American Women Writers and the Work of History, 1790-1860Just as she helped launch the rediscovery of literary texts by American women writers, Nina Baym now uncovers the work of history performed by over 150 writers in over 350 texts. Here she explores a world of important writing unknown even to most specialists. The novels, poems, plays, textbooks, and travel narratives written by women between 1790 and the Civil War defy current theories of women's writing that stress a female domain of the private, homebound, and emotional. History is inarguably public in its nature and these women wrote it. In doing so, they challenged the imaginative and intellectual boundaries that divided domestic and public worlds. They claimed on behalf of all women the rights to know and to speak about the world outside the home, as well as to circulate their knowledge and opinions among the public. Their work helped shape the enormous public interest in history characteristic of the antebellum nation, and ultimately to forge our national identity in the history of the world. Nina Baym deftly outlines the master narrative of history implied in women's writings of this period, and discusses in a completely revisioned context the emergence of women's history in public discourse.
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... become Christians , their justified desire for revenge will give way to reli- gious principle . They will then become an integral part of the American republic , and that republic , though no longer purely white , will be purely ...
... become pleasures : people grow ingenious in overcoming difficulties . Many latent facul- ties are developed . They discover in themselves , powers , they did not suspect themselves of possessing . Equally surprised and delighted at the ...
... become the centre of the Mormon world , the basis of a powerful State , and the stronghold of a church differing from Christianity in all its essential points . ( 295-296 ) Most eyewitness history by American women was about the United ...
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Maternal Historians Didactic Mothers | 29 |
History from the Divine Point of View | 46 |
Copyright | |
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