Early American Women’s Words: AML 3286
v This week we will study The Travel Diary of Elizabeth House Trist, which Trist wrote from
1783-1784 as she traveled from her hometown of Philadelphia via horse and later
by flatboat down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to the frontier settlement of
Natchez, Mississippi.
Timeline of Events
1774:
Philadelphia Quaker Elizabeth House and Nicholas Trist Marry
1775:
Their son Hore Browse Trist is Born
1775:
American Revolutionary War begins
The war is bad for the Trist family
because Nicholas is British.
Later
in 1775: Nicholas Trist departs for Natchez to secure
land investments to farm
1783:
Peace treaty signed after Revolution; it is now safer for Trist to travel
January
1784: Trist arrives in Pittsburgh after rough road
travel via horseback
May
1784: Weather is warmer; Trist can continue travel
via the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers
July
1784: Trist reaches Natchez; learns Nicholas died in
February
1785:
She sails home to Philadelphia
(Imbarrato 66-67, 69)
v Understanding early America women’s travel
journals:
Throughout
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in America, the secular journal served
a number of semi-public purposes and the writers of many of these secular
journals intended them to be read. Women diarists in particular wrote as family
and community historians. They recorded in exquisite detail the births, deaths,
illnesses, visits, travel, marriages, work, and unusual occurrences that made
up the fabric of their lives. Women for whom that fabric had been torn, who
emigrated to this country, traveled as part of the westward migration, joined
their husbands on whaling ships, or went to distant lands as missionaries, used
journals to maintain kin and community networks. The diaries kept b y these
women functioned as extended letters often actually sent to those left behind.
(Cully 16)
v Trist’s intended audience was her close friend
Thomas Jefferson, who was interested in naturalist science, which is why she
records careful observations of the landscape and natural resources of the
early American frontier (Kolodny 185-89).
Follow the link below and read Jefferson’s
his brief letter written to James Madison in 1783. What does Jefferson say about Trist?
v Why would a middle-class woman who lived
comfortably in the city of Philadelphia with her young son embark on what was
then a treacherous journey through the early American frontier? Trist was traveling to visit her husband whom
she had not seen in almost eight years because he left shortly after the birth
of her their son to secure land investments to farm in what was then British
West Florida (Kolodny 183).
How far did Trist travel? What
path did she follow? Follow this link to see a map of her journey and her trip
literary:
v 1)
Now, read: Journeys in New Worlds: Early
American Women’s Narratives, pages 183-232.
As usual, follow the
prompts and links below; record all of your answers and any questions in your
class journal and bring this to our next meeting prepared to discuss your
findings.
v 2) Visit this link to the Paris Peace Treaty
of 1783 that made it safer for Trist to travel.
Note how the natural environment plays a role in defining the United
States. Which rivers, lakes, bays, and
forests were used as important markers to draw the boarders of the fledgling
nation? Why do you think the agreement about fishing in Article Three was
important to the new citizens of America?
After answering those questions, look through
Trist’s journal and mark all of the places where she discusses relying on
natural resources for survival. Note when she discusses fishing, hunting, and eating
wild fruits and vegetables. Is there
always enough food for the settlers? How does Trist imagine Americans will
provide for themselves after the revolution? What conclusions can we make about
life in early America from this evidence?
v 3) As a Quaker woman, Trist would have worn
plain dress according to her religion.
Quakers dressed simply to signal that they were different from other Euroamericans
in their beliefs and actions. Follow the Google Books link below and read pages
1-26 of Daughters of the Light by Rebecca
Larson. Note some of the ways that Quakers
differed in their religious beliefs and behaviors from other Euroamericans.
Follow this link, which is a painting of George
Washington’s family roughly around the time Trist was traveling; how does
Quaker plain dress compare to the clothes worn by the Washington women?
v 4) Trist makes many observations about the
environment of the American frontier: she describes a hill that has been mined
for coal, tries to visit Mastodon bones deep in the woods, and climbs inside of
a cave to view strange rock formations (212-13, 217, 222-24).
What type of woman do you think she was based
on these excursions?
Follow
the link to see recently excavated Mastodon Bones in North Eastern Pennsylvania:
Considering that Trist was writing just before
the time when Naturalists were the
authority on defining and cataloguing American national resources. Read the quote below about the role of Naturalists
in early America. How might we view her
observations after looking at this quote? Remember, Trist was writing to Jefferson
who was interested in Naturalist Science and thought it would help American
develop economically and culturally.
