Declarations in Dialogue: Rhetoric in 19th-century U.S. Social Movements

Declarations in Dialogue Rhetoric in 19th-century U.S. Social Movements

Social movements • Aim for inclusion rather than total political upheaval: reform rather than revolution • Argue for the application of liberatory principles to an excluded group • Challenge one principle of “publics” -- that participants enter “unmarked” (or “disinterested”)

The “public sphere,” public spaces, and social movements • Excluded groups meet in “safe spaces” to exchange ideas, consolidate goals, prepare arguments (Seneca Falls): counterpublics • Members of excluded groups challenge “the public” in “promiscuous” spaces (Douglass speaking at Corinthian Hall in honor of July 4th)

Questions for rhetorical analysis • How do Enlightenment principles (natural rights; human equality; social contract/government by consent) enter into 19th-century social movement rhetoric? • How do speakers from disenfranchised groups establish ethos(the character of the speaker in the text)? • A problem of identification and division: How will the group define itself for the public/polis that has excluded it? From what other groups does it divide itself? What constitutes the “human”? • How will the individual speaker or writer represent the group: the problem of speaking for others? • What genres best serve the purposes of the disenfranchised? What modes of argument? Styles?

Genre: “Declaration of Sentiments” • Imitation: “After much delay, one of the circle took up the Declaration of 1776, and read it aloud with much spirit and emphasis, and it was at once decided to adopt the historic document, with some slight changes” (241). • Imitation, parody? • "parody … is imitation, not always at the expense of the parodied text” (Linda Hutcheon, A Theory of Parody) • The “D of S” implies a critique, but at the same time legitimates the original; preserves the tone of high seriousness and the rhetorical purpose

From “Independence” to “Sentiments”: some definitions • attitude, prevailing opinion • 18th-century association of “sentiment” with taste and distinction • influence of faculty psychology -- separate “seats” for understanding, imagination, passion, and will • 19th-century association of sentiment with passion, sometimes excessive, but also associated with conviction and action: a framework for understanding • Rhetors in 19th-century social movements construct ethos so as to dramatize the process by which experience forces a critical analysis of the social order and leads to an argument for change.

Women in post-Revolutionary U.S. Separate spheres ideology influential in legal, social, and professional realms for middle-class women Restrictions on education: • Troy Female Seminary, 1821 • Oberlin College, 1833 - admitted women and African Americans • No women allowed: Harvard (1636-1963), Yale (1701-1969), Princeton (College of New Jersey, 1746-1969), many others Legal and economic barriers detailed in the Declaration

A few women step into the public, violate “separate spheres” limitations • Francis (Fanny) Wright, 1820s -opponent of slavery; advocate of education for women and slaves; the first woman to lecture publicly before a mixed audience when she delivered an Independence Day speech at New Harmony in 1828 • Maria W. Miller Stewart, African American -- 1830s public sermons • Sarah and Angelina Grimké, 1830s -- renounced their plantation upbringing James Akin, 1829 lithograph Library of Congress

How do women move into the public? Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1815-1902 Father a lawyer Educated at prep school and Troy Female Seminary Married 47 years; 7 children

Early experiences • Marriage to Henry Stanton in May, 1840 • Honeymoon trip to London to attend the World Anti-Slavery Society Convention • Met Lucretia Mott, Quaker minister • Women voted off the main floor of the convention

Leaders and movements • Associations with men • Class privilege (Stanton read her father’s law books, married an abolitionist lawyer) • Travel • Associations with women/mentors: Mott • Use forms of association already available to them (tea party)

History of Woman Suffrage • Authored by participants in an on-going movement: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage • Three volumes, 1876-86; fourth volume, 1902; final two published in 1922; 4,000 pages • History as a persuasive genre; Anthony planned to distribute volumes for free • Thousands of letters sent to participants to check accuracy of memory • Petition campaigns, letters, speeches, newspaper articles, government records

Seneca Falls Convention • 19-20 July 1848 • Seneca Falls, New York

Preparing the convention: ethos of the historians • From social connection to political action • Writing process - experience and inexperience: “helpless and hopeless as if they had been suddenly asked to construct a steam engine” (240) • “humiliating fact”: they reluctantly turn to “masculine productions” • Other documents “too tame and pacific for the inauguration of a rebellion such as the world had never seen before” – beyond reform • Solving the genre problem: rhetoric of imitation/parody

The problem of speaking for others • “They knew women had wrongs, but how to state them was the difficulty” (240). • No experience of “coarser forms of tyranny” • Research: “a protracted search . . . through statute books, church usages, and the customs of society” (241) “While they had feltthe insults incident to sex, in may ways, as every proud, thinkingwoman must, in the laws, religion, and literature of the world, and in the invidious and degrading sentimentsand customs of all nations . . . they had souls large enough to feelthe wrongs of others” (241).

