American Womanhood (1870)

AUTHOR: Jackson, James Caleb

KEYWORDS: citizenship, dress reform, food, health, morality, Temperance, veg*nism, women's rights

• Unhealthy food.
• Unhealthy drinks.
• Unhealthy dress.
• Constrained locomotion.
• Confinement in houses.
• Too frequent child-bearing (19).

In relation to unhealthy food, Jackson promotes a meatless diet, given American women's conditions of life (not enough exercise and outdoor activities):

As it is, the animal food eaten by them does not make muscle in large amount, nor does it construct nerve in great measure; but it does make a quality of blood which excites the brain, heart, and lungs, increasing their activity, and thereby developing a large measure of power. If food has what some physiologists call ‘potential energy,’ assuming that flesh-meats have this quality in them, they are not good food for American women when used by them as staples, because the conditions of living which are ordinary with them do not require this sort of energy (24).

Animal food is too stimulating and, concerning drink, Jackson advocates complete Temperance, including abstinence from non-alcoholic beverages such as tea and coffee, allowing only for “soft water” (25). He also condemns the “wearing … of an unphysiological dress," including knotted or tied hair which, according to Jackson, is detrimental to the brain and the cause of a “great many malformed as well as a great many feebly-organized children” (32-33). Thus, he advises against any unhealthy head-covering that impedes the proper circulation (33). Tight clothing that impedes the circulation of blood and air as well as proper movement is also disapproved, hence Jackson's advocacy of “an unbelted or basquine style of dress for women” (37).

Freedom of movement in clothing also translates to the political sphere, as American women

should be as free to go from place to place in the pursuit of their own happiness as American men are. They therefore should be entitled to dress themselves in such way as will enable them to do this to advantage rather than at disadvantage. To recognize them as citizens of the state – as members of a just social economy which has for its guidance and leadership the great spirit of liberty, and yet constantly to appear related to them as though they were mere serfs or slaves, is to do foul outrage to all the sensibilities of their natures, and to make just the severest criticism warranted by the facts of the case (41).

 Jackson's advocacy seems to include the wearing of trousers when he writes that

all that would be necessary in the direction of difference in style, in order to make plain the difference in sex, would be the wearing of different badges; the men wearing something on their clothing which should indicate their sex, and the women wearing something in or upon their clothing which should indicate their sex. This might be done as readily by a breast-pin, by a hat or cap, by collar or cuff, as by skirts; so that it does not follow that in order to have sex recognized and acknowledged and properly protected, the apparel which women wear should be destructive of their physical powers, and of their health, and so of their character (42).

This latter point emphasizes that, for Jackson, physiology translates to morals. Indeed, Jackson claims that men would not be able adequately to engage in much labor of any kind if they were “to be compelled to put off pantaloons and put on petticoats” (46). But he also says that to think of wearing “short skirts and pantaloons” as “the acme of reformation” is “a mistake” (59). The problem of constrained movement due to inappropriate clothing – Jackson writes of “manacled hands” and “enfettered legs” (45, 46) – thus also extends to the question of labor, particularly manual labor. If women “are to become skillful in work, they must be free to work” (45).

Beyond impeding proper movement, women's dress functions as “the symbol and emblem whereby her inferiority is shown. It makes clear to everybody who sees it on her, or her in it, that she is in a state of vassalage; that as yet she is not free; that she is in a state of serfdom; that she is, after the fashion suited to the civilization of the nineteenth century, a serf – affixed to the soil; that her right to go from one place to another is not accorded to her” (51). In addition to all its physical and physiological advantages, dress reform is also very important in this symbolic connection. The book then goes on to discuss women's domestic, economic, and political life, including marriage, motherhood, childlessness, work and business, and voting rights.