Final Paper

The assignment from Dr. Logan:


The assigned texts for this course barely scratch the surface of literary representations of women in early America.  As scholars of American literature, we will investigate this field more deeply by conducting primary and secondary research and developing projects that add original insight to the conversation about this topic.  To that end, each of you will choose for your research project one text (or set of texts, in some instances) from those listed (separate handout), all of which are lesser-known and infrequently taught.  You will then spend the semester completing successive stages of a research project on this novel, from learning the publication history of the text to developing an initial bibliography using various databases to writing abstracts of critical articles to completing and peer-reviewing drafts and presenting your work at a final LIT 6216 conference, to be held during the final exam period.  

[Submitted 7 December 2010]

Bonds of Intimacy: 

The Female Homosocial and Lesbian Continuum in Milcah Martha Moore’s Book

The women of Milcah Martha Moore’s Book are old, middle aged, young, married, single, widowed, separated from their husbands, excommunicated from their church, have children, are childless, have suffered the death of loved ones, participate in different sects of Christianity, and represent varied economic backgrounds.  Despite these cultural, social, and religious, and economic differences, preserved in Moore’s handwritten commonplace book are bonds of female friendship in the form of poetry and prose, authored by women for women.  These bonds of intimacy create a female homosocial space, in which the lesbian continuum functions as a measuring rubric for these bonds.


The 1997 modern critical edition of Milcah Martha Moore’s Book (hereafter MMMB) makes accessible previously ignored women’s writing in early American literature through Moore’s commonplace book, a rare example of the non-traditional format.  I say non-traditional in that the commonplace book existed in manuscript rather than printed form, and because the genre’s origins are closely tied to the education of men.  The commonplace books by male authors of this time period have received critical attention; women’s commonplace books are, more recently, pushed into the scholarly spotlight.  Catherine La Courreye Blecki and Karin A. Wulf, the editors, provide invaluable scholarship regarding the cultural, social, manuscript, and print culture of revolutionary Philadelphia and emphasize the bonds of friendship connecting the contributing authors and editor of the manuscript.  This essay extends Blecki’s and Wulf’s reading of female friendship by using feminist theories to explore the physical object of Moore’s commonplace book as a site of the female homosocial and lesbian continuum.  This argument is strengthened by a selective reading of friendship themed prose and verse entries from MMMB.


I argue that Moore’s commonplace book preserves the work of Susanna Wright, Hannah Griffitts, and Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson, thereby establishing a female homosocial presence through the dominance of female authorship within the text.  Though other themes are represented, the text opens with “An Essay on Friendship” by Griffitts, thereby signaling the tone and theme of the work as a whole.  Drawing on literary scholarship of Susan Stabile and Ivy Schweitzer, feminist scholarship of Adrienne Rich and Eve Sedgwick, and history of the book scholarship from Kevin J. Hayes, I illustrate the relationship between the strategies of defiance and non-compliance in regards to the readership, authorship, and female friendship in MMMB and the ways in which these relationships create a female homosocial space.

Rough Draft

The assignment from Dr. Logan:

Post completed draft to your blog 11/23/10, 11:59 p.m. and to your manuscript circle.

Send a copy to me as a Word doc.

Using Manuscript Circles Discussion Topic in Webcourses, complete Reader’s Reports by; send copy of Reader’s Reports to individual authors by 11/30/10.

[Submitted 23 November 2010]

Bonds of Intimacy: 

The Female Homosocial and Lesbian Continuum in Milcah Martha Moore’s Book

The women of Milcah Martha Moore’s Book are old, middle aged, young, married, single, abandoned by their husbands, kicked out of their church for their marriage, have children, are childless, have suffered the death of loved ones, participate in different sects of Christianity, and represent varied economic backgrounds.  Despite these cultural, social and economic differences, preserved in Moore’s handwritten commonplace book are bonds of female friendship in the form of poetry and prose, authored by women for women.

