Imagining Rhetoric: Composing Women of the Early United States (Pittsburgh Series in Composition, Literacy, and Culture)

Imagining Rhetoric examines how women's writing developed in the decades between the American Revolution and the Civil War, and how women imagined using their educations to further the civic aims of an idealistic new nation. In the late eighteenth century, proponents of female education in the United States appropriated the language of the Revolution -- civic rhetoric rich with opposing images of tyranny and liberation, lawlessness and justice -- to advance the cause of women's literacy. Reflecting the possibilities for educational opportunities in an exciting, new republic, postrevolutionary writing stressed civic argument and inspired women's education by emphasizing the sentimental and social values of literacy. As a market of female readers began to emerge, new textbooks and fictions about schooling revealed ideal curricula for women covering subjects from botany and chemistry to rhetoric and composition. Schooling for women -- along with abolition, suffrage, and temperance -- became one of the four primary arenas of early-nineteenth-century women's activism. A few short decades later, however, such curricula and hopes for female civic rhetoric changed under the pressure of threatened disunion. While postrevolutionary writing was anchored in a neoclassical tradition, antebellum writing instruction was grounded in Romantic culture. Good writing was tasteful and aesthetically pleasing; bad writing was argumentative and agonistic -- or so young women in antebellum female academies were taught.

Imagining Rhetoric examines how women's writing developed in the decades between the American Revolution and the Civil War, and how women imagined using their education to further the civic aims of an idealistic new nation.In the late eighteenth century, proponents of female education in the United States appropriated the language of the Revolution to advance the cause of women's literacy. Schooling for women—along with abolition, suffrage, and temperance—became one of the four primary arenas of nineteenth-century women's activism. Following the Revolution, textbooks and fictions about schooling materialized that revealed ideal curricula for women covering subjects from botany and chemistry to rhetoric and composition. A few short decades later, such curricula and hopes for female civic rhetoric changed under the pressure of threatened disunion.Using a variety of texts, including novels, textbooks, letters, diaries, and memoirs, Janet Carey Eldred and Peter Mortensen chart the shifting ideas about how women should learn and use writing, from the early days of the republic through the antebellum years. They also reveal how these models shaped women's awareness of female civic rhetoric—both its possibilities and limitations.

Imagining Rhetoric examines how womenÆs writing developed in the decades between the American Revolution and the Civil War, and how women imagined using their education to further the civic aims of an idealistic new nation. In the late eighteenth century, proponents of female education in the United States appropriated the language of the Revolution to advance the cause of womenÆs literacy. Schooling for women—along with abolition, suffrage, and temperance—became one of the four primary arenas of nineteenth-century womenÆs activism. Following the Revolution, textbooks and fictions about schooling materialized that revealed ideal curricula for women covering subjects from botany and chemistry to rhetoric and composition. A few short decades later, such curricula and hopes for female civic rhetoric changed under the pressure of threatened disunion. Using a variety of texts, including novels, textbooks, letters, diaries, and memoirs, Janet Carey Eldred and Peter Mortensen chart the shifting ideas about how women should learn and use writing, from the early days of the republic through the antebellum years. They also reveal how these models shaped womenÆs awareness of female civic rhetoric—both its possibilities and limitations. Contents 6 Preface 8 1. Introduction: The Tradition of Female Civic Rhetoric 16 2. Schooling Fictions 49 3. A Commonplace Rhetoric: Judith Sargent Murray’s Margaretta Narrative 81 4. Sketching Rhetorical Change: Mrs. A. J. Graves on Girlhood and Womanhood 104 5. The Commonsense Romanticism of Louisa Caroline Tuthill 128 6. Independent Studies: Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps and the Composition of Democratic Teachers 160 7. Conclusion: Rhetorical Limits in the Schooling and Teaching Journals of Charlotte Forten 204 Appendix 1: Chronologies 230 Appendix 2: From Hannah Webster Foster’s The Boarding School (1798) 235 Appendix 3: From Judith Sargent Murray’s The Gleaner (1798) 238 Appendix 4: From Louisa Caroline Tuthill’s The Young Lady’s Home (1839) 244 Appendix 5: From Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps’s Lectures to Young Ladies (1833) 247 Notes 258 Bibliography 276 Index 290 "Imagining Rhetoric examines how women's writing developed in the decades between the American Revolution and the Civil War, and how women imagined using their educations to further the civic aims of an idealistic new nation.". "Using a variety of sources, including novels, textbooks, letters, diaries, and memories, Janet Carey Eldred and Peter Mortensen examine the provenance, authority, and evolution of what they term "liberatory" civic rhetoric - from the early days of the republic through the antebellum years - especially as it shaped women's rhetoric and education. Imagining Rhetoric recovers what women in the early U.S. imagined instruction and practice in composition should be, and shows how this imagination shaped the possibilities and limitations of female civic rhetoric."--BOOK JACKET. Using a wide array of documentary sources, this work examines how women learned to write in the decades between the American Revolution and the Civil War, and how they imagined using their education to further the civic aims of an idealistic new nation. Janet Eldred and Peter Mortensen examine the development of women’s writing in the decades between the American Revolution and the Civil War, and how women imagined using their education to further the civic aims of an idealistic new nation.