The Popular Culture of Depression in the Early American Republic

Elizabeth Cranch, a real, flesh-and-blood woman, lived in Eastern Massachusetts during the period of the Early American Republic. Throughout her life Betsy, as she was called, wrote continually about her everyday life. She wrote letters to family members and friends, and she wrote in her journal -or "journalized" as she called it-on a regular basis. At a first read through this trail of words, most entries appear to be flat, emotionless chronicles of her everyday life. But her words sometimes startle a reader grown complacent. Among all the ordinary prose, Betsy occasionally offered gem-like insights into her emotional life. When Betsy broke from recording the ordinary events of her days and sought to reveal her lifelong struggle with emotional swings, and particularly with what she called "depression of spirits," her writing paralleled the emotional expression and lyricism of the romance novel. This paper examines the parallels between Betsy's own prose-the "fiction" of her life-and the popular culture of strong emotion portrayed in the romance novels of the day. First, a word about the term "depression." Although Betsy used the term "depression of spirits," society in the Early American Republic did not understand depression in the same way that we do today. Today, in the age of pop psychology, Prozac, and an increasingly medicated society, depression has become part of the larger American culture. In contrast, in the Early American Republic, people did not converse easily or well about their own struggles with emotional swings. Although they may have privately confessed to a trusted family member, friend, or diary that their spirits were depressed, they more often strove to hide these struggles and to put forth a cheerful demeanor that would seem to prove peace of mind. They did not have the same psychological language to express their well being, or lack thereof, and if they happened to stumble through time they probably would be shocked by the seeming need our society has to constantly converse about our feelings. Nevertheless, in this paper I use the term "depression," for I believe it fits. Psychologists diagnose depression using a variety of indicators including sadness and unhappiness, a loss of pleasure or interest in usual activities, sleep disturbance, loss of energy, and feelings of worthlessness and guilt, among other things. When Betsy did reveal her emotions in her journals, often these are the feelings she expressed. She described sleeplessness and bad dreams, she wrote about how she felt indifferent about everything around her, and she mentioned that the "invigorating principle" of her life had fled. Again, with rare exception, Betsy's emotions were kept largely hidden in her writings. In contrast, in the fiction she read and commented upon, most of the emotions were openly expressed and often overblown. It is exhausting to read through the fiction of the 18th and early 19th centuries, for the characters acted out their passions in excessively dramatic ways. Fictional men threw themselves at the feet of the fictional young women they adored, whether or not those young women respected those particular men. Men inappropriately declared their passion, without regard to class differences, family obstacles, or women's indifference. Hair was torn; breasts were beaten. Men worked to seduce, and seduce, and seduce, and seduce women. Sometimes a man succeeded in this seduction, in which case he would then abandon the woman, leaving her to bear her bastard child alone. The woman, overwrought with emotion, usually died. Sometimes the child lived through childbirth, to be raised without knowledge of her (generally her) or his parentage, and then often fell in love with a sibling, unbeknownst to either party. When the truth came out, the siblings were shocked and heartbroken, often dying from grief or committing suicide because they could not bear the pain of their never-tobe-consummated passion. …