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Representations of Women in the Literature of the U.S.-Mexico War Janel M

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Representations of Women in the Literature of the U.S.-Mexico War Janel M University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research: English, Department of Department of English 11-2018 Representations of Women in the Literature of the U.S.-Mexico War Janel M. Simons University of Nebraska-Lincoln Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/englishdiss Part of the American Literature Commons, and the Literature in English, North America Commons Simons, Janel M., "Representations of Women in the Literature of the U.S.-Mexico War" (2018). Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research: Department of English. 144. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/englishdiss/144 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the English, Department of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research: Department of English by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. REPRESENTATIONS OF WOMEN IN THE LITERATURE OF THE U.S.-MEXICO WAR by Janel M. Simons A DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of The Graduate College at the University of Nebraska In Partial Fulfillment of Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Major: English (Nineteenth Century Studies) Under the Supervision of Professor Melissa J. Homestead Lincoln, Nebraska November, 2018 REPRESENTATIONS OF WOMEN IN THE LITERATURE OF THE U.S.-MEXICO WAR Janel M. Simons, Ph.D. University of Nebraska, 2018 Advisor: Melissa J. Homestead This dissertation examines figures of women as represented in the literature of the U.S.-Mexico war in order to think through the ways in which the border conflict was preserved in nineteenth-century U.S. American collective memory. Central to my dissertation is a consideration of the intersections of history, myth, legend, and fiction in the memorialization of this war. This dissertation demonstrates that a close look at fictionalized accounts of women’s experiences of and roles in the U.S.-Mexico war highlights the ways in which historical fictions influence how we remember this moment of our collective past. Focusing on popular accounts of the disputed border region that appeared in print primarily between 1846 and 1855, this study examines the work of two writers, George Lippard’s Legends of Mexico and Augusta Jane Evans’s Inez: A Tale of the Alamo, in addition to a collection of journalistic accounts about the Great Western that were written by various correspondents of the war. These works focus on the nineteenth-century dispute over the U.S-Mexico border in order to commemorate the actions of those involved in the conflict and to offer alternatives to traditional ways of representing war. The representations of women in these texts vacillate between the conventional and the radical. Taken together these figures push at the limits of nineteenth-century conventionality more broadly. This dissertations focuses on representations of the war and the ways that representations of women challenge conventions of gender. This dissertation finds that despite attempts in U.S. American culture more broadly to create a cohesive narrative about the conflict with Mexico these popular attempts ultimately failed to do so, and that the ways in which women are figured in these narratives offer avenues for understanding the implications of the general lack of cohesion in the cultural narrative of the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico. i This work is dedicated to my son, Henri Jean-Yves Cayer. You were born the year I began this work, and I cannot imagine having completed it without you in my life, little dude. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I want to thank everyone who helped me complete this dissertation. Thank you to Melissa J. Homestead. Your straightforward commentary and tough questions, in addition to your insights and practical advice have been indispensable. Your constant encouragement and unending support kept me going, even when I was ready to give up this work. I do not think this dissertation would have been possible without you. Thank you to Susan Belasco. Your guidance and mentorship when I was an undergraduate gave me the confidence to pursue a graduate education. You have been ever supportive of my endeavors, for which I cannot thank you enough. Thank you to Kenneth M. Price. Your continued support has been integral in shaping the course of my graduate career. I am particularly grateful for the many opportunities you have given me to work on digital projects. This experience helped me envision a different path for myself. Thank you to Wendy Katz. Your generous commentary and expertise have contributed invaluable insights to this work. Thank you to Liz Lorang and Mike Orso, to Kelly Payne and Christophe and Francis Bossaert. Your continued thoughtfulness and generosity has meant so much to me. I am grateful for all you have done and continue to do for me and