Women Debating Society: Negotiating Difference in Historical Argument Cultures
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by D-Scholarship@Pitt WOMEN DEBATING SOCIETY: NEGOTIATING DIFFERENCE IN HISTORICAL ARGUMENT CULTURES by Carly Sarah Woods BA, Mary Washington College, 2004 MA, University of Pittsburgh, 2006 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Arts & Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Communication University of Pittsburgh 2010 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH ARTS & SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Carly Sarah Woods It was defended on December 3, 2010 and approved by Jessica Enoch, Associate Professor, Department of English Kathryn T. Flannery, Professor, Department of English John R. Lyne, Professor, Department of Communication Ronald J. Zboray, Professor, Department of Communication Dissertation Director: Gordon R. Mitchell, Associate Professor, Department of Communication ii Copyright © by Carly Sarah Woods 2010 iii WOMEN DEBATING SOCIETY: NEGOTIATING DIFFERENCE IN HISTORICAL ARGUMENT CULTURES Carly Sarah Woods, Ph.D University of Pittsburgh, 2010 This dissertation explores the relationship between gender and argumentation, complicating narratives that cast debating as an exclusionary practice that solely privileges elite, educated, white men. Drawing on three case studies of women’s participation in debate, I argue that debating societies functioned as venues for rhetorical education and performance. Each chapter aims to add to our understanding about debate within historical contexts, reveal insight about the women who debated, and develop or extend concepts within rhetorical and argumentation scholarship. The first case study traces the Ladies’ Edinburgh Debating Society from 1865 to 1935. This community-based association balanced the desire to achieve ideal rational-critical debate with the need to accommodate and sustain involvement by “women of infinite variety,” developing what I call an “intergenerational argument culture.” The second case study explores the relationship between debate history and the history of rhetorical criticism by examining Marie Hochmuth Nichols’s intercollegiate debate participation in Pittsburgh in the 1930’s. Nichols’s debate experience cultivated a sense of gendered rhetorical excellence and a sensibility toward criticism that she would later develop as a major figure in twentieth-century rhetorical studies. The final case study explores how the challenges of debating at a southern historically iv black college in the 1950’s influenced Barbara Jordan’s rhetorical strategies and political career. Debating allowed Jordan to recognize the importance of viewing the body as a rhetorical resource in negotiating and sustaining access to exclusionary spaces. Though these women came from different socioeconomic, educational, racial, and geographical backgrounds, all used the vehicle of debate to challenge prevailing social norms. They not only honed their critical thinking, writing, speaking, and reasoning abilities through debate participation; they also used their experiences in unexpected ways as they negotiated difference along the intersecting axes of gender, race, class, age, ability, and citizenship. The final chapter argues that the dominant conceptual metaphor of argument-as-war is insufficient in capturing the complex dynamics between gender and argumentation. Instead, I offer an alternative of argument-as-travel, a more flexible metaphor that acknowledges the range of diverse participation in debate and accounts for the methodological choices involved in doing feminist rhetorical historical scholarship. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...........................................................................................................viii 1.0 INTRODUCTION: GENDERING DEBATE HISTORY........................................................ 1 1.1 STRUCTURAL TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE HISTORY OF DEBATE ..................... 4 1.1.1 Debate as a Community Activity.................................................................................... 5 1.1.2 Debate as an Intercollegiate Activity............................................................................ 10 1.1.3 Debate without Discrimination..................................................................................... 18 1.2 WOMEN’S WAYS OF ARGUING ................................................................................... 23 1.3 ON STUDYING WOMEN DEBATERS: PROJECT HISTORY AND ORIENTATION 31 2.0 “WOMEN OF INFINITE VARIETY:” THE LADIES’ EDINBURGH DEBATING SOCIETY AS AN INTERGENERATIONAL ARGUMENT CULTURE.................................. 41 2.1 “AN OMEN OF A BETTER AGE:” THE LEDS IN CONTEXT...................................... 