The 1997 modern critical edition of Milcah Martha Moore’s Book makes accessible previously ignored women’s writing in early American literature through Moore’s commonplace book, a rare example of the non-traditional format.  Catherine Blecki and Karin Wulf, the editors, provide invaluable scholarship regarding the social, manuscript, and print culture of revolutionary Philadelphia and emphasize the links of friendship connecting the contributing authors and editor of the text.  This essay extends Blecki and Wulf’s reading of female friendship by using feminist theories to explore the physical object of Moore’s commonplace book as a site of the female homosocial and lesbian continuum.

I argue that Moore’s commonplace book both preserves the work of Susanna Wright, Hannah Griffitts, and Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson and establishes a female homosocial presence through the dominance of female authorship within the text.  Though other themes are represented, the text opens with “An Essay on Friendship” by Griffitts, thereby signaling the tone and theme of the work as a whole.  Drawing on literary scholarship of Susan Stabile and Ivy Schweitzer and history of the book from Kevin J. Hayes, I illustrate the relationship between the strategies of defiance and non-compliance in regards to the sexuality, readership, authorship, and friendship in MMMB.

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.

Paper Proposal

The assignment from Dr. Logan:


Call for Papers!  LIT 6216:  Unruly Women in Early American Literature.

The organizers of the LIT 6216 Scholars Group announce a call for papers to be presented at its final graduate student conference on Tuesday, December 7, 2010 from 7-9:50 p.m.  The conference will explore representations of women as transgressive or unruly; “unruly” is understood in a broad sense in the context of early American gender norms.  Topics might include women whose experiences were out of the ordinary (captivity, travel, etc.), women who broke laws or defied dominant cultural mores and/or values, cross-dressing women, etc.  Exploration of different textual forms  is welcome, including sentimental or historical novels, speeches, conversion narratives, crime and execution narratives,  short fiction, autobiography (including diaries memoirs, journals), biography, letters, poetry, etc.  Papers should engage with the scholarly conversation in early American literary studies, including a knowledge of the historical and cultural context in which the text was produced.   Please send questions and/or submit your abstract to Dr. Lisa M. Logan by 10/22/10.

Conference format:  Papers for this conference will be circulated beforehand and discussed (rather than read) at the conference meeting. 

See Research Project Components for more details.

[Submitted 24 October 2010]

Jay Jay Stroup
Graduate Student, UCF
jayjaystroup@knights.ucf.edu

Bonds of Intimacy: 
Locating the Female Homosocial & Lesbian Continuum in Milcah Martha Moore’s Book

The modern critical edition of Milcah Martha Moore’s Book, published in 1997, exposes previously ignored women’s writing in early American literature.  Moore’s commonplace book, an unpublished, non-traditional format, is now accessible to all scholars.  While Catherine Blecki and Karin Wulf provide invaluable scholarship regarding the culture of the Philadelphia, as well as manuscript and print culture during the Revolutionary era, there is no mention of Queer or Feminist theory.  The possibility of locating the female homosocial and lesbian continuum in MMMB is hinted at through Blecki’s and Wulf’s multiple references to female friendship, but not made explicit.  It is my intent to strengthen these references through the use of Queer and Feminist theories, and explore the physical object of Moore’s commonplace book as a site of the female homosocial and lesbian continuum in early American literature.     

Moore’s commonplace book simultaneously preserves the work of Susanna Wright, Hannah Griffitts, and Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson and establishes a female homosocial presence through the dominance of female authorship within the text.  Out of the one hundred and twenty six entries, sixty three of them are authored by Griffitts (exactly fifty percent of the entries), twenty five are authored by Wright, and three by Graeme Fergusson.  Though other themes are represented, the text opens with “An Essay on Friendship” by Griffitts, thereby signaling the tone and theme of the work as a whole.  Through the use of Susan Stabile’s scholarship on the relationship between memory and the archive, and commonplacing as a distinctly feminized art I argue that not only does the text operate on the lesbian continuum, it also transgresses normative female behavior for colonial America in terms of reading and authorship.  I am relying on the scholarship of Kevin J. Hayes (A Colonial Woman’s Bookshelf) to provide evidence of normative and transgressive reading experiences of women during colonial America.   

