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The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School Department of English MAPPING RHETORICAL FRONTIERS: WOMEN’S SPATIAL RHETORICS IN THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICAN WEST A Dissertation in English by Rosalyn Collings Eves 2008 Rosalyn Eves Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2008 The dissertation of Rosalyn Collings Eves was reviewed and approved* by the following: Cheryl Glenn Liberal Arts Research Professor of English and Women’s Studies Dissertation Advisor Chair of Committee John L. Selzer Professor of English Hester Blum Assistant Professor of English Stephen H. Browne Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences Robin Schulze Professor of English Head of the Department of English *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School iii ABSTRACT This dissertation explores how the material exigencies of Western places and the circulating cultural discourses about those places constrain and enable the rhetorical choices of four nineteenth-century women rhetors living in the American West: Eliza R. Snow, a Mormon woman living in Utah; Sarah Winnemucca, a Northern Paiute woman from Nevada; Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton, a Californio woman married to a United States soldier; and Helen Hunt Jackson, an Anglo-American woman living in Colorado. By doing so, I aim to contribute to a small but growing body of scholarship theorizing rhetorics of space, and enrich our understanding of nineteenth-century rhetorical practices in America by considering such practices in the context of gender, race, religion, class— and place. In chapter two, I draw on Eliza R. Snow’s published speeches in a contemporary newspaper, The Woman’s Exponent, to demonstrate how Snow uses discourses about Utah space as a constitutive rhetoric for Mormon women, ultimately using idea of Utah as a shorthand for group identity. In chapter three, I argue that Paiute activist Sarah Winnemucca’s rhetorical choices (in her public speeches, letters, and published autobiography) are influenced not only by her social position as an Indian woman, but by the expectations associated with the physical and cultural locations she occupies during her performances, including reservations, military forts, and lecture halls. In chapter four, I explore the ways Helen Hunt Jackson uses discourses of domestic, natural, and national spaces to extend her appeal for Indian reform in her novel Ramona. At the same time, I analyze how the ideologies associated with these discourses ultimately undercut her iv reform agenda. In chapter five, I describe how María Amparo Ruiz de Burton intervenes in the perception of California spaces to challenge existing social hierarchies and reestablish the upper-class position of native Californios. The final chapter reflects on the different ways that space affects these women’s rhetorical practices, sketches out a “Grammar of Rhetorical Space” that encompasses these different effects of space on rhetoric, and offers some scholarly and pedagogical implications of this research. v TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures……………………………………………………………………….. vii Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………….. viii Chapter One: INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………. 1 Why Write about Western Women?................................................................ 4 Defining Space and Place……………………………………………………. 8 Rhetorics of Space…………………………………………………………… 12 Background and Context…………………………………………………….. 17 Recovering Nineteenth-Century Women's Rhetoric………………… 17 Woman's Place in the American West………………………………. 22 Some Methodological Considerations………………………………. 27 Mapping Chapters…………………………………………………………….29 Chapter Two: "AS SISTERS IN ZION": ELIZA R. SNOW'S USE OF PLACE AS A SHORT-HAND FOR MORMON WOMEN'S IDENTITY………………………… 32 Understanding Eliza R. Snow's Place in Mormon Society………………….. 36 Constituting Group Identity…………………………………………………. 44 "The desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose": Utah as the Spiritual Heir of Israel………………………………………………………… 46 Building up Zion: Women's Roles in the Kingdom…………………………. 56 Themes of Exodus and Isolation…………………………………….. 57 Themes of Gathering………………………………………………… 60 Themes of Building up Zion……….………………………………... 64 "Our Mountain Home": Domesticating the West……………………………. 71 Utah as a Short-hand for Mormon Identity………………………………….. 76 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………… 79 Chapter Three: SHAPING RHETORICAL PRACTICES: SARAH WINNEMUCCA’S RHETORICAL RESPONSE TO DISCIPLINARY AND PERFORMATIVE SPACES……………………………………………………………………………... 83 Understanding Sarah Winnemucca's Place………………………………….. 87 Rhetorical Responses in Disciplinary Spaces: The Reservation…………….. 91 Reservation Site Analysis……………………………………………. 