The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 96, July 1992 - April, 1993 Page: 247
681 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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An Avenue to the Ordinary
"graceful," and "pure," ideal female qualities which one prominent his-
torian includes as part of the "prevailing Southern ideology."21
Women also act as a moral and religious force in society, a role which
they adopt, perhaps, "as an unconscious counterpoint to . . . [men's]
option of rowdy debauchery," or as part of "Republican Motherhood,"
in which women have a mission to protect the civic virtue and steer
men away from vice.22 Instead of working to eradicate vice through a
moral reform society or some other public vehicle, the women of the
Gazette poetry employ the quiet, private method of marital and sexual
bribery. In "Wife's Blast Against Tobacco," a wife describes the un-
pleasantness of living with a husband who smokes and chews tobacco,
ending the poem with a moral: "Don't marry a man that uses tobacco." 2
The speaker in "The Tobacco Chewer" proffers the same advice, say-
ing, "Maidens when you marry, / Tobacco worms don't take."24 The
female narrators of both these poems urge other women to withhold
marriage until their prospective spouses have quit tobacco. As wives
and mothers, women can successfully use these reform methods within
their domestic sphere; the sins may change, but the technique remains
the same, as in "Farewell To The Bottle." Here the iniquitous conduct
is drinking, which at times leads to tragedies much worse than stains
on the floor or spittle on the carpet; as Wyatt-Brown notes, it often
results in wife and child abuse.25 In this poem, the narrator remembers
his drinking sprees as times of joyful male bonding, but "those raptures
I now must surrender / Or yield up my fair Nannie-Lue."26 In reality,
some Austin belles found it difficult to keep themselves free of vice, let
alone reform others; Amelia Barr observed not long after arriving in
Austin that "Some of the women chewed snuff without cessation." 27
The ideal woman of the Gazette poetry tries to improve men by with-
holding marriage, but once she joins her husband in matrimony, she
remains by his side even if he degenerates, and provides comfort and
solace from the harsh public sphere. The author of "Reason why
Women are Angels" explains that when a man feels "Deserted by for-
2' Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Within the Plantation Household Black and White Women of the Old
South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), 10o9.
22Catherine Clinton, The Plantation Mistress Woman's World in the Old South (New York. Pan-
theon Books, 1982), 87 (1st quotation); Linda K. Kerber, Women of the Republic Intellect and
Ideology in Revolutionary America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the Insti-
tute of Early American History and Culture, 1980), 199-200, 284 (2nd quotation).
23 Texas State Gazette (Austin), June 5, 1852.
24Ibid., Apr. 11, 1857.
25Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor, 16o
26 Texas State Gazette (Austin), Dec 12, 1857.
27Amella E Barr, All the Days of My Life: An Autobiography (New York: D. Appleton and Co.,
1913), 207.247
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 96, July 1992 - April, 1993, periodical, 1993; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101215/m1/291/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.