Domesticity

I. The Story of Christmas

• Puritans and Christmas

• Christmas in an Agricultural Society

• Urbanization of Christmas

• Domesticating Christmas

II.  The Middle Class

III. Middle Class Family

• Size

• Nuclear Core

• Segregation of the Sexes

• Socialization of Children

• "Haven From a Heartless World"

IV. Middle Class Womanhood

V. Catharine Beecher and Domesticity

• Women and the Home

• Nationalizing Women's Role

• Self-Sacrifice

• Feminization of Culture

Study Questions: 

1. How have white women's roles changed from 1650-1850?

2. How does African American women's understanding of domesticity differ from white women's?

3. Describe Catharine Beecher's theory of domesticity.

4.  How does the changing understandings of Christmas reflect changes in culture during the Antebellum period?

5. How does the middle class define itself in the Antebellum period?