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ProQuest Information and Learning 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. THE ABSENT PRESENCE OF WHITENESS IN 19TH CENTURY DIDACTIC TEXTS: JULIA MCNAIR WRIGHT’S ‘HIDDEN CURRICULUM’ DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for The Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University By Lucy E. Bailey, M.A, M.A. ****** The Ohio State University 2002 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Patti Lather, Adviser Professor Mary Margaret Fonow Par. U xXj^ Adviser Pro fessor V alerie Lee Col lege o f Education Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 3059197 ___ ® UMI UMI Microform 3059197 Copyright 2002 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT This dissertation examines how race, particularly whiteness, is imagined and articulated in select writings of Julia McNair Wright (1840-1902), a prolific, didactic writer and educator in the 19th century. Drawing from productive methodological crises that characterize inquiry in postfoundational moments, this study works within and against the contemporary terrain of Critical White Studies scholarship, using Critical Discourse Analysis to explore how the function of whiteness fluctuates in three genres of Julia’s writings: 1) didactic texts directed at middle-class female readers; 2) a set of science and nature schoolbooks for children used in the public schools; and 3) Anti- Catholic treatises published during the late 1860s and early 1870s at the height of Irish immigration to the United States. Examining a select portion of this popular didactic work as exemplar may be indicative of the discursive manifestations of whiteness circulating at this time, and its production by a white female author in a professional identity category newly available to women may serve to further particularize and historicize notions of whiteness and thicken our understanding of the gendered investments in racial categories. Significantly, Julia’s work was published during the years school leaders began conceptualizing education as a way to establish Protestant-Anglo culture as dominant to the cultures of immigrant masses “infiltrating” American shores. This study suggests that the practice o f constructing racialized beings in 19th century educational materials ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. contributes to the reproduction of whiteness in an era of xenophobic anxiety and the socialization of white children into their roles as privileged, future citizens of the state. Additionally, this project emphasizes Julia’s didactic writing as “informal” education, one of the primary ways cultural messages were communicated to female readers outside institutional walls. This emphasis proceeds from the implicit assumption that women’s educational history cannot be adequately explored without attending to varied forms of “informal” education as women (particularly poor women and women of color) were consistently excluded from formal systems of education until late in the 19th century. iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Dedicated to my mother, Carolyn Ruth Whitcomb Bailey and in memoriam to William H. and Ruth Morrish Whitcomb and Isabel Whitcomb McNeill iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project has been built on the backs of a lot of women. First, I wish to thank my adviser, Patti Lather, whose pedagogical presence and scholarly might have provided a tenacious intellectual model throughout my doctoral program. Also, to Mary Margaret Fonow, my supervisor and mentor, who has fueled my professional development with steady encouragement and guidance, with a host of academic opportunities (not the least of which has been managing Reading Women's Lives) and privileged me with, most importantly, her confidence so I had room to grow. To Valerie Lee for her love of language, her guidance across my two significant scholarly productions, and her good humor and steady hand as Chair of Women’s Studies. Many thanks for indulging my repeated office interruptions on advising particulars, for professional guidance, and for championing departmental quality. Thanks to Ara Wilson who has coached me affectionately and mercilessly amid spontaneous office visits and mutual energetic expositions on academic process. Also, my gratitude to the Department of Women’s Studies at The Ohio State University, chaired in my years there by Sally L. Kitch and Valerie Lee, which has funded seven years of my schooling and professional development, as well as given me an academic home. V Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I am also grateful to the hands of fate, or at the very least, Julia and Jessie’s, for leaving me the legacy of their words. And to my Great Aunt Isabel, who died at age 101 shortly before this document was completed, for her efforts to record her mother’s words three-quarters of a century ago and her interest in my work from afar. I have drawn from that narrative repeatedly to proceed with my work. Thanks also to my parents, Richard and Carolyn, who have provided sustenance and support throughout the peaks and valleys of my doctoral work. To my amazing sisters Becky and Marcia, who, with humor and wisdom, have rallied repeatedly to sustain me. I will always be grateful to Michele Marie, so much her mother’s daughter, whose gentle spirit and unwavering support I have basked in for over 25 years. To Nance, my own personal, irrepressible, dynamo who body-slams and pirouettes her way through life while fortunate others stand by and soak in the energy. Thanks to Jill Lynch and Diana Moyer, who began as mutual doctoral cohort victims and who have evolved into comrades in coursework, conferences and cavorting. Thanks to Penny for years of solace and support. And to Lin, who has turned her way through the pages of this document in poetic ways, thank you for pedagogical might, for linguistic fuel, and for open doors. Finally, I’d like to mention Sebastian, Isabel and Spook (et al) here, who, aside from daily flavor and keyboard escapades, really haven’t done anything at all. vi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. VITA August 10, 1967 ...........................................Bom, Portland, Oregon 1993.............................................................. B.A. Psycho logy/Anthropology The University of Tennessee, Knoxville 1993-1995.....................................................Graduate Coursework, Anthropology The University of Tennessee, Knoxville 1997.............................................................. M.A. Women’s Studies, The Ohio State University 2001.............................................................. M.A. Cultural Studies in Education, The Ohio State University 1995-present................................................. Graduate Teaching and Research Associate, The Ohio State University 1997-present................................................. Managing Editor, Reading Women's Lives The Ohio State University PUBLICATIONS 1. With Mary Margaret Fonow. “Reading Women’s Lives: A New Database Resource for Teaching Introduction to Women’s Studies.” Teaching Introduction to Women's Studies. Eds. Barbara Scott Winkler and Carolyn DiPalma. Greenwood P, 1999. 49-58. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Cultural Studies in Education Women’s Studies vii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract..................................................................................................................................ii Dedication............................................................................................................................