Do you think the ethoscreated by the history gives readers a positive impression of the cause of women’s suffrage? For readers at the time of publication (late 19th-early 20th centuries)-- • A. Yes • B. No • C. It’s more complicated.

Do you think the ethoscreated by the history gives readers a positive impression of the cause of women’s suffrage? For readers now-- • A. Yes • B. No • C. It’s more complicated

Parallel structure • Introduction/invitation • Philosophical principles • List of injuries, but with the addition of social, cultural, and psychological factors • Many professions and education denied to women • Moral double standard • Subordinate position in religion • Destruction of self-respect • How will their work be perceived? How will it be pursued? “We anticipate misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule . . . We shall circulate tracts, petition, enlist the pulpit and the press . . . A series of Conventions”

Political, legal, and economic comparison1776 1848 • Assume a different position • Demand the equal station; refuse allegiance to existing government • Tyranny of man over woman • Laws • Right to elective franchise • Taken all right of property, even wages she earns; taxes on single women’s property • “Civil death” in marriage • Dissolve the bands • Alter former systems of government • Tyranny of king over colony • Laws • Representation • Imposing taxes without consent

Echoing the language of the enlightenment “in the course of human events” “laws of nature and of nature’s God” “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.” “The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries . . . “ ----- Law of nature: the pursuit of ‘true and substantial happiness” (R1) Woman is man’s equal (R3)

differences • Participation in public sphere: men should encourage women to speak and teach in religious assemblies; recognize the hypocrisy of admiring women on stage but condemning women on the platform • Stop exercising a moral double standard: “same amount of virtue, delicacy, and refinement of behavior” required of men as of women • “enlightenment” as consciousness: “He has endeavored . . . to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life” (243) women should be enlightened in regard to laws (R4) (“no longer publish their degradation . . . Ignorance”) woman has too long rested satisfied in the circumscribed limits which corrupt customs . . . Move in the “enlarged sphere” assigned by the Creator (R8, 244) Women’s duty to secure the franchise (R9)

Ethos of declarations • Righteous indignation • Wrongs bind the group together in opposition • 1776: “we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor”; use of 1st-person plural pronouns throughout • 1848: internal and external divisions: “women of this country ought to be enlightened”; franchise carried by small majority • List of wrongs speaks of “woman” in the 3rd person -- the victim of wrongs; “we” refers to the action of the writers/organizers • Mott’s final resolution calls on the efforts of “men and women”

conclusions • Genre: Drawing on the authority of a founding document of the republic, the authors of “Declaration of Sentiments” mark the inaugural force of their movement: world-changing rather than reforming • Ethos: Reading the History alongside the Declaration of Sentiments reveals middle-class women’s efforts to include a wider group of women in their vision of reform. • Enlightenment and reform: In the Declaration of Sentiments the critical analysis of social, cultural, and psychological circumstances contributing to women’s political disenfranchisement extends the philosophical categories of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

A different thesis about ethos • Despite the inclusion of men (both black and white) and the attempts to speak to the conditions of women of other circumstances, race and class exclusions appear in the Declaration of Sentiments. • “He has withheld from her rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded men—both natives and foreigners.” • “the condition of married women under the Common Law, was nearly as degraded as that of the slave on the Southern plantation”

Troubled legacy of 19th-century women’s movement • “”Ridicule”; “jibes and jeers of the nation”; withdrawal of names • Post-Civil War conflicts: 14th (citizenship, due process, equal protection) and 15th (vote for men of all races) amendments • Racism in late century women’s groups • 19th amendment passed in 1920 • Has the vision of the D. of S. been realized?

For next week . . . • Another 19th-century social movement: abolition • Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. An American Slave Written by Himself (1845) • The ethos of a former slave, abolitionist, black intellectual, autobiographer • Background for Douglass’ speech: “What to the Slave is the 4th of July?” • Reading suggestions: skip the intro. but read letters

Declarations in Dialogue: Rhetoric in 19th-century U.S. Social Movements