Title

Domestic Broils: Shakers, Antebellum Marriage, And The Narratives Of Mary And Joseph Dyer

Creator

Elizabeth A. DeWolfe, University of New EnglandFollow

Files

Description

In 1813, Joseph Dyer, his wife Mary, and their five children joined the Shaker community in Enfield, New Hampshire. Joseph quickly adapted to the Shaker way of life, but Mary chafed under its strictures and eventually left the community two years later. When the local elders and her husband refused to release the couple's children to Mary, she embarked on what would become a fifty-year campaign against the Shakers, beginning with the publication in 1818 of A Brief Statement of the Sufferings of Mary Dyer. The following year the Shakers countered by publishing Joseph's A Compendious Narrative, a scathing attack on what the title page called "the character, disposition and conduct of Mary Dyer."

The Dyers' dueling accounts of the breakup of their marriage form the core of Domestic Broils. In Mary's telling, the deceptions of a cruel husband, backed by an unyielding Shaker hierarchy, destroyed what had once been a happy, productive family. Joseph's narrative counters these claims by alleging that Mary abused her children, neglected her husband, and engaged in extramarital affairs.

In her introduction to the volume, Elizabeth De Wolfe places the Dyers' marital dispute in a broader historical context, drawing on their personal testimony to examine connected but conflicting views of marriage, family life, and Shakerism in the early republic. She also shows how the growing world of print facilitated the transformation of a private family quarrel into a public debate. Salacious, riveting, and immensely popular throughout New England, the Dyers' narratives not only captured imaginations but also reflected public anxieties over rapid cultural change in antebellum America.

The original version of this book is out of print, and copyright has reverted to its author.

Publication Date

2-2021

Disciplines

Christian Denominations and Sects | United States History | Women's History

Related Materials

Domestic Broils, original edition, from the University of New England catalog.

Original Edition Publication Information:
2010 by University of Massachusetts Press, Domestic Broils: Shakers, Antebellum Marriage, and the Narratives of Mary and Joseph Dyer / edited with an introduction by Elizabeth A. De Wolfe. ISBN: 978-1-55849-808-2 (paperback)

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© 2020 Elizabeth A. DeWolfe. Some rights reserved.

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Preferred Citation

DeWolfe, Elizabeth A., "Domestic Broils: Shakers, Antebellum Marriage, And The Narratives Of Mary And Joseph Dyer" (2021). History Faculty Books. 2.
https://dune.une.edu/history_facbooks/2