together.∏≠
Why the name of Zakrzewska’s female friend is missing will be considered presently. What is most striking about this passage, however, is the seamless way in which Zakrzewska wove her own experience with a woman into a conversation about marriage. To her, whether one was talking about the bond between a man and a woman or between two women, the same advice held true: for the relationship to be a good one, it had to be based not only on a natural a≈nity between the two individuals but also on shared principles and interests. Only in one way did Zakrzewska draw a distinction between her relationship with a woman and a marriage, and that was to paint the former more favorably because of the freedom she enjoyed to end the relationship should it prove unsatisfactory. The same sentiment could be found among those who defended a woman’s right to divorce because of their conviction that the only true union was one that both individuals entered and sustained without coercion.∏∞ It may not be going too far to suggest that Zakrzewska saw a relationship between two women as a kind of model for the companionate marriage. The proof, moreover, was in the pudding: the freedom she had to sever her ties to her female friend appeared to have strengthened her feelings of ‘‘attachment,’’ not destroyed them.
Zakrzewska penned this letter roughly six months after Julia Sprague moved into her home, so the mysterious friend may very well have been her. We can only speculate about why the two women became lifelong companions. Women who formed Boston marriages did not always do so for the same reasons. While for some a Boston marriage may have signaled little more than a convenience, a way of sharing the many responsibilities and chores associated with running a household, for others the decision to become partners for life grew out of a romantic love they shared. Zakrzewska and Sprague’s relationship may very well have fallen somewhere in between; what may have begun as a convenient arrangement seems to have slowly grown into a committed and caring partnership. There is, however, little evidence of any passion between them, although the dearth of documents makes it di≈cult to say anything definitive about the nature of their relationship, especially during the first two decades they spent
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together. Without a diary and with only a few letters from the years prior to 1880, the main source available to us is Agnes Vietor’s biography. However, Vietor barely mentions Sprague, aside from noting that she ‘‘became [Zakrzewska’s] faithful friend and home companion for life.’’∏≤ Of course, Vietor may very well have chosen not to include material Zakrzewska had left that was revealing of her relationship to Sprague. The omission of the woman’s name from the letter cited above is possibly one case in point. Individuals of Vietor’s generation, writing in the 1920s, had to contend with Freudian interpretations of women’s expressions of love and intimacy for one another, and they often demonstrated a discomfort that had been absent decades before. But what seems equally likely is that Zakrzewska and Sprague censored the material they gave to Vietor. Not only were both extremely private individuals, but Sprague, while going through Zakrzewska’s correspondence after her partner’s death, confided to Severance. ‘‘I shall,’’ she wrote, ‘‘lay aside what may be of use for a biography, and the rest are too sacred for preservation even, as they relate to such matters as should have warranted their instant destruction, lest death should lay them bare before strangers. I feel as if it were a lesson to us all, ‘do not keep your letters’; much correspondence now published in connection with biographies seem[s] to me unwarranted. There have been ‘love-letters’ published, which were almost a desecration in my eyes, and gratify only a vulgar curiosity.’’∏≥
It seems likely that Sprague destroyed much of Zakrzewska’s correspondence, protecting their sense of privacy but also adding to the silence that surrounds women’s relationships in the past. Perhaps it was she, and not Vietor, who removed the name from the letter cited above. Fortunately, however, letters she (and to a lesser extent) Zakrzewska wrote to Severance over a twenty-five year period have survived. The correspondence began in the early 1880s and continued, in Sprague’s case, until several years after Zakrzewska’s death. As we will discuss in the final chapter of this book, these letters may lack any mention of passion between the two women, but they do demonstrate the ease with which they viewed themselves as companions. ‘‘As the years pass on,’’ Sprague wrote to Severance in 1893, ‘‘we feel that we need each other more and more; we have[,] you know, lived together over 30 years. ’’∏∂ Sprague clearly had the expectation that others would view them as companions as well.
. . .
In trying to gain a deeper understanding of Zakrzewska’s personal life, it is critical to keep in mind that however close her friendship with Sprague may
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have become, for the first twenty years they lived together they participated more in a ‘‘Boston family’’ than a ‘‘Boston marriage.’’∏∑ The evidence we have suggests, moreover, that after the initial tension between Heinzen and Sprague was resolved, the family became as tightly knit a unit as one might expect in any home. Perhaps the bond was in some ways even tighter, because unlike the division of labor characteristic of the traditional middle-class home, work bound the members of 139 Cedar Street together, and not simply the work of maintaining the household. For one, they all became invested in one fashion or another in Zakrzewska’s hospital: Karl Heinzen kept his readers apprised of any and all events connected with the hospital; his wife helped organize fund-raisers; and Sprague even worked for three months gratis as the hospital’s matron when Zakrzewska was in a pinch. They also all contributed to the production of Heinzen’s newspaper, whether by writing an occasional article, looking for interesting material, again organizing fund-raising events or making their own financial contributions, or helping to distribute the paper when it came o√ the press. Once a week they also gathered together in the parlor to hear Mrs. Heinzen read aloud from the latest issue. Sprague, who had had little introduction to German radicalism before joining this household, claimed to have received an important political education through this weekly ritual. She eventually transformed this education into work, translating some of Heinzen’s essays into English in order to further disseminate his ideas.∏∏ Clearly, the members of this household had little trouble blurring the boundary between the so-called public and the so-called private.∏π
Work in this household also mixed easily with play. Evenings were occasionally spent playing whist or chess, often with others. Doctors and interns were frequent visitors, as were some of the leading radicals in Boston. Louis Prang, for example, a German refugee who made a considerable fortune through his introduction of chromolithography to the United States, made up part of the household members’ closer social circle, as did the Phillips and Garrisons.
