Beyond the Pulpit: Women’s Rhetorical Roles in the Antebellum Religious Press

5. A Magazine of Their Own

105 i n her essay titled “Female Training,” initially read before a college for teachers and later reprinted in the Methodist church’s Ladies’ Repository (LR), Mrs. Dumont acknowledged the persistent bias against female education. She asserted that while the “day of woman’s proscriptive seclusion from the advantages of intellectual culture has but recently gone by . . . the prejudices existing against female erudition—I should rather say against a learned female—no longer an opinion indeed, but a feeling, is yet floating among us.”1 Dumont argued against the pervasive sentiment that education detracts from women’s graces, instead claiming that women, like men, are erring mortals in need of the strength of reason, purpose, direction, and discipline derived from intellectual application. Ultimately, she insisted that public views about women’s education and educated women must change. In doing so, she indicted several influences she believed were propagating this prejudice . Included among this list was women’s periodical literature, which is a little surprising considering that this list, and Dumont’s essay for that matter, appeared in a women’s periodical. Then again, the inclusion of Dumont’s article in the LR highlights the magazine’s distinct nature. The early nineteenth century marked an unprecedented flourish of texts directed at women. Hundreds of women’s magazines were launched, and popular fiction, especially romances and melodramatic novels, were aggressively chaPter five a magazine of their own How few parents feel the same degree of solicitude for their daughters to be deeply learned that they cherish for their sons. —Mrs. Dumont, Ladies’ Repository, 1845 e a magazine of their oWn 106 marketed to women. Debates ensued over what constituted proper reading for ladies, since texts were imputed with the power to both convert and corrupt . Indeed, throughout the nineteenth century, evangelicals worried about the consumption of “pernicious” reading. Moreover, the question of “what should women read?” was tied to women’s appropriate roles and the education women needed to adequately perform those roles. With its introduction in 1841, The Ladies’ Repository and Gatherings of the West entered the fray over women’s intellectual development. Based on her examination of early American women’s magazines and their audiences, Amy Beth Aronson claims, “By the 1820s, women’s magazines appeared in virtually every city or town large enough to have a printing press,” making them a staple in the industry long before they became a conduit for advertising.2 Women’s magazines confirmed and nurtured a distinct female audience and often provided an outlet for female editors and writers. Consequently, Mary Ellen Zuckerman identifies women’s magazines as important cultural artifacts that tell us about the construction of gender in American society. Based on her study of women’s magazines from the late eighteenth century to the late twentieth century, Zuckerman claims, “Topics discussed, images displayed, activities presented all affected women’s perceptions of themselves, their possibilities and the world.”3 Produced by the Methodist Western Book Concern, the LR emerged amid Methodism’s rapid growth and westward expansion. Located in Cincinnati on the banks of the Ohio River, initially, the Western Book Concern simply acted as a depository for Methodist publications produced in New York. But Cincinnati quickly became a center for trade and midwestern states sought their own media outlets. The LR was a professionally published monthly that continued for thirty-five years. With paid subscriptions reaching a peak of more than forty thousand by the eve of the Civil War, the LR became the secondlargest Methodist publication, one of the most widely circulated midwestern magazines, and one of the most popular women’s periodicals in the country.4 According to Frederick Norwood, “It expressed the democratic spirit of the West, which encouraged women to play a more active role” in church and society.5 Printed on large octavo pages, the LR was initially thirty-two pages, but increased to sixty-four pages during its heyday in the 1850s and, by the time of its demise, had expanded to ninety-six pages. Quality steel engravings were a special feature of the magazine. These usually illustrated landscapes or portraits of individuals such as eminent Methodist preachers. A series of portraits featuring literary women appeared in the 1850s. These included Sarah Hale, Alice Cary, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Lydia Sigourney, whose engraving a magazine of their oWn 107 was considered scandalous for showing the poet wearing short sleeves. Responding to these comments...