American women writers and the work of history, 1790-1860
Just as she helped launch the rediscovery of literary texts by American women writers, Nina Baym now uncovers the work of history performed by over 150 writers in over 350 texts. Here she explores a world of important writing unknown even to most specialists. The novels, poems, plays, textbooks, and travel narratives written by women between 1790 and the Civil War defy current theories of women's writing that stress a female domain of the private, homebound, and emotional. History is inarguably public in its nature and these women wrote it. In doing so, they challenged the imaginative and intellectual boundaries that divided domestic and public worlds. They claimed on behalf of all women the rights to know and to speak about the world outside the home, as well as to circulate their knowledge and opinions among the public. Their work helped shape the enormous public interest in history characteristic of the antebellum nation, and ultimately to forge our national identity in the history of the world. Nina Baym deftly outlines the master narrative of history implied in women's writings of this period, and discusses in a completely revisioned context the emergence of women's history in public discourse. -- From product description
Print Book, English, ©1995
Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, N.J., ©1995
Criticism, interpretation, etc
x, 307 pages ; 24 cm
9780813521428, 9780813521435, 0813521424, 0813521432
30353317
Women as students of history
Maternal historians, didactic mothers
History from the divine point of view
Poetic demonstrations of learning and patriotism
Eyewitness history
Tourists in time
Imaginary histories
The tyrants' victims
Women's place in history
Biographical notes on American women writers of history
Historical works by American women