Woman: Her Rights, Wrongs, Privileges, and Responsibilities.
Hartford: Published by L. Stebbins, 1869. First edition. With frontispiece and 20 plates. Fading to spine and some rubbing to extremities. Edges sprinkled brown. Some light toning to plates and some offsetting to their versos from text, but overall a very good, clean, and tight copy. Publisher’s purple cloth stamped in blind and titled in gilt. Octavo. 1-49, 52-126, 129-447 pp. Despite odd pagination, work is complete. Item #16785
In Woman: Her Rights, Wrongs, Privileges, and Responsibilities, Linus Pierpont Brockett (1820-1893) delivers a lengthy and purportedly scientific argument against American women achieving equal rights. He takes particular issue with women finding employment, and most of the plates in the present book display supposedly scandalous scenes of women at work. Those scenes include a sculpture studio full of women, with several of them crafting a large statue of a woman (p. 91); a newspaper editors’ office occupied exclusively by women (p. 185); and a woman campaigning for the presidency (p. 281). Of these illustrations, Brockett writes that “a few refer to that period, which we hope is far distant, when women will enter upon a political career, and forgetting the graces and delicacy which now cause them to be loved, honored, and reverenced, will become brawling politicians, greedy office-seekers, and bold, hard, unwomanly aspirants for place and power,” (p. 3).
Linus Pierpont Brockett (1820-1893) was a historical writer and a graduate of Yale Medical College. He contributed to encyclopedias and wrote several books on the Civil War, including Woman’s Work in the Civil War: A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience (1865).
Price: $300.00