratitude. I think that's really important. So that sliver of this holiday at least, is there anything you're feeling grateful for?

Mandy 1:03

I think the first thing that I always feel grateful for, and probably just'cause I see the opposite so much in every day of what I do, is just for. Being healthy and

katy 1:13

Yeah,

Mandy 1:14

me being because I also know how quickly that can change. And

katy 1:19

right.

Mandy 1:20

every day that, you know, I think you are in a healthy body, an able body like is something that you should be grateful for.'cause that Go away.

katy 1:31

I mean, it will go away. Yeah. It's just a matter of time and circumstance. I, whenever I have been, you know, like how you have the flu or you're hungover or whatever it is, and you're like, God, when I feel better, I'm going to just thank God every day for my health. And then that lasts like eight hours and then you go back to just living your life and you forget to be grateful for that. So I think that's really good.

Mandy 1:53

I hate having a sore throat so much. It's like one of my least favorite symptoms is when you can't like breathe or swallow without intense pain.

katy 2:01

Yeah.

Mandy 2:02

it's'cause I had strep so much in high school like junior high, I mean all throughout my childhood.'cause I had my tonsils out twice'cause I got strep so much and they grew

katy 2:10

Wait, what?

Mandy 2:11

this

katy 2:11

What?

Mandy 2:12

Yeah.

katy 2:12

I have so many questions. Okay. What?

Mandy 2:15

I

katy 2:16

a possibility.

Mandy 2:17

Yeah.

katy 2:18

No.

Mandy 2:18

if you get'em out super young, because I had my tonsils out before I was two years

katy 2:22

They grow back.

Mandy 2:24

much, because I had a mountain I was so young. If there's any tissue left there, they can grow back and mine back

katy 2:31

Okay. I know like hair grows, but hair's dead and like nails. But is there any other part of our body if removed? Just can regenerate like that?

Mandy 2:40

I don't know if can regenerate or if you can just subsist off of not having a whole thing.'cause they can take part of your liver out

katy 2:47

Oh, sure. I know like you take your appendix out, whatever, but like, I've never heard about something where like, oh, I got my appendix removed and then I had to get it removed 10 years later.

Mandy 2:55

back,

katy 2:56

No.

Mandy 2:57

Yeah. I don't know. I don't, not that I

katy 2:59

Or what is like Lorena Bobbitt's like, ah, shoot, it grew back.

Mandy 3:04

Men wish,

katy 3:05

Yeah. That is so

Mandy 3:06

grow back bigger

katy 3:08

fascinating. Oh my God. Yeah. Oh, there'd be so much experimenting. There's just no question about it. That is fascinating. Well, yeah.

Mandy 3:15

I do have a sore throat, I always think like, when this goes away.

katy 3:19

Mm-hmm.

Mandy 3:19

be grateful and of course like you do forget, but I will

katy 3:22

Yeah.

Mandy 3:22

every once in a while, swallow no pain. I'm like, oh, I'm so

katy 3:26

You do a little skip down the hallway. It's so great. It is so funny. It is hard to sometimes be grateful for the absence of something. It's, at least for me, it's probably easier to be grateful for the things that are present, you know? But both are good things to acknowledge.

Mandy 3:43

About you?

katy 3:45

what am I grateful for? Well, I, I, we've been having like a roller coaster. Parenting time, just, you know, the kids are five and eight and our 5-year-old is like, I don't think there's a name. You know how it's like terrible twos, teenagers, something is like a lot of my friends who have five year-old boys are just like, what is this? Like, there's something that is frustrating and hard, so I feel grateful that we're like riding through that storm. I think with love and integrity. And then this afternoon, what, like, I, I am always grateful when we have even like 20 minutes of time where the kids are happy together and playing together, and everyone's like in a good mood, you know? And any moment the shoe is gonna drop and someone's going to like, either accidentally slam into each other and then someone's crying or purposefully slam into each other and then somebody's crying, you know, it just, it's a very fragile piece it feels like. And so they were just having. The time of their lives, like playing fashion show and dancing, and it was so sweet and I was so happy and it was really great. So I'm grateful for the moments when my children are getting along and not whining or pretending to be incapable of doing something that they're very capable of doing, which is my pet peeve.

Mandy 5:08

Yep. I feel like there's a lot of those transitions. Five is like a transitional age from being home, like being totally

katy 5:15

Mm-hmm.

