Sample Student Research Project 2013
Journal
LITR
4232 American Renaissance
Sample Student Research Project 2013
Journal
Jenna Crosson
22 November 2013
Research Journal
A Woman’s Place in Literature and
Authorship:
The Rise of Women’s Writing during the
American Renaissance
Female authors were few and
far between compared to their male counterparts prior to the 1850’s.
The rise of these women was a very important
movement to the American Renaissance as well as the literary community.
Reading from a female perspective started to shed a
different light on marriage, love, motherhood, and life in general and started
the movement to shape how we view literature, and life, today.
These women strove to make their voice known and
heard and started a stampede towards the feminist movement.
This research journal is
intended to dig deeper into the lives of the popular women writers during the
American Renaissance.
This journal will look at the backgrounds of these
women, how they were influenced to write, how their writings influenced a
changing society, and how they managed to shine in a predominately male culture.
By discovering all of these topics we will see how
these women paved the way for the feminist movement and for the rights of all
the women that precede them.
It is important to remember
that women, although not regarded in high standing during this time, played an
important role during the American Renaissance.
The American Renaissance can be classified as a
time of growth and change.
A time where cities were emerging, we were
expanding westward, modernization of technology, science, and literacy were
important changes.
There are two events that occurred during The
American Renaissance that involved women and the beginning of their journey to
equal rights.
In 1848, long before women’s rights were
established, the first ever women’s equality convention was held in Seneca
Falls, New York.
It is here that 68 women and 32 men signed the
Declaration of Sentiments, a play-on of the Declaration of Independence, written
by Elizabeth Cady Stanton to define the oppression against women and pave the
way for the women’s rights movement.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was
born in Johnstown, New York on November 12, 1815 and is considered by many to be
the driving force behind the women’s rights movement.
She is the daughter of Margaret Livingston and
Daniel Cady, a lawyer, who helped expand her knowledge of the law by
conversations at home and by those that would come and study under her father.
Elizabeth, unlike many women during this period,
was well educated.
She studied at the Johnstown Academy and at the
Emma Willard’s Troy Female Seminary, as well as learning Greek from a local
minister.
She married Henry Stanton in 1840 much to the disapproval
of her father.
Henry had stopped his education early to focus his
life on the emancipation and anti-slavery movement.
On a trip to the World’s Antislavery Convention in
England wither her husband, Elizabeth met fellow women’s rights advocate
Lucretia Mott.
After this Elizabeth met many different fellow
reformers as well as other female anti-slavery activists.
They noticed her charm and potential and convincer
her for the need for a Women’s Equality Convention, similar to the slavery
convention she attended.
On July 19 and 20, 1848, the
first ever women’s equality convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York.
It was there that Stanton revealed her Declaration
of Sentiments, arguing against the unequality set against women and how they
have lost their individuality and rights to their husbands.
Stanton called for reform for taxation without
representation and government against their consent.
Stanton also argued that women needed the right to
vote because men could not represent them and that a good government could not
be run by men alone but needed a women’s view to be successful.
Although Stanton lacked the
ability to vote and hold rights of her own, she was still able to express her
views through her writings.
She was able to overcome the adversity that was
against her, just because she was a woman, and proved that, through literature,
she could express what so many women wanted.
Therefore, she ignited a spark that later became
the flame for women’s rights.
A selection from the Declaration of Sentiments:
“When, in the
course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of
man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that which
they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of nature's
God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they
should declare the causes that impel them to such a course.”
“We hold these truths to be
self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments
are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the
right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon
the institution of a new government, laying its foundation on such principles,
and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to
effect their safety and happiness.” (Stanton 1848)
American National Biography Online
http://www.snb.org/articles/15/15-00640.html
Born Isabella Baumfree in New
York in 1797, Sojourner Truth was one of 12 children of James and Elizabeth
Baumfree.
Sojourner was born into slavery, as her mother and father
were both owned by Colonel Hardenbergh and his family in New York.
At the age of 9, when the Colonel had passed away,
ownership of the Baumfree’s was passed to his son.
Young Sojourner was separated from her family and
was sold two times over two years following the Colonel’s death.
Sojourner landed in the ownership of John Dumont
and finally learned to speak English.
In 1815, Sojourner met, fell in love, and produced
a child with another slave named Robert.
Robert’s owner forbid the relationship since the
child would not belong to him.
Dumont convinced Sojourner to marry another slave,
Thomas, and they produced three other children, Peter, Elizabeth, and Sophia.
The emancipation of all
slaves came into effect on July 4, 1827.
John Dumont went back on his word on setting Truth
and her family free so she fled into freedom with her infant daughter, Sophia,
leaving her two other children behind.
Peter, 5 years old, was illegally sold into
slavery.
Truth challenged the white man that bought Peter and
secured his safe return home from the south.
This event marked the first trial that a black
woman every challenged and won over a white man in the United States Court.
On June 1, 1843 she changed
her name to Sojourner Truth, dedicating her life to the abolition of slavery.
In 1844 she joined an organization in Northhampton,
Massachussets called the Northampton Association of Education and Industry.
This association was organized by abolitionists and
supported the abolotion of slavery as well as women’s rights.
Members of this group, including William Lloyd
Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and David Ruggles, all lived on a self-sustaining
community spanning over 500 acres.
The community and organization ended three years
later, but Truth’s journey was only beginning.
During the next couple of years she would deliver
speeches touring all over the country speaking out on slavery and women’s
rights.
