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ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: BLACK BENEFACTORS AND ABSTRACT Title of dissertation: BLACK BENEFACTORS AND WHITE RECIPIENTS: COUNTERNARRATIVES OF BENEVOLENCE IN NINETEENTH- CENTURY AMERICAN LITERATURE Marie L. Troppe, Ph.D. 2012 Directed by: Professor Robert S. Levine, English My study examines four African American-authored narratives written between 1793 and 1901 (Richard Allen and Absalom Jones’ Narratives of the Proceedings of the Black People, Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Elizabeth Keckley’s Behind the Scenes, and Charles Chesnutt’s The Marrow of Tradition) that depict acts of benevolence by African Americans to white recipients. This work focuses on the power relations represented by acts of benevolence, social perceptions regarding the roles of benefactor and recipient, and authorial choices in the depiction of these acts. The study highlights how these four narratives complicate representations of benevolence, both in terms of race and of the historical contexts in which they were written. Previous scholars have documented the emergence of what they identify as a genre of benevolence texts within nineteenth-century American literature and even identified several subgenres among these texts (including poorhouse stories, seamstress novels, panic fiction, settlement house narratives, and maternal literacy management narratives). My work contributes to this critical literature by identifying what I call counternarratives of benevolence depicting interactions between black benefactors and white recipients, thereby expanding the scholarly discourse surrounding benevolence and challenging the dominant American narrative about it. I call the texts under consideration here counternarratives because they challenge the dominant narrative of black inferiority in benevolent encounters. Unlike benevolence texts previously studied, which usually portray white benefactors and white recipients, white benefactors and black recipients, and even occasionally black benefactors and black recipients—portrayals that often reinforce social hierarchies— the texts I discuss work to disrupt social hierarchies by both uncovering and challenging cultural hegemony. In doing so, they facilitate the expression of black agency and declare African American readiness for full citizenship. Drawing on the methods of social history, cultural anthropology, moral and political philosophy and literary studies, my analysis examines issues of agency, performativity, gift theory, and the psychology of gratitude. My study interprets two canonical and two non-canonical texts to show how benevolence is used as a narrative device to question race and power, to demonstrate a connection between narrative and ideology, and ultimately to destabilize ideologies of race and nation. My study also contributes to current debate about benevolence. By recovering the African American intellectual foundations of today’s community-based learning movement within higher education, I raise questions about using traditionally understood nineteenth-century benevolence as a means for teaching students to challenge constructs of race and power in social activist movements in the twenty-first century. The writers I discuss offer a new and important model for community-based learning today. BLACK BENEFACTORS AND WHITE RECIPIENTS: COUNTERNARRATIVES OF BENEVOLENCE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICAN LITERATURE by Marie L. Troppe Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2012 Advisory Committee: Professor Robert S. Levine, Chair Professor Martha Nell Smith Professor Peter Mallios Professor Edlie Wong Professor Deborah Rosenfelt © Copyright by Marie L. Troppe 2012 Dedication In memory of my mother who frequently asked the question, “When is ‘help’ actually help?” In memory of my father who taught in the then predominantly African American Edison Senior High School in Miami during the 1970s. To my extended family who cheered me on. To my children, Clayton and Elijah, who appreciate a complicated story. To my spouse, Steve, for believing in me and giving me his total support during this lengthy endeavor. ii Acknowledgements I would like to thank Steve Wright and Gary Taylor who mentored me as an undergraduate student, Jim Slevin, Lucy Maddox, Gay Cima, Patricia O’Connor, and Sam Marullo, who shaped my direction as a master’s student, and Keith Morton, Ira Harkavy, Bob Bringle, and Julie Hatcher, who valued and enriched my work as a professional. I am deeply grateful for the influence of my University of Maryland professors, Carla Peterson, Ira Berlin, Vince Carretta, and especially my advisor Bob Levine, whose careful reading and useful feedback fueled my writing. I thank my dissertation committee for appreciating the influence of my professional life on my academic pursuits and understanding the interdisciplinary nature of my work. My many colleagues at Mount Holyoke College offered kind words and gestures of encouragement. I extend my heartfelt appreciation to my colleagues Shaun Myers, Laura Williams, and Penny Gill, who listened to me, bolstered me and reminded me of my mission. iii Table of Contents Introduction The Altruistic Benefactor and the Grateful Recipient: The Problem of Racialized Benevolence ............................................................................. 1 Critical Studies of Narratives of Benevolence .................................................. 5 Studies of African American Historical Narratives ........................................ 19 Theoretical Approaches to Benevolence ........................................................ 22 Outline of Chapters ......................................................................................... 29 Chapter 1 Richard Allen and Absalom Jones’s Narrative: Framing Black Benevolence in a Moment of Crisis in the Early Republic ........................................ 34 Philadelphia and the Yellow Fever Epidemic ................................................. 36 Mathew Carey’s Accusations against the Black Nurses ................................. 39 Absalom Jones and Richard Allen as Activists within the Free Black Community ..................................................................................................... 43 The Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People ................................... 49 Appendices Relate the Narrative’s Arguments to Larger Issues of Concern to the Black Community and the Nation .......................................... 70 Chapter 2 Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Elizabeth Keckley’s Behind the Scenes: Black Benevolence in Transition Before and After Emancipation .............................................................................................. 80 Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl ..................................... 84 Rhetorical Problems Faced by Jacobs............................................................. 92 Destabilizing the Claim That Slavery Is a Benevolent Institution .................. 96 Reversing the Typical White-to-Black Direction of Benevolence ............... 103 Moving from Jacobs’s Incidents to Keckley’s Behind the Scenes ............... 108 Elizabeth Keckley’s Behind the Scenes ........................................................ 109 Keckley’s Treatment of White-to-Black Benevolence ................................. 114 Rhetorical Problems Faced by Keckley ........................................................ 115 Keckley’s Use of Black-to-White Benevolence to Assert Agency .............. 122 Behind the Scenes as Socially Subversive .................................................... 124 Conclusion .................................................................................................... 137 Chapter 3 Charles Chesnutt’s The Marrow of Tradition: Black Benevolence During the Imposition of Jim Crow Laws .......................................... 139 Chesnutt Concerns Himself with Black Representation in Print .................. 147 Black Benevolence Provides Alternative Kind of Racial Representation .... 154 Black Professionals Complicate the National Picture .................................. 158 Whites Find Black Benevolence Problematic ............................................... 167 Black Benevolence Privileges Moral Argument over Social Argument ...... 179 Black Benevolence Begs Question of Assimilation or Acceptance as Kin .. 181 Black Benevolence Recognizes Blacks’ and Whites’ Interdependence ....... 184 iv Epilogue ........................................................................................................... 188 Endnotes ........................................................................................................... 199 Appendix ........................................................................................................... 259 Works Cited ........................................................................................................... 266 v Introduction: The Altruistic Benefactor and the Grateful Recipient: The Problem of Racialized Benevolence The initial inspiration for this study of four nineteenth-century African American narratives of benevolence was my nearly two decades of work in the burgeoning late twentieth-century community-based learning (CBL) movement within higher education, which has engaged me in ongoing discussions about what it means to do good for others and what effects helping
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