Well, here we are, wrapping up the semester in a blog. As I look back on my periodical research, it's hard to find one strand to synthesize all the articles I found. So, I started thinking about what interested me the most.
I will have to say I was able to look with new eyes at the one journal I examined toward the beginning of the semester--the Royal American Magazine. I had devoted a blog to the rhetoric I found within the March 1775 issue. To me, then, it appeared to be merely elitist. The authors positioned extolled the virtues of rest, leisure, classical reading as opposed to the detestable habit of pursuing filthy lucre. In class, Dr. Williams pointed out to me (as I feel it should have been obvious) that this was a Tory magazine, promoting upper class English values. Now, though, I look back and wonder--how did a magazine with rhetoric like this help instigate some of the anxieties men faced in pursuing publishing for money? Even if they rejected English ideals in favor of creating an American identity, there was a sense that when strict morality (an ideal both countries shared) was attached to leisure writing, it may have been even more difficult for writers in good conscience to shed some of those preconceived notions, not to mention the ideals of manhood that the Royal American Magazine espoused.
My research interests led me several times to missionary stories over the semester. I've always enjoyed missionary stories, especially because one of my favorite books is The Journals of Jim Elliot who worked as a missionary to Ecuador in the 1950s. The journal chronicles his personal growth and development much more than it does the changes that he sees in those he preaches to. What I find interesting about the Early American Missionary Narratives is the pattern that most seem to fall into of telling the change that happened within the hearts of the proselytes. Though I recognize that this is standard, the contrast really stood out to me as I read the stories. I also recognize that I'm reading these narratives through 21st century eyes, but even so, I feel that the writers so often discredit their own ethos with fantastical stories like Reverend Henry Martin's account of the "Musselman conversion" in the Christian Watchman 1829, where the convert now speaks in near flawless English for the time and can relate the entire gospel message with very detailed theological understanding. Did readers really believe these stories? Were they inspiring? I find a story about a missionary who grows and changes himself to be more revealing and inspiring than these artificial narratives. Once again, I realize I would read the narrative differently if I were in that time period. The one that made me laugh, though, and still does, was "The Power of Prayer," a story for children found in The Zion Herald 1825 in which a group of "prayer warriors" save their ship from being destroyed by the pirates they encounter. Later, after spending years in Cuba, these missionaries are approached by the same pirate leader who has been converted because of the miraculous event. (He also can speak in "perfect" English after being in America for awhile.) To me, these narratives would seem fantastic and unbelievable to children as they grew up, possibly affecting future generations' understanding of different types of missionaries. They all seem homogenous in the early American narratives. There are no tales of medical missionaries or good will ambassadors who are genuinely concerned with the physical welfare of the people and who even try to assimilate into their cultures to help them. These types of stories are lost because of the confines, it seems, of the traditional missionary narrative genre.
Well, it's been an interesting ride. Pirates and angels and all.
1850 was long enough after 1776 to see how narratives and stories have shaped a very traditional understanding of the American Revolution. Like Foucault would say, most histories are really a story of the present. In William P. Lyon's "An Unwritten Story of the Revolution," found in the Ladies Repository: a Monthly Periodical Devoted to Literature, Art and Religion Feb. 1850, we read the tale of a woman of the present recalling an important moment, she believes, in defining American nationhood. In giving this 94 year old story-teller a voice, Lyon establishes his own rhetorical ethos. The subsequent narrative is not merely and idealized re-telling of the stories everyone in the town already knows. It is a distinctive memory from Mrs. Cornelia Beekman who has a "retentive memory" and "full exercise of her vigorous faculties."
He retells her story with all her great patriotism shining through. He first gives background to her story by telling the narrative everyone knows of Lexington and Concord, how the true Americans did everything in their power not to start war, only resisting the tyranny of Great Britain. However, when blow came to blow, they were ready to sacrifice all for their "inalienable rights." Mrs. Beekman, though, tells the story of a convention of mechanics who met shortly after the skirmish. These men relayed personal stories of how throughout the week their own tools seemed to be calling them to a greater cause. One man "with every stroke of his adze and hammer" could hear the words "Re-mem-ber Lex-ing-ton." Again and again, the mechanics would rise to speak and note how their tools sang the call against British tyranny and for American patriotism. In a grand display of national spirit, these mechanics threw their tools into a coffin and laid it in a ground, symbolically laying aside their own vocation for the more nobler vocation of war.
