University of New Hampshire University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository Doctoral Dissertations Student Scholarship Spring 2009 Excavating the landscapes of American literature: Archaeology, antiquarianism, and the landscape in American women's writing, 1820--1890 Christina Healey University of New Hampshire, Durham Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation Recommended Citation Healey, Christina, "Excavating the landscapes of American literature: Archaeology, antiquarianism, and the landscape in American women's writing, 1820--1890" (2009). Doctoral Dissertations. 475. https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation/475 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. EXCAVATING THE LANDSCAPES OF AMERICAN LITERATURE- ARCHAEOLOGY, ANTIQUARIAN ISM, AND THE LANDSCAPE IN AMERICAN WOMEN'S WRITING, 1820-1890 BY CHRISTINA HEALEY B.A., Providence College, 1999 M.A., Boston College, 2004 DISSERTATION Submitted to the University of New Hampshire in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy , in English May, 2009 UMI Number: 3363719 Copyright 2009 by Healey, Christina INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI® UMI Microform 3363719 Copyright 2009 by ProQuest LLC All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED C2009 Christina Healey This dissertation has been examined and approved. ^WAftfcC V^JXAJ^ Dissertation Director, Brigitte Bailey N Associate Professor of English David Watters, Professor of English Sarah W. Sherman, Associate Professor of English rasner, Associate Professor of English Mara Witzli 4-^v'p^ Date iv DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to the late Dr. Rodney K. Delasanta. His wisdom, generosity, and kindness will always be remembered and appreciated. A.M.D.G. V ACKNOWLEGEMENTS Throughout this project I had the generous support of the Graduate School at the University of New Hampshire and many intelligent and experienced scholars and writers. The Graduate School Dissertation Fellowship allowed me to complete my dissertation by May of 2009.1 am fortunate to have had the opportunity to pursue my studies with this financial support. I am also thankful for the knowledge, patience, generosity, and expertise of my Dissertation Committee, particularly my Chair, Professor Brigitte Bailey. Each member of my committee helped me reach my goals for this project and to think about possibilities for future scholarship. The insights and encouragement of the 999 reading group, especially Laura Smith, Amy Manning, Nicola Imbracsio, and Matthew Hurwitz, Were invaluable and became a vital part of my writing process; their friendship helped me keep that process in perspective. The staff of the Dimond Library were knowledgeable and helpful, particularly the librarians in charge of the Milne Special Collections and Archives. I thank my parents, Dr. Edmond S. Zuromski and Karen Zuromski, for their loving support. I could never have accomplished what I have in my life without them. Finally, I thank my husband Daniel and daughter Moira for keeping me grounded in the "real world" and bringing so much joy into my life. / vi TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION iv ACKNOWLEGEMENTS... v ABSTRACT ........viii CHAPTER PAGE INTRODUCTION.... ............... .1 I. OLD MAIDS AND OLD THINGS.... .......15 Spinsters and Antiquarians in American Literature 22 Antiquarianism and the Spinster Story 41 Artifacts as a Connection to the Past in Antebellum Literature 51 "Found Texts" and "Textual Artifacts" in Postbellum Literature...... ..56 Conclusion .75 II. ANTIQUARIANISM AND THE REMOVAL DEBATE OF THE 1820s 82 Mound Builders and Antebellum Literature... ......86 Sarah Josepha Hale and "The Genius of Oblivion"... 96 Catharine Maria Sedgwick's Hope Leslie 115 Conclusion.. ...132 III. THEORIZING THE "NEW COUNTRY" ....134 Landscape History in Rural Hours 138 Cooper as Antiquarian ...147 Artifacts and the Transformation of the Landscape 152 Conclusion: Cooper as the "Second Creator" 173 vii IV. EXCAVATING THE ATOPICAL, EXPLORING THE SELF...... .......183 Regionalism and the Mythogeography of the Isles of Shoals ..195 Celia Thaxter's Uses of Mythogeography ...210 The Archaeological Landscape and the Construction of the Self-in- Place........ ..:............217 Autobiography, Fragmentation, and the "Empty Landscape"....... 