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McKenna Essman Thesis 3-29.pdf (720.62 KB)

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A Passion for Privilege: Mercy Otis Warren's Expression of Emotion, 1769-1780

Essman, McKenna
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1648127983997601

Abstract Details

, Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, History.
Scholars have long prized Mercy Otis Warren as a subject of historical study because of her extensive correspondence, which shows how elite women expressed their support of the American Revolution. In this thesis, I show that her letters reveal something more fundamental than her patriotic impulse – they show her fear of losing her elite position. I demonstrate this by applying the insights of the history of emotions to the letters Mercy Otis Warren wrote between 1769 and 1780. In these letters, Mercy Otis Warren expressed the emotions of “spirit” and “sentiment” towards her family members, her community of Plymouth, and the Revolutionary cause sweeping over New England. But she expressed herself most passionately about her family’s elite status and cultural power. Her letters reveal that Mercy was a product of her time, her class, and her family. In today’s terms, we would call her “entitled.” Methodologically, this thesis draws on insights from social history, gender history, and the history of emotions. I place Mercy’s correspondence (roughly sixty letters written and received in the period under study) into the context of her relationships with family, friends, and community. She was passionate in her letters because she and her correspondents were facing the destruction of their privileged lives. I argue that understanding Mercy Otis Warren’s emotions is critical to understanding her determination to maintain her elite status (chapter 2), her unquestioning acceptance of the gender expectations of a woman in her position (chapter 3), her firm support of the Revolutionary cause (chapter 4), and her attempts to shape the nation’s memory of the Revolution afterwards (chapter 5). Historians have implicitly argued that Mercy challenged the gender expectations of her day, but I find that she did not. She simply followed the lead of her male kin, who were extremely well educated and politically powerful.
Ruth Wallis Herndon, Ph.D. (Advisor)
Andrew Schocket, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Christine Eisel (Committee Member)
105 p.
American History; Gender; History; Womens Studies
Mercy Otis Warren; Revolutionary Era; Women's History; American History; Elite; Emotion; Passion; Mercy Otis; History of Emotions; Feeling; Sentiment; Spirit; Founding Fathers; Founding Mothers; James Warren; Catherine Macaulay; Hannah Winthrop; Female History; Plymouth; Massachusetts; New England Colony; Barnstable; American History

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Essman, M. (2022). A Passion for Privilege: Mercy Otis Warren's Expression of Emotion, 1769-1780 [Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1648127983997601

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Essman, McKenna. A Passion for Privilege: Mercy Otis Warren's Expression of Emotion, 1769-1780. 2022. Bowling Green State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1648127983997601.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Essman, McKenna. "A Passion for Privilege: Mercy Otis Warren's Expression of Emotion, 1769-1780." Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2022. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1648127983997601

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

bgsu1648127983997601
585
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This open access ETD is published by Bowling Green State University and OhioLINK.