Mastering the Art of Ladyhood: The Education of Ellen Robillard

“From the day when Ellen first came to Tara, the place had been transformed.  If she was only fifteen years old, she was nevertheless ready for the responsibilities of the mistress of a plantation.  Before marriage, young girls must be, above all other things, sweet, gentle, beautiful and ornamental, but, after marriage, they were expected to manage households that numbered a hundred people or more, white and black, and they were trained with that in view.

"Ellen had been given this preparation for marriage which any well-brought-up young lady received, and she also had Mammy… She quickly brought order, dignity and grace into Gerald's household, and she gave Tara a beauty it had never had before.”

--Gone with the Wind, Chapter III

Gone with the Wind presents Ellen Robillard O’Hara as many things—a vivacious young belle, a melancholic woman doomed by a star-crossed love affair, Scarlett’s childhood idol, the embodiment of Southern ladyhood. We know Ellen’s sedate reign at Tara transformed Scarlett’s girlhood home into one imbued with “order, dignity, and grace” as MM describes in the passage above. But exactly what kind of schooling did young aristocratic women like Ellen receive towards achieving this end?

Before we move forward with answering that question, let’s quickly reacquaint ourselves with Ellen Robillard O’Hara’s vital stats. These clues will prove important in deciphering what kind of education a young lady like Ellen would have received. From her age (32) at the start of GWTW, we know that Ellen was born in 1829, the child of a coastal aristocratic family of French descent. She was raised in Savannah, Georgia, of course, but her mother’s family lived in and then fled Haiti during the revolution of 1791. Ellen grew up reared in the ways of the Southern elite, became a charming belle, and then married Gerald O’Hara at the tender age of 15.

Why is this all important? Several reasons. First and most importantly, women’s education in the antebellum South has traditionally received rather light attention from historians, meaning some level of detective work is involved in writing a post like this one. Secondly, American education in the early 19th century was in a constant state of flux. There were many different formats of schooling available and advances in education tended to blur into one another. So Ellen’s background is the very best evidence we have to examine what her formal education might have looked like.

Before we begin, some quick notes on sources: Much of my research for this post comes from a tremendous book called The Education of the Southern Belle: Higher Education and Student Socialization in the Antebellum South by Christine Anne Farnham. This book is also rounded out by a memoir of an antebellum girl of Ellen’s generation: Social Life in Old New Orleans, Being Recollections of my Girlhood by Eliza Moore Chinn McHatten Ripley. Eliza Ripley was born in 1832, making her three years younger than the lovely but fictitious Ellen Robillard. She also grew up in very similar societal context--planter class, living prominent Southern city with French influence. 

Fair warning: there's a lot of information to take in here, so I'm going to try to break it down as much as possible. First up is a brief overview of women's education in the South from the late colonial era through the early antebellum period.  Using this, we'll then move on to examining in greater detail what kinds of things a lady of Ellen's social stature would have learned in school.  

An Overview of Women's Education in the South 

By the mid 1700s, French schools started to became a means for girls' education in the South. These schools were largely concentrated in bigger coastal cities and operated by unmarried women, widows, or husband-and-wife teacher teams. As the name suggests, instruction in French was a core part of the curriculum, along with writing, reading, arithmetic, and needlework.  Instruction in the ornamental arts (dancing, music, drawing, and handicrafts) was an essential focus as well. Evidence indicates that French schools were likely more prominent in the South than the North. 

Why? First, Southern society was aristocratic in nature and, as such, sought to model itself upon European nobility and manners. Knowledge of French was considered to be an barometer of upper-class status. But the predominance of French schools was also likely a matter of mere geography. The South was a stone’s throw from the Caribbean—and many native French speakers originated from the Caribbean, particularly as immigrants fleeing the Haitian Revolution.   

French schools varied from small day schools to posh boarding schools with a number of additional academic subjects, such as history, philosophy, and geography. French schools were popular among the Southern elite, as they served two essential functions.  First, the schools afforded young belles the opportunity to cultivate "refinement" and master womanly arts such as needlework, French, and proper etiquette. But just as importantly, French schools offered girls the chance to mingle amongst the proper social set and thus expand their horizons for their true calling--marriage.  Because education, as we will soon see,  was largely designed towards this end, emphasizing the veneer of learning over, well, actual learning. 

But there's one more advancement in women's education that we need to note before moving on our subject list. And that is academies. Academies for girls began to appear in the late 1700s and gradually supplanted the earlier French schools throughout the South. But this transition was a slow one and the difference in educational offerings  between French schools and academies tends to be hazy. But one key distinction exists:  unlike French schools, academies emphasized academic subjects over the decorative arts (music, dancing, painting, needlework, etc.), minimizing these courses to elective offerings. 

Still with me? There's extra credit for all those pupils who follow me after the jump...that and a full curriculum of ladylike subjects a well-bred young girl like Ellen Robillard would have studied in school.