Mandy 5:16

on your family, like still being very insulated and then they go to school around that time I

katy 5:23

Yeah.

Mandy 5:23

they're, you know, learning all this stuff that helps them communicate, but also to learn

katy 5:28

Oh my gosh.

Mandy 5:30

And I think that that.

katy 5:31

It's huge.

Mandy 5:32

a really

katy 5:33

Okay. This is actually a perfect segue to what we're talking about today. And I will tell one funny story before we transition fully, but Bo is learning to read and write and, and he's clearly that skill is like exploding for him. And so I think that's actually part of why he is fussy lately. Like when there's those, I can't remember what they're called, like Wonder Weeks or something when they're babies, when it's like, oh, is your baby really fussy? They're about to level up. Like they're about to walk or they're about to talk or something. Like, why are they such assholes? It's like, oh, don't worry, it's not forever. You know? And so I think that's what's going on because he's really, really into it. And the other day I like very much lost my temper was just like, kind of like late into him about something in the morning before we went to church and we're sitting there. He, his sister, my daughter went to the little class and he was not gonna go because I did not trust what he was, how he was gonna behave. And he chose to stay with me anyway. And so I was writing sentences for him to read, like, the bird is mad, or whatever, you know, and he was sounding them out for me and he was really into it and excited. Just was kind of keeping him busy during the service. And then I said, do you wanna write a sentence for me? And he got really excited and he wrote it and then very sheepishly handed it to me and it said, I hate mom spelled correctly and proper punctuation. So,

Mandy 6:57

wow.

katy 6:58

good job, bud. That I, I was like, well, okay. And I wrote back, I am sorry. I don't like to fight, and he sounded that out and read it and then crossed out. I hate mom and wrote a new sentence that said, I am sorry too. It was just like really powerful. The literacy is amazing. Okay, why that is a segue is because the woman who is credited with a like huge influence on. Primary education and really just education in the United States. That's the focus is how that we're talking about in this season, the weaponization of motherhood and the connection to education and classrooms as extensions of the home where white women are mothering other people's children is just very. Tight, and this woman is one of the like originators of that relationship and gluing it into place. And her name is Catherine Beecher.

Mandy 8:02

Oh, I know that name.

katy 8:03

Okay. That's great.

Mandy 8:05

Mm-hmm.

katy 8:05

I, it sounded like vaguely familiar to me, but there she's definitely connected to people that we know for sure.

Mandy 8:11

Yeah,

katy 8:12

she's born in East Hampton, New York in 1800, the oldest of nine children. Her parents are Rock Santa Foot, which to me is like a super cool name. That does not sound like.

Mandy 8:26

sort of like, you know, like rock star or

katy 8:29

Yeah,

Mandy 8:29

something like,

katy 8:30

someone born in like 1780, you know, you wouldn't expect that. Roxanna Foot and Lyman Beecher, which is like a very nerdy name. So here's like Hot Roxanna, married to Nerd Lyman but he's this famous Minister Presbyterian minister. And they have all these kids. The, when she, when Catherine is young, the family moves to Connecticut, Litchfield, Connecticut, and that's where she attends the Litchfield Female Academy. We're going to dive into some family trauma because that all of these people have that. I know you're shocked. She's 16 and her mother dies, and so she has eight kids to take care of, and she becomes like the matric of this family a year later. Her dad remarries. I'm sure that's interesting that there's probably a lot of dynamic there that did not get recorded for the history books. But if you are a 16-year-old and you've been raising eight kids for a year and then your dad remarries, like, I can imagine that being a really complicated thing like a year later, you know,

Mandy 9:32

Mm-hmm.

katy 9:33

then they Lyman and his new wife, Harriet Porter, have three sons and a daughter. Their daughter is Harriet Beecher Sau. She's the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, like the famous author, and we've talked, right, we've talked about her before in the context of our season on slavery and how white, a lot of white women abolitionists were still very problematic in a lot of ways, and she is probably the most famous example of that. She, Catherine has other famous siblings, half siblings, Isabella Beecher Hooker, a suffrage leader who I was diving into her and she's very. White women suffrage from our season on suffrage, like friends with Elizabeth Katy Stanton and Susan B. Anthony in that whole scene. Henry Ward Beecher, who's a famous pastor, and very outspoken abolitionist and a supporter of temperance and women's suffrage, like a very popular, I picture them kind of as like a weirdly like Presbyterian. 19th Century Kardashian family, like all of them are famous for kind of similar things, you know, like, in this case, it's in influencer read with if we consider like temperance and suffrage and whatever. So she's loves to write, loves to read. She gets poems published by the time that she's in her teens like in national magazines in her early twenties, she gets engaged to a math professor at Yale and his name is Alexander Fisher. The site that I was pulling this from is the National Women's History Museum. Most of this information and it very cryptically says she had doubts about their union.

