This work is an in-depth analysis of the full breadth of Sojourner Truth's public discourse that places it in its proper historical context and explores the use of humor and narratives as primary rhetorical strategies used by this illiterate ex-slave to create a powerful public persona. The book...

This work is an in-depth analysis of the full breadth of Sojourner Truth's public discourse that places it in its proper historical context and explores the use of humor and narratives as primary rhetorical strategies used by this illiterate ex-slave to create a powerful public persona. The book provides a comprehensive survey of the life of Sojourner Truth, and includes a unique and authoritative compilation of primary rhetorical documents, such as speeches, songs, and public letters.

Sojourner Truth's great contributions to the nineteenth-century abolitionist debate and the struggle for woman suffrage are extraordinary in both form and content. Far from excluding her from the discourse of politics, her illiteracy provided a foundation for the development of her ideology. She...

Sojourner Truth's great contributions to the nineteenth-century abolitionist debate and the struggle for woman suffrage are extraordinary in both form and content. Far from excluding her from the discourse of politics, her illiteracy provided a foundation for the development of her ideology. She also proved to be adept at turning her audiences' beliefs and laws into justifications for her own unpopular views. Truth drew on a uniquely modern and secular source of authorization and empowerment - what she called "the deeds of my body" - and she is rightfully remembered, not only for her thoughtful and systematic attacks on inequality, but also for recognizing the coming crisis in the relationship between feminist and abolitionist factions. To this day Truth's legacy challenges deep-rooted historical beliefs about cultural ownership, about the qualifications for citizenship and suffrage, and about the role played by African American women in claiming those rights. Even a brief review of the stories of Truth's life shows why it is not surprising that she is more commonly thought of as a legendary than a public figure. There is considerable evidence that Truth and those around her used and cultivated her heroic image. Contradictions in the various life stories of this nineteenth-century freedwoman are therefore no less relevant to her success and influence than the limited information we can prove by consulting records of her participation in the abolition and woman suffrage movements. Recognizing this, Erlene Stetson and Linda David have embraced the uncertainty surrounding Isabella Bomefree's history to go beyond biography. The authors have traced not only the life, but also the lifework ofSojourner Truth, providing the reader with a context for Truth's own manipulations of language and fact, as well as those of her supporters, opponents, and even "unbiased" reporters of contemporary events. Stetson and David

In Sentimental Materialism Lori Merish considers the intricate relationship between consumption and womanhood in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Taking as her starting point a diversity of cultural art facts -- from domestic fiction and philosophical treatises to advice literature and...

In Sentimental Materialism Lori Merish considers the intricate relationship between consumption and womanhood in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Taking as her starting point a diversity of cultural art facts -- from domestic fiction and philosophical treatises to advice literature and cigars -- Merish explores the symbolic functions they served and finds that consumption evolved into a form of personal expressiveness that indicated not only a woman's wealth and taste but also her race, class, morality, and civic values. The discursive production of this new subjectivity -- the feminine consumer -- was remarkably influential, helping to shape American capitalism, culture, and nation building.

The phenomenon of female consumption was capitalism's complement to male production: It created what Merish calls the "Other Protestant Ethic", a feminine and sentimental counter-part to Max Weber's ethic of hard work, economic rationality, and self-control. In addition, driven by the culture's effort to,civilize the "cannibalistic" practices of ethnic, class, and national otherness, appropriate female consumerism, marked by taste and refinement, identified certain women and their families as proper citizens of the United States. The public nature of consumption, however, had curiously conflicting effects: While the achievement of cultured material circumstances facilitated women's civic agency, it also reinforced stereotypes of domestic womanhood.

Merish's inquiry into middle-class consumption and accompanying ideals of womanhood will appeal to readers in a variety of disciplines, including American studies, cultural studies, feminist theory, and cultural history.

Hallie Q. Brown--teacher, international lecturer, social activist, and herself a "woman of distinction"--recreates, along with twenty-eight contributors , the lives of sixty remarkable Afro-American women, all born in the United States and Canada between the mid 1740s and the end of the nineteenth...

Hallie Q. Brown--teacher, international lecturer, social activist, and herself a "woman of distinction"--recreates, along with twenty-eight contributors , the lives of sixty remarkable Afro-American women, all born in the United States and Canada between the mid 1740s and the end of the nineteenth century. First published in 1926, Homespun Heroines tells the tales of slaves and social workers, artists and activists, cake makers and homemakers. In so doing, it offers unusual insight into female networks, patterns of voluntary association, work, religion, family life, and black women's culture of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

There has been a dramatic resurgence of interest in early African American writing. The works of dozens of 18th and early 20th century black writers have been recovered and reprinted; there has been a significant revival of interest in the Harlem Renaissance; and several major assessments of 18th...

There has been a dramatic resurgence of interest in early African American writing. The works of dozens of 18th and early 20th century black writers have been recovered and reprinted; there has been a significant revival of interest in the Harlem Renaissance; and several major assessments of 18th and 19th century African American literature have recently been published. This reference book provides alphabetically arranged entries for 78 African American writers active between 1745 and 1945. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and includes a biography, a discussion of major works and themes, a summary of the critical response to the author, and primary and secondary bibliographies. A selected, general bibliography concludes the volume.

"The right to cast a ballot from a feminine hand occupied the attention and efforts of hundreds of women for more than a century in the U.S. In these two volumes Campbell (University of Minnesota) provides a basic understanding of two processes: the development of the rhetoric used by the women who...

"The right to cast a ballot from a feminine hand occupied the attention and efforts of hundreds of women for more than a century in the U.S. In these two volumes Campbell (University of Minnesota) provides a basic understanding of two processes: the development of the rhetoric used by the women who argued for equal rights, and the constraints and sanctions applied to those women who affronted the norms of society's expectation that true women were seldom seen and never spoke in public. The first volume lays the foundation for the analysis of rhetorical style and content by its fine introduction and by a succession of chapters organized chronologically, with biographical sketches and excerpts from speeches. It includes a chapter specifically addressed to issues of sex, race, and class faced by African American women. Volume 2 is not a continuation of the first, but contains the texts on which the first volume is based. The biographical and historical sections are gracefully written and well organized, but the greatest value of the set lies in the actual words of the feminist leaders and Campbell's skillfull analyses. Every women's studies program must have this available. Upper-division undergraduates and above." Choice