A Lady's Curriculum

Now it's time for our in-depth look at the curriculum of a proper Southern lady. Secondary education for women typically culminated at 15; studies past that point were considered advanced/pre-collegiate work. So getting married at 15 didn't deprive Ellen of an education--for all extensive purposes, she had learned everything that a proper Southern woman was supposed to know, including...

French The study of French was simply de rigueur for a girl of Ellen's aristocratic background, especially given her family's French ancestry. So there's not much more that needs to be said about this particular subject--Ellen Robillard would have known her French, if not from babyhood, from her schooling. 

The Three R's  Then, like now, reading, writing, and arithmetic were fundamental subjects. The most commonly studied works of literature were Shakespeare's historical plays and Milton's Paradise Lost. Unfortunately, literary offerings were also frequently tailored (read: simplified) to the appeal to the female audience. The novels of Maria Edgeworth and Sir Walter Scott were popular selections in this vein, as they stressed values important to the Southern mindset: Edgeworth emphasized the woman's role in the home, while Scott focused on chivalry. 

Girls were also required to write regular compositions. Assigned topics often included admirable female values such as gentleness or benevolence or flowery subjects like "the beauty of the rainbow" or "evidences of the goodness of God" (honest-to-goodness essay topics from a school girl attending Chatham Academy in Savannah, Georgia, brought to you courtesy of The Education of the Southern Belle).  

Arithmetic study covered the basics--addition, subtraction, multiplication, fractions, basic geometry, and money measurement. Charles Davies' Arithmetic was one of the most frequently used textbooks. The 1841 edition that could have very well served as Ellen's own math book is available here, if you'd like to check it out.  

Needlework  In Chapter III, Gone with the Wind records that Ellen never sat down without "without a bit of needlework in her hands, except at mealtime, while attending the sick or while working at the bookkeeping of the plantation." She favored "fancy embroidery" if company was present and mending work among the family. All signs that she, like most well-bred Southern women, received a thorough training in the art of needlework--no surprise given both French schools and academies focused on the skill.

Fancy Penmanship Today penmanship is considered a lost art. Not so in Ellen Robillard's day. Correspondence was a vitally important social tool. News and gossip traveled via the pen. Letters sparked and sustained courtships, friendships, and business deals. So writing in an elegant hand was simply a must for a girl living in polite society. Girls were often expected to learn multiple writing styles. In the Education of the Southern Belle, Farnham describes one girls' school in North Carolina that taught a dizzying array of writing styles: "genteel, ornamental, round, inverse, Italian single flowery, double flowery, and business." Phew... that's a lot of penmanship to learn!

Music  Eliza Ripley best sums up the central role musical pursuits played in a lady's education in Social Life in Old New Orleans, Being Recollections of my Girlhood:  "Everybody was musical; every girl had music lessons and every mother superintended the study and practice of the one branch deemed absolutely indispensable to the education of a demoiselle." Musical training was tied to the Southern lady's role as hostess--as mistress of a grand household, she needed to know a pleasing selection of musical pieces to entertain her guests. Instruction on the piano, harp, and/or guitar was common, with ladies mastering the popular tunes of the day along with polkas and waltzes for dancing. Which brings us to our last subject...

Dancing and Deportment Above nearly all else, a lady needed to be graceful in both manner and appearance. To this end, dancing and deportment were highly important skills. I'll let Miss Ripley take it away once more to describe one lesson in dancing and deportment from her teacher, Mr. Devoti: 

"Another important branch of deportment was to seat the awkwards stiffly on the extreme edge of a chair, fold the hands on the very precarious lap, droop the eyes in a pensive way. Then Devoti would flourish up and present, with an astonishing salaam, a book from the center table. The young miss was instructed how to rise, bow and receive the book, in the most affected and mechanical style. Another exercise was to curtsey, accept old Devoti's arm and majestically parade round and round the center table. The violin emerged from the baize bag, Devoti made it screech a few notes while the trio balanced up and down, changed partners and promenaded, till the awkwards were completely bewildered and tired out. He then replaced the violin, made a profound bow to extended skirts and curtseys, admonished the pupils to practice for next lesson, and vanished."

--Social Life in Old New Orleans, Being Recollections of my Girlhood, Eliza Moore Chinn McHatten Ripley

Thus ends our exhaustive look at Ellen Robillard's likely education. In the near future, we'll be bringing you a follow-up post on--you guessed it!--Scarlett's own education, specifically what day-to-day life would have been like at academies  similar to Scarlett's own alma mater, the Fayetteville Female Academy. Till then we leave you with some poignant parting words from our New Orleans belle, Eliza Ripley, on the nature of educational offerings for girls in the antebellum period:

"Is it any surprise that the miscellaneous education we girls of seventy years ago in New Orleans had access to, culminated by fitting us for housewives and mothers, instead of writers and platform speakers, doctors and lawyers—suffragettes?"

To me at least, this is an apt observation (if I may quote Rhett Butler). Being a lady was challenging and restrictive work. No wonder Scarlett found it so difficult! What do y'all think?