Harriet Beecher Stowe and the virtuous mother: Argentina, 1852-1910

Journal of Women's History

Volumn 18, Issue 1, 2006, Pages

  Frederick, Bonnie ^a  

^a TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 43249158673     PISSN: 10427961     EISSN: 15272036     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/jowh.2006.0010     Document Type: Article

References (61)

1. Josefina Pelliza de Sagasta, "The Emancipation of Women: Argentina 1876," trans. Palouse Translation Project, Journal of Women's History 7 (1995): 102-26, quotation on 107. Pelliza (1848-1888) was from one of the elite families of Argentina, but she was born under a wagon as her family was fleeing Rosas. She was a poet and novelist as well as a newspaper essayist and editor.
2. In 1878, Pelliza again vigorously defended the virtuous mother's right to write in a bitter debate with a male critic; for a discussion of this debate and its aftermath for Pelliza, see Bonnie Frederick, Wily Modesty: Argentine Women Writers, 1860-1910 (Tempe: Arizona State University Center for Latin American Studies Press, 1998), 61-67.
3. For more about Stowe's belief in women's special moral authority, see Elizabeth Ammons, "Stowe's Dream of the Mother-Savior: Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Women Writers Before the 1920s," in New Essays on Uncle Tom's Cabin, ed. Eric J. Sundquist (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 155-95.
4. Examples of these strategically modest poses can be seen in Joan Hedrick's Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).
5. George Sand fell under the spell of the Harriet Ideal too; see her review of Uncle Tom's Cabin included in the Norton Critical Edition, ed. Elizabeth Ammons (New York: W.W. Norton, 1994), 459-63.
6. Luis Telmo Pintos, "La mujer y el estado," La Ondina del Plata (30 May 1875): 194-95.
7. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin: Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Contexts, Criticism, ed. Elizabeth Ammons (New York: W.W. Norton, 1994), 384.
8. Francesca Miller, Latin American Women and the Search for Social Justice (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1991), 74.
9. Asunción Lavrin, Women, Feminism, and Social Change in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, 1890-1940 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), 38.
10. Also see Nikki Craske, Women and Politics in Latin America (Cambridge: Polity, 1999), esp. 9-25;
11. and Maxine Molyneux, Women's Movements in International Perspective: Latin America and Beyond (New York: Palgrave, 2001), esp. 167-81.
12. Sandra McGee Deutsch, "The Catholic Church, Work, and Womanhood in Argentina, 1890-1930," in Confronting Challenge, Challenging Tradition: Women in Latin American History, ed. Gertude M. Yeager (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1994), 127-51, quotation on 130.
13. To understand its place in women's journalism, see Seminar on Women and Culture in Latin America, "Towards a History of Women's Periodicals in Latin America: Introduction," in Women, Culture, and Politics in Latin America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 173-91.
14. For an account of La Aljaba's demise, see Néstor Tomás Auza, Periodismo y feminismo en la Argentina, 1830-1930 (Buenos Aires: Emecé, 1988), 21-24. The newspaper itself is available at the University of Texas at Austin's Nettie Lee Benson Library.
15. The Sociedad de Beneficencia was established in 1823 by Bernardino Rivadavia, then president of Argentina. It ran schools and orphanages for girls. For an overview of the political ideology behind the closing of the schools, see Mark Szuchman, "Childhood Education and Politics in Nineteenth Century Argentina," Hispanic American Historical Review 70, no. 1 (1990): 109-38.
16. For an English-language biography of Rosas, see John Lynch, Argentine Dictator: Juan Manuel de Rosas 1829-1852 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981).
17. "Las Redactoras," La Camelia, 25 April 1852. The editors of this women's newspaper admitted that they were women, but insisted on anonymity for the sake of modesty - and out of fear of personal attack. The pioneering novelist and educator Rosa Guerra (d. 1864) was probably one of the editors.
