Women and Physical Activity

Everywhere they looked in the burgeoning Northeastern cities，white，middle-class，Protestant social reformerswitnessed an alarming degeneration of female health.As a result，women were failing to fulfill the gender-based urban ideal of“the cult of domesticity2”.Women's primary role in urban antebellum culture was amultifaceted one aswife，mother，moral guardian，and nurturer，and to fulfill this biological and social reproductive role they needed vigorous health.How could a mother make her home a loving haven and train her children to live in an active democracy if shewere a perpetual invalid？Female sicknesswas antithetical to domestic tranquility and child rearing.It took a robust woman to properly inhabit her assigned arena—the domestic sphere—and fulfill her roles in the cult of true womanhood.

Catharine Beecher，a white，middle-class reformer who wrote widely on women's issues in antebellum society，lamented in 1856 that city women were pursuing a path of physical and mental destruction.She founded the Hartford Female Sem inary3 in 1823 as a forum for disseminating her ideas on domestic and physical education.In Beecher's view，upper-class ladies rejected productive housework as ameans of sustaining physical vigor，choosing instead to employ domestic servants，and as a result theywere afflicted with sickly constitutions due to a lack of physical activity.Beecher tried to dispel the prejudice，rooted in social-classmores，againstmiddle-and upper-class women performing their own housework.

Some women，like theirmale counterparts，participated in sports for physical health and competition，but they did so in a disputed context，as physicians，psychologists，and educators debated the appropriateness of sport forwomen.Some of these authoritiesworried about the stress of competition，while others feared damage to reproductive capacities or the accumulation of aggressivemale characteristics.Nevertheless，women found a variety of sporting opportunities in the schools，settlement houses，and industrial recreation programs.