Abstract

Below is a copy of my abstract. This was suprisingly very difficult to complete because of the limited amount of articles pertaining specifically to Six Months in a Convent. Finally, I found Daniel Cohen's article. At first, I wasn't very satisfied with it (partly because it was over 30 pages) but mostly because I couldn't draw any sort final conclusion from it. As I read it over numerous times, I found that many of his points did, in fact, contain much insight and analysis.

Leslie Cordero
Dr. Lisa Logan
AML 4101
11/18/08
Abstract

Cohen, Daniel. “Miss Reed and the Superiors: The Contradictions of Convent Life in Antebellum America.” Journal of Social History, Vol. 33, No. 1 (1996): 149-184. JSTOR. University of Central Florida Library. 10/20/2008.

As a scholar of the Florida International University, Daniel A. Cohen’s article on Rebecca Reed’s, “Six Months in a Convent” primarily shows how Reed and the Ursulines “shared many of the same aspirations and frustrations, pursued many of the same options and strategies, and operated within many of the same social, ideological, and institutional constraints” (150). Amongst the comparison between Reed and the Nuns, Cohen also explores how the tension between the nuns and their Bishop and other conflicts within the convent, which equally suffices as much as the hostilities between Protestants and Catholics -- and how these anxieties may have contributed to the convent’s downfall.
As an introduction to the argument, Cohen first establishes how his research has exposed in Reed’s narrative details that are corroborated by contemporary Catholic sources. He further argues, that although Reed’s testimony may not be altogether reliable, but it can be useful in reconstructing the life of not only Reed, but the Ursuline Convent during the years prior to its fall. In making this comparison, Cohen notes the stereotypes and polarities placed upon Reed and the Ursulines by pro and anti-Catholics. “The anti-Catholic literature contrasted the humble, sincere, forthright, and American Reed to the arrogant, hypocritical, secretive, and foreign Ursulines. At the same time, pro-Catholic publications contrasted the ignorant, vulgar, shiftless, and mendacious Reed to the educated, genteel, dedicated, and trustworthy Ursulines” (150).
As he titles his article “the contradictions of convent life,” Cohen states that the most important contradiction was between “the personal pride and ambition of many of the women who entered convents and the monastic virtues of humility and submissiveness to which they were expected to conform” (150). While urged by monastic virtues to surrender their self-will, ideas, imperfect desires, and essentially themselves entirely and encouraged to adapt a spirit of “profound humility,” “self-denial,” “self-contempt,” and “self-annihilation,” historians like Margret Susan Thomson found that the fully professed nuns who were supposedly advanced in the practice of docile, self-effacing submissiveness were -- in the context of antebellum gender roles -- emerging from schools in which were often operated by such convents that provided American women with “unmatched opportunities for female autonomy, authority, and achievement” (151).
Later in the article, Cohen examines the gendered motives of the convent rioters and states that although the rioters were hesitant to explain their motives, it was strongly indicated that “they viewed their actions as a vindication of violated gender norms” (162). He reports that several weeks prior to the riot, the leader of the mob -- amongst others -- had crudely beaten the convent’s Irish caretaker after he supposedly rudely confronted three protestant women who strolled past the convent. Cohen then emphasizes the fact that although Protestant men may have wanted to liberate convent women, they also sought to punish them. This fact alone raises the suspicion that “it may also have signaled a deeper reluctance to acknowledge that American women might actually prefer the unconventional ‘separate sphere’ of Mount Benedict to the patriarchal households in which most of them had been raised -- or even to the newfangled ‘separate spheres’ being carved out by many antebellum women in their own homes” (163).
Finally, Cohen ends the article by reiterating the profound similarities and differences between Rebecca Reed and the Superiors and articulating directly the contradiction of true womanhood and separate spheres in Catholic convents during a time of antebellum gender ideological reformation. “On the one hand, they drew together a group of women into a formally demarcated ‘separate sphere’ and demanded of them the quintessential female virtues of True Womanhood: piety, purity, humility, submissiveness, and domesticity. But, on the other hand, many Protestants complained that convents tore women away from those primal relations of affection and authority--as daughters, wives, and mothers--that were the very essence of female identity in antebellum America”(171).
Daniel Cohen’s article was refreshing to read after extensive research on similar topics. He provided distinguished insight into the historical context of the novel and thoroughly focused analysis throughout the development of his points and established his credibility with numerous sources all listed in the endnotes. I feel as though much of his investigation was done with congruency and proved to be thought-provoking. He approached the burning of the convent from a different angle and analyzed and assimilated the events that were taking place during that time to unravel the true cause of the riot. Cohen’s article will, in my opinion, serve as a strong asset in piecing together the final product of the research paper.