"Wo"Men Writing in the Early Republic?

Woman Writing in the Early Republic
Dobson and Zagarell

After last week's reading, I was looking forward to another article about writers in the early republic.  However, this article was not quite as fascinating as last week's (sorry, ladies!).  Comparing the two really made it seem like women authors had an easier time as authors or writers and this makes me question the perspectives of the two articles.  Did women have an easier time than men, or just an easier time than women before them and in other countries?  Or just an easier time than we expected?  Or, compared to other difficulties for women, the identity of authorship is simply another struggle (and by now, we are used to them)?  Were the identity struggles for the men writing in the early republic so extreme simply because the struggle was new and unexpected?

Hmmm...

I think the statement that struck me and elicited these questions was "The relatively limited number of accomplished indigenous writers was a matter of concern in the new nation, in which a cultural premium on learnedness and the adept use of rhetorics prevailed."  The passage goes on to state that "able writing by women...was enthusiastically received" (369).  It seems in direct opposition to our discussion of male authors from last week in which learnedness and making money through writing were frowned upon.  I suppose I have just struck the heart of the question-- economics as usual.  Sarah Wentworth Morton is quoted stating she only writes "amid the leisure and retirement, to which the sultry season is devoted" (369).  Perhaps the male authors ought to have only written when the harvest was in to seek approval?

Then again, I am still curious why writing women are not credited with some form of identity crisis similar to male authors of the times.  Maybe we just haven't noticed it yet or put it in those terms.  The public/domestic transition may be a type of identity crisis...

The discussion of Sedgwick as a woman writer and as an American writer (374)-- two different categories-- seems closely related some of the discussion from last week's reading, and reiterates the point above explaining women's "enthusiastic" reception "The urgent need for the United States to develop a coherent national identity from disparate regional cultures and a national culture distinct from that of Great Britain still took precedence over constructions of gender..." (374) at least for women, it appears.  But writing for men seemed to complicate gender construction-- something that does not appear as significant for women (for example, most of the female authors mentioned in the text married at some point, and there doesn't seem to be the same reproductive anxiety we read about in the male authors last week).      

I'm glad we read these essays in this order; it definitely gave me something more to consider this week!