Adrienne Rich’s "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence" highlights the way in which behavior not ascribing to strict hetero-normative standards is punished, the concept of which is transferable to MMMB: Griffitts and Wright refuse to marry, Moore is thrown out of the Society of Friends for marriage to a cousin, and Graeme Fergusson’s secret marriage to a Tory ruins her economically, socially, and politically.  While Carroll Smith-Rosenberg’s "The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations between Women in Nineteenth-Century America" deals with literature and behavior of the 1800s, there are markers of the female homosocial and lesbian continuum that are also applicable to MMMB, specifically in the entries dealing with female friendship.  

By focusing the lens of Queer theory on a commonplace book from early American literature, strategies of defiance and non-compliance by women in regards to their sexuality, readership and authorship are brought to light.  It is the strategies of defiance contained within that classify MMMB as an unruly text, authored and edited by unruly women.  Re-identifying the commonplace book as a site of the female homosocial expands, rather than contracts, the possibilities for future scholarship.  This identification invites and encourages the co-mingling of other schools of theory – feminist, racial, cultural, historical, economical and more.  

Abstract

The assignment from Dr. Logan:  

An abstract is a summary of a scholarly work.  Your abstract will be followed by analysis, linking the scholar’s argument to your proposed project.  Please attach a PDF* of your chosen text to the email when you hand it in.

*I’ve embedded the GoogleBooks preview of Stabile’s book here.


[Submitted 15 October 2010]

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’s introduction opens with “glossing over historical realities,” citing the destruction of Deborah Logan’s house to make way for the Second Bank of the United States as an example.  This example illuminates the tension between domestic and public memory existing in early American national history.  Women approach national memory building via genealogical associations grounded in the family and the home.  Stabile defines these associations as “the local, the particular, the domestic” (4).  Women’s aim, unlike men’s, is to accurately recreate the historical record, without the intent to invoke the past and fashion the future (4).  Logan is known by her peers as “a celebrated keeper of cultural memory,” prized for her “careful transcription, preservation, and publication of historical manuscripts” (4)*1.  Stabile explores the etymology of archive, introducing its dual function: “both a physical place and a metaphor for memory” (8).  The thesis of the book is clear, to return the archive to its “properly domestic origins,” allowing the house to become “a site of memory, history and knowledge” (9).  In addition, this relocation exposes the preservation, rather than petrifying, of cultural memory, placing women in the center of early American history, rescuing them from exile on the outskirts (9).  Included are brief biographies of Susanna Wright, Hannah Griffitts, Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson and Annis Boudinot Stockton, plus their intertwining webs of kinship and friendship.  Stabile refers to women’s use and adaptation of the commonplace book genre, stating “the commonplace book recuperates the house, and the female mind, as locales of knowledge and memory” (10).  The commonplace book is simultaneously a physical object representing rhetorical topi and a text, embodying “the very stuff of memory making” (15).  The women of early American history characterize “commonplacing and other domestic arts” as a distinctly feminine art, demonstrating a subversive strategy to reunite women, memory, and knowledge.

By relocating the archive, and thereby the house, to their “proper domestic origins,” Stabile opens the floodgates of analysis for a feminist perspective of the role of memory and archiving in early American history/literature.  She validates and attaches value to the art of commonplacing and other domestic arts which our patriarchal-biased history stripped away over the course of time.  By including unpublished texts and domestic artifacts, Stabile forcibly expands the canon of early American women’s literature.  Her approach is interdisciplinary: architectural theory plays a large role in the book, and sources include historic house museums, societies dedicated to historic preservation, and experts on “early American textiles, metals, and furniture” (xi).  Questions that Stabile’s introduction provoked: in what way does MMMB challenge the creation of a “national memory”?*2  How does Stabile’s concept of archive complicate and/or compliment the genre of commonplace books?  Is MMMB subversive?  Does Moore appear in the later chapters and did she know Deborah Logan?


Footnotes:
1.  This description is almost identical to the ones used to describe Milcah Martha Moore in MMMB.
2.  Stabile describes national memory: “The construction of a ‘national memory’ demands consensus, imposing a ‘duty to remember’ in a kind of fixed and reverential relationship to the past.  At the same time, it requires material reminders for future veneration” (3).

