Centuries of solace

Since the late 1970s, the grief of women who experienced miscarriage, stillbirth, or the death of an infant has been an increasingly visible topic in mainstream American publications. Wendy Simonds and Barbara Katz Rothman look to nineteenth-century women's magazines and later to confession magazines to explore the antecedents of modern writings on maternal grief and the information they convey about women from each period. This is the first book that analyzes popular consolation literature as it changed over two centuries. The authors include a large selection of the writings they view as social records that recognize and legitimize women's experience. Women's magazines of the last century, such as Godey's Lady's Book and Petersen's, ran numerous poems, stories, and essays in which women writers shared their grief through symbolic language and Christian evangelism. Such expressions brought together middle-class women's views about motherhood and religion, the two most crucial institutions shaping their lives during this time--and the only two within which they could participate without censure. Expressions of maternal grief vanished from mainstream publications as they became increasingly secularized but reappeared in the early twentieth century in True Story, the first "pulp" confessional. Marketed to working-class women, confessional magazines featured "life-is-stranger-than-fiction" stories that usually advised readers that self-blame could best be mitigated by self-sacrificing service. Simonds and Katz Rothman suggest that the numerous letters from readers printed in each issue attest to a community of women trying to help each other through difficult life experiences and may be viewed as a forerunner to later self-help groups. As women gain power in the "public" world, their concerns are more salient in public discussions. Maternal grief is again a valid subject for mass market magazines for women. Modern publications, such as Glamour magazine, urge contemporary readers to join self-help groups where they will find emotional catharsis and permission to grieve. "We are less adept at dealing with death now," state the authors. "Women are demanding that the solace they want be offered. And women are finding ways to demonstrate that their needs are valid." Through its examination of maternal consolation literature, Centuries of Solace makes possible a more complete understanding of the changing social meaning of motherhood in America.