This dissertation explores how aesthetic claims in scientific arguments help construct scientific ethos through demonstrations of the rhetor's judgment. By examining the works of Josiah Willard Gibbs and Henry Rowland, two prominent nineteenth-century American scientists, through the lens of their formal rhetorical training as students in American universities, this dissertation investigates how aesthetic judgment is enacted in scientific writing and explores the rhetorical history of the terms "simplicity," "brevity," "imagination," and "taste" and their use in scientific arguments. The aesthetic judgment that both scientists demonstrate in their written work reinforced an understanding of scientific ethos. By placing nineteenth-century scientific writing in contact with the rhetorical theories of the time, this dissertation explores the history of aesthetic judgment in rhetoric and its influence on conceptualizations of the faculty of taste. The dissertation illuminates the connections between rhetorical training and the ability to perform appropriate judgment when creating a reliable scientific ethos in writing. Constructing a scientific ethos in writing became increasingly important and complicated during the time of great institutional change in scientific research, which occurred during the second half of the nineteenth century in America. Scientists constructed scientific ethos through demonstrations of aesthetic judgment in order to respond to the exigencies of both institutional pressures and disciplinary expectations. / English

Few verifiable first-hand accounts of the lives of past sex workers exist. What, then, were their daily lives like? Can archaeology assist us in understanding the daily lived experiences of sex workers, brothel managers, and visitors to the brothel? Despite excellent research in this subject, archaeologists have yet to adequately address the daily lived experiences within sites of prostitution. Using artifacts collected from the privy feature of the 27/29 Endicott Street house lot in Boston’s North End neighborhood, this dissertation examines the relationships among embodiment (or the exterior and interior experiences of the body), sensual experience, and identity through analysis of “assemblages of practice,” or artifacts used together to accomplish specific projects in everyday life (e.g., personal grooming, presentation of self, dining, place-making). Employing theories of embodiment and an archaeology of the senses, my study of the Endicott Street collection contributes a new methodological and theoretical framework for studying the archaeology of prostitution across time, space, and culture. Through the analysis of household artifacts such as teawares and lighting, geographic location in the city, and historical crime reports, I determined that the brothel environment was constructed both to avoid police notice and to provide an atmosphere of genteel anonymity to its customers. Likewise, the embodied experiences of women working here were as much a part of the brothel’s economy as were services offered in addition to sex. Artifact and documentary evidence suggests that the closing of the brothel and the filling of the brothel privy appear to signify the end of financial prosperity at the property. Ultimately, this dissertation finds that the practice of nineteenth-century sex work involved a careful construction of fantasy for brothel customers, and that this fantasy had the potential to provide financial stability and security for the madam of the establishment, if not for the women working as prostitutes.