The Homosocial Network

If, as Dr. Logan’s Early American Women’s Words undergraduate class postulates, Facebook is a modern version of the commonplace book, then the movie The Social Network is worth taking a closer look.  I have not seen the movie, and have very little desire to do so, but after reading through some of these movie reviews, I might have to see it – in the name of research, of course.


The first review that caught my eye was on Slate (I am addicted to Dear Prudence).  I glanced through it and a reference to another article, “The (Homo)Social Network” is what snagged my attention.  The homosocial is on my mind almost twenty four seven thanks to this project, so there was no way I could let this opportunity for a modern connection slide past me.


So, I gathered a list of articles reviewing The Social Network, which wasn’t too hard because some of the reviews refer to other reviews.  This list is by no means exhaustive, obviously, but it heartens me to see reviewers grappling with the role of women within the movie, and its social consequences.  Enjoy.

• From Bitch Magazine: "Tube Tied: Stephen Colbert Asks About Women, and Maybe that's All I Need" by Michelle Dean

• From Jezebel: "The Social Network, Where Women Never Have Ideas" by Irin Carmon

• From Women and Hollywood: "Stephen Colbert Asks Aaron Sorkin About the Ladies in The Social Network" by Melissa Silverstein

• From IFC: "The (Homo)Social Network: "The Social Network" doesn't have a problem with women -- its characters do." by Alison Willmore

• From Slate: "Is the Facebook Movie Sexist?" by Dana Stevens

• From Salon: "Sorkin explains "Social Network" sexism" by Tracy Clar-Flory and "Female programmers on "The Social Network."  How accurate is the Facebook movie's depiction of women as trophies in the world of Web 2.0? We asked the experts." by Tracy Clark-Flory

• From The Daily Beast via Business Insider: "Groupies, Sexed-Up Asians, Vengeful Sluts, And Feminist Killjoys – Meet The Women Of The Social Network" by Rebecca Davis O'Brien

• [Edited on 19 October 2010 to add another link] From Tenured Radical, The 2.0 Edition: "Straight People, Listen!  The Pervasiveness of Cruelty in Mass Culture" by Tenured Radical

Preliminary Bibliography

The assignment from Dr. Logan:  


Using the MLA International Bibliography and America: History and Life databases at the UCF Library, develop a preliminary bibliography of secondary scholarly sources in the discipline of literature (with contextual sources from historians).  Use MLA documentation style.  Include keywords and searches used to develop this bibliography.  Consult a reference librarian if you encounter difficulties. 

[Submitted: 24 September 2010]

I have included a lot of sources which will (probably) end up being discarded during a closer look at each journal article and/or book.  However, I wanted to include them all because, one, I spent a lot of time looking them up, and two, it provides with me a wide range of possibilities for my project.  This preliminary bibliography will serve as a valuable resource for my project, and while I know I’ll end up spending more time on research, this guide should help me narrow and focus my search.

There were no results for female homosocial, and none applicable to my topic for homosocial in MLA, which is unsurprising considering its absence in the Library of Congress Subject Headings book.

Using MMMB in MLA for various options yielded just the modern edition.  Using MMMB as keyword term in America: History & Life yielded two already recorded book reviews of the modern edition, and one article about her published Miscellanies, Moral and Instructive text.

I included book reviews because I want to know how the book/article was received by the scholarly audience, or to quote Dr. Anna Jones, to see if they “bought it.”  I also included dissertations because of their works cited, which could potentially yield a lot of valuable sources.  I especially want to track down Susan Stabile’s dissertation, not just the abstract, which will require an ILL because the full text is not available via ProQuest.  When I included sources listed in the books I have already checked out of the UCF library, I only looked in the introductions due to time constraints.  Sometimes a source would appear in multiple locations (a book’s introduction, MLA and America: History & Life); I merely recorded it the first time I encountered it rather than list unnecessary duplications.

The categories of my preliminary bibliography at a quick glance:

• Recommendations from: Dr. Logan, and Jessica Workman.
• Found on my own
• From my previous research on The Factory Girl

• From Civil Tongues & Polite Letters in British America, A Colonial Woman’s Bookshelf, Literature After Feminism, The Madwoman in the Attic, Memory’s Daughters, and Reading Women.

