Ann Braude - Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Womens Rights in Nineteenth-Century America

Radical Spirits

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First edition published 1989 by Beacon Press

1989, 2001 by Ann Deborah Braude

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Braude, Ann.

Radical spirits : spiritualism and womens rights in nineteenth-century America / Ann Braude.2nd ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-253-34039-9 (alk. paper)ISBN 978-0-253-21502-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Womens rights and spiritualismUnited StatesHistory19th century. I. Title.

BF1275.W65 B73 2001
133.9097309034dc21

2001039572

3456131211100908

For

BEN BRAUDE

18981984

Contents

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Illustrations follow page 114

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A historian is a bit like a spirit medium: ones goal is to allow the dead to speak as clearly as possible. Many people have assisted me in the attempt. This book began as a doctoral dissertation supervised by Sydney Ahlstrom and Nancy F. Cott. Although Sydney Ahlstroms untimely death prevented his participation beyond the initial stages of this project, I hope that the final product reflects the model of humane scholarship he tried to impart to a sometimes unwilling student. In his absence, Nancy Cott served as an exemplary adviser. Always a thoughtful reader, she took my work seriously, but not too seriously, providing an ideal blend of criticism and encouragement. Her own work served as both a model and an inspiration throughout this project. My early teachers, Virgene Bollens, H. Patrick Sullivan, Martin Marty, and Rosemary Ruether set me on the path that led to this study.

The project received financial support from a faculty development grant from Carleton College. The American Antiquarian Society supported it with the Francis Hyatt Fellowship and provided an extraordinarily productive research home. During my stay there, I came to value many of the staff as both friends and colleagues. I would like to thank the entire staff of the society for its support and for its continuing interest in this book and its author. Thanks to Richard Fyffe for locating the stereograph reproduced on the cover. The project benefited greatly from the unusual personal interest shown by a few librarians and archivists, including Mary Huth and Karl Kabelac of the University of Rochester and the staff of the Vermont Historical Society. Christine and Dana Morgan, resident curators of Rokeby, home of the Rowland E. Robinson Memorial Association, kindly transformed their living room into a reading room for my research. Michael Kehoe and his family opened their homes to me during my Rochester research. Thanks also to the many other friends whose hospitality I enjoyed while traveling for research.

The following institutions graciously extended to me the use of their collections: The American Antiquarian Society, the Boston Athenaeum, the Boston Public Library, Carleton College, the Chicago Historical Society, Cornell University, the Free Library of Philadelphia, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Newberry Library, the New York Public Library, the Rochester Public Library, the Rockford Museum Association in Rockford, Illinois, the Rowland E. Robinson Memorial Association in Ferrisburg, Vermont, the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library, Smith College, the Stowe-Day Foundation, Syracuse University, the Townshend Public Library, the University of Illinois at Chicago, the University of Minnesota, the University of Rochester, the University of Wisconsin, the Vermont Historical Society, the Vermont State Library, the Watkinson Library at Trinity College, and Yale University. Permission to quote from manuscripts in their possession has been granted by courtesy of the University of Rochester, the Vermont Historical Society, and Richard and Helen Post.

Scholarship is a solitary endeavor. It might have been unbearably so if not for the many people who shared with me their enthusiasm for historical inquiry, whether in libraries, in conference sessions, or while following me through damp nineteenth-century graveyards. Two deserve special mention. Molly Ladd-Taylor has read virtually every word I have written from my early days in graduate school until the present day. Her generous partnership has added clarity and depth to my writing and has frequently saved me from embarrassment. Mark Greene, the Carleton College archivist, rendered tireless assistance at the final stages of writing. His keen editorial eye was invaluable in transforming the dissertation into a book. At that point, the manuscript also benefited from the comments of Liza Braude and R. Laurence Moore. In addition, I would like to thank Claire Rossini, Sally Stein, Bill Silva, Bruce Mullin, Richard Crouter, Ann Gordon, Marie Morgan, and Jonathan Butler as well as the host of friends and colleagues who read sections of the manuscript at various stages. I am grateful to Steve Seibert of Dragonfly Software, the designer of the computer program Nota Bene, on which this book was written, for his commitment to academic computing in the humanities. I would also like to thank my colleagues in Re-Evaluation Counseling for suggesting the possibility that writing a book might be a delightful activity and for helping to make it one.

I feel deeply indebted to the women and men who form the subject of this study. I am grateful to them for their commitment to their own convictions and for entering their lives, hopes, and dreams into the historical record. Finally, I thank my family, Liza, Marjorie, and Marvin Braude, and Vicci Sperry for their support and confidence in me over the years. This work is for my grandfather, Ben Braude, who wanted the best for me.

Introduction to the Second Edition

Womens rights and spiritualism. This book explores the intersection between two movements that may appear unlikely bedfellows. One of its goals is to suggest that they are not. I portray the compatibility of womens rights and Spiritualism as a manifestation of the intersection of religion and gender at the deepest levels of American culture. Every religious worldview must participate in the construction of gender if it is to provide a comprehensive vocabulary of meanings and actions for managing experience and interpreting reality. We should not be surprised, then, that a reform movement aimed at altering the roles and relations of men and women should find alliessometimes unwelcomewithin a religious movement committed to critiquing basic theological principles and religious structures.

While it should not be surprising to find a political movement and a religious movement sharing leaders, concepts, participants, and platforms, the coalescence of this particular political movement with this particular religion is in some ways surprising. The nineteenth-century womens movement eventually succeeded in some (though not all) of its central goals. Although often ridiculed in its own day, it is now regarded with respect for advancing universal suffrage and civil rights, key components of Americas identity as a democratic nation. Spiritualism, in contrast, still attracts controversy and ill repute among critics who view it as a deception of the credulous. It is a testimony to the radicalism of the call for womens rights in the 1840s and 1850s that the religious movement with which it found most sympathy was one so much at odds with conventional beliefs. A second goal of the book, therefore, is to suggest that Spiritualism should be taken seriously as a religion making a legitimate response to nineteenth-century theological challenges.