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Gymnastics and the reconstitution of Republican motherhood among true women of civic virtue, 1830–1870

2006; Routledge; Volume: 23; Issue: 8 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/09523360600922212

1743-9035

Ann Chisholm,

Diversity and Impact of Dance

Between 1830–1870 discourses promoting gymnastics for U.S. women sought to institutionalize those exercise regimens both within families and within single-sex secondary schools conceptualized in terms of familial structures that were defined largely by the dynamics of maternal care. Doing so within the purview of child nurture and coordinated, liberalized pedagogical agendas, those texts encouraged women to assume the overlapping roles of teacher and mother, to supervise closely their students' and children's physical conditions and behaviors, and to inculcate correct performances not only of gymnastics exercises but also of domestic management and manners. In turn, the material, procedural, and ideological dimensions of the idealized mode of femininity those works promoted – true womanhood that had inherited essential qualities of Republican motherhood – constituted both gymnastics students and teachers as the bearers of morality and civic virtue.