A Feminist Interpretation of The Silent Partner

Before even discussing The Silent Partner, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps’ background sets up the novel for a feminist interpretation. Phelps was born in Boston in 1844. Her first exposure to women with strong roles and views was with her mother, also Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Her “mother wrote the Kitty Brown books under the pen name H. Trusta, an anagram of her name which she used frequently throughout her career” (MacLean). After her death in 1852, “her father married her mother's sister, Mary Stuart, who was also a writer” (MacLean). Phelps developed her writing from these influential women, as well as attending an all-girls school. She published books involving a tomboyish female main character, women’s lives after they lost loved one’s in the war, and a series of feminist themes “including social, political, legal and economic” rights of women (MacLean). She later married her friends son, Herbert Dickinson Ward. He was seventeen years younger than her, further showing her belief that women should do what they want, and be with who they want, whether her actions were considered appropriate to society- it didn’t matter.


The Silent Partner, published in 1871, follows Perley Kelso’s journey to becoming the “silent partner” of her father’s factory mill. Perley Kelso has been surrounded by luxury and wealth throughout her life because of her fahter’s ownership of a factory mill. She is characterized as extremely ignorant, but good-hearted. After her father’s death, Perley brings up the idea of her partnership to who she was supposed to marry, Maverick. Maverick thought this idea was amusing and “cute”. Perley meets Sip Garth; a young girl who works in the mills under terrible conditions. Perley is unaware of the dangers and poor conditions of the mill, once again showing her ignorance to lower-class life. At first, Perley has trouble understanding why anyone would want to work in the mills, but comes to find out (because of Sip) that lower-class people really did not have a choice.

The theme for The Silent Partner can be interpreted as a statement towards social reform for the working class, which, it is. But there is also an underlying feminist theme. Considering the profile of the author as well as the relationship and progress between Perley Kelso and Sip Garth, feminist interpreters can see Phelps’s goal was to show that women can be united because of their right to work, regardless of social class. Perley represents the higher class, while Sip represents the lower. The two form a bond and learn from each other with a common goal.


Works Cited:
MacLean, M aggie. “Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.” Civil War Women. 2011.
https://www.civilwarwomenblog.com/elizabeth-stuart-phelps/

Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart. The Silent Partner. First Feminist Press Box, 1983.