Mrs. Beekman notes that the crowds for this spectacle were not merely curious onlookers. No, indeed, they had come with encouragement for "the spirit of resistance." "O, there were no careless observers here!" she notes, assuredly.
The end of the piece reminds readers: "To the sacrifices of our forefathers do we owe the inestimable blessings of liberty which we now enjoy."
The rhetoric of the piece polarizes patriots and despots so that there is no nuance of disputed ideals within this small town. The people were united in solidarity, no factions. In fact Lyons says that Mrs. Beekham was old enough to see the days of "neutrality," I suppose before political factions. The earnestness of the common laborers reminds people of the present (1850) that true Americans will hear that inward voice of patriotism. It is not something they must be convinced of, but it will ring as truth to them. Any other response indicates a hardened heart. It is interesting to see the fervor of this rhetoric--11 years before the Civil War broke out.
What I find even more interesting is the poem that immediately follows this account. It is entitled "Musings" a piece by A. Bill. The poet "muses" about the course of men's lives. In life, each individual, the poet says, is guided by urgings of good or evil--angels or demons. "He seems alone, yet moves not alone, whersoever he goes. Legions of spirit hover in his path." The poem draws a readers' attention back to the almost supernatural leading of the mechanics to the war. The men were not acting as individuals, but as vessels, moved by the good forces of the earth. The poem also says that "There are no little things." Each person, regardless of status--(even the lowly mechanics) are the small pieces of dust of the earth that form the great sands, the poem says in metaphor. It is a reminder that to do great things, you only have to be small and follow the leading of the good, spiritual forces guiding you or else your would will be plagued by demonic forces and "sin...will creep, like serpents, all along the track of man's sad journey to the grave."
He retells her story with all her great patriotism shining through. He first gives background to her story by telling the narrative everyone knows of Lexington and Concord, how the true Americans did everything in their power not to start war, only resisting the tyranny of Great Britain. However, when blow came to blow, they were ready to sacrifice all for their "inalienable rights." Mrs. Beekman, though, tells the story of a convention of mechanics who met shortly after the skirmish. These men relayed personal stories of how throughout the week their own tools seemed to be calling them to a greater cause. One man "with every stroke of his adze and hammer" could hear the words "Re-mem-ber Lex-ing-ton." Again and again, the mechanics would rise to speak and note how their tools sang the call against British tyranny and for American patriotism. In a grand display of national spirit, these mechanics threw their tools into a coffin and laid it in a ground, symbolically laying aside their own vocation for the more nobler vocation of war.
Mrs. Beekman notes that the crowds for this spectacle were not merely curious onlookers. No, indeed, they had come with encouragement for "the spirit of resistance." "O, there were no careless observers here!" she notes, assuredly.
The end of the piece reminds readers: "To the sacrifices of our forefathers do we owe the inestimable blessings of liberty which we now enjoy."
The rhetoric of the piece polarizes patriots and despots so that there is no nuance of disputed ideals within this small town. The people were united in solidarity, no factions. In fact Lyons says that Mrs. Beekham was old enough to see the days of "neutrality," I suppose before political factions. The earnestness of the common laborers reminds people of the present (1850) that true Americans will hear that inward voice of patriotism. It is not something they must be convinced of, but it will ring as truth to them. Any other response indicates a hardened heart. It is interesting to see the fervor of this rhetoric--11 years before the Civil War broke out.
What I find even more interesting is the poem that immediately follows this account. It is entitled "Musings" a piece by A. Bill. The poet "muses" about the course of men's lives. In life, each individual, the poet says, is guided by urgings of good or evil--angels or demons. "He seems alone, yet moves not alone, whersoever he goes. Legions of spirit hover in his path." The poem draws a readers' attention back to the almost supernatural leading of the mechanics to the war. The men were not acting as individuals, but as vessels, moved by the good forces of the earth. The poem also says that "There are no little things." Each person, regardless of status--(even the lowly mechanics) are the small pieces of dust of the earth that form the great sands, the poem says in metaphor. It is a reminder that to do great things, you only have to be small and follow the leading of the good, spiritual forces guiding you or else your would will be plagued by demonic forces and "sin...will creep, like serpents, all along the track of man's sad journey to the grave."