• Using of Marty Beth Norton as author in MLA
• Using Adrienne Rich as the subject term in MLA
• Using Carroll Smith-Rosenberg in America: History & Life
• Using Carroll Smith-Rosenberg in MLA
• Using Susan Stabile as author in MLA
• Using Laurel Thatcher Ulrich as the author in WorldCat

• Using commonplace book in America: History & Life
• Using commonplace book as subject (1700-1799) in MLA
• Using Delaware River Valley (N.Y.-Del. & N.J.) (1700-1799) in America: History & Life
• Using female friendship in literature (1700-1799) in MLA
• Using female-female relations (1700-1799) in MLA
• Using lesbianism in literature (1700-1799) in MLA
• Using literature and revolutions, (subject literature: American) (1700-1799): in MLA
• Using Manuscripts, American in America: History & Life
• Using Manuscripts, American (1700-1799) as subject in MLA
• Using Manuscript studies, American (1700-1799) as subject in MLA
• Using Quaker women (1700-1799) in America: History & Life
• Using Quaker women (1700-1799) in MLA

Key Issues & Keywords

The assignment from Dr. Logan:

Using your reading so far, course notes, and other materials as appropriate, list key issues raised by your selected text that are relevant to the study of representations of unruly women in early American literature. These issues could include genre, sub-genre (i.e. novel, short story, memoir; gothic, seduction tale, biography, etc.), subject matter (character, education, religion, crime, history, curiosity, etc.), and apparent readership.

Make a list of “keywords” for MLA and other database searches.  Make your list as specific as possible, noting page numbers and specific language, metaphors, patterns, etc. (It might be helpful to consult the National Union Catalog Subject Heading list at the UCF Library reference desk.)

[Submitted 19 September 2010] 

This is the list of issues, in alphabetical order, that I came up with prior to searching through the Library of Congress Subject Headings book (the red books behind the reference desk at the UCF Library).

1. Commonplace book studies
2. Delaware Valley, PA (during American Revolutionary War)
3. Female homosocial
4. Female literacy pre-Revolution through post-Revolution
5. Feminist theory
6. Friendship
7. Lesbian continuum
8. Manuscript studies
9. Quaker definitions of partner, soul, bosom friend
10. Quakers
11. Queer theory
12. Reading habits of the eighteenth–century American woman
13. Trans-Atlantic communication, pre-Revolution, Revolution, post-Revolution
14. Use of poetry by Quakers, especially women

While this list isn’t too shabby, it could be better.  I decided to search through the Library of Congress Subject Headings, because after all, these are the headings used by all the database search engines.  You can search through the subject headings online here, but I prefer to look through the book in person, especially since experience has taught me I’ll find so much more than expected if I do so.

These are what the "red books" look like, by the way:

 

Rhetorical Analysis

The assignment from Dr. Logan:

Please write a brief (500-750 words) essay that performs a rhetorical analysis of the front materials and first chapter of the novel you have selected for your research project.  You will then use this rhetorical analysis to consider the novel as a whole.

See Trish Roberts-Miller’s “Understanding Misunderstandings: How to do a rhetorical analysis” for more information about rhetorical analysis.

[Submitted: 17 September 2010]


In approaching Milcah Martha Moore’s Book, certain facts have to be taken into consideration.  Milcah Martha Moore was the only transcriber of the text, yet she did not contribute any prose or poetry pieces to the work.  Moore functioned as the editor and compiler, and the entries include both original creations and transcriptions of popular prose and/or poetry by various authors.  How does one then speak about the intentions of the implied author when there are sixteen distinct authors plus thirteen unidentified authors?  Do I choose to focus on the implied editor/compiler because, as Catherine L. Blecki states, “…organizing transcriptions in a commonplace book reveals a transcriber’s habits of mind and emotion” (MMMB 62)?  Or look at themes or the purpose of the text from the viewpoint of the implied audience, whom I already know to be “…a relatively small audience of family and friends who were affectionate, literature, and tolerant of many points of view” (MMMB 60)?  The answer, I believe, lies within the text itself; this rhetorical analysis will focus on the themes presented on the title page and within the first informal section of the commonplace book, as defined by Blecki and Kari A. Wulf (entries 1-29).   

