Women and Spirituality in the Writing of More, Wollstonecraft, Stanton, and Eddy

This comparative study graphs the feminist theological trajectory of the religious writings of four eclectic, but similar, women: Hannah More, Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Mary Baker Eddy. This groundbreaking book explores the philosophical writing of four female reformers, identifying how their spiritual representations of the feminine attempted to authorize and empower women. Championing the benefits of well educated Christian women, Hannah More, Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Mary Baker Eddy constructed an idiom through which to represent the spiritual equality of the male and female. Arleen M. Ingham critically investigates how these writers challenged historical identity formations and highlighted the potential for female influence in the private and public sphere Contents......Page 8 List of Illustrations......Page 9 Acknowledgments......Page 10 Introduction......Page 12 1 The Female Subject: Forceful Fathers, Prescriptive Pinnies, and the Reinforcing of Female Subjection......Page 28 2 “The Religious Is Personal Is Political”: Corrupt Politics, Personal Conversion, and the Reforming Potential of Spiritually Minded Women......Page 54 3 Education, Sensibility, and Religion: Intelligent Intuitivism, Fixed Principles, and a First Cause......Page 88 4 Woman’s Right to Revelation: Spiritual Suffrage and the Word of God......Page 132 5 Woman, the Elect of God?: Slaves, Salvation, and Matriarchal Ministers......Page 172 Conclusion: Social Reform to Spiritual Redemption......Page 214 Notes......Page 218 References......Page 246 Index......Page 260