Contextual Documents

I. Geographical Context:

• Students will view the route Sarah Kemble Knight took (on horseback) on the following map:

Above Image Taken From: http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/becomingamer/growth/text1/connecticutknight.pdf

II. Historical Context:

• Students will read the following information regarding Sarah Kemble Knight’s life:  http://www.learner.org/amerpass/unit03/authors-3.html
• Students will go to the following link to view a picture of Fisher’s Tavern and excerpt about eighteenth-century taverns:  http://www.learner.org/amerpass/slideshow/archive_search.php?number=7057&fullsize=1
•  Or I could post the picture directly on the study guide:

The above image of Fisher’s Tavern, courtesy of the Dedham Historical Society, is taken from:http://www.learner.org/amerpass/slideshow/archive_search.php?number=7057&fullsize=1

III. Activities/Engagement with Text:

• Students will go to the following link to access the 1688 popular conduct manual by Lord Halifax called Lady’s New-years Gift: or, Advice to a Daughter: http://www.archive.org/stream/ladysnewyearsgif00hali

• They will be divided into 3 groups, and each group will be assigned one of the following passages: 

1. HUSBAND: “You must first lay it down for a Foundation in general, That there is Inequality in the Sexes, and that for the better Oeconomy of the Word, the Men, who were to be the Law-givers, had the larger share of Reason bestow’d upon them; by which means your Sex is the better prepar’d for the Complance that is necessary for the better performance of those Duties which seem’d to be most properly assign’d to it…” (26).
2. BEHAVIOR: “Therefore nothing is with more care to be avoided, then such a kind of Civility as may be mistaken for Invitation.  It will not be enough for you to keep your self free from any criminal Engagements’ for if you do that with either raiseth Hopes, or createth Discourse, there is a Spot thrown up on your Good Name; and those kind of Stains are the harder to be taken out, being dropped upon you by the Man’s Vanity, as well as by the Woman’s Malice” (99).
3. CENSURE: “Your Wit will be misapplied…if it is wholly directed to discern the Faults of others, when it is so necessary to be so often used to mend and prevent your own.  The sending our Thoughts too much abroad, hath the same Effect, as when a Family never stayeth at home; Neglect and Disorder naturally followeth; as it must do within our selves, if we do not frequently turn our Eyes inwards, to see what is amiss with us, where it is a sign we have an unwelcome Prospect, when we do not care to look upon it, but rather seek our Consolations in the Faults of those we converse with” (129-130).

• The students will be asked to find passages in Madam Knight’s journal which  demonstrate that Madam Knight transgresses expectations set forth in the previous sections of the conduct manual.

• I will also include a quote from Cotton Mather’s popular sermon from Ornaments of the Daughters of Zion (1692), with which Knight would have been familiar:

The Attainment which therefore I Recommend unto you, is that in Prov. 10.20.  The Tongue of the Just, is as choice silver.  A Woman is often valued according to the Silver that she has to bring unto them that will call her their Mistres, in order to their being Master of that. ‘Tis a few Pounds, Shillings, and Pexee, that makes her weigh heaviest on the scale of the vulgar Estimation.  For a woman of a Silver Tongue is the person of whom we may most Reasonably Say, she is not of Little worth.  As your speech ought always be True, and there should be no less an Agreement between your Heart and Words, then between your words and (illegible, possibly Thoughts], ever speaking As you think, tho’ it may be not All you think; lest you put Brass or Tin instead of Silver: so your speech ought likewise to be Rare, like Silver, which is not so common as Copper or Iron is.  Be careful that you don’t speak too soon, because you cannot fetch back and eat up, what is uttered; but Study to Answer.  And be careful that you don’t speak too much, because when the Chest is always open, everyone counts there are no Treasures in it; and the Scripture tells us, ‘tis the Whore, that is Clamorous, and the Fool, that is Full of words.  Let there be comely Affability and Ingenuity at the same time, in all your Speech, that it may be as Grateful as a Bag of Silver would be to the Receivers of it; and O let there be no Dross in your whole Communication. (Mather 50-51)

• Students will consider, how does Knight explore this issue in her journal?  Does she follow this advice herself?

My Working Proposal

The Journal of Madam Knight: A Transition Told Through Textiles

            Scholars note that Sarah Kemble Knight judges or—in the words of critic Scott Michaelson—“classifies” the people she encounters on her journey from Boston to New Haven.  In her journal, she comments on the habits of the people with whom she interacts, including their conversations, cooking, housekeeping, and clothing.  While critics have mentioned Knight’s judgments on clothing when describing her class distinctions, I intend to bring this aspect to the forefront of my analysis, focusing on clothes and the stories these clothes tell.[1]  In fact, historians have recently begun to focus on the evolution of textiles in America, particularly on the shift from homespun textiles to industrialization of clothing in the eighteenth century.  Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, a leading historian in this conversation, notes the tensions that arose during this time of transition, such as the view of clothing among geographic regions (country vs. towns), the role of wives in the home, and the warnings from the church to dress modestly.  In my paper, I position the conversation regarding class distinctions in Knight’s journal into the realm of textile history to suggest that the text marks a shift from Puritan to secular culture, and that her observations of clothing trace this transition.

I will examine sermons and conduct manuals from the eighteenth century with which Knight would have been familiar, including the first conduct manual, Richard Allestree’s The Lady’s Calling (1673), and the widely circulated Ornaments for the Daughters of Zion by Cotton Mather (1692 with reprints in 1694 and 1741), which both contain highly religious language and commands.  To demonstrate that her journal represents a transition into the secular treatment of clothes, I also will refer to an anonymous essay “The Miraculous Power of Clothes” (1772) and Horace Bushnell’s “secular sermon” (1851) called the “Age of Homespun” to demonstrate how Knight’s treatment of clothes contains traces of language and ideas similar to these later discourses.  Coming from a Puritan town which believed clothes should be worn with modesty, The Journal of Madam Knight demonstrates the she has one foot in the secular arena. When read together, her observations of the woman at Billinges Inn and the women in “The Cittie [sic] of New York” predate the idea from “The Miraculous Power” that one should dress according to his/her class, whereas the religious texts from her time encouraged everyone to dress in humility.

In other words, I aim to demonstrate how Sarah Kemble Knight’s travel narrative presents an “unruly woman”—one who steps outside the boundaries that Puritan sermons and religious manuals set for clothes—as she seems to anticipate future views of clothing and class.  Thus her journal is more than a record of her travels; it is a piece of female history that preserves transition—from homespun to industrialized textiles and from religious to secular mediation of clothing.

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[1] In the words of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, “textiles tell stories too” (“Cloth, Clothing, and Early American Social History” 39).