Focused Reading

As I’m working my way through the books and articles I’ve checked out during my “research shopping trips” (Elena’s perfect metaphor), I’ll be posting what sources were useless and which were helpful. The helpful sources might take a little longer to post because I want to either type up my notes or scan in my handwritten notes.

I’m finding that most of my research includes a lot of background information on Post-Revolutionary social, historical and cultural customs, as well as histories on publishing and literary activities. This is both good and bad – good because I have no background in this time period whatsoever except the little I remember from American Lit I from my undergrad years (and I can’t even review my notes from this class because my notebook is missing, ugh!) and my high school history classes.

It’s bad because I feel like I’m wasting my time catching up on background history until I remember that this research will pay off in the long run, and allow me to reference these findings in my conference paper with confidence. I know that it is impossible to become an expert on Post-Revolutionary American literature in a semester, so I’m keeping in mind the limits of our assignment and time allotment while going through all these sources. I’m also grateful to Dr. Logan for pointing me in the right direction in regards to my research, telling me which sources are too old/outdated (Barbara Welter’s Dimity Convictions) and which will help me focus my research (Barbara Welter’s The Cult of True Womanhood, Nancy Cott’s The Bonds of True Womanhood, Mary Kelley’s Learning to Stand and Speak, etc.).


**********************************

Useless:

More, Hannah. Cœlebs in Search of a Wife: Comprehending Observations on Domestic Habits and Manners, Religion and Morals. Ed. Patricia Demers. Peterborough, Ont: Broadview Editions, 2007.

I didn’t realize that Hannah More was British and not American, and although I know to keep transatlantic cultural exchange in mind for this time period, there wasn’t enough about my proposed topic of education in the introduction or supporting materials. I did however find out the identity of the Mrs. Chapone, who Savage quotes in one of the chapter introductions: Hester Chapone, a British essayist. I will have to do a little more digging to find out more, but at least I have her full name now.


O’Keefe, Deborah. Good Girl Messages: How Young Women Were Misled by Their Favorite Books. New York: Continuum, 2000.

I had such high hopes for this book, stemming mostly from the title! Unfortunately, when I picked the book off the shelf, I only glanced at the table of contents, which did not reveal the time period of the book (1900s and forward). Can you blame me for getting excited when I saw these chapter titles: “Horizontal Heroines,” “Fluttery Girls, Bloody-Minded Boys: Where Girls Fit In,” “What Girls Could Do, without Losing Their Girlishness,” “Girls with Grownups: Loving Authority, Melting Hostility,” “Girls and Their Friends: Civilized by the Group,” “Girls and Boys – Conservative Romance” and “Today’s Terrific New Girl Heroes.” I will definitely be revisiting this book when I have some free reading time, because it looks like a lot of fun and I am attracted to the children’s literature genre.


Vietto, Angela. Women and Authorship in Revolutionary America. Aldershot, Hants, England: Ashgate, 2005.

Even though the title mentioned Revolutionary America, I had hopes that it might include a little Post-Revolutionary writing (Factory Girl was published in 1814). I also thought it would be good to get some background on the literature that preceding writings like Factory Girl. Unfortunately for me, this book explores the “broad spectrum of literary activities” not just the novel, which is of the course the genre of The Factory Girl. However, one of the chapters was entitled “The Pen and the Sword: Women Writing Women Warriors” and dealt with Deborah Sampson, so I photocopied it for Nina.