Antislavery Discourse and Nineteenth-Century American Literature

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • Julie Husband

      Pages 1-8

3. Central Feminist Abolitionists and the Wage Labor System

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 9-9

      PDF

   2. The Emergence of the Family Protection Campaign and Antislavery Sentimentality

      • Julie Husband

      Pages 11-20

   3. Anticipating Progressive Era Reformers: Lydia Maria Child and the Mothering State

      • Julie Husband

      Pages 21-40

4. Adaptations of the Antislavery Family Protection Campaign

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 41-41

      PDF

   2. Marketplace Politics in The Scarlet Letter

      • Julie Husband

      Pages 43-61

   3. The Invisible Hand of the Marketplace: E.D.E.N. Southworth’s Southern Reforms

      • Julie Husband

      Pages 63-82

   4. “The White Slave of the North”: Lowell Mill Women and the Evolution of “Free Labor”

      • Julie Husband

      Pages 83-109

5. The End of Antislavery Sentimentality

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 111-111

      PDF

   2. Frederick Douglass’s Post-Civil War Performance of Masculinity

      • Julie Husband

      Pages 113-128

6. Back Matter

   Pages 129-160

   PDF

Antislavery Discourse and Nineteenth-Century American Literature examines the relationship between antislavery texts and emerging representations of "free labor" in mid-nineteenth-century America. Husband shows how the images of families split apart by slavery, circulated primarily by women leaders, proved to be the most powerful weapon in the antislavery cultural campaign and ultimately turned the nation against slavery. She also reveals the ways in which the sentimental narratives and icons that constituted the "family protection campaign" powerfully influenced Americans sense of the role of government, gender, and race in industrializing America. Chapters examine the writings of ardent abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass, non-activist sympathizers, and those actively hostile to but deeply immersed in antislavery activism including Nathaniel Hawthorne.

• America
• American literature
• Amerikanische Literatur
• civil war
• discourse
• English literature
• glass
• John Stuart Mill
• literature
• performance
• politics
• reform
• reforms
• slavery
• women

"In an important and ground-breaking book, Husband has corralled a compelling basket of texts and arguments to support her case. There is much here for the amateur and the professional scholar alike." - Larry Hudson, Department of History, University of Rochester

"The writers Husband treats in Antislavery Discourse and Nineteenth-Century American Literature are the co-creators of our present progressive political discourse, their issues our issues: health care, diversity, civil rights . . .She understands the complexity and constraint of sentimentalist plots and logics in their writing, especially as they struggle to address their urgent social issues." - Neil Schmitz, Professor of American Literature, SUNY-Buffalo

"A welcome fresh look . . .Tracing the afterlife of antislavery discourse beyond the Civil War, Husband succeeds in illuminating both the continuities between the maternalist politics of antebellum and Progressive-era women reformers and the paradigm shift Frederick Douglass initiated in civil rights agitation by rejecting sentimental images of broken families for embodiments of black masculinity." - Carolyn L. Karcher, author of The First Woman in the Republic: A Cultural Biography of Lydia Maria Child

JULIE HUSBAND is Associate Professor of English at the University of Northern Iowa, USA.

Policies and ethics