Document Group V
Oberlin Scandals and the Circumscription of the Female Sphere:
Women and (Mis)Behavior in
an Evangelical Community
Oberlin�s
antebellum scandals may not, at first, seem integrally related to
the history of women and antebellum social movements.
Yet the accounts of these community controversies make
clear both the strength of women�s voices, especially within the
church and the college, as well as the limits to female
behavior�limits with critical implications for the ability of
women to work together in social movement.
While the
tribulations of Emily Pillsbury Burke, the Principal of the Female
Department dismissed for allegedly improper behavior toward a male
student, played out within the College, two trials illuminate the
power of the evangelical church in Oberlin: the case of Penfield
v. Penfield, in which questions of the relations and mutual
obligations of women and men in marriage came to the fore; and
the case of Brokaw v. Bardwell, in which a townswoman,
Cornelia Bardwell, was accused of slandering others.
A related item, culled from the minutes of the Ladies
Board, makes clear that Mrs. Bardwell did not avoid future
controversies.
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