Dear Thomas Jefferson,

 

Did you believe that women belonged in the home?  Could you imagine anything else? 

 

Do you remember Anna Willing Bingham?  She corresponded with you on many occasions.  She argued that women should play an active role in politics.  You disagreed.

 

In February 1788, when you responded to a letter she sent to you while you were in Paris, you suggested that the women in France were happier because they rested in the middle of the day.  You described women propped on bolsters with the curtains drawn.  From your writing, it sounded like after their rest, all a woman wanted to do was keep up on her correspondence and then receive visitors.  Did you really think that eating meals, visiting people, and playing cards after supper was all a woman should do?

I am confused about the part of the letter where you described women rising at noon.  When they slept until noon why would they need to rest on bolsters in the middle of the day?  Perhaps you meant that they were rising from the bolsters at noon, and I misunderstood the timing of the naps.  I think you called it ‘tranquil pleasures.’

 

When you wrote to Anna Bingham again in May 1788, you said that ‘good ladies’ would be ‘too wise to wrinkle their foreheads with politics.’  Was that just a complicated way of saying women did not think?  You said that women were contented to offer a soothing and calming home for husbands returning ruffled from political debate.

 

You said that American women have the good sense to value domestic happiness above everything else.  You were sure that Bingham would eventually see things from your point of view.

 

I hear that some people think that over time Bingham’s letters had an impact on you, and she convinced you that the Constitution would not last if individual citizens did not have rights.  Did her arguments with you really lead you to fashion the Bill of Rights to strongly reflect individual rights?

 

I want to talk to you about World War II.  During that war, women joined the workforce in huge numbers.  The country was fighting the war on several fronts, and women’s contributions were important to the war effort.

 

I wonder if after I tell you some stories about women working, you might consider changing your mind again.

 

Please send me some days and times when you are free to talk next week.

 

Sincerely,

Katy Dalgleish