Mandy 11:12

Hmm.

katy 11:13

What is that all about? Why? I really just want hot Goss history. Like,

Mandy 11:21

I wish

katy 11:22

that's it.

Mandy 11:22

could go back and just find all

katy 11:24

Oh, like girl, why? Tell me He dies in a shipwreck and then she never gets married.

Mandy 11:32

Oh hmm.

katy 11:33

Another one of those who has a lot of thoughts about how to raise children.

Mandy 11:37

But

katy 11:38

Ever having children of her own

Mandy 11:40

raising children?

katy 11:41

See, beginning of this conversation where

Mandy 11:44

Mm-hmm.

katy 11:44

so much that happens when you live with young children and have to deal with them all the time.

Mandy 11:50

Yeah.

katy 11:50

They're glorious little monsters. Okay. In 1823, Catherine and her sister Mary founded the Hartford Female Seminary. And at the time there were schools for girls. There weren't, as we were talking about in the last episode, there weren't like public schools the way we think of them at this time. But if you had money and you were a white girl, like maybe you would go and you would study like languages and the arts, you know, it was kind of like a, like finishing school in sort of. Away, you know, like become a lady. But this school, Mary and Katherine decided to have all subjects available to girls, which was not the norm. And she was really into pe. So

Mandy 12:34

mean, I'm beginning to wonder why she didn't

katy 12:36

I might, there might have been doubts.

Mandy 12:38

doubts?

katy 12:39

So she is really into, I don't know that I, I, this word we don't hear enough anymore calisthenics, but I picture where you're just like doing jumping jacks and you're like, you know, doing all the poses in lines. In a field. But here's, I, there just like a lot of people that we learn about, like there are things that I admire or appreciate and her refusal to just have women educated about these certain topics and the, at the time there was. If there were beliefs from medical doctors that women shouldn't ride bikes because then they would never be able to have children, or they shouldn't exert themselves in any way because they will become hysterical. And she was like, that's garbage. Girls are going to, you know, exercise like that's good for their health. Okay. Then like about 10 years later, she moves west to Ohio and her father had become president of Lane Theological Seminary, which was in Cincinnati. And it's like a progressive, Christian progressive, like, let's put that in quotes.'cause that's a very. Sliding term of course, but she opens another school, the Western Female Institute. She also worked on the McGuffey readers. And we're gonna talk a lot more about McGuffey readers in a feature mini. So can you picture what those are, like

Mandy 13:57

Yeah. Yeah. It's

katy 13:58

old timey books

Mandy 14:00

mm-hmm.

katy 14:01

that it's like.

Mandy 14:02

about them being some, maybe some episodes

katy 14:04

I am sure we have. They're, they're really like, like canonically messed up, but that was, you know, very Christian and like all of that. She is then becomes like a lecturer writer and she's writing all these books about. Women, and here are some of the titles. A Treatise on Domestic Economy, the Duty of American Women to Their Country, the Domestic Receipt Book. And all of these books are basically preaching, like in many ways she is kind of a preacher, you know, like her father. She's focused on what women's role is as mothers and educators. So those to her are absolutely. Combined like that is like you cannot take those apart and that their primary job is to raise the next generation of Democratic citizens, little d Democratic. And so she is very, it's, it's one of those, like we've talked about this before, where you, you know, she has these more progressive ideas to accomplish a very conservative goal.

Mandy 15:08

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

katy 15:10

Just the, like there are clear gender roles, very, very clear.

