Consumerism

This section focuses on Williams's reading, material goods, and food habits. Williams constant need for consumer products is an example of Northern middle-class womanhood during the 1840s-1850s. She continued consuming at a large rate upon her marriage Benjamin.

Figure 10.a: This Word Cloud displays the many materail goods Williams wrote her parents about over the years. Notice how "need" is in larger print; Williams often hinted at needing goods while at the Albany Academy for Girls. Williams showed concern over remaining fashionable at school and continued to need goods from the North when she married Benjamin.

Figure 10.b: This is a Word Cloud displaying the food Williams described to her parents. Most frequently Williams wrote about her excitement for apple shipments from her parents, turnips, and sweet potatoes. Williams grew vegetables in her garden and wrote her parents about growing vegetables and which ones were in season.

Figure 10.c: The Word Cloud above displays titles and subjects Williams read during her lifetime. After moving to the South, Williams kept up with Northern headlines by asking her parents to send her the New York papers. Additionally, we can see several subjects studied by Williams at the Albany Academy for Girls, in Albany, New York.

Understanding the Consumer Habits of Sarah Hicks Williams

Williams's relationship to material goods

Williams always wrote about what she consumed. As a middle-class Northerner, she is concerned with domestic goods. She wrote to her parents again and again about needing more money to update her wardrobe. This continued when Williams marries and moved to North Carolina; preferring Northern goods to Southern. The obsession with domestic goods largely focused on staying up to date on the latest fashion trends.

Williams wanted to make a good impression on those she came into contact. This began at the Academy and wants to make a good impression. She continually asked her parents for dresses and baskets for books. Williams felt deep concern over not staying in fashion and believed her wardrobe too plain for life in Albany. Yet when she moves down south, she finds her dresses are not plain enough. Sarah lamented to her parents about not knowing the fashion trends in the South after meeting several women at parties. Williams asked for fabrics and sewing materials from her parents from her parents. She feels the quality is better but also these goods give her a link to her life back home.

Another interesting point of note about Williams's consumption of goods is that she requested apples from New Hartford. Though able to grow a variety of fruits and vegetables in the south, she gave preference to apples from upstate New York. The fruit gave her a piece of home in the south, reminding her of family in New Hartford. Williams wrote about meals made from the apples from dumplings to pie.

Moving to Burnt Fort meant that Sarah and Benjamin built a new house. She described the design and building of this home in great detail, as Williams did with her previous home in North Carolina. She described all of the furniture in great detail. The most interesting part of these letters is how obsessive Williams becomes about the stove for the home. She wrote about waiting for the stove for several weeks. Williams never mentioned what she cooks on the stove; it is clear she is more concerned about having the latest and best kind of stove. This also falls in line with Williams's desire to keep up with middle-class domesticity. Her shopping for Northern goods gave her a connection to home and allowed her to maintain status over others in the developing area of Burnt Fort, Georgia.

Relationship to food

An effect of North shifting from an agricultural to industrial society was that Williams did not learn much about cooking or growing her own vegetables. As a result, when Williams does grow a successful garden she is extremely proud of her abilities. However excited she may have been about her gardening, Williams cannot ignore that she found herself to be wanting as a cook. She asks her mother for a bread recipe from home as a way to show off her skills to her new family down south. However, Williams is nervous because she does not believe she has the skills needed to complete the task. Williams started a small and separate garden from the rest of the plantation. This garden is for her own use. Williams plants sweet potatoes successfully and the potatoes become a huge part of her diet and planting. As Williams's children become older they help her with the garden. She has her domestic slaves help her with the garden, which more than likely means they did more than assist her; the slaves did the heavy labor themselves while Williams supervised. One good Williams could not grow and always asked her parents to send: Apples. Sarah Hicks Williams regularly expresses thanks to her parents for barrels of apples. Williams is not always certain of the new foods she is eating in North Carolina. On one occasion she explained to her parents that "they live more heartily, there must always be two or three different kind of meat" and that "red pepper is much used to flavor the meat for the famous 'barbacue' of the South" (December 10, 1853). Williams is not impressed with the barbecue and has even more disdain for the bread. She described their "core bread" as "just meal wet with water & without [baking powder]" and "biscuit with shortening without anything to make them light and beaten like crackers" (December 10, 1853). Williams decided that she will make her own bread, a way to bring something from her old home into her new. She asked her mother if there is "any way of making yeast without hops or Irish potatoes" (December 10, 1853). Though it takes several tries Sarah successfully completed her mission of baking bread like the kind her mother made in her youth.

Reading Habits of Sarah Hicks Williams

Williams is an avid reader throughout her life. In school, she found reading less important than other studies but moving South changed Sarah's opinion. Sarah wanted to stay involved in her former home-life and so she received Northern papers. This also kept her intellectually stimulated. Sarah found reading gave her a connection to home but also a chance to discuss political rumblings with her parents.

Sarah reported her thoughts on the New York Observer to her parents. The Observer, a conservative Presbyterian paper, discussed political issues of the 1850s and 1860s. Williams assumed bias against the South during John Brown rebellion, believing she does not even need to see the paper to know what the Northern papers are going to say. Sarah is not alone in reading Northern papers, members of the Southern middle-class preferred Northern literature and magazines (Wells, 49). Northern publishers outnumbered Southern and these figures did not deter as tensions mounted around secession. Southerners like Sarah "consciously elected to read Northern writers and publishers when Southern literature was readily available" (Wells, 55). Sarah never mentioned reading domestic guides or fiction to her parents. This does not necessarily mean she did not read them but she did not discuss her thoughts and opinions on domestic literature with her parents. Sarah discussed the papers with her parents to encourage discussion and intellectual thinking, especially when Sarah feels isolated in the woods of Georgia.