This investigation explored the rhetoric antecedent to the women's liberation movement in the United States chronologically between 1776-1850. The focus was on the nature and uses of the rhetoric during the early women's emancipation efforts. These were the elements of rhetorical analysis: (a) primary sources; (b) analysis of the sources; (c) analysis of supporting arguments used by the rhetors; (d) topics and themes of the rhetors; and (e) response to the rhetors. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries women were locked into certain roles in American society by political, economic, religious, and social customs. / Abigail Adams is the first rhetor assessed. Her letters to her friends and her husband, beginning in 1776, served as primary sources. Another pioneer for women's rights is Mary Wollstonecraft. Her Vindication expressed ideas that are as important today as in the eighteenth century. Among the early advocates of women's rights are Frances Wright and the Grimke sisters, Angelina and Sarah. Principal sources are Wrights's Course of Popular Lectures, Sarah's Letters on the Equality of the Sexes, and Angelina's Letters to Catherine E. Beecher, in Reply to an Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism. / Later advocates included Margaret Fuller, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucretia Mott. Fuller's Women in the Nineteenth Century, Stanton's "Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions," and Mott's Discourse on Woman zero in on the grievances of women whose aspirations are blocks. The last two spokespersons analyzed were males: William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass. Garrison's newspaper, The Liberator, and Douglass's The North Star opposed slavery and advocated women's rights. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-10, Section: A, page: 4198. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_74643 |
| Contributors | GREEN, JOHN HEYWARD., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 239 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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