A Communion of Little Saints: Nineteenth-Century American Child Hagiographies

The nineteenth century witnessed a proliferation of child hagiographies in the form of memoirs, written mostly by evangelical Protestant women. Immensely popular at the time, the memoirs were used by religious tract societies and Sunday school publishers as a means of converting children and adults. Women memoirists were seldom recognized as authors in their day and current scholarship has ignored their cultural contributions. This article examines the ways in which these authors used the memoir form and the trope of child death, as well as specific rhetorical strategies, such as emphasizing visions of heaven, mediumship, and intercession with spirits, to challenge and revise traditional Protestant views of the afterlife.