Linda Steiner

The reliance of American woman's rights advocates on their own
periodicals for organizing and sustaining an entire social movement
is clearly articulated in the introduction to this volume. The preced-
ing chapters trace how journals published by women activists mixed
various kinds of symbolic materials in order to attract and convert
women readers and to bring them together as a community. Articles,
editorials, and even fiction and poetry helped women to recognize
their common oppression and the obstacles they confronted on ac-
count of their gender.

As Kohrs Campbell has observed, consciousness-raising was a pri-
mary rhetorical strategy for generating a sense of community within
the woman's movement; she shows how this worked in speeches,
debates, and public discussions. ¹ Rhetors had a crucial role in help-
ing women come to recognize their common problems, the educa-
tional and professional barriers they faced as women, and the
mounting restrictions on their social and political activity. Further-
more, speakers could enact on the platform the "new woman" who
could replace the "true woman" ideal. So aware were Anna Howard
Shaw and other movement leaders of this task that they carefully
chose both dress and hairstyle to demonstrate how the new woman
could be different without appearing abrasive or "unwomanly."

The nineteenth-century woman's rights publications were also
necessary, given that "new women" then had relatively few oppor-
tunities to meet in person, to see what these new women actually
looked like. Local, state, and even national organizations sponsored
speaking tours, meetings, and conventions, but these were hardly
enough to support an emergent political movement, much less a
cultural community just beginning to form itself. These publica-

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