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Venturing More Than Others Have Dared: Representations of Class Mobility, Gender, and Alternative Communities in American Literature, 1840-1940

Thompson-Gillis, Heather J.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1337711986

Abstract Details

2012, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, English.
In the nineteenth century, alternative communities composed of men and women outside of the traditional biological family began to form not only in the many utopian projects inspired by the transcendentalist movement, but also in factories, settlement houses, and on the road. These alternative communities, which I define as social constructions apart from the middle class home, were often composed of individuals from different socioeconomic class positions and disrupted traditional ideas about gender and labor. Ultimately, they proved the difficulty of defining socioeconomic class in American culture. In this dissertation, I argue that the literature written about these alternative communities shows them to be liminal spaces of attempted social mobility where socioeconomic class and gender roles are constantly redefined in a way that challenge social norms. I specifically analyze literature emerging from the Fruitlands utopian community, the Lowell factory system, the Hull-House settlement house, and female hobo communities. Communities outside middle class culture are especially important to analyze because of the ways they illuminate tensions in defining social positions in American society. While I am concerned with the representation of the role of women in these alternative communities, my dissertation primarily seeks to trouble the elision of socioeconomic class studies in nineteenth-century literary criticism. In this work, I use conversations about gender to provide insight into issues of labor and tensions in defining socioeconomic class in accounts of these alternative communities. The literature emerging from these communities, including journal entries, short stories, newspaper articles, folk tales, and novels, provides insight into the constant struggle to find an empowering identity for workers, and women workers in particular. As unrest over socioeconomic disparity continues to be a driving force in American culture, it is more important than ever to understand representations of socioeconomic class in our past and the ways that alternative communities have used literature to envision a more just society.
Susan Williams, PhD (Committee Chair)
Jared Gardner, PhD (Committee Member)
Andreá Williams, PhD (Committee Member)
264 p.
American Literature
American literature; socioeconomic class; gender; alternative communities

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Thompson-Gillis, H. J. (2012). Venturing More Than Others Have Dared: Representations of Class Mobility, Gender, and Alternative Communities in American Literature, 1840-1940 [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1337711986

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Thompson-Gillis, Heather. Venturing More Than Others Have Dared: Representations of Class Mobility, Gender, and Alternative Communities in American Literature, 1840-1940. 2012. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1337711986.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Thompson-Gillis, Heather. "Venturing More Than Others Have Dared: Representations of Class Mobility, Gender, and Alternative Communities in American Literature, 1840-1940." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1337711986

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1337711986
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© 2012, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.
Release 3.2.12