Mandy 15:14

same. just the playing field. Widens a little

katy 15:19

Right, right. Like I want them to be educated about everything in order to fulfill this very narrow concrete role really well. Right, exactly. She's preaching self-sacrifice, modesty, frugality et cetera. Here is a quote from her in 1846. She says, soon in all parts of our country, in each neglected village or new settlement, the Christian female teacher will quietly take her station collecting the ignorant children around her. Teaching them habits of neatness order and thrift opening the book of Knowledge, inspiring the principles of morality and awakening, the hope of immortality. So just from that one quote, where might we be concerned about white supremacy? Like where,

Mandy 16:06

mean, it's, the very premise is that she's taking these like little heathens.

katy 16:12

yes.

Mandy 16:12

And turning them into domesticated animals, basically.

katy 16:16

Yes.

Mandy 16:16

Yeah. Uhhuh,

katy 16:18

Keep in. This is that quote. Oh, go ahead.

Mandy 16:20

no, no. I was just gonna say also like whose idea of like complete operating person are we taking here? Like how does that get decided?

katy 16:32

No, this quote really goes into so much. We're gonna talk in the next few episodes about the boarding schools that indigenous children were sent to. And this, this is like the heart of that idea, which is neatness order and thrift the habits for that. Well, like whose habits and whose standards of that or collecting the ignorant children. Children who are ignorant of what Christianity. Well, if you aren't Christian who care, you know, like it's, it's very, eurocentric very self, like the sense that we have the secret sauce

Mandy 17:04

Okay.

katy 17:04

we are defining what it means to be a good American citizen that is steeped in whiteness and Christianity and you know, European Americanness. And so that's, that's what we're trying to impart to you. Poor, pitiful people who don't have access to that. So it's like educational access that is driven by pity and a belief that people should try to assimilate as much as they can. Right.

Mandy 17:31

Yeah. And Hierarchy of what's correct

katy 17:34

for sure.

Mandy 17:34

is, yeah.

katy 17:35

Yes, she, and of course this is also like just before the Civil War, the 1840s is massive settlement and massive expansion like. A lot of genocide happening in the United States as there's displacement of indigenous people. So she's, you know, she wasn't very far west. We're talking Ohio. But that's, she's part of this movement. In 1852, she found the American Women's Educational Association, and that organization is intended to prepare teachers to move further on the frontier to build schools. So she's very intentional about having. White women be part of the settlement project and having motherhood and education be part of what is going to civilize the West in the United States. And again, we are, we're gonna unpack that quite a bit more. In the 1860s and seventies again, according to the National Women's History Museum, she goes back to teaching in different ways. She and her half sister Harry Beecher au write a book together called The American Woman's Home. And here's where it's interesting. So there were two key issues that she actually took very different stances than. Her family and they're two big ones, suffrage and slavery. So yeah, here we go. So she actually opposes women's suffrage. And in our suffrage season we, we unpacked why there were women who believed in educating women and would be public speakers themselves who were advocating against women having a public. Role, right? Like that. That's just not their, they have this other role in a democracy. It is to prepare the next generation through educating children, and that is their role and that is their power. And they should not be involved in this other sphere because that's the man's sphere, mano sphere, the original, and that is not their. Business really like the way that women are powerful is in the home and influencing children, and so that's where we should focus.

Mandy 19:42

the good old days of when we recorded those episodes? And I naively thought that that was an attitude of the past.

katy 19:51

That was going away.

Mandy 19:53

Yeah, it was like

katy 19:54

This is so sweet.

Mandy 19:55

how people actually thought anymore, and come to find out, no, people were just more quiet about it then, but apparently there's lots of women who still hold those values, I

katy 20:09

It.

Mandy 20:09

you

katy 20:10

It,

Mandy 20:10

that.

katy 20:10

yeah. Right. It is. It is. So like I do want to value the power of what it means to raise children. Like that is an important, valuable job. That deserves respect and support and resources.

Mandy 20:27

to

katy 20:27

I

Mandy 20:28

only do that.

katy 20:29

an ov Exactly. Because you have a uterus, an ovaries like that makes no sense to me at all.

Mandy 20:36

you don't need any role in decision making or you know. Leadership or anything because of that. That's where, that's where it gets me to like, I mean, we've

katy 20:45

No.

Mandy 20:45

about this so many times. Like I, I love homemaking things. I love

katy 20:51

you are good at it. Like I, I can actually have a political stance that is also masking my absolute inability to do these things too. So I, I take you more seriously because you're not trying to hide anything. You are actually really good at all that stuff.