for Henri. Thank you to my mother, Debra Pospichal. Your support and encouragement and early morning wake-up calls helped me make it through to the end. Thank you to my sister, Melanie Petersen. Your willingness to care for Henri so that I could work on this never-ending project was crucial to its completion. Thank you to the “dissertation sheroes.” Your camaraderie got me through the final stages of this project. Thank you to my colleagues in the CDRH and the English department, and to the rest of my family and friends. You aided and encouraged me throughout this seemingly impossible endeavor. Thank you to Joel. You have been ever encouraging and are a constant source of support and strength. And thank you to Henri. You were patient with me when I had nearly no attention to give, and your cheers and sense of humor have been a much-needed source of energy. Now we can have fun again! iii Table of Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..1 Chapter One: “It is a picture to remember”: Visualizing War in George Lippard’s Legends of Mexico……………………………………………………………………….12 Chapter Two: “Her bravery was the admiration of all”: Figuring the Great Western as a Female War Hero in the U.S.-Mexico War………………………………………….......75 Chapter Three: The Inez of Augusta Jane Evans……………………………………….129 Concluding Thoughts…………………………………………………………………...171 iv Multimedia Objects Figure 1 14 Richard Caton Woodville, War News from Mexico, 1848, oil on canvas, Bentonville, Arkansas, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Figure 2 29 Carl Nebel, Storming of Chapultepec—Quitman’s Attack, 1851, toned lithograph, Ronnie C. Tyler, The Mexican War: A Lithographic Record (Autsin: Texas State Historical Association, 1873; 65). Figure 3 30 Nathaniel Currier, Battle of Cerro Gordo April 18th 1847, 1847, lithograph, Washington, D.C., The Library of Congress. Figure 4 46 Nathaniel Currier, The Marriage, c1846, lithograph, Washington, D.C., The Library of Congress. Figure 5 57 Angelo Paldi, Battle of Resaca de la Palma, May 9th 1846. Battle of Palo Alto, May 8th 1846, 1847, lithograph, Washington, D.C., The Library of Congress. Figure 6 57 Carl Nebel, Battle of Palo Alto, 1851, toned lithograph, George Wilkins Kendall, The War Between the United States and Mexico Illustrated (New York: D. Appleton, 1851). Figure 7 62 James Baillie, Death of Major Ringgold, c1846, lithograph, Washington, D.C., The Library of Congress. Figure 8 62 Kelloggs and Thayer, The Death of Major Ringgold, 1846, lithograph, Hartford, Connecticut Historical Society. Figure 9 66 Nathaniel Currier, Soldier’s Return, c1847, lithograph, Washington, D.C., The Library of Congress. 1 INTRODUCTION One of the most decisive moments in antebellum America in terms of military power and the pursuit of Manifest Destiny—the U.S. War with Mexico—was also one of the most divisive moments of the period in terms of deepening party and sectional differences. As such, the U.S.-Mexico war held a somewhat ambiguous place in the collective imagination of the United States in the nineteenth century. Figured by antebellum writers and politicians as an unjust war pursued for the purposes of territorial expansion, the war, as John-Michael Rivera argues, was more broadly represented as a heroic attempt to extend democracy from a “moral” American nation throughout the continent by “civilizing an unjust Mexican nation.”1 In the course of the conflict, the American public was presented daily with both intrepid and horrifying reports from the battle front along with pro- and anti-war treatises in the periodical press. During and immediately following the war years, Americans also consumed a wide range of war romances and lithographs of war heroes and scenes of battle that served to preserve the auspicious aspects of the war and obscure the war’s darker implications. Often treated as little more than a speed bump on the path to the American Civil War, the 1846-48 war between the United States and Mexico was a major event. It took place at a crucial moment, when the United States was still creating a national identity for itself. The conflict held serious implications for still developing American literary traditions. Robert W. Johannsen’s expansive history of the war, To the Halls of the 1 John-Michael Rivera, The Emergence of Mexican America: Recovering Stories of Mexican Peoplehood in U.S. Culture (New York: New York University Press, 2006), 63- 64. 2 Montezumas: The Mexican War in the American Imagination, establishes the importance of the war in developing how antebellum Americans viewed themselves and the world.2 Drawing from a wide range of materials, Johannsen’s work pioneers the way for further study of the conflict and its import across many humanities disciplines, including nineteenth-century literary studies. With the exception of a few low-profile inquiries, the literature of the U.S.-Mexico war falls out of the scholarly conversation following Johannsen’s important monograph. However, this body of literature has received increased scholarly attention in recent decades.
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