Class, Gender, and Criminality in the Early American Republic

FAIN: FB-51913-05

Susan Lynn Branson
University of Texas, Dallas (Richardson, TX 75080-3021)

Taking the tell-all crime memoir, "The History of the Celebrated Mrs. Ann Carson" (1823) as a starting point, I explore the interdependence of gender roles and class identity during a crucial period in the development of the American middle class. I trace the trajectories of Carson and her ghost writer, Mary Clarke Carr, to explain how both women used notoriety to their advantage. The activities of Carson and Carr show us two things: first, the importance of interrelated sexual and economic ideologies in the articulation of class identity, and second, that a consciousness of the implications of gender ideology gave women a hook with which to grapple with it and modify it for their own ends.

Associated Products

Dangerous to know : women, crime, and notoriety in the early republic (Book)
Title: Dangerous to know : women, crime, and notoriety in the early republic
Author: Susan Branson
Abstract: In Dangerous to Know, Susan Branson follows the fascinating lives of Ann Carson and Mary Clarke, offering an engaging study of gender and class in the early nineteenth century. According to Branson, episodes in both women's lives illustrate their struggles within a society that constrained women's activities and ambitions. She argues that both women simultaneously tried to conform to and manipulate the dominant sexual, economic, and social ideologies of the time. In their own lives and through their writing, the pair challenged conventions prescribed by these ideologies to further their own ends and redefine what was possible for women in early American public life.
Year: 2008
Primary URL: http://worldcat.org
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 0812221877

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