Rewriting citizenship : women, race, and nineteenth-century print culture / by Susan J. Stanfield.
| Author/creator | Stanfield, Susan J., 1964- author. |
| Format | Book |
| Publication | Athens, Georgia : The University of Georgia Press, [2022] |
| Description | 1 volume : illustrations (black and white) ; 23 cm |
| Subjects |
| Variant title | Women, race, and 19th century print culture |
| Abstract | "Rewriting Citizenship is a cultural history that reveals how race and gender influenced nineteenth-century citizenship. By focusing on "domestic literature"-cookbooks, novels, household manuals, newspapers, magazines, sermons, and even diaries-Susan J. Stanfield finds that women imbued the quotidian with "civic purpose." Indeed, it was more than the social reformers and political activists who argued that women should have a role in government. Because many of these women saw their civic status as "different"-though not necessarily inferior to-that of men, they made forays into the public sphere through print culture. In Stanfield's estimation, this helped women fulfill culturally constructed ideas of femininity-maintaining the "authority of their womanhood"-while they also actively redefined citizenship by linking their domestic work to nation building. Unsurprisingly, middle-class white women sought to differentiate themselves from immigrants, the working poor, and women of color by distinguishing between household labor and household management. But middle-class African American women also used the "politics of respectability" to enhance their own status. Like their white counterparts, these women argued that their well-ordered homes proved that their husbands and father were patriarchs and were therefore worthy of citizenship and the vote"-- Provided by publisher. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Issued in other form | ebook version : 9780820362601 |
| Genre/form | History. |
| LCCN | 2022003492 |
| ISBN | 9780820362618 |
| ISBN | 0820362611 |
| ISBN | (eBook) |