Mandy 21:05

Yeah, I like all of it. I just don't see in what world anyone thinks that that means

katy 21:11

Mm-hmm.

Mandy 21:12

fucking vote, or like, I just don't, it doesn't, it does not compute in my brain. But anyway,

katy 21:19

no. Or that I'm supposed to entrust my wellbeing to like a male representative of my family. No thank you.

Mandy 21:25

Mm-hmm.

katy 21:27

Okay. So here I'm gonna read some excerpts of things that she wrote and I will pause for reaction. You ready? Okay. So this is part of her, explanations of the role of women as teachers. So again, when we're thinking about this season and the way that white women weaponize motherhood, and one of the way they ways they do that is through becoming teachers and the profession of teachers. And here, I, I really wanna think, like, ask you to situate, like listen to what I'm gonna read you knowing what's happening in. Two professions right now that are majority female. Thinking about your role as a physician's assistant, RNs, and the recent legislation, what is it, legislation or executive orders or what is it to Depro professionalize.

Mandy 22:15

we can. Get into the details of it. I mean, so part of it is, is that actually the law didn't necessarily change. It's like an old law back in like the 1990s, and it says something about like professional careers and it has things listed like you know, attorneys, medical doctors, whatever. But it says. but are not limited to and list those professions. Things like nursing, PAs social workers. They were never actually listed in the law. They were just kind of grouped into that are not limited to phrase and that was taken out. Anything that's not specifically listed in that law is now no longer considered a professional degree. And why that matters is more because of how the funding. Of education happens and how people can take out loans to pay for their education. And if you are under a professional designation, you could take out higher loan amounts

katy 23:19

Yes.

Mandy 23:19

and now you cannot, which will severely impact the people who can go

katy 23:24

Yes.

Mandy 23:25

and then cause huge shortages in areas that already have huge shortages. And it's just like this whole downstream effect that's horrific, but.

katy 23:34

And not for nothing. The professions that were just depro professionalized by this language shift

Mandy 23:41

Are

katy 23:41

are majority women. Right. And so that, that's part of this. So, so the argument, like my field is education. I was an education professor, I was a classroom teacher. And that's a longstanding argument in the field is whether teaching is a profession. And I would argue absolutely it is like it, there's no doubt in my mind. But be, it's like even a question in large part because it's a feminized workforce. And so that's something to keep in mind too. And the fact, as we talked about last week, that increasingly it be, it's becoming an even more white woman teaching,

Mandy 24:16

Mm-hmm.

katy 24:16

but as a career, as a profession.

Mandy 24:18

Mm-hmm.

katy 24:19

here's Catherine Beecher. So. Again, pausing for your thoughts. It is to mothers and to teachers that the world is to look for the character, which is to be in stamped on each succeeding generation. For it is to them that the great business of education is almost exclusively committed, and will it not appear by examination that neither mothers nor teachers have ever been properly educated for their profession? What is the profession of a woman?

Mandy 24:45

Hm.

katy 24:45

It is it not to form immortal minds and to watch to nurse to rear the bodily system. So fearfully and wonderfully made and upon the order and regulation of which the health and wellbeing of mind so greatly depends. Is it not the business, the profession of the woman to guard the health and form? The physical habits of the young and is, is not the cradle of infancy and the chamber of sickness sacred to woman alone, and ought she not to know at least some of the general principles of that perfect and wonderful piece of mechanism committed to her preservation and care.

Mandy 25:18

Yeah, I

katy 25:18

Yeah.

Mandy 25:18

have like two thoughts during that. Like one is just like, oh, do we have to like, make everything fit into this capitalistic world that we

katy 25:27

Oh.

Mandy 25:28

Do all of our daily activities have to be termed some sort of job or profession or something that, you

katy 25:36

Mm

Mandy 25:37

you, you have to spend your time and money and get paid for or

katy 25:40

hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mandy 25:59

and the learning of children as women do. That whole line of things about it being women's work, I just cannot ever get behind.

katy 26:09

No.

Mandy 26:09

that's because I also have like good men in my life. Maybe

katy 26:13

Right. Right.

Mandy 26:14

good men in their lives,

katy 26:16

Hmm.

Mandy 26:17

never fathom like a male. That could be such a positive impact on children.

katy 26:24

That's super interesting. Or, or like no one that they trusted. To still give them space and power and respect if the women weren't doing this care.

