Overview
- Offers the first detailed analysis of the woman-slave analogy, a controversial rhetorical device used extensively among a range of social reformers in the United States during the long nineteenth century
- Explores how the woman-slave analogy was used by supporters and detractors in the antislavery, women’s rights, dress reform, suffrage, labour and anti-vice movements
- Contributes to research on gender, race, class, chattel slavery and social movements, as well as the cultural and intellectual history of feminism
Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements (PSHSM)
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Table of contents (8 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
This book is the first to develop a history of the analogy between woman and slave, charting its changing meanings and enduring implications across the social movements of the long nineteenth century. Looking beyond its foundations in the antislavery and women’s rights movements, this book examines the influence of the woman-slave analogy in popular culture along with its use across the dress reform, labor, suffrage, free love, racial uplift, and anti-vice movements. At once provocative and commonplace, the woman-slave analogy was used to exceptionally varied ends in the era of chattel slavery and slave emancipation. Yet, as this book reveals, a more diverse assembly of reformers both accepted and embraced a woman-as-slave worldview than has previously been appreciated. One of the most significant yet controversial rhetorical strategies in the history of feminism, the legacy of the woman-slave analogy continues to underpin the debates that shape feminist theory today.
Reviews
“With skillful depth, Ana Stevenson unpacks the long and fascinating American history of rhetorical comparisons between women and slaves. This analogy was pervasive in the nineteenth century, as anyone with knowledge of the period will be aware. Yet Stevenson shows is that it was far more varied than previously imagined – used by black and white commentators of every political stripe to debate women’s subjugation, marital and sexual relations, fashion and dress reform, women’s wage work, and voting rights. Tracing the complex origins, shifting usage, and ambiguous political consequences of comparing different forms of oppression, this fine book offers both a novel reading of nineteenth-century U.S. history, and salutary lessons for theorists of intersectionality in the modern day.” (Frances M. Clarke, The University of Sydney, Australia)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Ana Stevenson is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the International Studies Group at the University of the Free State, South Africa. Her research explores the history of women in transnational social movements, across the United States, Australia, and South Africa.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Woman as Slave in Nineteenth-Century American Social Movements
Authors: Ana Stevenson
Series Title: Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24467-5
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: History, History (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-24466-8Published: 04 February 2020
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-24469-9Published: 26 August 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-24467-5Published: 03 February 2020
Series ISSN: 2634-6559
Series E-ISSN: 2634-6567
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XX, 362
Number of Illustrations: 5 b/w illustrations, 12 illustrations in colour
Topics: Social History, US History, Gender and Sexuality, Language and Gender, Ethnicity Studies