Women's rights and women's work: Politics and professionalism in 19th century American fiction.
Item
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Title
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Women's rights and women's work: Politics and professionalism in 19th century American fiction.
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Identifier
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AAI3187422
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identifier
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3187422
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Creator
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Rowley, Cathleen J.
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Contributor
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Adviser: David S. Reynolds
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Date
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2005
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, American | Women's Studies
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Abstract
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Throughout the nineteenth-century, debates on women's work abounded in American fiction and in the press. While much literature and most advice manuals for women were inclined towards extolling the virtues of domesticity, there exists a body of work devoted to a different viewpoint---namely, that women were working outside of the home and that these women needed guidance, encouragement, and practical advice. While the literature written by American women in the mid-nineteenth century is often characterized as domestic or sentimental fiction, literature during this time also provided critiques of contemporary society that were decidedly unsentimental and concerned with women's movement into the public sphere. This dissertation examines representations of working women in American fiction from 1820--1885, specifically focusing on the rise or the development of the professional woman. In charting the increasing presence of the professional woman in American fiction, I explore the relationships between the women's rights movement and fiction which contained feminist characters. Examining literary works from 1820--1885, I trace the progression of the professional woman from early representations of women's rights lecturers and schoolteachers to later portrayals of professionals such as writers, artists, and physicians. The authors considered are both male and female, and range from canonical writers to little-known or neglected authors, including Sarah J. Hale, Laura Curtis Bullard, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Louisa May Alcott, and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps among others. I argue that the figure of the professional working woman in literary works of the time reflects working women of the period, but at the same time, also critiques elements of American culture, particularly in relation to restrictions on women's lives, both in domestic matters and in professional capacities outside of the home.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
