Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements

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Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements

Series Editors Stefan Berger

Institute for Social Movements Ruhr University Bochum

Bochum, Germany Holger Nehring

Contemporary European History University of Stirling

Stirling, UK

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Around the world, social movements have become legitimate, yet con- tested, actors in local, national and global politics and civil society, yet we still know relatively little about their longer histories and the trajectories of their development. This series seeks to promote innovative historical research on the history of social movements in the modern period since around 1750. We bring together conceptually-informed studies that analyse labour movements, new social movements and other forms of protest from early modernity to the present. We conceive of ‘social movements’ in the broadest possible sense, encompassing social formations that lie between formal organisations and mere protest events. We also offer a home for studies that systematically explore the political, social, economic and cultural conditions in which social movements can emerge. We are especially interested in transnational and global perspectives on the history of social movements, and in studies that engage critically and creatively with political, social and sociological theories in order to make historically grounded arguments about social movements. This new series seeks to offer innovative historical work on social movements, while also helping to historicise the concept of ‘social movement’. It hopes to revitalise the conversation between historians and historical sociologists in analysing what Charles Tilly has called the ‘dynamics of contention’.

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14580

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Ana Stevenson

The Woman as Slave in Nineteenth-

Century American

Social Movements

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Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements

ISBN 978-3-030-24466-8 ISBN 978-3-030-24467-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24467-5

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.

The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institu- tional affiliations.

Cover illustration: Granger Historical Picture Archive / Alamy Stock Photo

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Ana Stevenson

International Studies Group University of the Free State Bloemfontein, South Africa

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Every woman in these pages worked so that the children of the future

could share a better tomorrow.

To the children of today, Benjamin Lucas Curry, Ariana Rose Curry,

Emma Sophia Cox, Henry Thomas Cox, Paige Smith Zimmerman, and Harriet Mia Murdoch.

These women were dreaming of changing the world

for you.

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vii Around the world, social movements have become legitimate, yet con- tested, actors in local, national and global politics and civil society, yet we still know relatively little about their longer histories and the trajectories of their development. Our series reacts to what can be described as a recent boom in the history of social movements. We can observe a development from the crisis of labour history in the 1980s to the boom in research on social movements in the 2000s. The rise of historical interests in the development of civil society and the role of strong civil societies as well as non- governmental organisations in stabilising democratically constituted polities have strengthened the interest in social movements as a constitu- ent element of civil societies.

In different parts of the world, social movements continue to have a strong influence on contemporary politics. In Latin America, trade unions, labour parties and various left-of-centre civil society organisations have succeeded in supporting left-of-centre governments. In Europe, peace movements, ecological movements and alliances intent on campaigning against poverty and racial discrimination and discrimination on the basis of gender and sexual orientation have been able to set important political agendas for decades. In other parts of the world, including Africa, India and South East Asia, social movements have played a significant role in various forms of community building and community politics. The contemporary political relevance of social movements has undoubtedly con- tributed to a growing historical interest in the topic.

Contemporary historians are not only beginning to historicize these relatively recent political developments; they are also trying to relate them

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viii SERIES EDITORS’ PREFACE

to a longer history of social movements, including traditional labour organisations, such as working-class parties and trade unions. In the longue durée, we recognise that social movements are by no means a recent phenomenon and are not even an exclusively modern phenomenon, although we realise that the onset of modernity emanating from Europe and North America across the wider world from the eighteenth century onwards marks an important departure point for the development of civil societies and social movements.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the dominance of national history over all other forms of history writing led to a thorough nationali- sation of the historical sciences. Hence social movements have been exam- ined traditionally within the framework of the nation state. Only during the last two decades have historians begun to question the validity of such methodological nationalism and to explore the development of social movements in comparative, connective and transnational perspective, tak- ing into account processes of transfer, reception and adaptation. Whilst our book series does not preclude work that is still being carried out within national frameworks (for, clearly, there is a place for such studies, given the historical importance of the nation state in history), it hopes to encourage comparative and transnational histories on social movements.

At the same time as historians have begun to research the history of those movements, a range of social theorists, from Jürgen Habermas to Pierre Bourdieu and from Slavoj Žižek to Alain Badiou as well as Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe to Miguel Abensour, to name but a few, have attempted to provide philosophical-cum-theoretical frameworks in which to place and contextualise the development of social movements. History has arguably been the most empirical of all the social and human sciences, but it will be necessary for historians to explore further to what extent these social theories can be helpful in guiding and framing the empirical work of the historian in making sense of the historical development of social movements. Hence the current series is also hoping to make a con- tribution to the ongoing dialogue between social theory and the history of social movements.

This series seeks to promote innovative historical research on the history of social movements in the modern period since around 1750. We bring together conceptually informed studies that analyse labour movements, new social movements and other forms of protest from early modernity to the present. With this series, we seek to revive, within the context of historiographical developments since the 1970s, a conversation

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ix

SERIES EDITORS’ PREFACE

between historians on the one hand and sociologists, anthropologists and political scientists on the other.

