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Founding Mothers & Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society by Mary Beth Norton
ars410's review
4.0
Fascinating. A little dense at times but given the subject matter I think that's allowed. Many of the court cases discussed were interesting and unexpected, and Norton ties them all together so neatly. Glad I picked this one up.
ktrain3900's review against another edition
challenging
informative
slow-paced
3.5
A bit dry and academic yet fascinating. I can see where others are coming from when they say that it feels repetitive at times, but I'm not sure there's a way to avoid this. The records from 350-400 years ago are limited primarily to court records and the writings of a handful of men, so the same or similar examples have to be used to discuss gendered matters of family, community, and state. I enjoyed reading of both people I knew (eg: Anne Hutchinson) and those I didn't (eg: Margaret Brent, Thomas(ine) Hall), and the Filmerian and Lockean worldviews that dictated their circumstances. One thing I love about history is learning that people are essentially the same over time; the Pinions might have their own reality TV show now. Additionally, there are lessons to be learned here of the dangers of relying too heavily on religion for law & order, or on religious men (or chiefly men) for leadership, that we'd do well to learn before we repeat these errors. I fear we've already started.
lukescalone's review against another edition
5.0
This is an utterly fascinating piece of history that vindicates gender history in its totality. Not only is gender history important to placing women back into the historical narrative, as it always should have been, but to make sense of the very nature of power. I'm not convinced that a non-gendered study of colonial American power could achieve anywhere near the successes that Norton has here. In addition, I absolutely love Norton's writing--it's so lucid and is well-argued.
Essentially, Norton argues that there are two forms of political power in colonial North America. The first, "Filmerian" power, is named after Robert Filmer, who argued that state structures emerge out of family structures, and the family is the basic unit of human society. In his view, a Filmerian worldview requires that hierarchies exist in all aspects of social life--in the family, this is represented by a husband or father's rule over his wife and children; in "public" life, this is represented by the authority of leaders (there is no interest in consensus here). As a top-down society, early colonial America was thoroughly Filmerian and this played an important role in all aspects of colonial society.
The second form of political power is named after John Locke. To Norton, "Lockean" power is one that suggests that families have little role in the creation of states. Instead, a state is a compact between a group of men, and the nature of the compact requires some degree of consensus. Although there may be hierarchies, Lockean power is essentially "horizontal" in nature (at least, for men).
In many ways, this text is a comparative work examining the nature of both New England and the Anglo-American Chesapeake Bay. Filmerianism affected every single aspect of New England life, in large part due to the number of women who lived there (colonists came as family units, unlike in the Chesapeake Bay where many came as single men interested in cultivating tobacco, or worked as indentured servants). This gave the Chesapeake region a much more contractual nature in the first fifty years of English colonization (1620-1670ish). To me, this was eye-opening because I have always thought of New England as the more consensus-based society, but this may well come as a later innovation. Because Norton ends the text in 1670, we don't have the opportunity to analyze the transition to a Lockean worldview (which thoroughly dominated Anglo-America a century later, on the eve of the Revolution). I do wonder why, then, New England would have more democratic characteristics than the Chesapeake Bay in the 18th century. I know that this is covered elsewhere, but I'd love further analysis that takes the Filmerian/Lockean dichotomy as its starting point.
If that isn't enough, Norton's anecdotes in the prologue of Section 2 are some of the most gripping descriptions and analyses of a colonial American non-binary person I've ever come across. The analysis seems sound to me, and I was astounded at the lack of rigidity surrounding gender in the 17th century--neither men nor women, "masters" nor public officials could determine if T Hall was a man or woman, their accounts conflicted with one another despite seeing T Hall's genitalia and self-expression.
Norton is a master at gender history, and I deeply admire her work.
Essentially, Norton argues that there are two forms of political power in colonial North America. The first, "Filmerian" power, is named after Robert Filmer, who argued that state structures emerge out of family structures, and the family is the basic unit of human society. In his view, a Filmerian worldview requires that hierarchies exist in all aspects of social life--in the family, this is represented by a husband or father's rule over his wife and children; in "public" life, this is represented by the authority of leaders (there is no interest in consensus here). As a top-down society, early colonial America was thoroughly Filmerian and this played an important role in all aspects of colonial society.
The second form of political power is named after John Locke. To Norton, "Lockean" power is one that suggests that families have little role in the creation of states. Instead, a state is a compact between a group of men, and the nature of the compact requires some degree of consensus. Although there may be hierarchies, Lockean power is essentially "horizontal" in nature (at least, for men).
In many ways, this text is a comparative work examining the nature of both New England and the Anglo-American Chesapeake Bay. Filmerianism affected every single aspect of New England life, in large part due to the number of women who lived there (colonists came as family units, unlike in the Chesapeake Bay where many came as single men interested in cultivating tobacco, or worked as indentured servants). This gave the Chesapeake region a much more contractual nature in the first fifty years of English colonization (1620-1670ish). To me, this was eye-opening because I have always thought of New England as the more consensus-based society, but this may well come as a later innovation. Because Norton ends the text in 1670, we don't have the opportunity to analyze the transition to a Lockean worldview (which thoroughly dominated Anglo-America a century later, on the eve of the Revolution). I do wonder why, then, New England would have more democratic characteristics than the Chesapeake Bay in the 18th century. I know that this is covered elsewhere, but I'd love further analysis that takes the Filmerian/Lockean dichotomy as its starting point.
If that isn't enough, Norton's anecdotes in the prologue of Section 2 are some of the most gripping descriptions and analyses of a colonial American non-binary person I've ever come across. The analysis seems sound to me, and I was astounded at the lack of rigidity surrounding gender in the 17th century--neither men nor women, "masters" nor public officials could determine if T Hall was a man or woman, their accounts conflicted with one another despite seeing T Hall's genitalia and self-expression.
Norton is a master at gender history, and I deeply admire her work.
tellikat's review
4.0
I, like so many other junior scholars of women and gender, am indebted to Mary Beth Norton and her work. Obviously, this is NOT the final say on gender construction in the early colonies. However, her commitment to troubling the clear cut division between community and self is excellent. I can't wait to speak with my students about Thomas/ine Hall and put Norton's chapter in conversation with the scholarship that has been produced since.
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