I must have my house in order: The Victorian fatherhood of John Shoebridge Williams

This article explores the complexities of middle-class fatherhood in Victorian America through an analysis of the unpublished and published writings of Spiritualist medium John Shoebridge Williams. Through mediumistic dialogues with the spirit of his deceased daughter Williams negotiated the changing and often contradictory ideologies of ideal manhood and fatherhood that accompanied the modernization of family life. The result was a synthetic model of paternal behavior that combined equality with deference, companionship with control, partnership with patriarchy, and traditional understandings of the father's role with the emerging new standards of the nineteenth century.