d to have been formative, either in
aspect or effect, for it showed merely the elevation of certain
widely-held ideals over others which had been no less stubbornly
maintained; yet that a new social system was founded in those days
cannot be successfully denied. The American woman realized that she was
standing upon the threshold of an illimitable future, and she also
recognized the responsibilities of her position. As she directed her
first steps under the new order of things, so would her children and her
children's children walk; or so at least she believed and hoped.
Therefore it behooved her to take good heed to those first steps, lest
they lead to a goal which was not worthy.

It is this new sense of responsibility, added to the sense of dignity
which was always strong with the representative colonial woman of the
later days, that we see, if we look deep enough, when we turn our gaze
upon the young days of the republic in its social aspects and inquire
their meaning. That simplicity of manners and customs was the fashion,
and as a fashion was frequently carried to absurd lengths, is
undoubtedly true; but underneath the fashion lay a creed, and the creed
was of high nature. It was with a grave face, but with a brave heart,
that the American woman looked forward to the future of the country for
which she had suffered so much and therefore loved so well. To her
husband in that day and her sons and grandsons in the future were
committed the graver issues of the things which were to guide the land
in its coming path; but she too, in her different yet contiguous sphere,
had laid upon her a burden of trust, and she would be faithful thereto.

So American womanhood, classing it as a universal entity, was confronted
at its first unaided and ungoverned steps by many problems, difficult of
solution and of pressing nature. Added to the sense of responsibility,
too, was the power of recoil--a power which has been more effectual,
both for good and evil, than any other that has ever influenced man. The
hold of Old World custom upon the American woman had suddenly been
loosed, and it is no cause for wonder if she rebounded to the opposite
extreme. She must be freed in every way from European dominance; she
must prove herself an American indeed, utterly unruled by European
fashion as by English monarch. Only so would she be worthy of her newly
gained emancipation. Such, though unexpressed and even perhaps
unrecognized by herself,