Abstract

In April 1855, the Mount Vernon Central Committee drew up an outline of its national organization to rescue the decaying estate of George Washington, which stipulated that Godey’s Lady’s Book and Southern Literary Messenger would serve as official organs. No prior history of Mount Vernon recognized the work of these two magazines, and documents they published pertinent to the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association’s early organization have not been mentioned in other histories. Due to a gap in Association documents, the magazines serve as the sole record of activities during its crucial organizational period. This essay explores how those magazines framed pleas for funds and whether the appeals were different in the Philadelphia-based women’s magazine versus the Richmond literary magazine, offering a more nuanced and complete exploration of the rhetoric used to convince donors than what has been presented in prior histories of Mount Vernon.

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