MIAMI UNIVERSITY The Graduate School Certificate for Approving the Dissertation We hereby approve the Dissertation of Shawna Rushford-Spence Candidate for the Degree: Doctor of Philosophy ____________________________________________ Director Dr. Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson _____________________________________________ Reader Dr. Timothy Melley ____________________________________________ Reader Dr. Katharine Ronald ____________________________________________ Dr. Carolyn Haynes Graduate School Representative ABSTRACT WOMEN’S RHETORICAL INTERVENTIONS IN THE ECONOMIC RHETORIC OF NEURASTHENIA by Shawna Rushford-Spence Women’s Rhetorical Interventions in the Economic Rhetoric of Neurasthenia analyzes how turn- of-the-century American women writers used the rhetoric of neurasthenia to negotiate their disabilities and argue for renewed understandings of women’s work. At this crucial moment, neurasthenia was a commonly diagnosed disease, most common amongst elite intellectuals and women, writers and other cultural producers, “brain-workers” rather than muscle workers. In order to describe neurasthenia to doctors and the larger American public, Dr. George M. Beard, a prominent neurologist, constructed an economic metaphor, in which individuals possessed a finite amount of “nerve-force” that could be saved or spent, reinvested or wasted. When stores of nerve-force were low, individuals could experience “nervous bankruptcy.” This metaphor formed the basis for what became, according to scholar Tom Lutz, a “discourse” by which individuals could negotiate their reactions to the large-scale changes taking place during this historical moment. Alice James, Jane Addams and Charlotte Perkins Gilman were each diagnosed with and treated for neurasthenia and used neurasthenic rhetoric to discuss their disabilities. This rhetoric allowed them not only an “available means” by which to understand and negotiate their ailments but also the language to think about women and economics as well as make arguments about women’s disability and women’s work. This study asks how these women used this language to talk about their disabilities in ways the larger culture could understand but also challenge medical assumptions about women with disabilities at a time when most doctors were male and the prescribed treatment for women involved isolating them in houses or bedrooms for six to eight weeks just as they were rallying for opportunities for higher education and public work. There is no single pattern of how this rhetoric was used; each woman used the language in her own way. James used the economic metaphor to secure an identity outside of “invalid,” to challenge male medical conceptions of women’s disabilities and to establish her worth. Addams developed the ability to “affectionately interpret” the poor of East Chicago and to understand that women’s and society’s health relied on a balance of different kinds of work—manual and intellectual labor. Gilman challenged the ingenious of Dr. S. Weir Mitchell’s “rest cure” treatment and argued for the importance and necessity of women’s public work. Each author posed important challenges to the ideological positions of the male medical establishment and turn-of-the-century American culture. Each of my chapters builds on the next to show how these writers responded to, challenged and used dominant discourse to for their own rhetorical purposes and, in so doing, constructed an early disability rhetoric. WOMEN’S RHETORICAL INTERVENTIONS IN THE ECONOMIC RHETORIC OF NEURASTHENIA A DISSERTATION Submitted to the Faculty of Miami University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy Department of English by Shawna Rushford-Spence Miami University Oxford, Ohio 2010 Dissertation Director: Dr. Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson © Shawna Rushford-Spence 2010 Table of Contents Introduction....................................................................................................1 Chapter One: Neurasthenic Rhetoric and Turn-of-the-Century American Women’s Writing ...........................................................................................................5 Chapter Two: “How well one had to be, to be ill!”: Neurasthenic Economies in The Diary of Alice James...............................................................................31 Chapter Three: “[R]estore a balance”: Economies of Work in Jane Addams’s Twenty Years at Hull-House .......................................................................... 65 Chapter Four: “[S]o many women break down”: Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Transformations of Neurasthenic Rhetoric....................................................87 Bibliography ..................................................................................................114 iii Acknowledgments Miami University’s English graduate program played a significant role in the creation of this manuscript. The Sinclair Dissertation Fellowship, as well as Department of English Teaching Assistantships, allowed me the time to work on this project. I want to thank my committee: Dr. Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson, Dr. Timothy Melley, Dr. Katharine Ronald and Dr. Carolyn Haynes. I am grateful to Tim Melley for helping shape the initial ideas for this dissertation. Your thoughtful, intelligent feedback on my prospectus and on my chapter drafts was invaluable. Thank you also for introducing me to topic of neurasthenia. I want to thank Kate Ronald for inspiring and supporting me as a teacher and scholar. Your graduate courses sparked my interest in women’s rhetoric(s). Your keen insights about my chapters and throughout this process were incredibly useful. Thank you also for introducing me Jane Addams and Twenty Years at Hull- House. To Carolyn Haynes, thank you for your support and feedback throughout this process. Finally, Cindy Lewiecki-Wilson, my dissertation director, could not have been more helpful or supportive over the last several years. Working with you in the composition office was the highlight of my graduate career. From the beginning of this process, you have been supportive and encouraging. I am deeply indebted to you for your careful readings of each stage of the manuscript and the consistent engagement you offered me as a teacher and a scholar. I truly owe a debt of gratitude for the supportive environment my committee fostered throughout the process. Fellow graduate students at Miami University were integral to my development as a teacher, a writer, and a human being. Angie, what can I say? We have poured our blood, sweat and tears into the process of learning to be teachers and scholars together for nearly a decade. Thank your for talking with me, sometimes for hours, about this project. And, thank you for helping me in the final, revision stages of this disseration. Lisa, thank you for being such a good friend and colleague through the years. Thank you also for supporting me through this process. Wioleta, it was wonderful working in the composition office together. I’m so glad we became such good iv friends and camping companions. Finally, I’d like to thank to all the other graduate students at Miami who I’ve had the privilege of sharing ideas with through the years. I could not have made it through graduate school without the support of my amazing family. Mike, we’ve been through thick and thin together. Through it all, you’ve been an awesome brother and friend. Dad, even though you haven’t always understood why I I’ve been in school for so long, you’ve always been proud of me. Thank you for that. Mom, thank you for supporting me every step of the way, from the beginning of my college career until the end. I can’t express to you how grateful I am for you for all of things you’ve done for me throughout this life. To the Spence’s, thank you for welcoming me into your family and for supporting me through the process of writing this dissertation. Thank you, Jason. I could not have done this without your love, support and patience through the years. Thank you for always believing in me and in this dissertation. And, finally, thank you, Liam. You’ve inspired me to finish this dissertation. I love you more than any words can express. v Introduction This dissertation analyzes how Alice James, Jane Addams and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, three turn-of-the-century women writers, used the rhetoric of neurasthenia to define and describe their ailments and to make arguments about what constituted women’s work. Neurasthenia, a term no longer used today, was a common medical diagnosis at the turn of the last century in America and in Europe. George Miller Beard, a prominent neurologist at the time is credited for popularizing neurasthenia as a disease and the economic rhetoric that accompanied it. In American Nervousness, It Causes and Consequences, published in 1881, Beard presented an understanding of how neurasthenia affected the human body using an economic metaphor, a banking metaphor in which individuals could either save/invest or spend/waste nervous energy or nervous force and could experience “nervous bankruptcy” when nerve-force was improperly invested or wasted. Individuals in turn-of-the-century America used this language, this metaphor for many different rhetorical purposes. In American Nervousness, 1903: An Anecdotal History, Tom Lutz explains that individuals used the “discourse” of neurasthenia to negotiate the large- scale changes taking place in turn-of-the-century America. In fact, as I will show in the following chapters, Beard argued that development of neurasthenia