Mandy 26:39

Mm-hmm.

katy 26:39

know what I'm saying? Like if I leave what has been kind of socially acceptable as my powerful role will, I still have. Like, will the men in my life still value? Right, right. I, of course, we always have this as a caveat too. There are people who are neither man or woman and always have been and always will be. So that's all like right away is also a question. But what I thought was so interesting, especially given the news this week of that Deprofessionalization, was how she's linking teaching mothering and nursing. Together.

Mandy 27:11

Mm-hmm.

katy 27:12

then it made me think of Elizabeth Gillespie Mcgras book and the, the like intimate spaces, I think she called it where it was social work and like when kids were born in the hospital, like all these moments that women had these jobs where they were building white supremacist systems in those moments. And I was like, Ugh. Here it is.

Mandy 27:33

Yep.

katy 27:33

Here's the last little part that she writes. If all females were not only well educated themselves, but were prepared to communicate in an easy manner, their stores of knowledge to others, if they not only knew how to regulate their own minds, tempers and habits, but how to affect improvements in those around them. The face of society would be speedily changed. The time may come when the world will look back with wonder to behold how much time and effort have been given to the mere cultivation of memory, and how little mankind have been aware of what every teacher, parent, and friend could accomplish. The social, immortal, moral character of those with whom they are surrounded.

Mandy 28:06

Hmm.

katy 28:08

The question of whose morals and to what ends you're trying to shape society become very, very, very important. If that's your stance, right?

Mandy 28:19

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

katy 28:21

So here I move to her position on slavery as an example of. That molding that she is advocating for and that, you know, there's teachers being prepared and she's opening these schools that become model schools. So she wrote this essay on slavery and abolitionism in reference to the Duty of American females. And it's a response to a lecture tour from the Grimke sisters, Angelina and Sarah Grimke, who, who were like legit. Like anti-racist abolitionists, and were speaking at the time to mixed gender audiences, gasp and like just, you know, the proverbial balls to the wall. Okay. So Catherine Beecher writes a response to this lecture and she writes it as if she's writing a letter, but it was meant to be published, you know, for everyone to read. So here we go. Okay, my dear friend. She begins. The object I have in view is to present some reasons why it seems unwise and in expedient for ladies of the non-live holding states to unite themselves in abolition societies. I know not where to look for northern Christians who would deny that every slave holder is bound to treat his slaves exactly as he would claim that his own children ought to be treated in similar circumstances. That the holding of our fellow men is property or the withholding any of the rights of freedom for mere purposes of gain. Is a sin and ought to be immediately abandoned, and that where the laws are such that a slave holder cannot legally emancipate his slaves without throwing them into worse bondage. He's bound to use all his influence to alter those laws, and in the meantime, to treat his slaves as nearly as he can, as if they were free. I do not suppose there's one person in a thousand in the north who would dissent from these principles. Catherine, I beg to differ interjecting, like, I think there are actually, they would only differ in the use of terms and call this doctrine of gradual emancipation. Well, abolitionists would call it the doctrine of immediate emancipation. So she's saying yes, yes. Everyone agrees slavery is bad.

Mandy 30:26

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Which, no, first

katy 30:28

No. Yeah, a no. As the Women of the South in Elizabeth Gillespie's Mcgras book knew very well that like, ha ha, wait till it gets to the north. You'll see just how like superficial this is, right? But she's saying the way that they are going about it is wrong. Okay? And here's her reasoning why the distinctive peculiarity of the Abolition Society is this. It is a voluntary association in one section of the country designed to awaken public sentiment against a moral evil existing in another section of the country. Like, yes, I get it, I guess, but also that's.

Mandy 31:07

your business? Is that what she's saying?

katy 31:10

A little bit, and I think it's the, like, it's this narrative that the north is disconnected from slavery,

Mandy 31:16

Mm-hmm.

katy 31:17

it's just in the south. It's so frustrating because that's just not the history of it. Like people were enslaved in the north for a really long time, and

Mandy 31:25

And

katy 31:25

businesses, northern institutions, there's like, oh my gosh.