18. For more on Guerra, see Nancy Saporta Sternbach, "'Mejorar la condición de mi secso': The Essays of Rosa Guerra," in Reinterpreting the Spanish American Essay: Women Writers of the 19th and 20th Centuries, ed. Doris Meyer (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995), 46-56. La Camelia is available at the University of Texas at Austin's Nettie Lee Benson Library.
19. See Diana Sorensen Goodrich, Facundo and the Construction of Argentine Culture (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993), esp. 1-21.
20. Francine Masiello, Between Civilization & Barbarism: Women, Nation, & Literary Culture in Modern Argentina (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992), 22-23; pages 21-34 develop this idea in more detail.
21. Also see Mary Louise Pratt, "Women, Literature, and National Brotherhood," in Women, Culture, and Politics in Latin America, 48-73.
22. Manuel Gorostiaga, "La mujer: su misión - deberes del presente," La Alborada del Plata (1 May 1878): 147. Gorostiaga (1848-1918) defended conservative Catholic values in a wide array of political and diplomatic activities throughout his life. The view he expresses in this quotation is representative of many Argentines' views about the limits on women's activities. This view was held by many women as well as men.
23. Juana Manso, "Emancipación moral de la mujer," Album de Señoritas, 1 January 1854, 2-4, quotation on 2. Manso (1819-1875) was ahead of her time in her ideas on education, women's rights, politics, and practically everything else. She was as admired as she was reviled.
24. For more about Manso, see Masiello, Between Civilization and Barbarism, 70-76. Manso's newspaper is available at the University of Texas at Austin's Nettie Lee Benson Library.
25. A concise discussion of this search for foreign models is found in David Rock's State Building and Political Movements in Argentina, 1860-1916 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002), 109-16.
26. Agar Willianson, "La emancipación de la mujer," La Alborada Literaria del Plata (18 April 1880): 115. Agar Willianson's name suggests that she may have been a member of Buenos Aires's extensive foreign community, but I have been unable to find any biographical information about her.
27. Elia M. Martínez, "Evolución femenina," El Búcaro Americano, 15 February 1897, 169-70. The term "Yankee" in Argentina referred to all of the United States, not just to the North or New England. Martinez was active in women's journalism at the turn of the century, and was among the first to use the new term "feminism" rather than "emancipation."
28. El Búcaro Americano (1896-1901, 1906-1908) was founded by Clorinda Matto de Turner, the noted Peruvian author who lived in Buenos Aires as an exile.
29. For more on the author and the newspaper, see Mary Berg's entry on Matto in Spanish American Women Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Source Book, ed. Diane Marting (New York: Greenwood, 1987), 303-315. See also note 48 below.
30. Zoila Aurora Cáceres ["Eva Angelina"], "La emancipación de la mujer," El Búcaro Americano, 1 June 1896, 127-30, quotation on 130.
31. Luciérnaga (Firefly), "Plumadas," Album del Hogar (5 February 1880): 155.
32. For a discussion of the relationship between Rosas and Afro-Argentines, and the racial fear it inspired, see George Reid Andrew's, The Afro-Argentines of Buenos Aires, 1800-1900 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1980), 96-101.
33. For an English translation of this debate, see "The Emancipation of Women: Argentina 1876," 102-26. Quotations from the debate will be drawn from this translation.
34. María Eugenia Echenique, "The Emancipation of Women," 109-10. Echenique (1851-1878), a fervent emancipationist, was from Córdoba, where Argentina's first astronomical observatory was established in 1871. One of the recurring themes in her newspaper essays was her wish for an education that included philosophy, mathematics, the natural sciences, and vocational training such as telegraphy. In her day, education for women usually consisted of needlework, parlor music, basic literacy taught through improving religious texts, and enough math to manage the household accounts. Elite women learned French as well.
35. Echenique's essays were collected and published after her early death by her sister; see Colección literaria, ed. Rosario Echenique (Córdoba: La Elzeviriana, 1926).
36. Pelliza de Sagasta, "The Emancipation of Women," 106-107.
