The Fragility of Fatherhood in Ante-bellum America : Theodore Dwight, Father's Book, 1835

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  • Nonomura Toshiko
    Planning of Adult and Community Education Laboratory, Graduate School of Human-Environment Studies, Kyushu University : Lecturer : History of Education Culture

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  • 南北戦争前のアメリカにおける「母」礼讃現象と「父」の位置 : セオドア・ドワイト『父の本』(1835)をめぐって
  • ナンボクセンソウマエノアメリカニオケル「ハハ」ライサンゲンショウト「チチ」ノイチ : セオドア・ドワイト『チチノホン』(1835)オメグッテ

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Abstract

In Ante-bellum (before Civil War) America, a great deal of discourses admired motherhood were created and read by many women. This phenomenon is called "The Empire of the Mother" by Mary P. Ryan, a historian about American Women. This paper aims to clear what and how fatherhood could be in the phenomenon. Father's Book by Theodore Dwight, was perhaps only one famous advice book about education for fathers in the period. It told father to "be careful not to underrate his own duties of influence" to his children, "although so large share of the care of children devolves upon the mother". But in spite of Dwight's hope, this book had little readers. Many and various advice books for mothers had many readers. This explains men in the era had little interest in the role of father. The main subject of Father's Book is how educate sons to be "useful" as an American citizen. Dwight says father can be "respectable" through being a model to his son. So father must be "ideal man (in the era) " foward his son. But most strong mode of education in this bock is "love" and affection, included in this era's "women's sphere". Furthermore, in some important practical scenes, the educator is a mother, not a father. Modernization means for fatherhood the process of loss the power authorized by pre-modem community. The fragility and obsession of fatherhood in Father's Book are a phase of dilemma or paradox of modem fatherhood in America.

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