Artelia Roney Duke
This blog post is part of our digital learning surrounding the “She Changed The World” Women’s Health Exhibit. Blog post courtesy of the staff of Duke Homestead State Historic Site.
At Duke Homestead, Artelia Roney Duke is not normally discussed outside of her role as wife and mother. She is born, marries Washington Duke, has three children, dies, and exits the story. New research has allowed the opportunity to understand what Artelia’s experience and significance was in the Duke home.
When it came to the role of wife and mother, mother may arguably have been the bigger role for Artelia. During the mid-19th century, women like Artelia Duke were prepared to devote 30+ years of their lives to childbearing. Fertile women could expect to have their first child within a year or so of their marriage and continue having children every 2–2 ½ years until menopause, death, or incapacity due to poor health. Artelia’s own life reflects this common pattern. She and Washington Duke were married in 1852, and their first child together, Mary, is born a year later. Sons Benjamin and James followed in 1855 and 1856, respectively. For a woman like Artelia this life of continuously being pregnant, nursing, and mother would be normal. What we cannot say is if this normal life was one that she desired.
Childbirth was common for a woman like Artelia and usually safe. During her labor and delivery, Artelia was most likely cared for by a network of women, like her mother or sisters, Caroline (a young, enslaved girl Washington Duke purchased in 1855), and even female neighbors. It is possible that Artelia used a midwife’s services if they could afford one and if one were available. At this time, male doctors were increasingly present at births, but in this region of North Carolina for a farming family like the Dukes, it is unlikely that they would have used a doctor. Whether she was attended by a midwife or by ‘amateurs,’ the birth attendants’ main job would have been to coach and comfort Artelia through the process.
Homebirth was usually only dangerous if complications arose. Childbirth was a time when women were acutely aware of their own mortality. Women knew that there were few effective treatments by either doctors or midwives that could save them from deadly complications. Most people during this time knew of at least one woman who had died during childbirth.
Within the Duke home Artelia’s work as a mother would have been essential. Even with Caroline’s enslaved labor, Artelia would have likely been quite involved with her two older stepsons (Sidney and Brodie) as well as her own children. She probably would have strived to keep them safe, entertained, active, and constantly learning. And, she of course still would have done many chores around the house and farm.
Artelia’s role as a mother was not merely important in the Duke home. During the 19th century, white society at large valued white women’s identity as mothers. The mother was responsible for building the basic unit of society — the family. It was the responsibility of the mother to pass along social ideals to her children, whether literally through “good breeding” or taught ideals of morality and virtue. Women’s responsibilities as nurturers and educators began during pregnancy and carried through the lives of their children. (This is quite a different meaning than “motherhood” for enslaved African Americans, who passed on their condition of bondage and all that it entailed to their children.)
For Artelia, motherhood might have been a source of both empowerment and restriction. There was social significance to being the creator of good citizens, and she would have seen motherhood as a fulfillment of her duties to God. However, while women wielded power and influence as mothers, they were also bound to that role. They had little control over the number of children or the timing of pregnancies, and little room to develop an identity out-side of wife or mother. They were also physically bound to that role as they balanced pregnancy, nursing, and parenting for decades at a time.
It is easy for historians to gloss over this aspect of our female subjects’ lives because few people wrote explicitly and honestly about their experiences with childbirth and motherhood. At Duke Homestead, they use other women’s experiences to fill the dates of the Duke family tree with stories. It is essential that this is done because the tale of the Dukes’ rise to success would be incomplete without Artelia’s story.
Artelia’s story ends in 1858, at the age of 29. Artelia catches typhoid fever while caring for her 14-year-old stepson, Sidney. The two both die of the disease.
To learn more about Artelia and the rest of the Duke family, please visit www.Dukehomestead.org.