Unlike most of the concepts and theories developed by social scientists, we do not see social movements as directly linked, a priori, to processes of social and cultural change and therefore do not adhere to a view that dis- tinguishes between old (labour) and new (middle-class) social movements.

Instead, we want to establish the concept ‘social movement’ as a heuristic device that allows historians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to investigate social and political protests in novel settings. Our aim is to historicise notions of social and political activism in order to highlight different notions of political and social protest on both left and right.

Hence, we conceive of ‘social movements’ in the broadest possible sense, encompassing social formations that lie between formal organisations and mere protest events. But we also include processes of social and cultural change more generally in our understanding of social movements:

this goes back to nineteenth-century understandings of ‘social movement’

as processes of social and cultural change more generally. We also offer a home for studies that systematically explore the political, social, economic and cultural conditions in which social movements can emerge. We are especially interested in transnational and global perspectives on the history of social movements and in studies that engage critically and creatively with political, social and sociological theories in order to make historically grounded arguments about social movements. In short, this series seeks to offer innovative historical work on social movements while also helping to historicise the concept of ‘social movement’. It also hopes to revitalise the conversation between historians and historical sociologists in analysing what Charles Tilly has called the ‘dynamics of contention’.

At the heart of Ana Stevenson’s volume on The Woman as Slave in Nineteenth-Century American Social Movements stands the desire to historicise an analogy that was both extremely widespread and deeply flawed.

Comparing women with slaves was often deeply racist, and yet Stevenson’s book shows clearly that this analogy served as an analytical framework for dealing with the ‘woman question’ in a great variety of different American social movements throughout the nineteenth century. Her analysis is highly perceptive in tracing the many changes that this analogy underwent over the course of the nineteenth century and across diverse social movements. Her book is also excellent at analysing the many interconnections between different social movements in using and developing the analogy between women and enslaved people of African descent.

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x SERIES EDITORS’ PREFACE

By following the woman-slave analogy in both antislavery movements and proslavery lobbies, in women’s rights movements, dress-reform movements, labour reform movements and in suffrage movements as well as, not the least, in free love movements, racial uplift movements and anti- vice movements, Stevenson reveals on the one hand the ubiquity of that analogy in nineteenth-century social movement politics in the United States.

On the other hand, she traces the importance of this discourse to a great variety of different and often mutually exclusive political projects, those of political reform and those of a complete transformation of the foundations of American society.

The crucial period in which the discursive construction of the woman- slave analogy was being re-forged was the period of the Civil War and its aftermath. Transnational, transatlantic networks of reformers proved to be particularly important in using the analogy to foster their particular reform projects that invariably had to do with the intersections between race, class, and gender. Yet the writings on the intersectionality of racial, class, and gender identities that have gathered in prominence since the 1980s do not so much build on but transcend the kind of analogical thinking that was at the heart of a ‘woman-as-slave worldview’, as Stevenson argues in her concluding chapter. For analogical thinking historically all too-often prioritised one identity over the other, in particular those of white women over those of their black sisters, and thus served ultimately a de-radicalised and racist agenda. Overall, Stevenson has provided us with tantalising glimpses of a kind of pre-history of intersectionality, one that points to as many pitfalls as to possibilities and promises. It is a major achievement of this volume to lead the reader competently and elegantly through the many reincarnations of the woman-slave analogy in America’s nineteenth century.

Bochum, Germany Stefan Berger

Stirling, UK Holger Nehring

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xi A version of Chap. 4, though substantially revised, appeared as “‘Symbols of Our Slavery’: Fashion and Dress Reform in the Rhetoric of Nineteenth-Century American Print Culture,” Lilith: A Feminist History Journal 20 (2014): 5–20.

Thanks to the Australian Women’s History Network and the Lilith Editorial Collective for their permission to reproduce aspects of this journal article.

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xiii This project has been in the making since I was an honors student at The University of Queensland in 2009, whereupon I first encountered echoes of the woman-slave analogy in the periodicals compiled in Ann Russo and Cheris Kramare’s edited compendium, The Radical Women’s Press of the 1850s (1991). Since then, I have been the beneficiary of the expertise and kindness of scholars who have championed my work from near and far, including Chris Dixon, Sarah Pinto, Michelle Arrow, Sharon Crozier-De Rosa, Susanne M. Klausen, Clare Corbould, Lisa Featherstone, Julie Husband, and Frances M. Clarke. This book could not have been written without the confidence Ian Phimister placed in my work. I am profoundly grateful for the opportunities afforded me by the International Studies Group at the University of the Free State, South Africa. My thanks also to my editor, Camille Nurka, for her unparalleled insights as I came to the end of this project.

Studying the United States from abroad for the better part of a decade has been a challenging enterprise that would not have been possible without the support of the School of History, Philosophy, Religion, and Classics (now the School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry) at The University of Queensland; New England Regional Fellowship Consortium;

Australia and New Zealand American Studies Association; Organization of American Historians; and, most especially, the International Studies Group at the University of the Free State. I deeply appreciate the feedback I received from seminars at the Schlesinger Library, Harvard University;

Massachusetts Historical Society; American Cultures Workshop, United States Studies Centre, The University of Sydney; Wits History Workshop,

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cknowledgmentS

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xiv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

University of the Witwatersrand; History Department Seminar Series, Stellenbosch University; and A Workshop in Transnational Feminism/Atelier sur le féminisme transnational, L.R. Wilson Institute for Canadian History, McMaster University.

