Pioneer Profiles – February 2020
Since February heralds Valentine’s Day, we thought we would take a closer look at the Victorian idea of love and marriage (although we’re not sure why romance is celebrated in the middle of winter unless “bundling” was a great way to keep warm). Valentines became extremely popular during the Victorian era, but romantic love was of limited relevance when it came to the practicality of marriage.
An old song asserts that “love and marriage…go together like a horse and carriage.” William and Caroline Hoffman may have hoped that was true when they traveled in a heavy family carriage across the Oregon Trail to Jacksonville in 1853. They had six daughters to marry off and the Rogue Valley was rife with single men.
But while a carriage may need a horse, a horse doesn’t necessarily need a carriage. This might be the more accurate view of love and marriage in the 1800s although circumstances might determine who has the pulling power.
Louisa May Alcott’s classic tale, Little Women, is set in the second half of the 19th Century. In the most recent film version¸ an adult Amy March declares that marriage is an economic proposition for women, and that while she would like to marry for love, she has to “marry well” for the sake of her family.
During the Victorian period, gender roles had become more sharply defined than at any other time in history. Family members might previously have worked side by side on a farm or in a family business; now men went off to work while women stayed at home. This left women, particularly those with limited financial resources, with few options other than marriage.
A woman of limited means might enter domestic service, but typically only until marriage. Our Downton Abbey image of an extensive serving staff might be common in upper class English households and among wealthy Americans on the East and later West Coasts, but the farther west you went, prosperous households might boast at most a cook or housekeeper.
Jacksonville’s Cornelius Beekman family, probably the wealthiest and most prominent of our local pioneers, had a cook-housekeeper from the time the couple married in 1861. From the early 1900s to 1917, they had their cook-housekeeper Louise Ensele.
Louise was one of 12 siblings. She had dropped out of school to help support her family and came to work for the Beekmans when she was 14 or 15. She “lived in,” worked six days a week with one day off, and earned $20-$25 a month. Louise had it “easy” because by the time she worked for the Beekmans, they had a “modern” kitchen with running water, a wood-burning stove, and an “icebox.” But Louise’s employment only lasted until her marriage.
With the 19th Century Industrial Revolution, jobs in factories, retail establishments and offices gave women new options. More women joined the “workforce.” However, retail and office workers were usually required to be single, and while women factory workers might still be employed after marriage, they were always paid less than men performing the same job. Hours were long, discipline strict, wages low, and working conditions poor. And when unions were formed to address wages and working conditions, women were excluded.
Other women became seamstresses, took in laundry, or performed other home-based work for cash, typically on a “piece-work” basis. Women did casual nursing; wives and widows took in boarders; and some pursued the “oldest profession.” An educated woman might become a teacher or a governess—but only until she married. Most school boards allowed married male teachers but prohibited married female teachers.
While a family’s youngest daughter was expected to care for her parents until their deaths (whether or not they left her with any resources), well into the 20th Century women were expected to marry. But marriage itself was not a panacea. In the late 19th century, America was still predominantly rural despite the growth of industry, urban centers and immigration. In 1870, seven out of ten people in the United States lived in small towns or on farms, and for many women, their marital role might best be described as “drudge.”
Even when some women did succeed in marrying for love, a lower- or middle-class wife’s weekly schedule most likely included laundry on Monday, ironing and mending on Tuesday, baking on Wednesday and Saturday, daily tidying of kitchen and parlor, and thorough cleaning on Thursday and again on Saturday. This was in addition to childcare, preparing three meals a day, hauling water and keeping the fire burning in the stove (a chore that took at least one hour each day). Then there was making the family’s clothes and the seasonal canning and preserving of fruits, vegetables and meat. The scope of work extended to the farm or land itself. Women had charge of the garden, livestock and poultry and work related to “civilizing” the farm or acreage. During planting and harvest, if a woman did not work in the fields herself, she provided room and board for the extra help that did.
Not only might a woman become a “drudge” upon marrying, she also essentially became the “property” of her husband. A husband assumed control of any financial assets his wife had, and children were considered the property of the father.
However, there were a few “outs.” In Oregon there was a law known as the “Married Women’s Property Act.” Article XV, Section 5 of the 1859 Oregon State Constitution had provided that “The property and pecuniary rights of every married woman, at the time of marriage or afterwards, acquired by gift, devise, or inheritance shall not be subject to the debts, or contracts of the husband; and laws shall be passed providing for the registration of the wife’s separate property.”
With her husband’s consent, a woman could legally register properties in her own name as her sole property. However, few Oregon women took advantage of the protection that registration offered. Three Jacksonville women who did were Jane McCully, Madame Jeanne DeReboam Holt, and Henrietta Schmidling.
When her husband abandoned her and their three small children, Jane McCully transferred various properties to her own name to avoid her husband’s extensive debts. While married to John Guilfoyle, Holt transferred the title to her Franco-American Hotel, all its contents, and subsequently her horse and buggy to her own name. She later did the same for her dream property—the brick U.S. Hotel. After Holt’s death, Schmidling, who had married Holt’s brother Jean DeRoboam, bailed him out of his mismanagement of the U.S. Hotel by retaining control of her fortune and using it to purchase the hotel at a sheriff’s auction.
Divorce, while not common, was also a legal option—although more typically it was the husband filing. Judge Paine Paige Prim filed for divorce from his wife Theresa after she became fed up with his constant absences as both Circuit Justice and Oregon Supreme Court Justice. Left her alone with two small children, she decided she no longer loved him and became contemptuous. Prim threw her out, and she took the children and returned to her parents. Prim never followed through with the divorce and the couple later reconciled and had another daughter. But part of the price may have been Theresa’s opening her own millinery shop in Jacksonville.
Although buried next to Prim in the Jacksonville cemetery, Theresa’s grave has no marker. Perhaps her incognito grave reflects one of Prim’s reputed quotes: “Women should not have property rights as soon as they are married, even when they had property rights before marriage.”
This perspective may shed light on why many of Jacksonville’s upper and upper-middle class women did not marry. Isadore McCully; Molly Britt; Alice, Claire, Mary and Martha Hanley; and Carrie Beekman were among those who chose to remain single. While most had suitors, those suitors may not have met parental approval, and none of these women needed to marry for financial reasons. When eyeing a choice between a comfortable life and living with a miner in a log cabin with a dirt floor, practicality may have prevailed. Or as Carrie Beekman wrote in the diary she kept during an 18-month European tour: “Marriage is a picturesque gateway that leads to a commonplace estate.”
Pioneer Profiles is a project of Historic Jacksonville, Inc., a non-profit whose mission is helping to preserve Jacksonville’s Historic Landmark District by bringing it to life through programs and activities. Visit us at www.historicjacksonville.org and follow us on Facebook (historicjville) for upcoming events and more Jacksonville history.
Featured image: Jane McCully, Madame Jeanne DeReboam Holt, and Henrietta Schmidling.