| In antebellum America, especially in the 1830s-1860s, there were many women writers
making a name for themselves by daring to speak out in support of two nascent reform
movements: the abolition of slavery and women’s rights. Many of the women who were
convinced of the moral rightness of abolition learned that they had to persuade the public of their
own right to be heard in order to write about such controversial topics credibly. This study
focuses on these women writers’ creative use of ethos to claim their right to speak and to
persuade their nation-wide audience to join both causes. Scholars and activists today can learn
from the way these writers carefully shaped their literary reputations and appreciate the patterns
that have given certain women writers more lasting credibility—such as a refusal to prioritize
one group’s rights over another’s and a consistent equal rights message. The work of many of
the women writers in this study such as the Grimké sisters, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frances
Harper, Sojourner Truth, Margaret Fuller, and Lydia Maria Child helped push reformist thinkers
into calls for equality, including suffrage for women and all other marginalized populations, as
well as an end to other discriminatory practices based on race, class, and gender. This study
examines ways to teach the rhetoric of these women writers not just in literature classes but also
in composition classes and other interdisciplinary spaces, especially since some of these writers’
work has only recently been recovered. It also justifies more frequent teaching of difficult or
controversial texts such as this kind of historical protest literature.
Keywords: abolition, antebellum, ethos, protest literature, rights, women |