Observations on the Real Rights of Women.
The First Feminist Tract By An American Woman
Crocker, H. Mather. Observations on the Real Rights of Women, with their appropriate duties, agreeable to scripture, reason and common sense. Boston: Printed for the Author, 1818.
12mo.; foxed; closed tear through page nine; contemporary ownership signature; two-toned paper-covered boards; spine missing except for remnant of printed label on small portion. In a quarter-morocco slipcase.
First edition of Crocker’s third and final book: Sabin 17558; Shaw and Shoemaker 43772. Not in Krichmar or Gerrittsen; no copy has appeared at auction since 1970. The NUC locates six copies. Biographical information about Hannah Mather Crocker (1752-1829) is scarce. The granddaughter of Puritan divine, Cotton Mather, and Massachusetts Governor, Thomas Hutchinson, Crocker came from a family tradition of socially and politically-minded intellectuals with a “a vigorous mind, a firm will, and a keen interest in moral and social questions.” The wife of a Harvard graduate who became a captain in the Revolutionary War, she bore ten children and spent most of her life enmeshed in domestic duties, and only began to publish after her husband’s death in 1797.
Crocker’s first project was a study of the Masonic system, with an eye to its potential benefits for women. “Chief among the objects of this lodge was the cultivation of the mind, since at that period, she says, ‘If women could even read and badly write their names, it was thought enough for them, who by some were esteemed as only ‘mere domestic animals’” (DAB III, IV, p. 554). In 1815 she published Series of Letters on Free Masonry, by a Lady of Boston, a correspondence between “Enquirer” and “A.P. Americana” promoting Masonry; in 1816, The School of Reform, or Seaman’s Safe Pilot, to the Cape of Good Hope appeared, cautioning sailors against various vices. Observations on the Real Rights of Women was Crocker’s last work and greatest achievement; she was 66 when she wrote it, and published it by subscription. In it she set forth her conviction that “the wise Author of nature has endowed the female mind with equal powers and faculties, and given them the same right of judging and acting for themselves as he gave to the male sex.” However, as DAB notes, “she naively remarks that Adam was to blame for letting his mate wander about the Garden unattended,” the critic continues:
…but she argues that with the Christian dispensation woman was restored to an equality with man. Moral and Physical differences in the sexes allot to each appropriate duties, and woman should not trespass upon the peculiar sphere of man, but both have equal powers of mind and ability to judge what is true and right, and recognizing this fact should cooperate in mutual respect and fidelity…
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