Contextual Documents

The assignment from Dr. Logan:
By 11/5/10 submit a list of contextual documents and information to me with explanations or rationale.  Post links or documents to your blog.  Think about this assignment as creating an online space for understanding your text fully and as preparation for your Undergraduate Study Guide.



[Submitted 5 November 2010]

Primary Sources 
Please note that some of the biographical, historical, and cultural sources will overlap the boundary between primary and secondary sources.  Also, some of the sources blur the line between historical and cultural studies.  Lastly, the sources listed below would not be reprinted in their entirety – passage length would be determined by its importance and contribution to the overall theme of female friendship.

Images:
Blecki, Catherine L., and Karin A. Wulf, eds.  Milcah Martha Moore's Book: a Commonplace 
Book from Revolutionary America.  University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 1997.  Print.

• Since Blecki and Wulf could only include three images of Moore’s commonplace book, I have to assume the text is too fragile for photographic reproduction, which is a shame.  These three images – the title page, and entries 81 and 82 – would be included as part of my contextual documents.

Howland, Gulielma M.  Papers, 1700-1867 (bulk 1750-1840).  MS 1000.  Haverford 
College.  Tripod.  Web.  5 Nov. 2010  <http://tripod.brynmawr.edu/record=b2132024~S12>.

• Photographs of Hannah Griffitts’s letters to her friends and family on the subjects of friendship and family serve to expand upon themes in her poem and prose entries in MMMB.  Both photographs and transcriptions of the letters would be included. 

Male authors:
Lockridge, Kenneth.  The Sources of Patriarchal Rage: The Commonplace Books of William Byrd and Thomas Jefferson and the Gendering of Power in the Eighteenth Century.  NY: NY UP, 1992.  Print.

• Short excerpts from William Byrd’s commonplace book are helpful because it too is “unruly” – instead of presenting a variety of topics, as dictated by tradition, it goes “on at great length, almost obsessively, about a single, emotionally laden subject” (5).  Unlike MMMB which focuses on female friendship and supportive connections, Byrd’s commonplace book is a prime example of “private patriarchal rage and public and private misogyny” (x).

Biographical:
Ousterhout, Anne M., Joseleyne A. Slade, and Susan M. Stabile.  The Most Learned Woman in America: A Life of Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson.  University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 2004.  MLA International Bibliography.  Web.  23 Sept. 2010.

• The life of Graeme Fergusson directly contradicts the gendered standards of behavior for single and married women of her culture.  By choosing selections from her biography, I can consider her strategies of resistance and non-compliance and extend these real life examples to her prose entries in MMMB.

Blecki, Catherine L., and Karin A. Wulf.  "Preface."  Milcah Martha Moore's Book: a Commonplace Book from Revolutionary America.  University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 1997.  xi-xviii. Print.

• Blecki and Wulf provide short, succinct biographies of Moore, Wright, Griffitts and Graeme Fergusson that shed light on the experiences that shaped these women’s lives.  Because the commonplace book is intensely personal, biography cannot be ignored or excluded from the discussion of the text.  

Historical:
Hayes, Kevin J.  “Preface.”  A Colonial Woman's Bookshelf.  Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 1996.  ix-xv.  Print.


Hayes, Kevin J.  “Reading Women.”  A Colonial Woman's Bookshelf.  Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 1996.  1-27.  Print.

• A combination of history of the book and biographical approach allows Hayes to fill in the blank spaces of colonial women’s reading habits – how they read, what they read, why they read.  Hayes provides both the norms and deviations of reading practices, allowing the reader to differentiate between the fantasy of idealized feminine readers presented by men in literature and historical reality. 

Cultural:
Stabile, Susan M.  “Pen, Ink, and Memory.”  Memory's Daughters: The Material Culture of Remembrance in Eighteenth-Century America.  NY: Cornell UP, 2004.  74-125.  Print.

• The descriptions of Deborah Logan’s writing process are not only beautiful, they are highly descriptive and provide an accurate picture of how women approached writing in their daily lives.  Namely, the hurdles they faced in finding enough time, a space of their own, proper paper, quill pens, and ink are provided for the reader.  These obstructions were also possibly faced by Moore, Griffitts, Wright, and Graeme Fergusson.

Secondary Sources / Scholarship

On the commonplace book genre:
Stabile, Susan M.  “Introduction: The Genealogy of Memory.”  Memory's Daughters: The Material Culture of Remembrance in Eighteenth-Century America.  NY: Cornell UP,  2004.  1-16.  Print.

• Stabile provides an important connection between memory and the archive, marking it as feminized.  Stabile also relocates the archive to the domestic, specifically to the house, recognizing the important contributions by women authors.  

On the lesbian continuum / female homosocial:
Rich, Adrienne. "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence."  Signs 5.4 (1980): 631-60.   JSTOR. Web. 01 Sept. 2010.

• Rich’s essay includes the claim of erasure of lesbians from history and literature; this claim is possibly refuted by the existence of MMMB and its connection to the lesbian continuum.  MMMB can be an example of what Rich looks for – “an electric and empowering charge between women” (658).  And despite the fact that I find no evidence of sexual relationships between the women in MMMB, I do believe they exist on the lesbian continuum because my selected entries on friendship deal with female-female friendships – men are a non-factor.  

Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll.  "The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations between Women in Nineteenth-Century America."  Signs 1.1 (1975): 1-29.  JSTOR.  Web.  09 Sept. 2010.

• Even though Smith-Rosenberg uses American primary sources from the nineteenth-century, I believe her observations on female love and rituals can be located within MMMB.  Smith-Rosenberg also explores the female homosocial, providing examples from women’s diaries and letters, examining the resulting emotional (and at times, physical) relationships.

On female friendship:
Schweitzer, Ivy.  “Introduction: The Renascence of Friendship: A Story of American Social and Political Life.”  Perfecting Friendship: Politics and Affiliation in Early American Literature. Chapel Hill: The U of North Carolina Press, 2006.  1-26.  Print.


Schweitzer, Ivy.  “Hannah Webster Foster’s Coquette: Resurrecting Friendship from the Tomb of Marriage.”  Perfecting Friendship: Politics and Affiliation in Early American Literature.  Chapel Hill: The U of North Carolina Press, 2006.  103-131.  Print.

• Schweitzer’s introduction provides how eighteenth-century American men and women viewed friendship, the philosophy of friendship (Adam Smith, Scottish Common Sense), and the ways in which women adapted masculine ideals of friendship for their own use.  These strategies of adaptation are further explored in Schweitzer’s chapter on The Coquette, which is included in my list because of the complex relationship between marriage and women’s friendship.  This relationship appears in MMMB, as Griffitts and Wright remained unmarried, Moore was kicked out of the Society of Friends because of her marriage, and Graeme Fergusson was deserted by her husband.