Two full years of Abigail Goodrich Whittelsey’s classic maternal periodical. She originally became active in the Maternal Association of Utica and was almost immediately chosen to edit its new periodical, the Mother's Magazine.

The magazine quickly became an important national institution. Through Whittelsey's influence and correspondence, the Maternal Associations grew in number in the United States and in Europe. The periodical ultimately reaching a circulation of 10,000, a very substantial readership for the period, and the most widely distributed female edited periodical in America at the time.

The Mother's Magazine remains as one of the founding documents of a distinctly American ideology of intensive, evangelical Christian motherhood. It both reflected and shaped what historians now call the "cult of true womanhood" or Republican motherhood, the idea that women began to occupy a large responsibility as the primary teachers of virtue in the new republic, with mothers bearing responsibility for the moral character of each generation of citizens. The magazine gave this ideology an institutional voice and a national network through the affiliated Maternal Associations, which reported from congregations across the country and, through the magazine, created something like a national community of practice around child-rearing.

Mrs. A. G. Whittelsey [ed.]. The Mother's Magazine. Published Monthly for 1849. New York. S. Whittelsey, Brick Church Chapel, 1849. 384pp.

Contents include: Death of an Only Child; Two Young Ladies - A Contrast; The Spirit of Missions; Religion - Its Enjoyment; Reminscences of a Faithful Mother; How to be a Lady; Home Duties and Home Enjoyments; The Father's Song - Original Music by George Duffield and Darius E. Jones; How to Instill a Love of Truthfulness; Intercessory Prayer; A Letter Addressed by a Mother to Her Son on the Day of His Marriage; The Early Mothers of New England; The Missionary Spirit - The Christian Spirit; A Mother's Farewell to Her Sailor Boy [set to music]; The Duty of Parental Religious Instruction; The Model Mother; The Mother's Mission at the West [Iowa]; Daughters Educated for Usefulness; The Hindoo Mother in Verse by N. T. Rosseter; Letter to the Son of a Deceased Missionary; The Influence of Kind Words; Romances; American Mothers; On the Conversion of Children; The Mother of Philip Henry; Effects of Premature Mental Development; Maternal Prayer Meetings; Filial Piety; etc. 

[Bound with]

Mrs. A. G. Whittelsey [ed.]. The Mother's Magazine. Published Monthly for 1850. New York. Brick Church Chapel. 1850. 384pp.

Contents include: The Advent of the Puritans; The Children of the Covenant; The Bereaved Husband; The Power of a Mother's Faith; Little Children to be Employed; Beware of Bad Books; Religious Music in Christian Families by Thomas Hastings [editor of the Mother's Hymn Book]; Spared but not Saved by Samuel Irenaeus Prime; The Family Altar and its Influences; A Mother's Trials; The Children of the City and Country; Pride of Ancestry; Interior of the Earth; The Relation of Brothers and Sisters; Submission to the Divine Will; The White Mountains of New Hampshire [with full page engraving]; The Missionary Mother; The Grotesque - Its Influence on the Young; Letter to a Son at Sea; Superb Engraving of the Erie Canal by A. L. Dick, Engraved by W. H. Bartlett; Letter from Rev. Dr. Scudder of Madras, India [Missionary]; Answers to a Mother's Prayers; Fine Engraving "The Seamstress" by J. T. Peale; The Praying Mother; A Hundred Years Ago [brief history of the triumph of modern missionaries]; Kindness and Love Due to Parents; Sliding Down Hill [Snow Sledding - Charming Woodcut];  etc. 

An attractive volume in half leather, some rubbing, spine a bit faded. Hinges a bit tender. Minor to moderate foxing, more localized in the central sections of the text.