Attitudes Toward Sex in Antebellum America: A Brief History with Documents

by Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz

Explore the diverse views which shaped the antebellum conversation about the moral, social, and physical implications of sex as Attitudes Toward Sex in Antebellum America uses these view to reflect the larger cultural and economic changes of this period of rapid industrialization and urban migration.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Read For School, Sexuality

208 pages, Paperback

First published February 6, 2006

About the author

Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz is professor of history and American Studies at Smith College.

Reviews

[Cassandra White]

Incredibly useful resource for scholars looking at the antebellum United States. Horowitz provides many documents that are difficult to get otherwise and which were repressed in the creation of the historical archive. All is given with helpful notes on the historicity and context in which these documents appeared.

[sydney lai]

sooo interesting that i finished it a whole week earlier than i had to for class 😋 tore through those documents and loved taking notes on all the different kinds of perspectives and ideologies during this time period

[LA]

Really interesting, good commentary, good cros section of primary sources

[Cody VC]

packs a good deal of well-organized, important information into a slim volume. busting stereotypes is always commendable! however, i have to take a star off because much of the source material is in the back of the book without integration into the text - if she's writing about a book, for instance, she'll say (see document 9) instead of quoting relevant passages and then pointing the reader to the rest in the back. this makes for some frustrating back-and-forth reading.
another star off because this book is all about how there were other attitudes towards sex in "victorian" america besides prudish/condemnatory, but her only mentions of homosexuality serve to support that stereotype. (she mentions lesbianism once, described in supportive terms by a male author.) george chauncey's book starts in 1890, later than hers does, so it's not a question of material already covered elsewhere. chauncey's work would seem to indicate that there should be material that horowitz could use, so what gives?

[Lisa Murphy]

Cuts through the stereotype of 1800's sexual repression and explores the diverse attitudes toward sex vying loudly for public approval. The racy novels, the newspapers, the preachers, and the doctors (and the quacks) all had something to say. Even includes information on birth control methods. Well written, concise, fascinating, with a great bibliography if you want more information or original sources. An excellent read. I only wished there had been more original text examples.

[Vonze]

Read for one of my college history classes...much like Superfreakonomics, this had more about prostitution (and other personal subjects) than I ever actually wanted to know. But it's interesting to learn how attitudes towards sex in antebellum America shaped the attitudes people in America have about sex today. Horowitz organizes the information in the book in a clear matter that made it quick and easy to read, even if it is an awkward subject for most people.