Naturalists considered themselves uniquely
positioned—situated in regional economic centers and intellectually prepared
with botanical training—and offered the new nation their identification skills
to classify its flora and fauna in the years following the 1783 Treaty of
Paris. They reasoned in private and public that their classificatory expertise
would assist the republic in the effort to catalog its natural resources. In turn, these resources—various plants,
minerals, and other raw materials—would provide the economic foundation
essential to the fragile nation’s political success. (Lewis 69)
Now,
read both instructions for activities A and B. Chose one of the two activities to
do and bring your letter to our next class to share:
v Activity A:
Go to the Project Gutenberg link below, read pages 1-14 of The Little Quaker or, the Triumph of Virtue: A Tale for the Instruction of Youth, and
scroll through images. What you can infer about early American Quaker dress,
manners, and treatment of animals from the attitude of the Quaker boy Josiah
Shirley? Record the quotes that lead you to make these conclusions in your
journal for discussion.
~Now
with that in mind, try to imagine what Trist might have written in her journal
if it was a private document about the men on the flatboat who killed the
pelican merely to inspect it (Trist 229).
Write a one page, hand-written, journal entry as if you were Trist responding
to the pelican killing (You may also respond to other animal encounters in this
journal entry).
v Activity B:
Trist’s travel journal is written in the style of an extended letter to her
good friend Thomas Jefferson, whom she left behind in Philadelphia. As a secular journal writer, Trist acted as a
community historian recording Euroamerican attitudes about the environment and
making careful observations about the prospects for developing the frontier. Some scholars wonder if Trist’s observations inspired
Jefferson to send Lewis and Clark on their mission. Follow the link below to read Jefferson’s
instructions to Lewis:
~Now with
that in mind, try to imagine you are one of Trist’s and Jefferson’s friends who
will travel along the same path that Trist took from Philadelphia to Natchez out
into the early American frontier. Write
a one page, hand-written, journal entry as if you were following Jefferson’s
request to record your observations of the environment and potential natural
resources. Remember, you are friends
with Trist and read her journal to prepare for your trip. What different decisions will you make on
your journey? Will you visit some of the same places she did? What similar
sights do you see?
Finally:
Locate and review at least one of the following secondary sources to better
understand this text. Record in your
journal the two pieces of information that were most helpful; be prepared to share
this information in class:
Culley,
Margo. “‘I Look at Me’: Self as Subject in the
Diaries of American Women.”
Women’s Studies Quarterly 17.3/4 (1989): 15-22. JSTOR.
Web. 4 Oct. 2011.
Imbarrato, Susan C. “Dr. Alexander
Hamilton and Elizabeth House Trist.” Declarations of
Independency in
Eighteenth-Century American Autobiography. Knoxville: U of
Tennessee P,
1998. 40-85. Print.
Kagle, Steven E., and Lorenza Gramegna. “Rewriting Her Life:
Fictionalization and the
Use of Fictional Models in Early American Women’s
Diaries.” Inscribing the Daily:
Critical Essays on Women's Diaries.
Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1996. 38-55. Print.
Martin, Wendy. Colonial American Travel Narratives. New
York: Penguin, 1994. Print.
Pratt, Mary Louise. “Scratches on the
Face of the Country; or, What Mr. Barrow Saw in the
Land
of the Bushmen.” Critical Inquiry 12.1 (1985): 119-43. JSTOR.
Web. 4 Oct. 2011.
Works Cited
Culley, Margo. “‘I Look at Me’: Self as Subject in the Diaries
of American Women.” Women’s
Studies Quarterly 17.3/4 (1989): 15-22. JSTOR.
Web. 4 Oct. 2011.
Imbarrato, Susan C. “Dr. Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth House
Trist.” Declarations of Independency
in Eighteenth-Century American
Autobiography. Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 1998. 40-85. Print.
Jackson, Donald, Ed. “Jefferson’s Instructions to Lewis, 20 June
1803.” Letters of the Lewis and Clark
Expedition with Related
Documents: 1783-1854. 2nd ed. vol. 1. Chicago: U of Illinois P, 1979. 61-
66. Print.
Kolodny, Annette. Introduction. “The Travel Diary of Elizabeth
House Trist: Philadelphia to Natchez,
1783-84.” By
Elizabeth House Trist. Journeys in New
Worlds: Early American Women’s
Narratives.
Ed. Annette Kolodny. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1990. 181-200.
Print.
Lewis, Andrew J. “Gathering
for the Republic: Botany in Early Republic America.” Colonial Botany:
Science, Commerce, and Politics in the Early
Modern World. Eds. Londa L. Schiebinger, and
Claudia Swan. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2005.
66-80. Print.
Trist, Elizabeth House. “The Travel Diary of Elizabeth House
Trist: Philadelphia to Natchez, 1783-84.”
Journeys
in New Worlds: Early American Women’s Narratives. Ed.
Annette Kolodny. Madison: U
of Wisconsin P, 1990. 201-32. Print.
