Campbell Class Discussion - 3/2/09

Hi, everyone. Here are instructions for today's class discussion on the blog.

1) The requirement is one clear and thorough post of your own; because of time contraints, I'll make commenting optional. Please post your responses and your comments by 7 p.m. Tuesday (3/3). Please try not to wait until the last minute.

2) I'd suggest you allow yourselves about 20 minutes to prepare, 20 minutes or so to post, and then another 15 minutes to comment on classmates' posts.

3) Commenting may feel unnatural at first, but think of your comments as a way of engaging with your classmates' responses, the same way you do in class when you point out a similarity or disagreement, or when you point out how your understanding can build on someone else's or vice versa.

HISTORICAL / ARCHIVAL QUESTION - OPTION ONE (choose one or the other option)
From our course resources page, search the “National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection” for the 8-page document called “Declaration of Sentiments.” What can you learn about this document based on the page images and the bibliographic information given in the NAWSA Collection?

Then, start a new “full-text” search for one or two of the terms Campbell introduces in her chapter excerpt, i.e., “woman’s rights,” “femininity,” “true woman,” “feminine,” “feminist,” “rhetoric,” “women’s role,” “domestic,” etc. [you are not limited to these]. Based on the selections that come up for your search, what can you tell about how these words were valued, connotated, or used between 1848 and 1921?

HISTORICAL / ARCHIVAL QUESTION - OPTION TWO (choose one or the other option)
Locate and compare the following timelines of Suffrage history:

Laurie Mann’s Timeline of Women’s Suffrage in the United States
“One Hundred Years Towards Suffrage” (hosted by NAWSA)
“A History of the American Suffragist Movement”
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000

Discuss some of the explicit and implicit differences between the timelines and how they represent the movement. Note any interesting patterns or dissonances between them.

READING RESPONSE - REQUIRED
Based on how Karlyn Kohrs Campbell lays out her agenda on pp. 9-16 of her "Introduction" chapter, what comprises a “critical” study of women’s rhetorical participation in the early Woman’s Rights Movement of the Nineteenth Century? That is, what aspects does she herself consider to get a fuller sense of women’s speaking and writing? What aspects does she think we should consider?