Frances Willard and Ida B. Wells

University of Texas at El Paso DigitalCommons@UTEP Open Access Theses & Dissertations 2009-01-01 Rival Radical Feminists--Frances Willard and Ida B. Wells: The Rhetorical Slugfest of Two Nineteenth- Century Queen Bees Over Lynching Anita August University of Texas at El Paso, aaugust@miners.utep.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.utep.edu/open_etd Part of the Rhetoric Commons, United States History Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons Recommended Citation August, Anita, "Rival Radical Feminists--Frances Willard and Ida B. Wells: The Rhetorical Slugfest of Two Nineteenth-Century Queen Bees Over Lynching" (2009). Open Access Theses & Dissertations. 205. https://digitalcommons.utep.edu/open_etd/205 This is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UTEP. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Theses & Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UTEP. For more information, please contact lweber@utep.edu. RIVAL RADICAL FEMINISTS— FRANCES WILLARD AND IDA B. WELLS: THE RHETORICAL SLUG FEST OF TWO NINETEENTH-CENTURY QUEEN BEES OVER LYNCHING ANITA AUGUST Department of English APPROVED: ____________________________________ Elaine Fredericksen, Ph.D., Chair ____________________________________ Beth Brunk-Chavez, Ph.D. ____________________________________ Irasema Coronado, Ph.D. ________________________________ Patricia D. Witherspoon, Ph.D. Dean of the Graduate School Copyright© By Anita August 2009 RIVAL RADICAL FEMINISTS— FRANCES WILLARD AND IDA B. WELLS: THE RHETORICAL SLUGFEST OF TWO NINETEENTH-CENTURY QUEEN BEES OVER LYNCHING By ANITA AUGUST DISSERTATION Presented to the faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at El Paso in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of English THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT EL PASO AUGUST 2009 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project would not have evolved without the guidance, care, and mentoring of Dr. Elaine Fredericksen. During the course of my professional and academic career at UTEP, Dr. Fredericksen and I have morphed not only into colleagues, but also into friends. She has never doubted my scholarship and contribution to the discipline I so love—Feminist (s) Rhetoric (s) Historiography. Without the commitment and faith in my potential as a scholar, this project would have remained a vision lacking the intellectual encouragement and counseling of Dr. Fredericksen. Her faith in my scholarly potential is the reason why this project was accomplished. Dr. Beth Brunk-Chavez was invaluable in helping me comprehend the gender and racial complexities of the nineteenth-century. In fact, she illuminated the social, political, and cultural trauma that Frances Willard and Ida B. Wells experienced in the nineteenth-century. Her scholarly intelligence of the nineteenth-century was an essential aspect of my interest in feminist(s) rhetoric(s), and without her knowledge, it would have been impossible to suggest a new “rhetorical feminist” orthodoxy for viewing the Reconstruction Era. Dr. Irasema Coronado was critical to this project because of her knowledge and commitment to social justice, and her broad scholarship of political science and its relation to the lived experience. She told me that scholarship circulates and is a dynamic process—that I should consider what I want scholars behind me to walk away with. Her message was not lost. In fact, it strengthened me during the long gestation of this project. Dr. Helen Foster was also a major force in my scholarly development. She encouraged me to “Th!nk B!gger”— a challenge I keep posted on my computer that I hope is expressed in this project. Her guidance as a mentor and her example as an activist scholar always renewed me iv in moments of confusion and distress. Dr. Kate Mangelsdorf was actively involved with my admission to the Rhetoric and Writing Studies program. Her invisible support throughout the years during my graduate coursework and the writing of this project helped me to focus on the goal that she believed, from the beginning, I was capable of accomplishing. As cohorts, Héctor “X” Carbajal and Cristina D. Ramirez were invaluable. How do you, at this stage, say thank you without being sentimental? It is because of these two–my brother and sister—that I discovered how transformational rhetoric is. Fellow cohorts and graduate students Lucia Dura, Robert Tinajero, Myshie Pagel, Dr. Brian McNely, Nikki Aggee, and Shawn Miller assumed higher roles than they realized. Their questions in class were essential to the writing of this project, which made mine more focused. Myriam Kadri-Ramirez was a friend throughout my graduate studies and remained one both during the conception and writing of this project. She reminded me to stay balanced and urged me to