1841 & 1842 MOTHER'S MAGAZINE. Significant Magazine of the "New Motherhood" and Idealized Femininity

Two full years of Abigail Goodrich Whittelsey’s classic maternal periodical. She became active in the Maternal Association of Utica and was almost immediately chosen to edit its new periodical, the Mother's Magazine.

The magazine quickly became an important national institution. Through Whittelsey's influence and correspondence, the Maternal Associations grew in number in the United States and in Europe. The new magazine ultimately reaching a circulation of 10,000, a very substantial readership for the period, and the most widely distributed female edited periodical in America at the time.

The Mother's Magazine was one of the founding documents of a distinctly American ideology of intensive, evangelical Christian motherhood. It both reflected and shaped what historians now call the "cult of true womanhood" or Republican motherhood, the idea that women began to occupy a large responsibility as the primary teachers of virtue in the new republic, with mothers bearing responsibility for the moral character of each generation of citizens. The magazine gave this ideology an institutional voice and a national network through the affiliated Maternal Associations, which reported from congregations across the country and, through the magazine, created something like a national community of practice around child-rearing.

Mrs. A. G. Whittelsey [ed.]. The Mother's Magazine. Published Monthly for 1841. New York. S. Whittelsey, Brick Church Chapel, 1841. 284pp.

Contents include: On the Preparation of Young Men for the Perils of our Cities; On the Conversion of Children [Series]; Children of Missionaries by Mrs. M. F. Booth; Mental and Moral Qualities Transmittible from Parents to Children; Letter from Mrs. Fidelia Coan of Hilo, Hawaii; The Mother's Example by John S. C. Abbott; Duty of Mothers in Respect to the Sabbath-School; Extract of Daniel Webster's Address to the Ladies of Richmond; Christ's Regard for Maternal Affection; Parental Travail for Souls; An Appeal to Gifted Women; A Daughter Consecrated to Missionary Labor; Report of the Maternal Association at Charleston, South Carolina; The Injurious Influence of Many of the Popular Songs on the Youthful Mind; A Letter from Macao; The Interest of Pious Children in Unconverted Parents; Consolation and Caution for Anxious Mothers; On the Management of Children; Cleanliness and Care of the Skin; Faithfulness of the Widow's God; Mrs. Wesley's Method of Teaching Her Children to Read; A Steam-Boat Scene; Meddlesome and Disobedient Children; etc. 

Mrs. A. G. Whittelsey & Rev. D. Mead [eds.]. The Mother's Magazine. Published Monthly for 1842. New York. Brick Church Chapel. 1842. 288pp.

Contents include: The Blight of Intemperance; Who Will Remember the Home Missionary; A Chapter for Young Husbands; Mothers can do Great Things; Address Delivered at the Brick Church Chapel at the formation of the Ladies' Auxiliary Seamen's Friend Society; A Receipt for Heart-Sickness; On the Importance of Neatness and Order; The Children of Believers; Consolation for Mourning Mothers; If I had only Studied for the Ministry; Desecration of the Sabbath; The Blessing of a Pious Mother; Teaching of the Spirit; The Colored Settlement [7pp]; Monica, the Mother of Augustine; Fretfulness; Neglected Children; Laura the Tattler; Moral Poisons; Letter from the Rev. Mr. William Goodell of Constantinople; Little Susan the Blind Girl; Brief Reflections on the Death of an Infant; etc.

Good + in half leather, attractive with some rubbing and light fading. A bit foxed and some light tenderness.