220 Conclusion: Preservation and Oblivion........ 236 V. THE SPINSTER AND THE ANTIQUARIAN IN POSTBELLUM AMERICA.. 239 Antiquarianism and the Problem of Place in Woolson's Fiction .....250 Location and the Aesthetic Place of the New Spinster .......255 The Great Lakes...... ........262 Antiquaries in the Ancient City 278 CONCLUSION... 292 BIBLIOGRAPHY............... 299 t • •. f viii ABSTRACT EXCAVATING THE LANDSCAPES OF AMERICAN LITERATURE: ARCHAEOLOGY, ANTIQUARIANISM, AND THE LANDSCAPE IN AMERICAN WOMEN'S WRITING, 1820-1890 by Christina Healey University of New Hampshire, May, 2009 This dissertation investigates the ways that women writers made use of the discourses of antiquarianism and archaeology between the years 1820 and 1890. Focusing especially upon the writings of Sarah Josepha Hale, Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Susan Fenimore Cooper, Celia Thaxter, and Constance Fenimore Woolson, the project examines depictions of artifacts, ruins, relics, and other antiquities in literary landscapes. Each of these women presents a unique way of knowing the world that is manifested in the ways their texts join different ways of understanding the landscape, its occupants, the artifacts it contains, its strata and geological history, and its aesthetic value. They provide insight into the act of "reading" the text of the landscape and interpreting its meaning(s). Women writers, I argue, were aware of the traditional connections between the figure of the antiquarian and that of the spinster as they constructed their archaeological landscapes. One of the major claims of this dissertation is that women writers took on the authorial persona of the "antiquarian" in order to comment on three separate but related areas of concern: the single life for women, women's authorship and artistry, and the nature of women's genius. The emphasis in this study is on the ways that women participated in reading values into actual and textual landscapes, fashioning literary locations for debates on these issues. It investigates the ways that they reproduced these values and meanings in their literary works—how, and to what extent, they took on the role of "antiquarian" when they incorporated ancient subjects and places in their writing. i 1 INTRODUCTION ARCHAEOLOGY, ANTIQUARIANISM, AND WOMEN'S WRITING IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY • ) ( I began working on my dissertation project with a broad question in mind: how and why did women writers of the nineteenth century make use of archaeology and antiquarianism in their writings? Both men and women addressed archaeology in their writing in the nineteenth century, but were women's responses to this emerging scientific field somehow "different" or in some way significant? My study has had mixed results. I have found that women writers, like their male counterparts/used images of antiquities in conventional ways; as, for example, meditating upon ruins or other ancient artifacts to reflect upon the fleeting nature of human achievements.1 However, I have also found that nineteenth-century women writers engaged with antiquarianism as a model of authorship in interesting ways. In her study of women's authorship between 1850 and 1900, Susan Williams argues, "Its features were not wholly separate from those associated with male authorship, but they were discussed and utilized in distinct ways. Moreover, these features did not lead to a single definition of 'the r female author,' but rather opened up a variety of practices and authorial 1 A famous example of this type of meditation is Shelley's poem "Ozymandias" (1818). Susan Fenimore Cooper engages with this type of meditation in "A Dissolving View," when she reflects on the passing of the civilization that created the Egyptian pyramids. 2 personae" (2). I have found that women employed antiquarianism in "distinct ways," particularly in the way that they adapted and transformed the eighteenth- century figure of the antiquarian as an "authorial persona" for various political and personal purposes. In the 1820s, for example, Catharine Sedgwick uses antiquarianism to create landscapes that expose, and to a certain extent counter, the patriarchal rhetoric of Anglo-American territorial conquest. Antiquarianism also entered into the marriage debates that began early in the century. Women who authored "spinster stories"