Page 26 - Confronting Race Women and Indians on the Frontier, 1815 - 1915

C H APTER ONE

training which its high and sacred duties require" would develop. 2 o
Beecher envisioned domesticity not just as professionalism in duties, but
as social theory. Women were, Beecher argued, not only the protectors
of home and family, but the saviors of democracy in America. In her
view, women filled a subordinate position in American society in order
to promote the general good of society as a whole. Thus, to Beecher,
women preserved the virtuous qualities of life that provided the very
underpinning of the American democratic system. 2 1
These four themes were heady ideas not only for Anglo women in
general, but for those migrating westward. They would be moving to
the West their households, families, themselves, and their moral influence
over lesser folks, including untutored backwoodsmen and pagan Native
Americans. Beginning in the late 1820S, Catherine Beecher explicitly
stated that it was women's mission to go to the West as teachers of chil­
dren, immigrants, and the unschooled lower classes. T o this end, she con­
ducted fundraising and promotional tours and founded seminaries for
the training of women teachers. 22 In her opinion, teaching was the only
acceptable paid profession for women, one that provided them with
"honourable independence and extensive usefulness." Beecher also
believed that inhabitants of western regions needed women's ministra­
tions in the classroom. In promoting her scheme to send women teach­
ers to the West during the 1840s, Beecher explained that she hoped to
"engage American women to exert the great power and influence put
into their hands" and "to secure a proper education to the vast multi­
tude of neglected American children."23
Beecher was not the only one to suggest western missions on the
part of Anglo women. In 1844, the Ladies Repository asserted that soci­
eties only progressed in science and literature during eras in which
women exercised their "proper influence."2 4 A decade later, in 1854,
novelist Lydia Child selected examples from world history to demon­
strate that" even under the most barbarous and tyrannical forms of soci­
ety, the salutary influence of good and sensible women was felt and
acknowledged."2 5 W h at more could women ask to assure them that
moving to the American West was the right decision for them?
Such arguments appealed to women about to migrate. Applying
altruism to needy western societies rationalized any misgivings they may

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