NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY The Awakening: Rhetoric and the Rise of New Women in the New Northwest, 1868-1912 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS for the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Field of Communication Studies By Cindy Koenig Richards EVANSTON, ILLINOIS June 2008 2 © Copyright 2008 by Cindy Koenig Richards All Rights Reserved 3 ABSTRACT The Awakening: Rhetoric and the Rise of New Women in the New Northwest, 1868-1912 Cindy Koenig Richards This study examines rhetorical practices through which disenfranchised women developed tenable political identities and integrated themselves into the public realm in the Pacific Northwest between 1868 and 1912. Through close analysis of rhetorical activities in which thousands of women participated—including club discourse, public commemoration, legal advocacy, petition work, and publication—it illuminates how these activities reconciled femininity and political involvement in an era and place that categorically denied women the right to self-government. Specifically, this dissertation argues that collective rhetorical practices made available rather than merely expressed new identities and skills among women in Oregon and Washington. As they engaged in symbolic action, together, women bridged the divide between their conventional roles in the private realm and leadership in public life, thereby changing themselves and their communities. In addition to expanding interdisciplinary understanding of woman’s rights and suffrage activism in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century United States, this study provides insight into modes of communication that construct public identities, cultivate new ways of thinking and acting politically, and create grounds for public reform. 4 Acknowledgments I am grateful to The Graduate School and the Department of Communication Studies at Northwestern University as well as the Alumnae of Northwestern University for providing the money and time that enabled me to complete this dissertation. Specifically, a 2006 Graduate Research Grant, a 2006-2007 Donald H. and Caroline E. Ecroyd Fellowship, and a 2007-2008 Alumnae Dissertation Fellowship funded the research and writing of this manuscript. My committee provided steadfast support throughout the dissertation process. Angela G. Ray discussed the ideas, organization, and challenges of this project at every stage and provided insightful comments on drafts of each chapter as well as the complete manuscript. Along the way, her scholarly work was a source of inspiration, her efficiency was a marvel, and her confidence in me was a blessing. There is no question that this project is better—and that I am better—because of Dr. Ray. I acknowledge her as a model scholar, an excellent advisor, and a dear friend. David Zarefsky and Robert Hariman provided helpful comments on the complete draft of the dissertation, and I learned much because of their involvement in this project. I appreciate the time, attention, and support that my work received from each member of my committee, and it has been an honor and a pleasure to work in the company of three gifted scholars. As I worked on this project, friends at Northwestern and beyond campus offered helpful suggestions, great conversation, and much-needed diversions. I am especially thankful to Mandolin Brassaw, Rana Husseini, Brandon Inabinet, Erik Johnson, Maegan 5 Parker, Ben Shields, Bjorn Stillion Southard, Belinda Stillion Southard, and Sara VanderHaagen; sharing this experience with them made it richer as well as a lot more fun. I also wish to acknowledge Rita Lutz and Karen Kelly for the outstanding administrative support they gave me—and so many other graduate students—over the years. I will miss working with them both. Finally, I would like to thank my family. I am grateful to my parents, Larry and Jo Koenig, for everything they did to provide me with educational opportunity, a sense of wonder, and deep roots in the Pacific Northwest. Even more, I am grateful for the unconditional love that my parents and sister have always shown me. Tom and Deb Richards have also been a great support to me, enthusiastically welcoming me into their family, even when it meant talking about my dissertation over Christmas dinner. And I could not ask for a better friend or spouse than Thomas Richards. Thomas, throughout this project, your steadfast belief in me banished fears, your work inspired and created opportunities for me, your wit brought laughter and perspective, and your presence gave me joy. You are everything to me, and I thank you most of all. To my family and “To the first woman who realized that half of the human race were not getting a square deal, and who had the courage to voice a protest; and also to the long line of women from that day unto this, who saw clearly, thought strongly, and braved misrepresentation, ridicule, calamity and social ostracism, to bring about that millennial day when humanity shall know the blessedness of dwelling together as equals.” Washington Women’s Cook Book 7 Contents List