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Of Crimes and Calamities: Marie Antoinette in American Political Discourse

Sommer, Heather J.
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2476-880X
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1532967916465092

Abstract Details

2018, Master of Arts, Miami University, History.
Early American attitudes toward Marie Antoinette as found in print culture and correspondence illustrates how factions came to understand her as exemplifying the threat politicized women appeared to pose to their republican experiment. Despite differing opinions about the course of the French Revolution and the queen’s role within it, Federalists and Republicans believed she exacerbated France’s difficulties and disapproved of her conduct. In a time when American women were increasingly engaged in the public sphere, both parties used Marie Antoinette as a counterexample to define American women’s proper role within the new republic. Partisans suggested the queen’s absolutist agenda undercut French reform and/or hindered the people’s liberty and that American women should avoid political activity in order to be spared a similar disastrous fate. This instruction helped both parties devise an ideal republican society that promoted exclusive male political participation and female domesticity while protecting against feminine and monarchical depravities.
Lindsay Schakenbach Regele, PhD (Advisor)
P. Renée Baernstein, PhD (Committee Member)
William Brown, PhD (Committee Member)
History
Early American Republic; public sphere; political culture; women in politics; monarchy; absolutism; republicanism; Marie Antoinette; Louis XVI; French Revolution; republican motherhood; female domesticity; partisanship; Federalists; Republicans

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Citations

  • Sommer, H. J. (2018). Of Crimes and Calamities: Marie Antoinette in American Political Discourse [Master's thesis, Miami University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1532967916465092

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Sommer, Heather. Of Crimes and Calamities: Marie Antoinette in American Political Discourse. 2018. Miami University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1532967916465092.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Sommer, Heather. "Of Crimes and Calamities: Marie Antoinette in American Political Discourse." Master's thesis, Miami University, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1532967916465092

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

miami1532967916465092
786
© 2018, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Of Crimes and Calamities: Marie Antoinette in American Political Discourse by Heather J. Sommer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by Miami University and OhioLINK.