ABSTRACT
All human societies infuse the aging process with norms and meaning, yet how old age is understood varies tremendously from one culture to the next. It has been argued that compared to earlier eras, current American culture lacks a shared meaning of old age, one that allows men and women to navigate the aging process with a sense of purpose and satisfaction. 1 Yet from an ideological perspective the early national period was no easier on the old. This chapter analyzes the particular set of ideas and expectations about senescence that circulated in America in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to show that ideas about growing old tended to be quite negative, stressing decline as the principle feature of old age. Cultural norms gave the aged little clear direction because contradictory ideas and prescriptions for behavior existed side by side. And even if one embraced the dominant set of notions about old age—that formulated by religious writers—ideals and expectations were demanding to the point of being unrealistic, while offering only harsh judgment to those unable to fulfill them. In short, the ideological environment of early national America was a difficult one for the aged. Bereft of a single guiding ideology men and women faced an array of ideas that were often at odds with one another, quite bleak, and difficult to put into practice.
