Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 57-11, Section: A, page: 4899.

Director: Nancy F. Cott.

Between 1750 and 1830 a subtle yet profound sexual revolution emerged in Philadelphia. Increasing numbers of Philadelphians broke with the courtship marriage paradigm of sexuality. There was a steady rise in the incidence of bastardy, adultery, and prostitution. These Philadelphians created and inhabited an alternative sexual culture.

During the late colonial period a wide range of sexual behavior and beliefs thrived in the city. Following the American Revolution, however, this mid-century construction of sexuality, which had tolerated ethnic sexual diversity and allowed for female sexual expression, was reinterpreted as licentious and as increasingly associated with the "rabble." A national sexuality was asserted which conflicted with the prior construction of female sexuality. The elite of Philadelphia society attempted to reshape the sexual behavior of its nonconforming members, first in a utopian reformist spirit following the Revolution, and later, after they had met with resistance, through more punitive measures.

Ultimately, these tensions were resolved during the early decades of the nineteenth century by the bifurcation of sexuality. The understanding of the nature of sexuality split in two, creating two sexualities: the dominant and public version of virtuous women and virile men; and a lustful uncontrollable sexuality of the rabble. The older, more sensual sexuality took on pejorative qualities and was attributed to the rabble--free African-Americans, recent ethnic immigrants, and the poorer classes--and was in essence defined out of the dominant construction of sexuality.

In the early national period class and racial social divisions were used to structure a gendered system of sexuality which masked male sexual privilege and codified the sexual vulnerability of non-elite women. The reconstruction of sexuality, during this period, was done in response to an emerging alternative practice of sexuality, and was used by the dominant society to reinforce the boundaries delineating the social hierarchy.