1. See Frederick Rudolph, ed., Essays on Education in the Early Republic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965), 217.
2. Daniel Kilbride, An American Aristocracy: Southern Planters in Antebellum Philadelphia (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2006), 53–77.
3. Dr. [Benjamin] Rush, “On the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic,” The New England Quarterly Magazine; Comprehending Literature, Morals, and Amusement 1 (April, May, and June 1802): 133–138. The quote is on page 133. Referring to the discourse supporting female education during the early republican period, Linda K. Kerber coined the term “republican motherhood” in a highly influential essay.
4. See Kerber, “The Republican Mother: Women and the Enlightenment—An American Perspective,” American Quarterly 28 (Summer 1976): 187–205.
5. Also see Kerber, Women of the Republic: Intellect & Ideology in Revolutionary America (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1980). For decades, most historical accounts of this period followed Kerber, explaining that an ideology of “republican motherhood” fueled the development of women’s education.