Work of the Heart

How did young American women construct and express their emotions between 1780 and 1830? Before Oprah and therapy, how did they reconcile society's demanding and often contradictory expectations? In The Work of the Heart: Young Women and Emotion, 1780-1830, Martha Tomhave Blauvelt looks to the often spirited diaries written by young women in America's early republic, arguing that the continuous, d...