MMMB is not a published text; rather, it is a handwritten manuscript originally bound in calfskin and transcribed during the middle years of the American Revolution.  Mimicking a published book, there is a title page that precedes the 126 entries; this title page provides a brief glimpse into what a reader will encounter within the book.  The actual title of the text, Martha Moore’s Book, is centered vertically and horizontally on the page, and is accompanied by a horizontal flourish.  It is also the largest script on the title page.  The title is written in cursive, whereas the rest of the text is a mixture of print and cursive.  Below the title is information concerning the author of this work: “Milcah Martha Hill / born Madeira / Married / Charles Moore.”  Moore identifies herself as the editor of the book, without the apologies often present in women’s published works in early American literature.

The commonplace book served multiple functions for the contemporary reader – it was meant to invoke discussion, record relationships between the audience and authors, and even perhaps, induce them to scribble their notes in the margin, or title page, of the book.  Relationships, whether through marriage or religious affinity (Quakers), are a focus and theme of the text.  From the title page: “Fidelia’s sisTer was Sarah griffitts .d July 19, 176 [cut off]” and “Married / Charles Moore,” “{her MoT [cut off] / Deborah d? / -dT Richard [cut off] / Sept. 29. 1 [cut off].”  It appears that all the handwriting on the title page is Moore’s; if so, the scribbles on the title page could indicate additions Moore wished to incorporate to the text, or poetry and/or verse she wanted to read.  For example, “HSP – Has Poem To Exiles in Virginia by H. Grif [cut off]” is located near the top of the page, above the title of the book.  Thus another theme presents itself – the preservation of creative works by friends and family (Griffitts was Moore’s cousin).

The modern edition includes a table of contents, but it is not clear whether or not this was present in the original commonplace book.  The first informal section is comprised of twenty-nine entries, all composed by Susannah Wright except two entries from Hannah Griffitts, one “by a female,” one by “Samuel Clarke Jr.” and closing out the section, an entry by “Eugenio.”  Except the entry by Samuel Clarke Jr., all others are poetry, a “medium that brought women together in mutual support for writing” (MMMB 79).

The initial, and obvious, theme is the poetry of Wright.  A simple and swift perusal of the entry titles yields other obvious themes, those of friendship (“An Essay on Friendship,” “To a Friend.—On some Misunderstanding,” and “On Friendship”) and death (“On the Death of an Infant,” “On the Death of a little Girl,” “On Death,” “On the Death of two infant Nephews,” “To the Memory of Charles Norris,” and “Verses to the Memory of Rebecca Chapman”).  Taking a closer look at the entries reveals more complex allusions to struggles in faith, women’s relationship with God, the right of women to speak, the inevitability of Death, apocalyptic predictions, the unknowable future, womanly interpretations of the Bible, and issues of faith.

Though so many different themes appear throughout the first section, one does not feel overwhelmed and confused.  Despite five distinct authors, Wright’s contributions dominate and anchor the section.  Most of the themes appear to be instances within Wright’s life that prompted or compelled her to commit the memory or happenstance to writing.  These experiences, such as death of a loved one or interpretation of Biblical passages, would serve as a shared experience for the implied audience – Moore’s (and Wright’s) friends and family.  I expect to find, in the rest of MMMB, an expansion upon the already mentioned themes through the medium of shared experiences, expressed through poetry and prose.




Works Cited:

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

Spare Thoughts: 1

Question:  What kinds of information can you infer about representations of women in early American literature from the publication history and front matter (including illustrations, type, prefaces and dedications, subscriber lists, etc.)?  What do you expect to find in this text?

Answer:  My text, Milcah Martha Moore’s Book*, is not a published text.  It is a commonplace book, a bound manuscript.  As such, there is no publication history in the traditional sense.  I have to rely on the research of others, namely Blecki and Wulf, and trust that their transcription of the original manuscript is correct.  I will also have to look at the role commonplace books played in early American literature in order to understand its importance and place in expanding the canon of American women writers.  Unpublished manuscripts are establishing themselves as viable alternatives to published texts, which in turn, enlarges the scope of women writers of the time.  Ignoring these unpublished manuscripts (and letters, diaries, etc.) was the result of scholars ignoring the historical context that restricted or discouraged publishing works written by women in early America.