92 Rhetorical Practices in Reservation Spaces…………………………. 98 Rhetorical Responses in Disciplinary Spaces: The Military Fort…………… 105 Military Fort Site Analysis…………………………………………... 106 Rhetorical Practices in Military Spaces………………………………110 Rhetorical Responses in Performative Spaces: The Stage and the Lecture Hall…………………………………………………………………………... 121 Stage and Lecture Hall Site Analysis………………………………... 122 Rhetorical Practices in Theatrical Spaces…………………………… 127 vi Rhetorical Practices in Other Performative Spaces…………………. 134 Conclusion: Finding Rhetorical Space………………………………………. 152 Interchapter: CAPITALIZING ON CALIFORNIA SPACE ……………………… 154 Some Racial Terminology…………………………………………………… 154 A History of California and Its Landscapes…………………………………. 160 Chapter Four: “DREAMING OF THIS FAIR LAND”: THE RHETORICS OF PLACE IN HELEN HUNT JACKSON’S RAMONA………………………………………… 168 Helen Hunt Jackson and Indian Reform……………………………………...171 Domestic Space as a Rhetorical Appeal……………………………………... 181 Natural Space as a Rhetorical Appeal……………………………………….. 196 National Space as a Rhetorical Appeal……………………………………… 206 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………… 215 Chapter Five: MAKING SPACE FOR CALIFORNIOS: MARÍA AMPARO RUIZ DE BURTON’S THE SQUATTER AND THE DON…………………………………….. 218 Placing María Amparo Ruiz de Burton and The Squatter and the Don…….. 221 Geographic Parallels with the South………………………………………… 228 Promoting California and Expanding the Nation……………………………. 235 Social Place and Movement…………………………………………………. 250 Transformed Place: A Place-based Critique of U.S. Imperialist and Monopolist Practices………………………………………………… 263 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………… 273 Chapter Six: CONCLUSION …………………………………………………….... 277 Differing Perceptions of Space……………………………………………… 279 A Grammar of Rhetorical Space…………………………………………….. 283 Some Important Questions for Rhetorical Scholarship and Pedagogy……… 290 Some Final Thoughts………………………………………………………... 292 Works Cited ……………………………………………………………………….. 294 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Photograph of Eliza R. Snow …………………………………………….. 43 Figure 2. Panorama of Salt Lake City, UT, 1891 …………………………………... 51 Figure 3. Map of Sarah Winnemucca’s Region …………………………………….. 88 Figure 4. Photograph of Fort McDermitt…………………………………………… 108 Figure 5. Photograph of the Metropolitan Theatre …………………………………. 130 Figure 6. Photograph of Sarah Winnemucca ……………………………………….. 137 Figure 7. Photograph of Helen Hunt Jackson …………………………………......... 172 Figure 8. Landmarks of Ramona’s Country ………………………………………… 179 Figure 9. Photograph of María Amparo Ruiz de Burton ………………………........ 222 Figure 10. Photograph of the Cliff House, San Francisco ………………………….. 239 Figure 11. Nevada Falls, Yosemite ………………………………………………… 242 viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the support of many people. My thanks, first of all, to my dissertation advisor, Cheryl Glenn, whose persistent faith in my scholarly abilities has often supported me through discouragement, doubt, and writer’s block. Her generous feedback and questions have been critical to the success of this dissertation: it would be a much poorer work without her input. My thanks also to my dissertation committee—Jack Selzer, Hester Blum, Stephen Browne—for their encouragement and enthusiasm for my project, and their abilities to see possibilities in it that I sometimes only vaguely sensed. My thanks also to my dissertation writing group—Pia Deas, Stacey Sheriff, Jill Treftz, and Rochelle Zuck—for the many hours spent reading and critiquing numerous drafts of this dissertation. Their support, commiseration, and encouragement has helped me not only finish the project, but immeasurably improve it. I would also like to thank the English department for several travel awards that allowed me to present parts of my research at various conferences, and to the generous people who fund the Ben and Catherine Euwema Memorial Scholarship, as well as the Wilma R. Ebbit Award in Rhetoric. In addition, I would like to thank the College of Liberal Arts for a Humanities Initiative Award, that gave me a much-needed semester release to focus on both of my babies—my dissertation and my newborn son. There are, of course, many other people whose lives, friendships, and thoughtful discussions have enriched my life (and, by extension, parts of this dissertation), but they are too numerous to mention here—suffice it to say that my thanks go out to them as well. ix I would like to thank my parents, Bruce and Patti Collings, for their unflagging faith in me and for never questioning why I wanted to do this. For years, my father has been telling anyone who would listen that I would get my PhD—this is for him. Finally, my heart-felt thanks to Daniel Eves, for taking on extra responsibilities so I could get this done, for his deep and generous acceptance of me, and for making my life so much richer. And