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Locating Women's Rhetorical Education and Performance: Early to Mid Nineteenth Century Schools for Women and the Congregationalist Mission Movement

Fleming Safa, Rebecca Lorraine

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2008, Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, English: Composition and Rhetoric.
The first half of the nineteenth century was a unique period for women's rhetorical education and work. Chapter I establishes the rhetorical and physical space of the study. Congregationalist and Presbyterian denominations in New England and Ohio, affected by the Great Awakening revivals, founded schools for women out of a desire for literate female congregants and missionaries. Chapter II argues that advocates of women's education justified the value of women's evangelical speaking and writing by explaining how it fit within conservative religious and social goals: women needed to be educated to teach and convert their children and students, and to start schools for women abroad to advance the evangelical cause. Chapter III argues that because the schools for women adopted the classical, religiously-infused curriculum as well as the purpose of many schools for men, to produce ministers, women also were trained as evangelists, though for different audiences. By the last few decades of the period, the schools for women provided an institutional support for their graduates' public speaking and writing that was denied to other women rhetors of the century. Chapter IV argues that because the classical curriculum used in these schools for women had a religious focus, and because most of the textbooks were written by ministers, and had to justify their purpose in terms of their applicability to Christianity, women who used these texts had the opportunity not only for formal rhetoric and logic training, but also to see and model constant examples of arguments for Christianity in other subject matter texts. Chapter V argues that there were important extracurricular opportunities for women to practice their rhetorical skills at women's schools that were analogous to the traditional literary and debating clubs at schools for men. Chapter VI explains why this unique school environment for women did not last. Around mid-century, the religiously based classical curriculum faded as schools became more vocationally oriented; women's education was offered without need for elaborate religious rationales; and the Congregationalist mission board moved away from evangelizing through mission station schools and so no longer needed trained female teacher/evangelists.
Paul Anderson, PhD (Committee Chair)
Katharine Ronald, PhD (Committee Member)
Morris Young, PhD (Committee Member)
Peter Williams, PhD (Committee Member)
145 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Fleming Safa, R. L. (2008). Locating Women's Rhetorical Education and Performance: Early to Mid Nineteenth Century Schools for Women and the Congregationalist Mission Movement [Doctoral dissertation, Miami University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1209093895

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Fleming Safa, Rebecca. Locating Women's Rhetorical Education and Performance: Early to Mid Nineteenth Century Schools for Women and the Congregationalist Mission Movement. 2008. Miami University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1209093895.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Fleming Safa, Rebecca. "Locating Women's Rhetorical Education and Performance: Early to Mid Nineteenth Century Schools for Women and the Congregationalist Mission Movement." Doctoral dissertation, Miami University, 2008. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1209093895

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)