of Illustrations 9 One The Awakening 10 Literature Review 21 Organization of the Study 26 Two “Flint on the Steel”: Women’s Clubs, Rhetorical Practice, and Political Identity 32 Parliamentary Procedure, Democratic Performance, and Women’s Identity 40 Club Presentations, Rhetorical Evolution, and Public Action 51 Making Club Interests Public Issues 64 Club Discourse, Women’s Identity, and Civic Change 76 Three Inventing Sacagawea: Public Women and the Transformative Power of Epideictic Rhetoric 83 An Invented Great 88 The Epideictic Character of the Sacajawea Statue Dedication 97 Displaying Sacajawea, Demonstrating Women’s Leadership 103 The Transformative Dimensions of Epideictic Rhetoric 114 Four “To Make the Laws That Govern Her”: The Miscarriage of Gender Justice and Women’s Strategic Adaptation 121 The Law, Life-in-Society, and Social Change 124 “The Courts Will Declare Such a Law Unconstitutional; What Then?” 128 Equal Rights Advocacy, Suffrage Defeats, and Strategic Adaptation 144 Women Work: Labor Issues and Legal Advocacy 149 The Woman Citizen: Definitions and Disputes in Muller v. Oregon 158 Defeat in the Courts, Development for the Movement 173 8 Five “Nourished and Equipped for the Duties of Life”: The Washington Women’s Cook Book and Women’s Public Identity 180 Pots and Politics: The Cook Book and the Construction of Women Citizens 189 The Practical Is Political: Linking Domestic Activity and Public Issues 200 A Woman’s Place Is at the Polls: Suffrage Essays in the Cook Book 205 Identity, Argument, and Inconsistency: Rhetorical Appeals in the Cook Book 210 Out of the Kitchen, into the Streets: The Production and Circulation of the Cook Book 214 Cookery, Rhetoric, and a Winning Campaign 219 Six Rhetoric and the Rise of New Women 223 Many Women, Myriad Rhetorical Practices 227 Women’s Rhetoric in History and Process-Oriented Criticism 236 Reconciling Double Consciousness through Rhetoric 241 Bibliography 245 9 Illustrations 1 Sacajawea at the Lewis and Clark Expedition Centennial Exposition 105 2 Cover of the Washington Women’s Cook Book 191 3 Sample recipes and menus from the Washington Women’s Cook Book 194 4 Reproduction of 1889 Republican ballot, Washington Women’s Cook Book 207 10 Chapter 1 The Awakening Sarah A. Evans arrived in the Pacific Northwest in 1895 and, with her husband and three children, began to build a new life in a new place. Shortly after she settled in Oregon, several thousands of miles away from her natal family and lifelong friends, Evans gathered with neighboring women to form a club dedicated to building local ties, providing cultural edification, discussing issues of common concern, and promoting community welfare. As a charter member of the Woman’s Club of Portland, Evans participated in friendly conversations as well as challenging new rhetorical endeavors. She delivered her first public address—a lecture entitled “Mural Decorations of the Boston Public Library”—before the club on 8 December 1898. During the discussion that followed Evans’s presentation, club members determined that free public libraries ought to be established in Oregon; a few months later, they asked Evans to chair the new Free Library Committee. In her capacity as chair, Evans worked with other clubwomen to prepare a proposal for the establishment of libraries throughout the state, transform that proposal into a legislative bill and bring it before the Oregon State Assembly, and organize a multifaceted public campaign in support of the bill. On 13 February 1901 the bill became law, and the following day Evans presented it in triumph to the Woman’s Club of Portland.1 1 Woman’s Club of Portland Minute Book, December 1895-March 1900, pp. 79-85, box 1, folder 1, in Portland Woman’s Club (Or.) Records, Mss 1084, Oregon Historical 11 Following this successful endeavor—one in which disenfranchised women won a legislative victory and established a significant new state institution—Evans became a part of another public campaign organized by Oregon women. After local author Eva Emery Dye visited the Woman’s Club of Portland to discuss Sacagawea’s role in the 1805 Lewis and Clark Expedition, Evans joined the Sacajawea Statue Association to help produce a public tribute “to the brave Shoshone woman who made possible the opening and development of beautiful Oregon.” As a member of the Statue Association, Evans in 1903 wrote circular letters that solicited financial contributions and volunteer work from women in every town in Oregon in order to create “a beautiful and touching tribute . not alone to Sacajawea, but to womenhood [sic].” As she sent more than 4,000 letters on behalf of the association, Evans took on a public role in the collective effort to raise funds and build networks among women in the Pacific Northwest—and she helped make possible the dedication of Sacajawea, the towering bronze icon of women’s leadership, by Oregon women at the 1905 World’s Fair.2 In the early years of the twentieth century, Evans also became involved in efforts by various women’s groups to survey and improve conditions for women who worked for wages in Portland.