Campbell Class Discussion

Option Two:

I noticed several notable similarities and differences between the four timelines, each presenting the women's suffrage movement in a different light. Laurie Mann's timeline covers 1776-1920, beginning with Abigail Adams's request to her husband that Congress "remember the ladies." Her timeline is sectioned off into six different phases of the suffrage movement, each containing corresponding years and the significant events that happened during those years. Her timeline concludes with the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920 and the establishment of women's suffrage as law.

"One Hundred Years toward Suffrage" also begins in 1776 but spans three years longer, to 1923. Like Mann's timeline, it begins with the same quest by Adams, but the timeline then proceeds in a different way. It is not split into any sort of sections, but simply lists individual years or small intervals, along with the significant events that occurred during those years contributing to the women's rights movement. Going past the adoption of the 19th Amendment as law, it concludes with 1923, when the Nation Woman's Party proposes the Equal Rights Amendment to eliminate all discrimination on the basis of gender.

"A History of the American Suffragist Movement" spans all the way from 1637-1920. It begins with a historical event that involved improper treatment of a woman due to her beliefs- in 1637, Anne Hutchinson was expelled from Massachusetts colony for her religious ideas. This timeline, like the previous two, also includes Abigail Adams's famous request. The remainder of the timeline contains no sections, just years and events, concluding with ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920.

The "Women and Social Movements" timeline is much longer and more detailed than the others, organized by the different social movements that occurred, mostly those of the 19th and 20th centuries, rather than a chronological list of years. It includes a descriptive paragraph about each movement, explaining the movement's significance to women or to the fight for equal rights. This timeline, in addition to all the women's rights/women's suffrage related movements, also includes a few movements for equality between the races, such as the Civil Rights Movement and the Commission on Interracial Cooperation (1918-1944).

Reading Response:

To get a fuller sense of women's speaking and writing during the early women's rights movement, Campbell looked for a certain feminine style that emerged from the domestic lifestyle of women and that adapted well to female audiences of the time. This aspect of women's rhetorical participation grew out of the process of craft-learning that was so familiar to these women and was evident in the rhetorical activity of many women of the time. Another aspect to be looked for in the speaking style of these women is consciousness-raising, which is effective in empowering the audience and inviting them to participate.

Overall, according to Campbell, two main dimensions can be considered in the rhetoric of early women's rights advocates- presentation of their grievances and justification of women's rights to speak and function in society in the same manner as men.