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

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