create even during moments of disillusion to emancipate my ideas. It worked! Kev, my life partner, supplied mental relief, laughter, and soulful intimacy in ways that the structure of language cannot articulate. What philosophy can you assign to Old School Love? Simply put, he was there—this fact only surfaces at the end. Taylor and Dylan Marie—my beauties—are cool—there is simply no other way to describe them. Their births have contributed significantly to the texture of my humanity. It is highly unlikely that any theory or methodology will convenience me otherwise. I say thanks to all of you! v ABSTRACT Rival Radical Feminists considers the role of gender and race as master status determining traits and examines them as influential social markers of identity and representation within a nineteenth-century feminist social movement (FSM)—the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). Rival Radical Feminists examines how, within a FSM where gender issues understandably govern the political narrative that the philosophical core of the movement shifts into separate and competing spheres when gender issues intersect with racial prejudice? Specifically, Rival Radical Feminists argues that when both political actors are female, with one circumscribed politically by her gender, like Willard, and the other by both her race and her gender, like Wells, issues of power and conflict over these master status positions vie for rhetorical and ideological dominance within a FSM. Further inquiries are: Which identity representation dominates? Why? What are the historical, political, and social conditions that allow such transformation? How do they influence the geographical, political, economic, and social locations for women, both black and white, within the private and public sphere, then and now? Finally, what are the circumstances, which allow some marginal groups membership into the political culture while refusing other marginal groups access? Rival Radical Feminists draws from several scholarly domains to examine a constellation of issues surrounding the rhetoric of Willard and Wells over lynching. For example, it explores the Reconstruction Era and the Reconstruction Amendments (13 th , 14 th , and 15 th ) to interconnect and situate the robust (re) representation of white women and free black women before, during, and after the Civil War to gain citizenship. Rival Radical Feminists evaluates theories of identity politics, critical race theory, geographies of space, feminist social movement rhetoric, and visual rhetoric to assess the perspective of gender and race. Finally, Rival Radical Feminists examines vi ethics, morality, religion, and nineteenth-century feminist activism to analyze and provide incisive rhetorical inquiry into the transformation of becoming for women as America shifted from slavery to a post-slavery nation. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………………………..iv ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………….………..v CHAPTER 1. UNDERSTANDING THE ORATORICAL LEGACY OF RECONSTRUCTION IN THE RHETORIC OF FRANCES WILLARD AND IDA B. WELLS……1 2. THE RHETORICAL TREATMENT OF RACE AND GENDER IN THE RECONSTRUCTION AMENDMENTS……………………..………….….49 3. BRIDES OF CHRIST: THE CHRISTIAN RHETORIC OF WILLARD AND WELLS………………………………………………………………….…...88 4. THE RHETORIC OF ‘TRUE WOMANHOOD’— A NEW DISCOURSE FOR REBELLION…………………………………………………………….....122 5. NINETEENTH TO THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY: THE PERSISTENCE OF GENDER AND RACE IN RHETORICAL SLUG FESTS………….....159 BIBLIOGRAPHY ……….………………………………………………..………………..190 CURRICULUM VITA…………………………………………………………………......206 viii CHAPTER 1 Understanding the Oratorical Legacy of Reconstruction in the Rhetoric of Frances Willard and Ida B. Wells __________________________________________ But where one considers different historical characters from the standpoint of a total development, one could encourage each character to comment upon the others without thereby sacrificing a perspective upon the lot. This could be got particularly, I think, if historical characters themselves (i.e., periods or cultures treated as “individual persons”) were considered never to begin or end, but rather to change in intensity or poignancy. -Kenneth Burke , A Grammar of Motives (1969) During the nineteenth-century, a strong feminist social movement (FSM) challenged the cultural, social, and political forces. For instance, as the progressive president of the most prominent and dominant FSM, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), Frances Willard made woman’s suffrage a central tenet. She also recognized that the inclusion of black women to the organization would greatly boost the cultural drift (Eggan) of the nation, now that it was unified over the issue of slavery,

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