Annarose Fitzgerald

Dr. Romano

ENGL 540

1 May 2009

Proposal for 2010 CCCC Conference

Using The Woman’s Journal to Revise Our Understanding of First Wave Feminism (working title)

            Carving out a long-awaited place for nineteenth century feminist leaders in rhetorical scholarship, Karolyn Kohrs-Campbell seeks to correct a scholarly tradition that has treated women’s speeches as “historical artifacts” read only as fragmented excerpts (1). Since the publication of Kohrs- Campbell’s Man Cannot Speak for Her in 1989, Nan Johnson, Carol Mattingly, and others have followed suit in bringing out the voices of female rhetors that patriarchal conventions had previously passed over. 

            When studying these more prominent speeches, however, it behooves us to consider the myriad of nineteenth century women who lacked the time, money, or other logistical means to see and hear these stirring speeches in person, and instead relied on other more accessible venues for information regarding the feminist movement. Throughout the nineteenth century, dozens of local and national newspapers disseminated information on the progress of first wave feminism to interested women who would not otherwise have access to it. My paper considers this written rhetoric, and what it might reveal about the two major issues for middle class women of the late nineteenth century: the quest for suffrage, and the right to work for pay in safe conditions. With such a plethora of both oral and written rhetoric advocating for suffrage, it is puzzling why it so often lagged behind in the progress of the women’s interests of the labor rights movement. While the rhetoric of labor rights certainly had more male support behind it, as this legislation would improve their working conditions as well, what might the written rhetoric of each movement reveal about its appeals and detractions for the average middle-class woman?   

My primary focus is on Lucy Stone’s publication The Woman’s Journal within the years feminist scholars call “the Doldrums” of the suffrage movement. I argue that in perusing the articles on suffrage alongside those of labor in various issues between 1870 and 1910, patterns of hostility towards rival suffrage groups and anxiety over the righteousness of their cause emerges in the women’s suffrage articles and letters that are not present in articles regarding women’s progress and setbacks in the labor movement. My purpose is not to draw conclusions or generalizations about either of these movements as a whole, but rather to foster a comparison between the discourses in the speeches that are so readily available in our anthologies today, and the periodicals that would have been more available to nineteenth century American women who lacked the means to hear Stanton, Woodhull, and others in person? What might a close study of feminist periodicals do to revise the way we conceptualize historical and cultural scholarship of first wave feminism’s primary sources, or to inform our understanding of the nineteenth century rhetors and milestone speeches with which we are more readily familiar?