The Legacy Book in America 1664 1792 (original) (raw)
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Memorial Narratives of African Women in Antebellum New England
Legacy, 2003
It is a telling irony that some of the earliest American narratives to record the lives of Africans in America were prompted by the deaths of those early subjects. These accounts of lives lived in bondage and in freedom were completed without any opportunity for enhancement, retraction, or rebuttal by a quite literally silenced black subject. Despite the absented subject, however, these memorializing narratives provide haunting glimpses of individuals who survived the Middle passage, pined for their African homes and families, established themselves in new and foreign communities, and who, in their final hours, negotiated the symbolic, religious, and social demands of the Western Judeo-Christian culture of which they had become a part. These unconventional texts represent an untapped mine of information about early black culture, domesticity, piety, acculturation, and resistance. They also introduce new opportunities to consider the ways in which black subjects, silenced by mortality rather than manmade discriminatory circumstance, achieve a voice, articulate their own histories, and attempt to acquire ownership of their own stories. Antebellum obituary and elegiac materials about Africans in America, the foremothers and
The Journal of The History of Childhood and Youth, 2009
A SOMBER PEDAGOGY-A HISTORY OF THE CHILD DE ATH BED SCENE IN E ARLY AMERICAN CHILDREN'S RELIGIOUS LITER ATURE , 1674 -1840 ursory review of popular culture of the nineteenth-century United States reveals the presence of what is, to contemporary eyes, a macabre and curious literary convention. To historians familiar with childhood or nineteenth-century studies, the trope of child death, so ubiquitous in nineteenth-century literature, is as puzzling as it is familiar. The subject of child death was pervasive as evidenced by the fact that two of the most famous fictional characters of the era are pious but doomed children, Harriet Beecher Stowe's' Little Evangeline St. Clare and Charles Dickens' Little Nell. What social, demographic or religious developments led to the sensationalist portrayal of child death particular to this era? The pervasiveness of the phenomenon demands a critical treatment, and scholars have begun the process of examining the subject from multiple perspectives. 1 This essay contributes to these analyses by examining the theological precedents for the literary genre of sentimental literature that had as its subject the dying child.
2007
The nineteenth century witnessed a proliferation of child hagiographies in the form of memoirs, written mostly by evangelical Protestant women. Immensely popular at the time, the memoirs were used by religious tract societies and Sunday school publishers as a means of converting children and adults. Women memoirists were seldom recognized as authors in their day and current scholarship has ignored their cultural contributions. This article examines the ways in which these authors used the memoir form and the trope of child death, as well as specific rhetorical strategies, such as emphasizing visions of heaven, mediumship, and intercession with spirits, to challenge and revise traditional Protestant views of the afterlife.
The Modern Language Review, 2014
pursued by setting out three chapters on context along with the two Cutts memoirs transcribed by Lee Langston-Harrison, Catherine Allgor, and James Connolly. This is not a book for political scholars intent on examining how Dolley Madison used her position as First Lady to further President James Madison's agenda. There is a recounting of the famous story of her rescue of the portrait of George Washington hanging in the White House during the War of 1812. Cutts's sympathetic portrayal of her aunt's actions in the memoir states that "[h]er first thought was to save the public papers, and the Declaration of Independence, the second, to preserve the portrait of General Washington said to be by G. Stuart" (123). A telling indication of the bias of these memoirs is the very different account of the portrait rescue written by Paul Jennings, President Madison's valet and slave: "It has often been stated in print, that when Mrs. Madison escaped from the White House she cut from the frame the large portrait of Washington (now in one of the parlors there), and carried it off. This is totally false. She had no time for doing it" (68). An excellent chapter by Holly Cowan Shulman explains how the manuscripts mislead in the recounting of Dolley's relationship to her slaves, family, and Madison in-laws. Paul Jennings had a critical view of his past mistress, who sold him instead of permitting him to buy his freedom on the death of James Madison, and this was indicative of the widespread criticism of Mrs. Madison by the abolitionists. Not only do the memoirs neglect to discuss Dolley Madison's views on slavery, but Cutts uses her personal access to Montpelier to romanticize slavery, writing, "None but an eye witness can know of the peace and ease of these sable sons of toil! To retire with health and not a care for the morrow and surrounded by their progeny, on these plantations which remain in the same family over a century!" (157). Catherine Allgor's essay correctly describes the Cutts memoir as "an outstanding example of pre-twentieth-century women's history" (8). The analysis of women's history is excellent but unfortunately the apolitical description by Mary Cutts of her aunt gives scant insight into the "real" Dolley Madison. Mary Cutts did not live to see her memoirs published. But her own niece, Lucia B. Cutts, using extensive excerpts from the memoir, did publish a biography of Dolley Madison, which has been used as a seminal primary source. Elizabeth Dowling Taylor provides a concise and useful biographical chapter on Mary Cutts.
The ''Afterlife''of Parenting: Memory, Parentage, and Personal Identity in Britain c. 1760-1830
Journal of Family History, 2010
Remembering parentage and parents in life writings in Britain c. 1760-1830 served four functions. First, recounting parentage enabled the writer to situate himself or herself in terms of social status, personal value, and worth. Second, memories of parents helped an individual understand and make meaning of the path his or her life had taken. Third, the process was bound up with a range of emotions, which gave parents power after childhood and had repercussions and meaning throughout the writer's life. Finally, the memories selected and accorded specific significance were often those from times of emotional crisis and disruption and recalling them may have enabled writers to impose some stability upon the insecurities of life. Overall, such memories offer insights into attitudes toward family, indicate the emotional significance of the role that parents played in their offsprings' lives from childhood to old age, and were important in the formation of personal identities.
Carefull" Ethos: The Construction of Ethos in Dorothy Leigh's The Mothers Blessing
2012
As one of the most popular conduct manuals in the early seventeenth century, Dorothy Leigh's The Mothers Blessing is often categorized as private, domestic literature. In this dissertation, I examine the strategies Leigh employed to create ethos, and I argue that her strategic depiction of herself as a "fearefull, faithfull, carefull" mother helped her authorize herself as a public figure. Specifically, I investigate the strategies Leigh employed to create a persuasive ethos within the genre of the conduct manual. Through mother-based ethos strategies, Leigh presented herself deliberately, augmenting her authority as Mother and positioning her work within a male-dominated print culture that demanded silence, obedience, and chastity of women. Leigh uses Mother rhetorically: to carve out her place as an obedient and submissive yet confident woman and to position herself as the Mother, who by inhabiting this genre transforms it into a place that gives her writing access to public discourse. I position Dorothy Leigh's The Mothers Blessing in the context of several seventeenth-century political, social, and religious debates, and I argue that Leigh should be seen as a public figure whose career was eminently rhetorical. v And finally, my deepest thanks to my own mother, who helped me believe I could do anything and whose untimely death during the writing of this project taught me the value of a mother's legacy. But mostly, my thanks to Aaron, Chet, and Kaycee, who gave me the name of mother.