What Is Grant's Role In The Victorian Era

Before they were great Civil War generals, Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant were fathers. Lee had seven children, three sons and four daughters. Grant was the father of three boys and a single girl. Through their children’s words, though they are intended to paint overwhelmingly positive portraits of the two men, we can get a sense of these two generals as fathers and the ways in which they reflected standard trends in fathering during the Victorian Era. During this period, the rise of industrialization and capitalism codified gender norms and altered the dynamics of family life. As fathers increasingly worked away from the home, their role in the family shifted from an authoritarian one toward a more companionate relationship with their

Both Grant and Lee’s families followed this typical model of the “ideal” family in Victorian America. Grant and Lee’s military service necessitated that their wives be the ones to care for and educate their children. However, while family life typically centered on the mother’s care and moral guidance, fathers continued to serve as the ultimate authority within the household. Lee and Grant’s children confirm this generalization of fatherhood during this period. Grant’s wife, Julia, wrote in her memoirs, “Whenever [the children] were inclined to disobey or question my authority, I would ask the General to speak to them.” Robert E. Lee Jr. said that while he could sometimes circumvent his mother, “exact obedience to every mandate of my father was a part of my life and being at the time.” Yet, the means by which a father disciplined his children during this time was reflective of society’s greater emphasis on personal choice over external pressures.

Moral obligation and deep affection demanded that parents involve themselves in their children’s education. Though mothers took primary charge of their children’s education, the Lee and Grant children recall their fathers taking an active role as well. Robert Jr. wrote that on many occasions, his father would help him with difficult arithmetic by going through the problems step-by-step. Frederick Grant recalled fondly the times when Grant would read aloud to his family from American classics like Oliver Twist and the works of Charles Dickens. Fathers were also responsible for teaching their children the strict moral code of the Victorian Era, as well values like “purity, honest, truthfulness, and consideration of others,” which Grant, according to his son, taught his children by