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Though by now it is not news to me, I continue to pause and remind myself to remember how cyclical history is. I imagine that when I first really studied women's movements and early feminism, I saw the movement as linear, forward, progressive. If there were women who stood out, like a Sappho, a Lady Montague, or a Mary Wollstonecraft, they were an exception, used as models for women in the future. Yes, I had heard of feminist backlash as well, supposedly living its hey day in the 1990s. Still, I suppose I always thought one small step back, two large steps forward really defined the women's movement throughout time (if you will allow me to make it that broad.)
Once again I am reminded, though by Joanne Dobson and Sandra A Zagarell's chapter "Women Writing in the Early Republic," that progress is definitely not linear. Neither is it inevitable. These writers explain that though "by 1840 American women were much more securely positioned to partake of the multitudinous opportunities...the discourse of domesticity, prevalent but not hegemonic in the postrevolutionary decades, coalesced in the emerging Victorian identification of women's proper sphere with the home and its concerns" (366). I don't believe there is anything anti-progressive about women turning to the home and its concerns, yet it seems that the rhetoric of "domesticity" during this time, by both women and men, not only limited women's agency but also established the domestic as second rate to the masculine public sphere.
If women like Mercy Otis Warrnen, Sarah Wentworth Morton, and Judith Sargent Murray capitalized on their opportunities between 1790 and 1840, what was the rhetoric that silenced women in the following decades? I suppose here is where research in these early American periodicals will be very valuable. The change obviously did not happen overnight, so while these women may have been successful during the early republic, they were competing with strong voices attempting to relegate women to the moral, domestic realm of the home. Who may have been the other voices supporting women like Morton who said that "an author should be considered of no sex...the individual must be lost in the writer"? (qtd. in Dobson and Zagarell). Why were they unsuccessful?
This type of study is not only interesting in order to see how history allowed the "gender codification" of writers during the early American years, but it is also interesting in light of the way rhetoric still works. As I said at the beginning of this blog, history is cyclical. We cannot assume a linear, progressive model of equal rights for men and women. There is the possibility that the voices engaging in dialogue today want to codify roles for individuals based on gender, race, class, political party, religion, etc. If we identify ourselves with a certain group of people or several groups of people, or even if we like to have fluid identities, shifting from one group to another, we should be aware at how labels and codes can define entire generations and can make or break the opportunities we have for expressing and living out our values.
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What is masculinity in America? This is not a question I have ever explored on its own. I have thought about masculinity as a "norm" off which femininity or woman-ness is defined. Simone de Beauvoir describes women as "the second sex" as if women understand their identity as a departure from men. However, is this fair? Though her theory is much more complex than I am giving it credit here, I was reminded that "masculinity" too is a construct rather than a norm. Men and women have constantly challenged and redefined it. My question is--what were the effects of the way American men after 1840 defined "masculinity"?
David Leverenz in "Men Writing in the Early Republic" argues that male writers were considered (or considered themselves) effeminate or de-masculated as writers and sought for ways, primarily fatherhood and having children, to rid themselves of the stigma. Often we think of women who chose to be mothers because that was the expected role for their femininity. We look back on history and bemoan their lack of access to education and opportunity. Leverenz indicates, though, that the prominent book writers of the early national period were equal male and female. Opportunity for equality between the sexes was not the issue. What type of opportunity and how this opportunity identified one was the larger issue. Though Leverenz does note the "market-driven aspects" of "authorial anonymity," he argues that authorship was linked symbolically to virility and fertility (352). I'm wondering why, if the word "author" reflected the idea of "one who brings or causes to come forth" was it not considered more masculine in book writing. Was a book more like a child who came forth from the womb? Thus, a man of ideas is a true author. A producer is merely giving birth to a form. These sexual connotations are very confusion, creating questions for me about power in sexuality. There is our cultural narrative that the sperm is active and and egg is passive receiver; yet, when we think about the birthing process, the woman is definitely more active than the male. I'm wondering if these ideas of sexuality were the same in this time period and if it effected the symbolic action of producing literature.