37. For an extended view of the United States through the eyes of a woman, see Eduarda Mansilla de García, Recuerdos de viaje (Buenos Aires: Alsina, 1882; Madrid: Ediciones El Viso, 1996). A novelist, short story writer, and prolific journalist, Mansilla (1838-1892) - who was a niece of Rosas but whose husband was from a prominent anti-Rosas family - lived in Washington for several years during the two times that her husband served in the diplomatic corps in Washington. She admired President Lincoln but thought that Mrs. Lincoln was chubby and vulgar.
38. Raymunda Torres y Quiroga, quoted by Luciérnaga in "Plumadas," Album del Hogar (18 January 1880): 131.
39. Mariano Pelliza, Críticas y bocetos históricos (Buenos Aires: Imprenta de Mayo, 1879), 143. Pelliza (1837-1902) defended Enlightenment values in his many histories. In addition, he was one of the most notable of the male defenders of women's literary rights, including those of his sister, Josefina Pelliza de Sagasta.
40. For a listing of translations of Uncle Tom's Cabin into Spanish, see Margaret Holbrook Hildreth, Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Bibliography (Hamden, CT: Archon, 1976), 60-64.
41. Lea Fletcher has pointed out that a question of dates indicates that Manso had not read Uncle Tom's Cabin when she wrote her own novel. "Juana Manso: una voz en el desierto," in Mujeres y cultura en la Argentina del siglo XIX, ed. Lea Fletcher (Buenos Aires: Feminaria, 1994), 108-20, quotation on 120.
42. See Andrews, The Afro-Argentines of Buenos Aires, for a carefully documented discussion of the "whitening" of Argentina.
43. See Doris Sommer's excellent discussion in "Amalia: Valor at Heart and Home," in her Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 83-113.
44. Sommer, Foundational Fictions, 7.
45. Pelliza, Críticas y bocetos históricos, 133.
46. Clorinda Matto de Turner, "Doctora Cecilia Grierson," El Búcaro Americano, 1 June 1896, 126-27, quotation on 126.
47. Clorinda Matto de Turner, "Nuestras miniaturas: Adela Castell," El Búcaro Americano, 15 February 1897, 166.
48. This novel, which earned Matto excommunication, has been translated into English twice: the first translation was by J. G. Hudson under the title of Birds Without a Nest (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996). In the 1996 edition, Naomi Lindstrom restored the original ending of the novel, which Hudson had altered.
49. A translation not based on Hudson's is Torn From the Nest, trans. John H. R. Polt (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).
50. Mercedes Cabello de Carbonera, "Miss Nightingale," La Alborada del Plata (3, 10 February 1878): 94-95; 101-103. Cabello de Carbonera (1842-1909) was a Peruvian writer most remembered for her essays in defense of realism and naturalism. She strove to put those ideas into practice in her own novels.
51. Mercedes Cabello de Carbonera, "Influencia de la mujer en la civilización," La Ondina del Plata (12 March 1876): 121-23, quotation on 122.
52. La Sra. Da. Juana Manuela Gorriti," La Ondina del Plata (7 March 1875): 52-54, quotation on 54.
53. Josefina Pelliza de Sagasta, Conferencias: El libro de las madres (Buenos Aires: Jeneral Lavalle, 1885), 46-47.
54. Lavrin, Women, Feminism, and Social Change, 34.
55. "Mrs. Beecher-Stowe," La Prensa (2 July 1896): 6.
56. Also see "Harriet Beecher Stowe," La Nación (3 July 1896): 5.
57. Marcela María Alejandra Nari, "Maternidad, política y feminismo," in Historia de las mujeres en la Argentina: siglo XX, eds. Fernanda Gil Lozano, Valeria Silvina Pita, and María Bariela Ini (Buenos Aires: Taurus, 2000), 197-221, quotation on 204.
58. Eva Duarte Perón, Evita by Evita: Eva Duarte Perón Tells Her Own Story (London: Proteus, 1978), 205.
59. Feminists who had dedicated their lives to the suffrage movement were outraged that a johnny-come-lately former actress was able to influence the passage of the suffrage act. Perón vehemently denied being a feminist, but proudly proclaimed herself a social reformer. Although Evita died in 1952, she is still as controversial today as ever. See Nicholas Fraser and Marysa Navarro, Eva Perón (New York: W.W. Norton, 1981).
60. The Madres' insistence on their identity as mothers - not experienced or partisan politicians - can be found repeatedly in their interviews; see, for example, Jo Fisher, Mothers of the Disappeared (London: Zed Books, 1989).
61. Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin, 384.