"Mrs. Schlesinger Wields a Facile Pen": Articulations of Spiritualist Feminism in Julia Schlesinger's Carrier Dove

This essay shows how Julia Schlesinger, editor of the spiritualist-feminist Carrier Dove, balanced derivative and original discourse to contribute significantly to multiple communities. Though Schlesinger's periodical most strongly influenced her own local spiritualist community, Schlesinger was aware of the national status of American spiritualism and transatlantic reach of British spiritualism, so she promulgated her spiritualistfeminist perspective as widely as possible, setting up exchanges with editors of other papers as far away as the United Kingdom. Schlesinger encouraged editors to be derivative themselves, reprinting materials from the Carrier Dove so that Schlesinger's original voice might have influence beyond her local community.