AS205: Inbetween Peoples

In Peggy Pascoe’s Relations of Rescue the idea of female moral authority in the American west is explored. Using case studies and legal and popular rhetoric, Pascoe explores the tension between the existing and potentially increasing authority of Protestant women and the traditional position of men in American Victorian influenced society. As the title of the book suggests, Pascoe also relates the mentality of the middle class to ‘rescue’ those who threatened the traditional values of the Christian home.

What I felt was particularly compelling about the notion of ‘rescue’ was Pascoe’s relation of this commonplace notion to economics. In every case of middle-class women seeking to uplift those deemed ‘fallen’, there was a critical element of finances. The case of the Industrial Christian Home in Salt Lake City provides a good starting point into this discussion of female moral authority and economic control. As Pascoe describes, the women who campaigned for the home were often the victims of economic plight themselves. Many women who were living out west, the Utah women aside, found themselves in their situation because of their husband’s financial losses over which they of course had no control. The difficulty in securing funds experienced by the women (who could not have contributed their own money given that they had no such resources) led them to send a delegate, Angie Newman, to Washington to ask for appropriations. When they were given the funds to build the home, it was not without stipulation that a men’s council take charge of the financial planning. There was a bitter irony in this ruling that Pascoe does not directly elude to–the fact that these women were building the home to “enable Mormon plural wives to become financially independent so they could leave polygamy behind.” (page 38)

This same irony surfaces later in the reading when Pascoe discusses the justifications and misinterpretations that were present when white middle-class women felt compelled to ‘rescue’ other victims in society. The Chinese women in San Francisco were another project for these Western American women because of the evils of prostitution and slavery. Unfortunately, these white middle-class women were unable to see that one of the key factors for their own dependence on men was economic and instead sought to destroy this advantage that Chinese secondary wives had. Pascoe writes, “Protestant women whose own Victorian gender system made them the economic dependents of their husbands were nevertheless eager to stamp out connections between marriage and the economic exchange in other women’s lives.” (page 53)

The failure of Protestant women to see economic status in women in the Native American cultures also illustrates the economic flaw in their moral reform. In Native American cultures, women enjoyed more freedoms than Protestant women and were only disenfranchised when these rescuers tried to manipulate their social order. Property rights in particular gave Native American women status that these Protestant women could only dream of. When Protestant women advocated the share of these lands in marriage, they were only taking away a legitimacy that had previously been ensured by traditional cultural practices.

In viewing these examples, one can see that the inability of Protestant women to understand the critical role of economics proved extremely disadvantageous. Had they understood the economic implications of their work, they may have been able to secure much more effective results in their ‘rescue’ efforts and simultaneously increase their own position in society. Without the ability to manipulate finances, Protestant women were fighting an uphill battle that would not relent until suffrage was secured.

In her introductory chapter, Pascoe outlines the difference between socialist feminists and cultural feminists, noting that cultural feminists celebrated gender differences rather than openly rejecting them. An initial reading of this might lead one to believe that cultural feminists are not feminists at all (at least not in the contemporary sense of the word). Pascoe proceeds to explain how Protestant women forged their own authority in the American west by establishing Rescue homes for Chinese prostitutes, victims (?) of Mormon polygamy, and unmarried mothers, among others, and used these missions to project their moral superiority, thereby giving them an actual voice in society. These Protestant women certainly impressed their values upon the residents (or ‘inmates’ as Jessie points out), but regardless of the merits of their actions, these rescue homes created a sphere of influence in American society that women had complete control over.

Interestingly, these cultural feminists perpetuated an image of feminism that was created entirely by men. The Victorian model of a pure and virtuous woman is a male construct designed to keep women away from traditionally male roles. Take for example, a quote from Winifred Spaulding, the Colorado superintendent of the Young Woman’s Christian Temperance Movement: “It takes a woman to make a home, and I believe and every true woman believes, that the making of a Christian home is the highest sphere of woman” (Pascoe 32, emphasis mine). She, as a leading “cultural feminist” of her age, is absolutely convinced that her role is to maintain the family, an implicit argument that woman should exist in deference to their male counterparts. It should be questioned whether this is feminism at all, or just the expansion of female gender roles into the west, and furthermore, the enforcement and impression of these roles onto supposedly “lost” women. In a way, the search for female moral authority in the American west serves a male agenda.

Conjecture aside, the woman of the west did in fact accumulate a considerable amount of social power by participating in an age-old American tradition: social control. Missionizing women, not in a religious sense, but by creating new Protestant woman out of them, was their primary aim. They did this in a number of ways: from preventing young Chinese women from having their feet bound (a process which inhumane for sure, but still an aspect of their culture), to inheriting generations-old misconception of Native American gender roles. In doing so, they participated in a process that started in 1492 (assuming the culture/identity of those they meet is in some way inferior to their own, and colonize them accordingly). To some extent, this gave them an even greater voice in society, because cultural colonization such as this was still seen at the time as a virtuous and necessary action.

Pascoe looks at this issue in Chapter 3. “The ideology of female moral authority stressed universal bonds between women,” she says, yet this fact sometimes directly challenged their required adherence to Victorian values. Ultimately, however, Victorianism wins out. Native American women, for example, are treated to a female version of the Dawes Act, in an attempt to civilize them. Cultural feminists in the American west, as Pascoe explain, are certainly doing good work. Yet her account leaves one with a question: are they really forging a new identity for American women, or simply perpetuating a male one in the name of old colonialist European ideals?

