Our Sisters' Keepers: Nineteenth-Century Benevolence Literature by American Women

Contents

Contents Preface ix Introduction: Benevolence Literature by American Women Debra Bernardi and Jill Bergman 1 Part I: The Genre of Benevolence 1. Stories of the Poorhouse Karen Tracey 23 2. Representing the “Deserving Poor”: The “Sentimental Seamstress” and the Feminization of Poverty in Antebellum America Lori Merish 49 3. “Dedicated to Works of Bene¤cence”: Charity as Model for a Domesticated Economy in Antebellum Women’s Panic Fiction Mary Templin 80 4. Reforming Women’s Reform Literature: Rebecca Harding Davis’s Rewriting of the Industrial Novel Whitney A. Womack 105 Part II: Negotiating the Female American Self through Benevolence 5. “The Right to Be Let Alone”: Mary Wilkins Freeman and the Right to a “Private Share” Debra Bernardi 135 6. Women’s Charity vs. Scienti¤c Philanthropy in Sarah Orne Jewett Monika Elbert 157 7. “Oh the Poor Women!”: Elizabeth Stuart Phelps’s Motherly Benevolence Jill Bergman 190 8. Frances Harper’s Poverty Relief Mission in the African American Community Terry D. Novak 213 9. “To Reveal the Humble Immigrant Parents to Their Own Children”: Immigrant Women, Their American Daughters, and the Hull-House Labor Museum Sarah E. Chinn 227 10. Character’s Conduct: The Democratic Habits of Jane Addams’s “Charitable Effort” James Salazar 249 Selected Bibliography 283 Contributors 289 Index 291 viii Contents ...