44 2.1.1 Gender and Debate in English and Scottish Associational Culture.............................. 44 2.1.2 Sarah Elizabeth Siddons Mair and the LEDS, 1865-1935 ........................................... 49 2.2 THE LEDS AS AN INTERGENERATIONAL ARGUMENT CULTURE ...................... 53 2.2.1 Crafting an Argument Culture: The LEDS and Debates about Debate........................ 57 2.2.2 Identity and Personal Experience in Intergenerational Encounters.............................. 77 2.3 SUSTAINING PRACTICES .............................................................................................. 99 3.0 “YOUR GOWN IS LOVELY, BUT…,” MARIE HOCHMUTH NICHOLS AND THE SEARCH FOR EXCELLENCE ................................................................................................. 102 3.1 DEBATE ROOTS IN THE FIELD OF COMMUNICATION......................................... 106 3.2 EXCELLENCE IN DEBATE ........................................................................................... 109 3.3 EXCELLENCE IN CRITICISM....................................................................................... 127 3.3.1 Nichols’s Constructive Speech................................................................................... 137 vi 3.3.2 Black’s Rebuttal Speech............................................................................................. 138 3.3.3 Nichols’s Rebuttal ...................................................................................................... 140 3.4 ALPINE CLIMBING WITH BURKE, RICHARDS, AND SHAW................................ 144 3.5 ON INTELLECTUAL TRAVELS ................................................................................... 148 4.0 “THE FIRST AND ONLY:” BARBARA JORDAN’S EDUCATION, EMBODIMENT, AND ELOQUENCE................................................................................................................... 153 4.1 EARLY EDUCATION: SPEECH AND DEBATE.......................................................... 159 4.2 LATER EDUCATION: STATE AND NATIONAL POLITICS ..................................... 179 4.3 THE 1976 DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION.............................................. 191 4.4 BARBARA JORDAN’S BODY....................................................................................... 196 5.0 ARGUMENT-AS-TRAVEL: PARTING THOUGHTS ON GENDER, ARGUMENT, AND HISTORY ................................................................................................................................... 198 5.1 CULTURES, EXCELLENCE, BODIES: WHAT’S DEBATE GOT TO DO WITH IT? 201 5.2 TRANSFORMING METAPHORS: ARGUMENT-AS-TRAVEL?................................ 205 5.3 FUTURE CONVERSATIONS......................................................................................... 211 BIBLIOGRAPHY....................................................................................................................... 216 vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am greatly indebted to the programs and people that supported this project. A Frank and Vilma Slater/Scottish Nationality Room Scholarship and two Women’s Studies Program Student Research Fund Awards at the University of Pittsburgh enabled me to travel to conduct the research necessary for this project, while an Andrew Mellon Predoctoral Fellowship helped the project come to fruition. Archivists and library staff, including Marianne Kasica at University of Pittsburgh, Grace Young at Carlow University, Lisa Renee Kemper at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Beth Howse at Fisk University, Bernard Forrester at Texas Southern University, Mandy Wise at the University College London, and Olive Geddes at the National Library of Scotland, were generous with their time and patience. I am thankful to Thomas Freeman, Howard Beeth, Dan Leavitt, Harriet Leavitt, Jane Blankenship, Joseph Wenzel, and Thomas Kane for telling me their stories as I worked to understand debate in historical contexts. I was privileged to work with an all-star committee at the University of Pittsburgh. Committee members Jessica Enoch, Kathryn Thoms Flannery, John Lyne, and Ronald Zboray provided crucial insight and thoughtful feedback throughout the project. I am appreciative to them for our many lively conversations in graduate seminars, individual meetings, and the dissertation defense. Gordon Mitchell’s passion for ideas brought me to Pittsburgh to begin with and continues to enrich my intellectual development. His keen eye for detail, curiosity, and belief in the power of debate were present at every stage of this project. It is an honor to be his advisee and friend. The debaters and debate coaches at Oak Harbor High School, the University of Mary Washington, and the University of Pittsburgh inspired and challenged me to undertake this project in the first place,