The Romance of the Association


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Excerpt from The Romance of the Association: Or, One Last Glimpse of Charlotte Temple and Eliza Wharton, a Curiosity of Literature and Life This little brochure is published by request and by subscription. It is not offered to those who read it as a work of art; not even as a contribution to literature nor as a satisfactory solution of the problem of Eliza Wharton's destiny. A work of art must have been mercilessly shorn of details, and of all indirection that would detract from its climax. A contribution to literature must challenge sympathies broad as the language. A solution of an old mystery must bring justification and proof to every assertion. No one of these things is here attempted. On the contrary, it was the wish of those for whose pleasure it was written to preserve all the details that would recall hereafter the charmed week at Hartford, although at times these might disguise the thread of the story. Again, the sympathies to which the story is addressed are limited. The members of the Association present at Hartford, during the last days in August, 1874; a few persons who have heard the manuscript read; and women with good memories in the rural homesteads up and down the Connecticut River, - may be all who will read it with interest. Why then should it be printed? For the same reason that Mr. Bigelow tells what he knows of the History of Franklin's manuscript. "The facts here set down if preserved may lead to the discovery of others which will complete the story." About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.




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Women of the Republic


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Women of the Republic views the American Revolution through women's eyes. Previous histories have rarely recognized that the battle for independence was also a woman's war. The "women of the army" toiled in army hospitals, kitchens, and laundries. Civilian women were spies, fund raisers, innkeepers, suppliers of food and clothing. Recruiters, whether patriot or tory, found men more willing to join the army when their wives and daughters could be counted on to keep the farms in operation and to resist enchroachment from squatters. "I have Don as much to Carrey on the warr as maney that Sett Now at the healm of government," wrote one impoverished woman, and she was right. Women of the Republic is the result of a seven-year search for women's diaries, letters, and legal records. Achieving a remarkable comprehensiveness, it describes women's participation in the war, evaluates changes in their education in the late eighteenth century, describes the novels and histories women read and wrote, and analyzes their status in law and society. The rhetoric of the Revolution, full of insistence on rights and freedom in opposition to dictatorial masters, posed questions about the position of women in marriage as well as in the polity, but few of the implications of this rhetoric were recognized. How much liberty and equality for women? How much pursuit of happiness? How much justice? When American political theory failed to define a program for the participation of women in the public arena, women themselves had to develop an ideology of female patriotism. They promoted the notion that women could guarantee the continuing health of the republic by nurturing public-spirited sons and husbands. This limited ideology of "Republican Motherhood" is a measure of the political and social conservatism of the Revolution. The subsequent history of women in America is the story of women's efforts to accomplish for themselves what the Revolution did not.













The Romance of the Association


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