From "scribblers" to artists: The emergence of women writers as artists in America

Anne E Boyd, Purdue University

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on the first generation of American women writers to adopt identities as serious artists—the postbellum writers Louisa May Alcott, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Elizabeth Stoddard, and Constance Fenimore Woolson. Whereas antebellum women writers saw their authorial careers as by-products of their primary identities as wives and mothers, this later generation initiated a shift towards the New Woman writer who devoted herself to the pursuit of literary excellence and serious recognition. These postbellum women writers began to define themselves primarily as authors, and secondarily as wives, mothers, or daughters. They rejected the self-effacement practiced by their literary foremothers and took advantage of new avenues opening up in the marketplace for literary recognition. Their aspirations to be recognized by the new exclusive literary magazines, especially the Atlantic Monthly, are evidence that they saw themselves as members of an emerging literary culture that included both male and female writers competing for readers and recognition. This study examines the lives and works of Alcott, Phelps, Stoddard, and Woolson in the context of the birth of America's high literary culture and Americans' discussions of the “artist,” the “genius,” and the individual. These women confronted society's disbelief in women's abilities and attempted to overcome self-doubts and shame about the identities they were taking on as ambitious artists. They hoped to follow in the footsteps of the preeminent women geniuses of their time, European writers such as Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot. But Alcott, Phelps, Stoddard, and Woolson also encountered great difficulties in realizing lives as serious artists. They longed for the solitude and independence necessary for creating “art,” but they feared being labeled unwomanly if they neglected their familial duties. Although they tried to gain a footing in the male-dominated literary high culture taking shape in Boston and New York in the 1860s–1880s, and, especially, at the Atlantic Monthly, they were ultimately unable to gain lasting reputations as serious artists. The American literary canon that was formed in the early twentieth century had no room for them.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Neufeldt, Purdue University.

Subject Area

American literature|Womens studies|American history|Biographies

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