‘A Great Republic of Equals’: Postbellum Utopia in Marie Howland’s Papa’s Own Girl (1874)

Abstract

After Hawthorne’s bleak take on utopianism, Marie Howland’s Papa’s Own Girl (1874) provides a surprisingly optimistic outlook on the utopian future of the nation. Seemingly unfazed by the Civil War, the novel by the radical Howland envisions a utopian community that will result in harmonious collaboration between the working class, capitalists, and even European aristocracy, as well as radically change the lot of women and the dynamics of romance. Her novel captured the imagination of her audience, as it was key in promoting a large utopian community that she helped to establish. In order to conceptualize the happy unions she describes, and in particular to advance the cause of White women, the novel focuses on breaking open the ‘domestic sphere’ while still offering protagonists romantic bliss. While Howland’s take on women’s rights is strikingly insightful, another aspect of her utopianism is highly problematic: the novel glosses over anti-black systemic violence and in this way foreshadows the racial homogeneity of many successful utopian novels of the late-nineteenth century.