To better understand the “contemporary search for female authority,” Peggy Pascoe fittingly heads to one of its historical foundations: the 1870s (xvi). Additionally, her focus on the American West permits her to explore female influence in a region– and more specifically, during a time– whose cultural memory centers around the romanticization of a manly, vaguely lawless society. However, in presenting what certainly is an ignored history of women’s social influence, Pascoe fails to fully address the limitations that this authority held– an authority, much like the authority of the manly, ruling class of the Eastern United States, rooted in Protestant Christianity.

Pascoe acknowledges the difficulty of defining the “Christian home” that “Victorian reformers waxed eloquent about the need protect,” explaining that such an “elastic concept… meant different things to different people” (36). Regarding the Christian home, Pascoe continues:

“Tapping into the popular symbol–and thus gaining access to the middle class audiences it guaranteed– they subverted its conventional meaning in their work… they envisioned a Christian home centered around the moral authority of the wife rather than the patriarchal control of the husband” (36).

First, Pascoe’s description of this vision for Christian home can hardly be considered, to paraphrase Pascoe, a subversion of conventional meaning. During a period where a woman’s sphere was privately, inwardly focused, using the home as a symbol of female moral authority was not a revolution, but rather a reinforcement of existing realms of authority. Moreover, with women already sought for their “civilizing influence” during Victorian times, wives would have already held moral authority within the house. A push from the rescue homes for greater female autonomy and increased legal-political rights would have been subversive; rearticulating tropes of feminine purity was not. Certainly, even this role remained– and remains, in the American cultural memory of the frontier West– lacking in the region, but Pascoe should not characterize its spread, through rescue homes, as subversive.

Much as women in the American West asserted authority essentially through asserting traditional gender roles in rescue homes and other venues, their values source– Protestant Christianity– was little different than that of moral crusaders– men and women alike– in other regions. Pascoe, offering a feminist perspective on authority in the American West, neglects to fully critique the limitations of a system that incorporated evangelization into its outreach efforts. Certainly, as Pascoe notes, “the interaction of these gender systems with Victorian systems of social control propelled many women to see rescue homes as a desirable alternative” — but was it the best alternative? After all, rescue homes “…reinforced mission women’s tendency (sp?) to reat their charges like children” (110). Homes replaced the polygamism of 19th century Mormon culture with a community based around “rescuing” female “victims”, rather than empowering those women within their own cultural framework. Homes inappropriately applied stereotypes of the “maltreated Indian wife” to the Navaho people, deeming “Navaho homes as threats to Christian moral development” (57).

Pascoe glosses over these misguided attempts at “aid”, tacitly accepting the validity of the premise of “rescuing” young women from different cultures. While there is merit in exposing Western women’s effective entry into the public sphere through rescue homes, Pascoe fails to look at the motives behind their entrance.

The “Rescue” Home: A Myth or Reality?
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, “rescue” homes were established by white Protestant middle-class women as institutions of social reform. Under the belief that all women share the values of piety and purity, rescue homes were places in which missionaries could not only save women from men, but immerse them in true feminine values. While this sense of saving women both physically and spiritually served an important function, the extent to which rescue homes “rescued” victimized women is debatable.
Rescue homes are often portrayed in an extremely positive light. Victims of men’s lust could come to such homes and enter a domain of peaceful comfort and pure values. In fact, rescue homes were modeled after the idea of the Christian “home.” A matron acted as the home’s “mother,” and was the center of household. Doorkeepers were posted outside the home to protect the residents from outsiders. Residents were engaged in programs to keep themselves occupied and spent many hours reading scripture. Women acquired domestic skills that would help them become more self-sufficient. Rescue homes undeniably provided many services for women in need. For example, homes supplied women with food, shelter, medical care, and help with immigrant officials and creditors. In the minds of home mission workers, rescue homes were established as bastions of Protestant values where women could “escape” to a gated community surrounded by nurturing and caring women.
Yet, the white middle-class women who ran the home, inculcated with Victorian values, did not consider how their morals would fit into the set of values of the women they were trying to help. The Protestant women felt they were morally superior to the home residents. Believing that it was in the best interests of all women to acquire Victorian values, many reform workers targeted “impure” groups such as Chinese immigrants, Mormons, Native Americans, and unmarried mothers. Drawing on their moral authority, reform workers created environments that often restricted its residents in order to protect their purity. Some female residents complained about their lack of freedom in the homes. One woman expressed her discontent with the fact that she was forbidden to leave the premises. Some women came to the home because reformers claimed that they needed to be “rescued.” In San Francisco, some prostitutes were dropped off at the house and essentially imprisoned. In fact, residents were called “inmates.” Even though this term does not hold the same connotation as “prisoners,” it still speaks to the fact that residents were separated from the outside world. In addition, matrons often separated babies from mothers, claiming that it was in the child’s best interest to be placed with foster parents. Some mothers who gave birth to illegitimate children were often deemed not virtuous enough to raise children. Also, women were often overworked. For example, some Chinese Mission Home residents in California picked large quantities of fruit for local growers. In terms promoting piety, Protestant middle class women tempted women to convert to their religion by “promis[ing] frightened and miserable girls outcast by society that if they would turn to Protestantism, God would forgive their sins” (Bederman 109). Instead of embracing Protestantism, residents seemed to merely accept the religion in their state of loneliness and isolation. Thus, although the home mission women should be commended for their reform activities, they wrongly assumed that all women shared the same core values. This presupposition speaks to the conflicting socio-economic ways of life that characterized the age.