Keywords
Education in literature, Foster, Hannah Webster -- 1759-1840, Murray, Judith Sargent -- 1751-1820, Rowson -- Mrs. -- 1762-1824, Women -- Education -- United States -- History -- 18th century, Women and literature -- United States -- History -- 18th century
Abstract
This study examines the major works of Judith Sargent Murray, Hannah Webster Foster, and Susanna Haswell Rowson, three major writers of the 1790s whose writing responds to the ideologies of the early American Republic. I suggest that Murray, Foster, and Rowson write conduct fiction which responds to the changing attitudes toward women and education after the American Revolution. Using fiction, these authors comment on the republican woman, the need for women’s education, and the necessity for women to gather in communities for support. Despite the prevailing notion that reading too many novels would corrupt young women, Judith Sargent Murray’s novella, The Story of Margaretta (1786), Hannah Webster Foster’s novels, The Coquette (1797) and The Boarding School (1798), and Susanna Rowson’s novels, Charlotte Temple (1794) and Reuben and Rachel; or, Tales of Old Times (1798), were some of the most popular books in the late eighteenth century. If these novels were not meant to be read by young women, who were the authors’ primary audience, why were they so popular? This project situates these questions in the political environment the authors were writing in to show that a relationship exists between what women were reading and how authors of conduct fiction helped facilitate the changing roles of women in the early Republic
Notes
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Graduation Date
2011
Semester
Fall
Advisor
Logan, Lisa
Degree
Master of Arts (M.A.)
College
College of Arts and Humanities
Department
English
Degree Program
English; Literary, Cultural, and Textual Studies
Format
application/pdf
Identifier
CFE0004180
URL
http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0004180
Language
English
Release Date
12-15-2016
Length of Campus-only Access
5 years
Access Status
Masters Thesis (Open Access)
Subjects
Arts and Humanities -- Dissertations, Academic, Dissertations, Academic -- Arts and Humanities
STARS Citation
Workman, Jessica Crystal, "A Laudable Ambition Fired Her Soul Conduct Fiction Helps Define Republican Womanhood, Female Communities, And Women's Education In The Works Of Judith Sargent Murray, Hannah Webster Foster, And Susanna Haswell Rowson" (2011). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1730.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/1730