*I will refer to the text as MMMB for short throughout this project.

In fact, while I keep throwing the term commonplace book around, I don’t know the history or full meaning.  So, let’s turn to the Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms & Literary Theory for some illumination.

A notebook in which ideas, themes, quotations, words and phrases are jotted down.  Almost every writer keeps some kind of commonplace book where he can put things in storage.  In a properly organized one the matter would be grouped under subject headings.  A famous example is Ben Jonson’s Timber: Or Discoveries (1640), which comprises a draft for a treatise on the art of writing and on types of literature, miniature essays, sententiae, pensées (qq.v.) and so forth.  Two very agreeable modern examples are Maurice Baring’s Have You Anything to Declare? (1963), the work of an exceptionally civilized and well-read man, and John Julius Norwich’s Christmas Crackers (1980).  (162)

Now, I know that a dictionary entry will not give a detailed history, but the complete lack of mention of the co-mingled history of women writers and the commonplace book is disappointing.  The two modern examples are written by men, and I find it hard to believe that there isn’t a modern example authored by a woman worth mentioning.  At the very least, mention one male author and one female author.  Oh well.

Artifact Inventory

The assignment from Dr. Logan:
 
As early American scholars seeking to analyze the literary representations of unruly women, we must first understand the text as a material artifact, an object that circulated in and had meaning for specific readers who lived in a particular socio-cultural moment.  By considering the text as an artifact, we draw closer to understanding how the text functioned in its original context.  While we may be unable to travel to archives in Boston, New York, or Philadelphia, we can look at digitized or microfilm images of the original objects and learn about how particular texts looked, felt, and circulated.  To that end, our initial research activities will introduce us to our chosen texts as material objects.

[Submitted: 3 September 2010]


Question 1:  When, where, and by whom was your text first printed?

Answer:  When: Because the common place book was unpublished, there is no publication date.  According to the scholars Blecki and Wulf, authors of the modern edition, the entries were compiled during the middle years of the American Revolution, between 1760 and 1770. 

That is not to say that the contents were necessarily written between this time frame.  Blecki notes the earliest poem is from 1704 and the latest, 1788.  Wulf notes that “[s]ignificant clusters of material are dated between 1764 and 1769 and from 1773 through 1776” (38). 

Where: Milcah Martha Moore resided in the Delaware Valley area in Pennsylvania, amongst Quakers (aka the Society of Friends).

By whom: Moore was the only known transcriber, but none of the entries were written by her.  The three main contributors were Susanna Wright, Hannah Griffitts, and Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson. 

There are 13 unidentified authors that are possibly men; the rest of the entries are by women.  There are at least 16 distinct authors. 

Not all of the content of the commonplace book is original prose and/or poetry.  Reprints of original content by “noted intellectuals and prominent colonials, Quaker and non-Quaker, and people from many sides of the debate over the American Revolution” (xiii) are scattered throughout.

Speculation:  The creation of a commonplace book speaks to me of commitment, passion for literary expression, creativity, generosity, and a keen mind. 

Moore’s commonplace book was a creation meant for sharing and delighting in the works of her friends and family, to showcase their talents and to preserve their work.  It’s a physical representation of her love for them (and their love for her).  It’s obvious this book was a long-term commitment, requiring careful thought in terms of editorship. 

Plus, the act of carefully handwriting 132 pages of prose and poetry, making sure it was legible for her intended audience, must have been exhausting.  I know my handwriting is terrible and it would have taken a great deal of concentration for me to accomplish her feat. 

I find it fascinating that the book was complied during the middle years of the American Revolution, perhaps when it felt to Moore and her friends and family that no end to the war or a happy solution was in sight.  I am eager to begin reading through the entries to see the war through the lens of Moore, a Quaker and Loyalist.

My previous experience has always been through men’s writing – Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, etc.  And most of those writings were strictly political.


Question 2: How often was your text reprinted?  List all of the reprints.  Do not confuse dates of publisher’s/printer’s birth and death with reprint dates.

Answer:  A modern edition was edited by scholars Catherine La Courreye Blecki and Karin A. Wulf and published in 1997.

