Before They Could Vote: American Women's Autobiographical Writing, 1819–1919

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Before They Could Vote 1819—1919 AMERICAN WOMEN’S AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL WRITING EDITED BY SIDONIE SMITH AND JULIA WATSON Before They Could Vote SMITH WATSON The life narratives in this collection are by ethnically diverse women of energy and ambition—some well known, some forgotten over generations—who confronted barriers of gender, class, race, and sexual difference as they pursued or adapted to adventurous new lives in a rapidly changing America. The engaging selections—from captivity narratives to letters, manifestos, criminal confessions, and childhood sketches—span a hundred years in which women increasingly asserted themselves publicly. Some rose to positions of prominence as writers, activists, and artists; some sought education or wrote to support themselves and their families; some transgressed social norms or laws in search of new possibilities. Each woman’s story is strikingly individual, yet the brief narratives in this groundbreaking anthology collectively chart bold new visions of women’s agency. “A pedagogical treasure! . . . BeforeTheyCouldVote is important for its range of topics— social uplift, geography, education, lynching, sanctification, Indian removal, deafness, and abolition, among others—as well as its diversity of forms. Perhaps even more crucial are the modes of life writing represented here, from gallows confessions to spiritual autobiography and anonymous contributions to TheIndependent.” —Dale M. Bauer, coeditor, The Cambridge Companion to Nineteenth-Century American Women’s Writing “No individual scholar or scholarly team has done more than Smith and Watson to put autobiography on the academic map and demonstrate its value for interpretation of history and culture. This rich new anthology sets in motion an inter-textual conversation of remarkable vitality that will change the ways we understand gender, class, ethnicity, culture, and nation in nineteenth-century America.” —Susanna Egan, author of Mirror-Talk SIDONIE SMITH is Martha Guernsey Colby Collegiate Professor of English and Women’s Studies and chair of the Department of English at the University of Michigan. JULIA WATSON is associate professor of comparative studies at The Ohio State University. Their several previous books include Reading Autobiography and Women, Autobiography, Theory: A Reader. WISCONSIN STUDIES IN AUTOBIOGRAPHY William L. Andrews, Series Editor AUTOBIOGRAPHY / WOMEN’S STUDIES / AMERICAN STUDIES / LITERARY CRITICISM MARY ANTIN MARY HUNTER AUSTIN ROSE BUTLER SUI SIN FAR MARGARET FULLER MARY JEMISON ADELE M. JEWEL SARAH ORNE JEWETT FANNY KEMBLE LUCY LARCOM JARENA LEE MARY MACLANE “MADELEINE” EULALIA PÉREZ HARRIET QUIMBY ZITKALA-ŠA M. CAREY THOMAS SOJOURNER TRUTH HARRIET TUBMAN FANNIE BARRIER WILLIAMS SARAH WINNEMUCCA The University of Wisconsin Press MADISON, WISCONSIN www.wisc.edu/wisconsinpress cover photographs (clockwise from top left): Zitkala-Ša, courtesy of Glynis Carr; Sui Sin Far; Fannie Barrier Williams, courtesy of Fisk University Franklin Library’s Special Collections; Mary Hunter Austin, courtesy of the Autry National Center, Southwest Museum, Los Angeles, Photo# P.36341. cover design: Kristyn Kalnes 0-299-22054-0 WISCONSIN Before They Could Vote Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography William L. Andrews General Editor ...