Study & Research Reform Era and Eastern U.S. Development 1815-1850: Arts

Making a Living. Beginning in the 1820s women were an increasingly strong presence in the American literary world. As the American publishing industry developed, women authors found opportunities to profit from their literary efforts. Job opportunities were limited for women in general, and as the novel became increasingly popular, writing became a way for a few educated middle-class women to earn a living. However, since it was commonly believed that men were the legitimate creators of culture, women writers were self-conscious about the public attention that publishing brought them and by the loss of anonymity that came with success. With the novel only grudgingly accepted by American critics, the success of women novelists illustrated a central conflict in American definitions of literary success: did writing a popular and economically successful novel make one a literary success? When Nathaniel Hawthorne complained about the "damned mob of scribbling women" whose works sold...
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