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

The original commonplace book is located in the Edward Wanton Smith Collection, in the Quaker Collection Library at Haverford College, Pennsylvania.  Its current status is “in house only” and there are no digitized copies of the original manuscript.

Moore, Milcah Martha. MS 955. Edward Wanton Smith Collection, Haverford College.

Speculation:  What is most frustrating is the lack of a digitized copy of the actual manuscript.  I haven’t contacted the Edward Wanton Smith Collections yet, but I do want to find out if the text is even available for scanning, photocopying and/or photography.  Though Blecki and Wulf state that the text is in excellent condition, that doesn’t mean it will withstand the scanning or photocopying process.

The modern edition does contain a picture of the title page as well as a picture of two pages containing two poems, but it’s not the same as having an actual copy.

I should state though, that I am satisfied that Blecki and Wulf made an accurate and complete transcription based on the “Notes on the Text” section.  This section describes their textual methodology, which “maintains the eighteenth-century character of the text as Moore transcribed it with as few modifications as possible, while offering a readable text for twentieth-century students and scholars” (xxiii).

Welcome

Welcome to my research blog, Bonds of Intimacy.  This is my second experience using Blogger to record and make public the process of a semester long research project that culminates in a conference paper and presentation.  My first experience is visible here, at my blog Conduct Yourself.  Feel free to explore my previous work, both Conduct Yourself and the wiki-styled page I created with three other classmates, Geography of Milton’s Paradise Lost.  See my bio for more details about the classes and professors. 

Because this project encourages us to record the process, this blog will not be perfect.  The components of the research project posted will be the copies I submitted to Dr. Logan for a grade – not corrected copies.  Sometimes I will be right, but more often (probably) I will be wrong.  But that’s okay.  What is important is that I learn with each assignment, expanding my base of knowledge.  It will be messy, even chaotic at times.  You will learn how nerdy I am, that my social life (what little there is to begin with) will take a backseat to this project because I get severe tunnel vision, and that if I forget to bring a sweatshirt to the fourth floor of the UCF Library, I will complain about the cold and how it makes my nose drip.  In short, the life of an English literature graduate student is decidedly unsexy.  But that’s okay too.

This blog, by its very nature, will be a strange, and perhaps uneasy, combination of academic product and personal reflections.  I am in a way, taking my cue from Anne G. Myles, whose article "From Monster to Martyr: Re-Presenting Mary Dyer" we read for our second class.  In her article, she states, “My approach to, and need for, this material is obviously informed by the fact that I encounter it as both a Quaker and lesbian reader looking for a usable past; however, these seem to me powerful, challenging dimensions in any context” (18).  The material she references is the relationship between Anne Hutchinson and Mary Dyer, and it is Myles’s hope that it can be categorized as a “’lesbian’ scene in seventeenth-century America” (18) – as based on the idea of the lesbian continuum¹.  

It is this article, and specifically the class discussion we had concerning this claim of a lesbian scene, that birthed (pun intended) my thesis: that the commonplace book Milcah Martha Moore created is a physical representation of her love for her friends, and their love for her.  That these women belong somewhere on the lesbian continuum, I am sure.  I am risking my entire research project on this claim because in a way, despite being neither a Quaker nor a lesbian such as Myles, I too am looking for a usable past.  I want to believe that despite the political, social, economical, religious, and legal restrictions women faced in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century America, they could in fact, rely on each other.  It is important to me to believe they could turn to each other for love (sexual or non-sexual), comfort, support, affection, advice, and friendship to form intimate bonds, both in spite of and despite the men involved in their lives.     

Feel free to explore my blog, and especially feel free to comment on its design and content (what little there is so far).  I hope my enthusiasm for this project is contagious, and that you, my readers, stick around until the conclusion.

¹The lesbian continuum, as Dr. Logan explained in class, is like a sliding scale.  On the one end, you have women who are friends with women, and at the other, women who have sex with other women.  I must admit that is the extent of my knowledge on this theory, so of course, I have more research to do.



Works Cited:
Myles, Anne G.  “From Monster to Martyr.”  Early American Literature 36.1 (2001):  1-30. JSTOR.  Web. 24 August 2010.