Within this group Zakrzewska appears to have been closest to William Lloyd Garrison II, whom she had met in 1857 during one of her visits to Boston.
Heinzen favored the senior Garrison, with whom he frequently played whist. In addition to these local friends, political radicals from abroad occasionally stayed with Zakrzewska and her housemates when they came to the United States.
The German radical materialist Ludwig Büchner may very well have been their most famous houseguest when he stayed with them in 1873 while on a lecture tour.∏∫ As the younger Garrison once commented, ‘‘although unmarried, the
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Doctor rarely failed to have a house full of friends and relatives, making of her home a social center for her German and American acquaintances.’’∏Ω
One of the physicians who practiced at the New England Hospital for Women and Children recalled the ‘‘many pleasant out-of-door gatherings’’ that were held on Cedar Street. She described how the terraces were fully planted with grapes and how the parties always had an abundance of wine.π≠ Heinzen’s birthday, on 22 February, which he shared with George W
ashington, was one of the housemates’ favorite days to celebrate. Combining politics with pleasure, they played joyfully with the similarities between the two men—Washington being responsible for establishing the Republic and Heinzen for helping to bring about ‘‘a purer democracy.’’ On that day they had what Zakrzewska once described as ‘‘annual sociables,’’ replete with dancing. In a tribute to Samuel Sewall, the man who had loaned her the money to purchase her home, she described how he had danced the ‘‘Virginia Reel’’ at one of these parties ‘‘as lively as possible and losing no step,’’ despite his seventy-eight years of age.
Twenty years after Heinzen’s death, Zakrzewska, Sprague, and the Heinzen family were still commemorating this day.π∞
. . .
Christmas of 1862 was a joyous time for Zakrzewska. She may have had little use for organized religion, but that did not translate into a dislike of holiday rituals. To create a festive mood, she and the other members of her household decorated the parlors with laurel and holly and covered the chandeliers with wreaths. They also put out apples, nuts, and plates of German ginger-bread on tables they had dressed up with white tablecloths. When they returned from their evening meal, presents were awaiting them ‘‘which Santa Claus had brought to the room.’’ Zakrzewska took it upon herself to call out everyone’s name and distribute the gifts. ‘‘[L]ots of handsome little things came out of the brown and white papers,’’ she wrote Lucy Sewall, ‘‘so that the room looked like a charming little fair, and we had ever so much fun, and many funny things, and I only wish that you had been here, too.’’π≤
Zakrzewska shared with Sewall a picture of domestic bliss. Surrounded by good food, white tablecloths, and chandeliers, she could have been describing the home of many middle-class families on Christmas Day. But there were some striking di√erences: most members of this family were not bound by blood or marriage, and a woman was the primary breadwinner. Zakrzewska even described herself once as ‘‘the head of a family,’’ thus reinforcing the social importance of the family unit while simultaneously inverting the gender hierarchy
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upon which the family was built, assuming financial responsibility for the dependents with whom she shared her home.π≥
Zakrzewska had succeeded in translating her unconventional views on gender into an alternative family structure, creating a rich home life for herself that brought her considerable comfort and joy. Nevertheless, moments of doubt were not absent. In a letter Zakrzewska penned to Lucy Sewall in the winter of 1862 she wished for Lucy ‘‘all happiness that exists for us poor mortals—which is by no means in the single life.’’π∂ Since Zakrzewska said nothing more about this, it is impossible to know what inspired her to make this claim. We do need to bear in mind that she wrote this before she and Sprague had grown close; perhaps she no longer felt this way after that friendship blossomed. But this letter also suggests that behind the bluster and bravado Zakrzewska sometimes struggled with what it meant to live her life—indeed, to maintain a consistent performance—in constant opposition to established gender norms.
