Tea and Sympathy in American Parlors: Sweetness, Gender, and Sociability, 1848–1918

This paper examines connections between aspects of feminine sociability, politics and sugar in American society through the medium of the archetypical sweet meal typically referred to as “tea,” whether the beverage is consumed or not. The tea table is hardly incidental here, for it becomes the locus for a very particular gendered performance. Since in the early part of the nineteenth century there was no public space for middle-income women to gather, parlors, with their movable furniture, became the space not only for socializing but for organizing. That said, the tea table was not merely a metaphor, it was also a material object, a stage in miniature for the exchange of ideas and the forging of networks. The relationship of the abolitionist movements’ boycotts of slave-grown sugar, and later, the temperance movement’s direct and indirect encouragement of the consumption of sweetened beverages – not just tea but also lemonade and early soft drinks – can be traced to this tea-time ritual. This flexing of power, based in homosocial organizing, would have ramifications for the quantity and the kind of sugar consumed in the United States.