(Just another note to go along with sexuality and metaphors: Leverenz notes that Irving felt a sense of a "lack of manliness because he had not married and established a family" and that he "blamed his wandering imagination" (354). This description makes me think of that idea of the "wandering womb" associated with female hysteria. I wonder if men were afraid of being charged as hysterical because of their imaginative productions.)
It is also interesting that the male writers who did redefine masculinity, redefined it in terms of death and anxiety. Really, the ideas seem rather modern. When I think especially of Frederick Jameson's understanding of postmodernism, particularly in film, I see the same problems of masculinity and the same solutions: "death, depression, defeat, and the prospect of leaving no mark in history" (361). In some ways, while this solution may not appear to be patriarchally oppressive, I believe it has hindered progressive thinking even today, when we think about masculine films such as Fight Club, any Tarrantino film, or even comic books adaptations like Batman. The lone ranger, the depressed, lost man searching for his manhood through violence and death rather than cooperation and community has plagued our society for a long time now. I don't have a lot of time to develop this idea, but it would be interesting to see how this form of "male hysteria" has influenced American culture and has turned women (the original producers of hysteria) into scapegoats for this de-masculinity.
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I chuckled a little when I got to the second page of Andie Tucher's chapter "Newspapers and Periodicals." He says that "political reporting" in our nation's early history was not as we understand it today. Instead it was "political argumentation, advocacy, and attack" (390). I'd love to know where I could find some political reporting as we should know it today.
I find it interesting to think that the same time of attacks and argumentation that we see today in the news defined much of the political news during the presidencies of Adams and Jefferson.
Tucher also notes that the newspaper played another vital role for readers, other than offering politically charged perspectives. he says that some newspapers were attracted to "the idea that readers might benefit from the straightforward presentation of original information" (394). He uses the example of the National Intelligencer to show how newspapers were able to accomplish this feat. However, even in describing how this periodical under the editorship of Samuel Harrison Smith gave Americans nearly direct access to political debates, he reminds readers that it was still a Jeffersonian paper. I still wonder, then, when can a paper claim to offer "straightforward presentations of original information?" Could there be better examples? I have trouble believing that any news is unbiased which unfortunately, as I have mentioned before, has prejudiced me against "news" in general. I realize every time I am absorbing information that I am absorbing information through someone's lens. I have a hard time believing I even make informed decisions on my own. In some way, someone's rhetoric is influencing me. There comes a point when I have to choose who I will believe, and that is usually not based on any neutral facts.
I suppose periodicals/newspapers that would interest me would be ones that allow multiple perspectives. I realize this may be tough or perhaps impossible to accomplish. Still, the format of a periodical does not necessarily confine it to one ideology. At this point in the American nation it seems that the editor and/or printer had most of the control over a periodical's ideology, and Tucher reminds us that the economic patronage from political parties contributed to this locus of control. I suppose the same is true today, as businesses rather than one single editor often control the ideology of periodicals.
Still, it is interesting that the format itself opens itself up to multiple perspectives if a group of people chose to use it accordingly. Tucher cites men like Daniel Webster who "expressed the hope that the newspaper press would unify a diverse and scattered people" (395). While I buy the conclusion that economic problems ultimately caused the disaster of this ideal, I think that perhaps the emphasis placed on knowledge, specifically objective knowledge makes that "theater of intellectual operation" that Webster describes unattainable. Today, people still grasp for that straightforward truth, that objective knowledge. I have come to the conclusion that with politics, it does not exist. Instead, where I find the most productive "knowledge" is in hearing multiple voices. I'm not looking for one voice to win me over (although on occasion that may happen.) I'm looking for how I can develop a collaborative understanding of what ideas will work best by seeing how many ideas collide and produce a layered type of knowledge. With a layered knowledge, there would be more discussion, collaboration, and compromise because people would agree that there is no one absolute right choice. The right choice will be constructed. Now, this would not get rid of disagreement or bring perfect unity in any way, but it might relieve some of the problems with news today and the divisions I believe that news, just like in the early American years, has helped promulgate.
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