| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.4

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Being Good: Women's Moral Values in Early America. By Martha Saxton. (New York: Hill and Wang, 2003. x, 388 pp. $30.00, ISBN 0-374-11011-5.)

In Being Good, Martha Saxton explores the evolution of women's internal lives from the seventeenth century to the early nineteenth century. Emphasizing the interconnections between societal values and emotional experiences, she looks at women in three discrete areas and eras: seventeenth-century Massachusetts, late-eighteenth-century Virginia, and early national St. Louis. Each of the three sections of the book is organized around the life course of women, moving from girl-rearing to widowhood. For each case study, Saxton relies frequently (although never exclusively) on prescriptive literature, particularly the writings of moralists and ministers. The links among the three locales are tenuous at best, and, although Saxton overargues the connections in the introduction, the body of the work more accurately appreciates the distinctiveness created by time, racial composition, religious environment, and economy. The book then is less comparative than episodic. The analysis of St. Louis and the careful attention given there to ethnic, religious, and class diversity is the most original and important part of the book.

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