Mandy 31:28

Yeah. Yeah.

katy 31:29

Okay. So already she's like, we are good and they are bad. Okay. The principle object of the Grimke sisters proposed to her, I suppose, is to present facts, arguments, and persuasions to influence Northern ladies to enroll themselves As members of this association, I will therefore proceed to present some of the reasons which may be brought against such a measure as the one you would urge. The position that I would aim to establish is that the method taken by the abolition. Abolitionist is the one that according to the laws of mind and past experience is least likely to bring about the results they aim to accomplish. It's like telling them like your, it's going to backfire. Okay? The general statement is this, the object to be accomplished is first to convince a certain community that they're in the practice of a great sin, and secondly, to make them willing to relinquish it. And she's basically saying like that's what they're trying to do is to convince people. That slavery is bad. Now the now that this method may in conjunction with other causes have an influence to bring slavery to an end is not denied, but it is believed that it is the least calculated to do the good, and that it involves the greatest evils. It is the maxim then of experience that when men are to be turned from evils and brought to repent and reform, those only should interfere who are most loved and respected, and who have the best right to approach the offender.

Mandy 32:49

Oh, so not women? Is that what you said?

katy 32:52

Yes. To paraphrase, it's like the only, if you have a problem with, with what someone's doing in her experience, the only people who that person's going to listen to are the people closest to them. And if they do it in like the least intense way,

Mandy 33:09

Yeah. Mm-hmm. It's a very polite

katy 33:15

so, oh, so.

Mandy 33:16

mean, it just

katy 33:17

Politics of respectability.

Mandy 33:18

yes. The respectability bullshit. Yeah. That there's a right way and a wrong way to

katy 33:23

Oh, here's another way that they're wrong. So like a, it's not your place to say anything to these people, is her first reason. Her second reason. It is another maximum of experience that such dealings with the airing should be in private, not in public. The moment a man is publicly rebuked, shame, anger, and pride of opinion all combined to make him defend his practice and refuse either to own himself wrong or deceased from his evil ways.

Mandy 33:48

Mm-hmm.

katy 33:48

Okay, so don't embarrass them. Yeah.

Mandy 33:51

Uhhuh,

katy 33:52

Some someone close to them needs to privately, quietly, and over time maybe hint at how slavery is bad,

Mandy 34:00

Mm-hmm.

katy 34:01

is her preferred approach. The abolitionists have violated all these laws of mind and of experience in dealing with their southern brethren. They have not approached them with the spirit of love, courtesy, and forbearance. I just tasted bile in my mouth. They are not the persons who would be regarded by the South as having any right to interfere in dealing with their breathren. Two, they have not tried silent, retired private measures. It has been public denunciation of crime and shame in newspapers addressed, as it were to bystanders in order to arouse the guilty.

Mandy 34:30

I mean, this just reminds me so much of how churches have approached sexual abusers in their midst

katy 34:37

Oh,

Mandy 34:37

decades. Like, we're just going to keep this on the down though in private, not make it a public thing. That always works well. That's real protective of the vulnerable populations for sure.

katy 34:51

I, oh my God. And I think it's, it's coming from, I actually do wanna ask you like what elements of this, like, because we're living in such a reactionary time, like what elements of this do. Resonate too. Like yeah, the, there's like, when you hear people. Like there's conversations right now about like, yeah, men are feeling so dis, like white men are feeling like, oh, they're under attack. It's like very similar arguments that I think are being made about like now. Even like how to call in, call out and, and that's maybe like a blanket statement, but I think what I have a problem with isn't that someone would say, well, I'm gonna try this other strategy. Good. All hands on deck. Great. You know. It's that it should only be this way. And the, the bigger problem I have is that they're starting their clock now. Like, don't, you're raising such a ruckus, like give me time starting now when it's like, well, this problem has been going on for checks clock 300 years, so I, and these people, this movement has been going on. And at what point do you say, yeah, we get to. Raise a ruckus. You know, that's, it's, it's, and I, so whenever people are urging politeness or like slowness or quietness, I always think like, what clock are you on? When do you think this problem started and how long do you think these other people have known that it's wrong forever, actually. So that is what taps my head. I think the most about it is, it's just so convenient. It's the timing that's convenient to her. Certainly not to all the people who've been experiencing it and all the generations of people who've been fighting it.

Mandy 36:38

Mm-hmm.

katy 36:38

annoying.

Mandy 36:39

Mm-hmm.

katy 36:40

Another thing it makes me think of Martin Luther King's letter from a Birmingham jail. When he talks about the white moderates being the problem, he's like, God damn, come on.