In 1850, William Lloyd Garrison compiled Truth’s memoirs
together entitled, “The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave.”
In May of 1851, Sojourner delivered the most
popular speech she ever gave at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron.
The speech was entitled, “Ain’t I a Woman?”
Truth was concerned that the
journey for abolition would die out after success was received for men.
Truth wanted to keep spreading the word on equality
until every slave, man or woman, was free and equal.
Truth was called to Washington to contribute on the
National Freedman’s Relief Association and even spoke to President Lincoln about
her wants for her people.
She strove for desegregation and equality until her
death in 1883.
She will always be remembered as an early leader in
the women’s rights movement and her legacy will live on forever.
Selections from “Ain’t I a Woman?”
“That man over there says
that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to
have the best place everywhere. Nobody
ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place!
And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I
have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head [stop] me!
And ain't
I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man—when I could get it—and
bear the lash as well! And
ain't I a woman? I
have borne
thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out
with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?”
“Then that
little man in black there [a
clergyman?],
he says
women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did
your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman!
Man had nothing to do with Him.”
Biography.com, Sojourner Truth Biography
http://www.biography.com/people/sojourner-truth-9511284?page=3
Course
Website
http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/texts/AfAm/TruthWoman.htm
Sarah Margaret Fuller was
born to Timothy and Margaret Fuller on May 23, 1810 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
By the age of nine, she dropped the “Sarah”, which
she was given after her paternal grandmother, and only went by Margaret.
Her father insisted that she be fully educated like
any boy would.
He did not want her reading feminine books like
other girls her age, on etiquette or romance.
Her father taught her Latin and, at home, her
mother taught her household duties. A very interesting fact that I came across
while researching her history is this: When Fuller was 10 years old, she wrote a
note to her father saying, “On
the 23rd of May, 1810, was born one foredoomed to sorrow and pain, and like
others to have misfortunes".
Fuller was well educated and became a teacher among the
greats like Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Along with Emerson, she was a contributor to the
Dial, a journal dedicated solely to spreading Transcedentalist views.
She became a contributor and editor.
From there Fuller wrote her first book,
Summer on the Lakes, and was
then invited to be a critic for the Woman in the Nineteenth Century.
She published many different critical articles and
essays on the social reformation movement and was revered as a prominent
individual and intellectual, despite the fact of her being a woman.
Shortly after meeting her husband and giving birth
to a son, Fuller and her family fled to Florence.
Unfortunately, Fuller’s life was cut short on a
sailing trip back to the United States.
The ship was involved in a storm and their bodies
were never found.
Fuller’s legacy still lives on in her works even though
her life ended so abruptly.
Like Stanton, Fuller argued that women had a voice
and could contribute to actions made in the government.
They both believed that women, alongside men, could
work together to abolish slavery and bring equality to everyone.
Selections from The
Great Lawsuit:
“[A]s
the principle of liberty is better understood and more nobly interpreted, a
broader protest is made in behalf of woman. As men become aware that all men
have not had their fair chance, they are inclined to say that no women have had
a fair chance.”
“Though
the national independence be blurred by the servility of individuals; though
freedom and equality have been proclaimed only to leave room for a monstrous
display of slave dealing and slave keeping; though the free American so often
feels himself free, like the Roman, only to pamper his appetites and his
indolence through the misery of his fellow beings, still it is not in vain, that
the verbal statement has been made, "All men are born free and equal." There
it stands, a golden certainty, wherewith to encourage the good, to shame the
bad.”
The
Margaret Fuller Bicentennial Website
Biography.com
http://www.biography.com/people/margaret-fuller-9303889
Course Website
http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/texts/AmClassics/Transcend/Fuller/greatlawsuit.htm
I am glad I picked this topic
to research.
It may seem like a simple subject but, learning where
these women came from, their beginnings, trials, tribulations, all contribute to
a better understanding of how they came to be and what shaped them as writers
and advocates.
All movements and reform have to begin somewhere
and these women gave their voices and beliefs to pave the way for others.
I just found these women intriguing.
They overcame adversity being women, and some even
being African American and still made their voices heard.
They may have not lived to see their dreams and
visions come to life, but they started a spark that ignited the courage in women
after them.
What I learned, and what you have learned too, is that
these women played a significant role in the American Renaissance and the
Women’s Rights Movement.
Their works were considered great in their time
even among men and are still revered and studied today.
I am enjoying this course as well as it lets us
learn about writers and works of literature but also how they pertain to the
time period and the growing society.
These writers not only produced great works but
also started reforms and contributed to an ever-growing culture.
Who knows where we would be without them!
It is sometimes hard to find
reliable sources on the Internet that depict accurate information.
Thankfully, Dr. White has provided a great course
website with texts, information, sites, and more.
Along with our course website, I found some other
websites on my own.
I really enjoyed the Biography online website, goes
along with the Biography Channel.
I was also interested to find that there was a
whole website dedicated to Margaret Fuller and the Bicentennial of her birth
(now, that’s how you know you’re important!)
Another helpful website was the American National
Biography Online, I suggest it, great information!
American National Biography Online
http://www.snb.org/articles/15/15-00640.html
Biography Online (Sojourner Truth)
http://www.biography.com/people/sojourner-truth-9511284?page=3
Biography
Online (Margaret Fuller)
http://www.biography.com/people/margaret-fuller-9303889
The Margaret Fuller
Bicentennial Website
Course Website
http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/LITR/4232
"Great Star" flag of pre-Civil War USA