Abstract
A Study of Motherhood in Godey’s Magazine:
“A Wonderful Duty and the Basis of all Moral Culture"
University of Minnesota
As the nineteenth century progressed, mothering emerged as a topic deserving of public debate and a source of profit for those willing to offer their “expertise” on the matter. Women’s publications, medical tracts and advice pamphlets rose to the occasion, depicting motherhood as a duty that women took to naturally, lovingly and with maternal instinct. This research examines the role of motherhood throughout the nineteenth century in a specific publication, Godey’s Lady’s Book. This paper covers a 62 year period, from 1835 to 1897, to explore the duties, societal responsibilities and categorizations that accompanied motherhood in the pages of Godey’s, in addition to the ways that these mother images relied on and reinforced a separate spheres ideology.