On a Different Level: How Education Impacts Women in The Freedom of the Streets By: Kelsey R. Price

On a Different Level: How Education Impacts Women in The Freedom of the Streets

By: Kelsey R. Price

During the Gilded Age (aka the late 19th century), a person’s survival and autonomy depended upon acquiring a steady, well-paid job.  Of course, getting that job hinged on a number of factors, but one stood out among the rest: education.  This fact presented a problem for women however, who encountered numerous difficulties on their path to higher learning.  The prevailing notions about “separate spheres” and “women’s work” made doing anything other than domestic service (for their own families) an act of reputation endangerment.  Both Jennie McCowen and Josie Mitchell, two real-life women from Davenport Iowa, understood societal expectations, yet ended up leading drastically different lives due to their backgrounds.  As Wood’s scholarly text indicates, an individual’s access to education provided them with an opportunity to achieve independence through the provision of resources, social connections, and an awareness of female victimization.  No two women in Wood’s The Freedom of the Streets better exemplify the affects and importance of women’s education than that of Jennie McCowen and Josie Mitchell.  

In order to explore this topic sensibly, it is obligatory to define each woman’s social standing.  (I say this because a person’s status determines what society expects of them and affects their life choices.)  McCowen was born into a semi-respectable middle-class family, but solidified her rank (and therefore, came to represent it) through hard work.  She earned a teaching diploma in 1865 and entered Iowa State University in 1872 (Wood 59, 61).  Her numerous jobs included being a teacher, the Scott County Medical Society secretary, and the staff physician for both the Iowa State Hospital and the Cook Home.  The woman was also involved in the Charitable Alliance, the Association for the Advancement of Women, and was a founding member of the Lend a Hand club.  Additionally, McCowen became engaged with the police matron campaign, contributed to the hereditary degeneration debate, and believed in women’s suffrage.  One of the only things that might have tarnished her reputation was the fact that she often lived close to Brady Street.  Indeed, “throughout the 1880s, Dr. Jennie McCowen never lived more than half a block from a brothel” (80).  In summation, her “clean” family background, advanced education, work experience, and blatant social involvement establish McCowen’s middle-class status.      

Once someone examines the life of Josie Mitchell, there can be no doubt that she represents the working-class woman. Her parents were working-class individuals (they earned their living by farming and taking in boarders), and did not encourage their daughter to get an education.  In fact, the text tells readers that “Josie was almost forty years old before she learned to write her own name” (84). The woman married young (and remarried four times) and bore five children over the course of her life.  She worked a number of odd jobs including: laundress, boarder, destitute caregiver, brothel keeper, and prostitute. Mitchell was not involved in politics or any outside organizations. Likewise, her home was never in a respectable neighborhood; at one point, she even lived near East Front Street, where saloons and prostitutes resided (84). The woman’s lack of resources, poor schooling, and seedy reputation cemented her working-class status. With their ranks noted, it is important to consider how these ladies’ connections resulted from their life choices- the main one being education.   

With the exception of her relatives, the majority of McCowen’s broad social network is the result of her higher education.  Her fellow medical student, Abbie Cleaves, provided McCowen with her first job in Davenport.  She was the reason why the young woman came to the city.  This eventually led her to discover the Cook Home, at which she would help create the Lend a Hand foundation and forge relationships with her colleagues.  McCowen’s membership would give her a sense of community in a new environment.  They would share the daily workload and help the woman make a name for herself (65).  That is, her work would ensure that McCowen was viewed as a respectable, well-known person in the city.  She could mingle with other women in a safe space and win the trust of individuals that came into the establishment.  Additional associations and programs would admit (or be created by) her. The money she earned would allow McCowen to support herself and provide for women less fortunate (like those who desired the club’s assistance in obtaining housing).  Furthermore, her activism would be strengthened by the reputation and number of supporters McCowen gained through her work.  Almost every connection she made stemmed from her education.  The woman would not have been a prominent reformer if she had not been a club member; she would not have been a club member if she had not been a physician; and she would not have been a physician if she had not gotten her medical degree.  

Family relations, especially husbands, shaped Mitchell’s social circle.  Her working-class status did not allow for the same types of advantages that McCowen had.  She could not, or would not, go to school.  What’s more, Mitchell never got a job before her first marriage to a poor farmhand.  That meant that she never exposed herself to a wider range of persons, and once she started having children, Mitchell was further confined to the private sphere.  She had to spend all her time taking care of domestic chores, until her children were old enough for Mitchell to get a job (or two).  One of the damaging jobs she undertook was keeping a boarding house.  Mitchell had to take whoever she could get, as she could not afford to be picky.  When any of the woman’s occupants acted immorally or had a poor reputation, her association with them negatively impacted her.  Moreover, as soon as the cycle of divorce and remarriage began, the woman was trapped within the confines of her old reputation: poor, illiterate and, according to her first husband, an adulterer.  None of Mitchell’s subsequent husbands could provide her with enough financial support to raise her class ranking or protect her reputation.  They continued to accuse her of adultery.  Unfortunately, her mother and stepfather were not able to assist Mitchell during rough times.  The couple was too poor to do so.  Lastly, when her daughter Sevilla’s marriage fell through and the custody of the couple’s children changed, that connection further injured Mitchell as well.  There was no one to help her.  The woman’s chances for gaining independence and security were slim from the very start.

With an education there usually comes a greater awareness of persecution.  This understanding comes from personal experience and the courses they have taken.  McCowen, for instance, faced harassment from her peers in medical school, where the focus of her classes was the human body.  She was constantly reminded of how the female form was sexualized (62).   For the learned women of Davenport, this consciousness made them aware of everything from the unjust treatment of lady prisoners to the restrictions placed on female workers.  It upset them and often encouraged these women to speak out.  McCowen did, and she became an advocate for women’s rights.  

In contrast, uneducated ladies (like Mitchell) could only assume that whatever society told them was true.  They had no other option, and even if they had an inkling of their mistreatment, they had no means to act upon it.  Devoid of resources, connections and titles, poor women’s voices had no credibility.  The general public would not listen to (or take seriously) someone they did not respect and trust.  Prostitution court cases reaffirm this statement because the women being charged were continually dismissed and ridiculed by their authority figures.  The uneducated females became victims in a system that capitalized on their ignorance.  So, while both McCowen and Mitchell were old enough to consent to sex, their education level differed in how they saw the world and how the world (in particular, the legal system) saw them.    

All and all, in a time period where people’s attitudes about women were exceedingly limited, female education made a difference.  It presented an opportunity for independence through the provision of resources, social connections, and an awareness of women’s victimization.  Jennie McCowen and Josie Mitchell, being from different classes and having unalike access to schooling, serve as perfect examples of its affects and importance in women’s lives.  One can only imagine how the two would react if they knew how modern people understand female roles and education.

Works Cited

Wood, Sharon.  The Freedom of the Streets: Work, Citizenship, and Sexuality in a Gilded Age City.  Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005.

*Wood’s book researches the lives of women in 19th century Davenport Iowa, and it deals with sexual politics of the time period.

*The original, unedited version of this piece was completed in February of 2014.