Mandy 36:48

Mm-hmm.

katy 36:49

I'm sure he didn't say that. That's not a direct quote. That's my quote.

Mandy 36:52

Yep. Yep.

katy 36:53

My paraphrasing. All right. Last little section here. But suppose the abolitionists succeed not only in making northern men abolitionists, but also in sending a portion of light into the south, such as to form a body of abolitionists there also, what is the thing that is to be done to end slavery at the south? It is to alter the laws. And to do this, a small minority must be, get a long, bitter, terrible conflict with a powerful and exasperated majority. How will the exasperated majority act according to the known laws of mind and of experience instead of lessening the evils of slavery? They will increase them. They will make laws so unjust and oppressive, not only to slaves, but to their abolitionist advocates, that by degrees such men will withdraw from their bounds. Then the numerical proportion of whites will decrease, and the cruelty and unrestrained wickedness of the system will increase till a period will come. When the physical power will be so much with the blacks, their sense of suffering. So increase the volcano, will burst, insurrection, and serve our wars will begin, ugh. Like as if insurrection is unconscionable to her. Like, are you.

Mandy 37:48

Yeah,

katy 37:49

Are you outta your mind? That's me.

Mandy 37:51

yeah.

katy 37:51

Yeah.

Mandy 37:52

only are you going about it the wrong way, but now she's blaming them for making things worse.

katy 37:58

Yeah. Oh, here's the last little bit. Oh, the countless horrors of such a day. Will the tears of insurrection sweep over the south and no northern and western blood be shed? This is no picture of fancy dangers, which are not near. The day has come when already the feelings are so excited on both sides that I've heard intelligent men, good men, benevolent and pious men in moments of excitement to clear themselves, ready to take up the sword. Some for the defense of the master, some for the protection of the right of the slave, like she's clearly talking about. Right before the Civil War. Right. But I, it's this idea that like, okay, the, the massive horrors, the, the family separation, the rapes, the abuse, the lynchings, the murder, all of that is, is fine. Like, that's, that's, yes, it's evil, but we can keep doing that and just take as long as we need to, to quietly suggest and hint at how that might not be good. But how very dare people. Decide to physically make people stop abusing them?

Mandy 38:56

Yeah,

katy 38:57

No,

Mandy 38:58

I thought you were talking about present day when

katy 39:00

I mean,

Mandy 39:01

the family

katy 39:01

it's,

Mandy 39:03

the lynching and the whatever. I'm like, oh yeah,

katy 39:06

I, I actually am,

Mandy 39:08

or

katy 39:09

Right. No, I personally am non-violent. I appreciate non-violence, but that doesn't mean. You there isn't violence like the nonviolent movement of the civil Rights movement? Absolutely. Raise the stakes and turned up the heat and were agitating. That was the point, was to agitate and reveal the depths of disparity that were happening. Like, that's it. So this to me, it's not like either, you know, you go out and I, I actually can understand the rationale behind that, you know, to take up arms. But it, it's not either that or you just do what Catherine is suggesting, which is like, oh, hello cousin, if you have a moment. Ever talk about why baby, this isn't great. You know, let me know. I'm here to talk to you again. If she wants to do that, fine. But calling out the grimke sisters or calling out people who are like, enough, enough this. We're done. This is wrong. That, that I have a problem with. And so knowing that she's this like foundational ideological footprint on education,

Mandy 40:13

Mm-hmm.

katy 40:14

it's helpful to look at how she thought about things. As a way into the broader systems that we're going to learn about next week and really dive into boarding schools and what was happening for schools of immigrant children, and just understanding, again, the weaponization of motherhood and mothering and nurturing as these things that you women are quote, uniquely situated to do, and white Christian women in particular, that we are going to keep unpacking.

Mandy 40:42

Hmm. interesting.

katy 40:45

Thanks.

Mandy 40:46

Okay. Bring that discussion up for your family dinners.

katy 40:51

Yeah, there you go.

Mandy 40:53

We'll

katy 40:53

They, maybe that's good homework. Yeah. Is like one, one moment where we're not polite, you know, see what happens. Ha ha. We might not ever have a podcast again. We'll see. Yeah. I hope you're well. I'll talk to you soon.

Mandy 41:08

talk to you guys soon. Bye.

katy 41:10

Bye. Okay.