This work is intended to add to literature of American race relations, Lincoln history, Civil War history, and American history. It illustrates how most historians have processed Civil War and Lincoln history by centralizing emancipation as the primary policy by which all information of mid-nineteenth century political and cultural information is processed through. This research validates evidence that nineteenth century policy of the colonization of people of African descent can be equally qualified, compared to emancipation, as a central policy of this period during the Lincoln presidency and the Civil War. Considering this policy as a primary nuance of the political structure of the mid-nineteenth century speaks to a different historical implication when interpreting Civil War, Lincoln history, and American race relations of this period. Interpreting mid-nineteenth century American dynamics through a lens of what was called "colonization" of people of African descent more broadly leads historians from eighteenth century American structure into Black removal efforts via colonization in efforts to address issue of what groups would play a role in the participatory government. Penal slavery was America's resulting policy to address Negro belongingness and placement in the nation once it was evident the colonization of the nineteenth century Negro was not a viable option. It in fact, upon the failure of his largest and final colonization attempt, Lincoln replaced colonization with penal slavery as his recommended policy to become the Thirteenth Amendment. I submit that historians interpret this period considering colonization with the same influence of emancipation. First, centralizing colonization, with the concept of emancipation, adds a new emphasis on the United States recognition of Haiti and Liberia, displaying it a much more significant event in mid-nineteenth century America. Second, considering the influence of Negro colonization on mid-nineteenth century America, the period illustrates a dynamic rarely associated with the Civil War transference of American slaveocracy from chattel slavery to penal slavery—as articulated in the Thirteenth Amendment. It better explains how a Civil War of emancipation resulted in another one hundred years of oppressive federal and state racial legislation and imprisonment and broadens our interpretation of the sixteenth president. Adding the colonization of Blacks throughout the nineteenth century and following its path as a perceived solution to Negro belongingness, historians will be led in new ways to interpret how slavery was ultimately transformed during the Civil War, and not abolished in 1865, as prevalent in popular education and US scholarship laments. This research adds that slavery was actually transferred from the private sector to the public sector, specifically the judiciary branch of government, by way of the Thirteenth Amendment's restriction of slavery occurring on in result of legal processes. As important as anything else, the insertion of colonization's influence casts Lincoln as a president more accurately aligned with the primary sources of the mid-nineteenth century as opposed to popular Lincoln narratives. Lincoln's elevation of Negro colonization from private interests to federally induced migration creates a more accurate understanding of who Lincoln was and aligns better with who he represented himself to be—as opposed to only considering emancipation as the only influential policy of the period. Centralizing the significant policy of removing Blacks from the nation during the nineteenth century creates new understandings of notions and perspectives of freedom moving forward from early self-governance formation to modern American race relation.

As Aristotle wrote, rhetoric is an art or faculty of finding the available means of persuasion in a given circumstance, and the late nineteenth century was a time in American history when many authors used utopian fiction as the best available means of persuasion. For a few years, the utopian novel became a widespread, versatile and common rhetorical trope. Edward Bellamy was the most popular of these writers. Bellamy’s utopian novel Looking Backward was not only the third best-selling book of nineteenth century America, it inspired over a hundred other utopian novels and helped create a mass movement of “Bellamy clubs” along with a political party (Nationalism). During the latter part of the nineteenth century, American public discourse underwent a general shift from a focus on communal values to a focus on individuals as the source of truth. Utopian fiction of the era helps illuminate why and how this shift occurred. In nineteenth century America, literature was generally not considered to be rhetorical. At most, critics treated fiction as a form of epideictic rhetoric, aiming only to delight, educate, or create discussion. When fiction was used to promote legislative agendas and thus entered into the realm of deliberative rhetoric, critics argued that its transgression of rhetorical boundaries supposedly ruined its appeal. Utopian literature came the closest to breaking down the barriers between literature and rhetoric, as hundreds of utopian novels were published, most of them in response to Edward Bellamy. A close rhetorical reading of Looking Backward details its rhetorical nature and helps account for its rhetorical success. I treat each of the novels as participants in the larger cultural conversation, and detail the ways in which they address Bellamy, each other, and issues such as the temperance movement and the decline of classical languages in higher education. In modern times, though Bellamy has faded from the public memory, he has proven useful in a variety of contexts, from a political punching bag to a way to lend an air of erudition to various types of popular fiction. / text

Several theorists, including the Marxist theorists Trevor Ross, Walter Benjamin, and M.H. Abrams, have proposed theories to explain the eighteenth-century shift from functional to aesthetic conceptions of literature. Their explanations attribute the change to an increasingly consumer-based society (and the resulting commoditization of books), the development of the press, the rise of the middle class, and increased access to books. When we apply the cause-effect relationships which these theorists propose to the contexts of nineteenth-century America, Communist East Germany, WWII America, and 9/11 America, however, the causes don't correlate with the effects they theoretically predict. This disjunction suggests a re-examination of these three theories and possibly the Marxist basis which they share. I suggest that by triangulating rhetorical theory with Marxist theory we will gain a more comprehensive understanding of society's valuation of literature.