In the end, Karl Heinzen, Julia Sprague, and Zakrzewska’s sisters formed the inner of circle of individuals to whom she turned when she needed emotional support or simply wished to let down her guard. She also remained close friends with Mary Booth, despite the miles that separated them since her move to Boston. Outside this intimate circle were, moreover, others with whom she formed long and lasting friendships. Many, like the Prangs, she met through her engagement with the community of German radicals, but there was another group of individuals among whom Zakrzewska counted many friends and with whom she worked closely. This was the community of women’s rights advocates. She had known Harriot Hunt and Caroline Severance since her days in Cleveland; Caroline Healey Dall, Abby W. May, and Ednah Dow Cheney she came to know well once she moved to Boston. Zakrzewska would grow extremely close to several of these women as she joined them in promoting their cause. Zakrzewska, whose primary contribution to the women’s movement would be the founding of an all-women’s hospital, made an earlier contribution when she published her autobiographical sketch shortly after arriving in Boston. In this sketch, as we will see, she applied German scientific materialism to a critique of gender relations, moving beyond even Heinzen in her insistence that
‘‘science has no sex.’’
Writing Autobiography
Zakrzewska’s determination to challenge social conventions about women’s proper place informed not only her personal life but also her public activities.
We have already discussed her attack on biologism in both her medical thesis and the articles she published in 1859 in the German-language weekly Der Pionier. Following her move to Boston she also became directly involved with the movement for women’s rights. Indeed, her autobiographical sketch, entitled A Practical Illustration of ‘‘Woman’s Right to Labor’’ and published shortly after she arrived in Boston, can best be seen as a conscious act on Zakrzewska’s part to contribute to this movement. Throughout her years in Boston, she worked for this cause, participating in such organizations as the New England Women’s Club and the Massachusetts Women’s Su√rage Association. The idea of publishing the sketch had even originated with a women’s rights advocate, Caroline Healey Dall, who believed that Zakrzewska’s success in acquiring a medical degree—despite her sex, limited financial means, and language di≈culties—
o√ered proof that women, with the right spirit of determination and the appropriate support, could overcome obstacles and be successful in the public sphere.∞
Like many other women’s rights advocates at the time, Zakrzewska held that the problems women faced resulted not only from men’s views of women but also from women’s views of themselves. Women, Zakrzewska once commented, had to ‘‘make themselves useful not merely for others, but also for themselves . . .
because true satisfaction does not rest alone in the execution of an activity but also when the activity reflects our own plan and desire, when it is the fulfillment of our own idea.’’≤ Susan B. Anthony, traveling around the country trying to inspire women to stand up for themselves, could not have agreed more. She
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spoke of the ‘‘true new woman’’ who ‘‘will not be exponent of another, or allow another to be such for her. She will be her own individual self.’’≥ For these women, challenging formal barriers, even convincing state and federal governments to grant greater legal rights to women, was only part of what needed to be done in order to improve women’s standing in society; they also attacked aggressively the image women frequently had of themselves as weak, sentimental, and dependent. As Dall remarked in her introduction to Zakrzewska’s autobiographical sketch: ‘‘It is easy to rail against society and men in general: but it is very painful for a woman to confess her heaviest obstacle to success; namely, the weakness of women.’’∂
An autobiography is, by nature, a highly constructed text, and while constructed does not mean fabricated, autobiography and fiction have much in
common.∑ When Zakrzewska sat down to write her autobiography, she had already made the decision to move to Boston, where she was anticipating greater independence and a chance to work toward creating her own clinical unit, perhaps even her own hospital one day. The decision to record her life’s story at this juncture must thus be understood as satisfying both a need to give meaning to past events and a desire to create an image of the kind of woman she wished to present for public viewing. To this end, Zakrzewska portrayed herself throughout the text as a fiercely independent person who exerted control over her own life. She did so, first of all, by employing what literary scholars have identified as a classic trope in the nineteenth-century autobiographies of middle-class men: that of the lone individual who struggles against all odds to achieve professional success.∏ In addition to this, she framed many of her stories around the tension that mark
ed so much of the writing of the scientific materialists: that is, between science, rationality, and political democracy, on the one hand, and religion, sentimentality, and arbitrary authority, on the other. By positioning herself, a woman, so squarely in the first camp, she was utilizing this framework to disrupt the traditional gendering of traits in circulation at the time.
Zakrzewska hoped A Practical Illustration would help ‘‘to work a reformation’’
in women’s lives, and to the extent that it challenged the sexual stereotypes that functioned to keep women out of the public sphere, it enjoyed considerable success.π Reviews of the book certainly hailed Zakrzewska as a model of what women who were equipped with a sense of purpose and the courage to per-severe might accomplish. It bears mention, though, that however radical Zakrzewska’s ideas on gender may have been, she did not show the same rebelliousness when it came to class. In focusing on individual empowerment rather than
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class relations she joined the vast majority of middle-class reformers who ignored the fact that all women did not have equal access to the resources that would make it possible for them to choose a di√erent path. Without doubt A Practical Illustration threatened the sexual division of labor, but it did so largely within the confines of the existing class structure.
. . .
Zakrzewska would probably never have published her autobiographical sketch were it not for her acquaintance with Dall. A writer and reformer, Dall had just completed ‘‘Woman’s Right to Labor’’; or, Low Wages and Hard Work, in which she had argued for the necessity of improving employment opportunities for women. By her own admission, the reactions to her book were mixed, and she was looking for ‘‘a practical illustration’’ of the claims she had made in her work.
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