The gratitude I owe my family, friends, and colleagues is global in its dimensions, spanning Australia, South Africa, and the United States. I have always benefited from the love and encouragement of Janet and Colin Stevenson, Luca Stevenson, and Noreen Rossall. More broadly, I am indebted to the generosity of the Stevenson, Rossall, Bristow, Hardwick, Jarvis, and Forbes families. My thanks especially to Alana Piper, Jon Piccini, Sheilagh Ilona O’Brien, Gemmia Burden, Kate Ariotti, Duncan Money, Cornelis Muller, Kate Law, Abraham Mlombo, Danelle van-Zyl Hermann, Ana Rita Amaral, Lazlo Passemiers, Clement Masakure, Admire Mseba, David Patrick, Rebecca Swartz, Jacqueline-Bethel Tchouta Mougoué, and Kristin Allukian; Ilse le Roux, Tari Gwena-Masakure, Judy King, and Angelica Litaole; and Katherine Cox, Amanda Acutt Harvey, Philippa Kerr, Joan Palmes, Tui Trezise, Megan and Adam Zimmerman, Ashton Fagg and Lucy Galea, Christopher Ham, Megan Doney, Patience Matlala, Gertrude Nakibuule, Gillian Busch, and Howard and Katherine Munro.

My acknowledgments would not be complete without due apprecia- tion for the baristas whose expertise has fueled this book, from Merlo Coffee UQ in Brisbane to Adda Coffee & Tea House, Tazza D’Oro CMU, Artisan Café, and Arriviste Coffee Bar in Pittsburgh, and the Royal Roastery, Stereo Café, and Urban Brew in Bloemfontein.

And my thanks, finally, to the love of my life—my husband—who is no tyrant.

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xv 1 Women’s Rights, Feminism, and the Politics of Analogy 1

Part I Transatlantic Social Movements 21

2 “All Women are Born Slaves”: Antislavery, Women’s

Rights, and Transatlantic Reform Networks 23 3 “Bought and Sold”: Antislavery, Women’s Rights, and

Marriage 69

Part II Between Public and Private 115

4 “Tyrant Chains”: Fashion, Antifashion, and Dress Reform 117 5 “Degrading Servitude”: Free Labor, Chattel Slavery, and

the Politics of Domesticity 159

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ontentS

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xvi CONTENTS

Part III The Politics of Slavery and Emancipation 205

6 “Political Slaves”: Suffrage, Anti-suffrage, and Tyranny 207 7 “Slavery Redivivus”: Free Love, Racial Uplift, and

Remembering Chattel Slavery 257 8 “Lady Emancipators”: Conclusion 301 Bibliography 311 Index 345

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xvii AASS American Anti-Slavery Society

AERA American Equal Rights Association AFAAS American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society AWSA American Woman Suffrage Association BFAAS British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society FLRA Female Labor Reform Association

NAACP National Association for the Advancement of Colored People NACW National Association of Colored Women

NAWSA National American Woman Suffrage Association NDRA National Dress Reform Association

NEWC New England Women’s Club NWP National Woman’s Party

NWSA National Woman Suffrage Association WNLL Woman’s National Loyal League WWA Working Women’s Association

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bbreviationS

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xix Fig. 2.1 Hiram Powers, The Greek Slave. Alamy, Image ID:

D2XWBM. Artokoloro Quint Lox Limited/Alamy Stock Photo 24 Fig. 2.2 John Tennial, “The Virginian Slave,” Punch 20 (1851): 236. ©

Punch Limited 25

Fig. 2.3 William Blake, “Europe supported by Africa & America”

(London, Johnson and Edwards, 1796). Alamy, Image ID:

MMGW37. The Picture Art Collection/Alamy Stock Photo 36 Fig. 3.1 “The Tyrant,” c. 1840–1880. Library Company of Philadelphia,

Comic Valentine Collection, 12.19 82

Fig. 3.2 “Eliza: Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (New York: A.S. Seer’s Union Square Print, 1886). Library of Congress, Theatrical Poster Collection 100 Fig. 4.1 Frank Beard, “A slave to Fashion’s tyrant laws,” c. 1869. Library

Company of Philadelphia, Comic Valentine Collection, 10.4 121 Fig. 4.2 “Amelia Bloomer, Originator of the New Dress,” Illustrated

London News (27 September 1851): 396. The Victorian Web, http://www.victorianweb.org/art/costume/bloomer.html 130 Fig. 4.3 “Woman’s Emancipation,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 3

(August 1851) 132

Fig. 4.4 “The Slave of Fashion,” Harper’s Bazaar XI, no. 16 (April 1878): 256. Home Economics Archive, Research, Tradition and

History, Cornell University 155

Fig. 5.1 Slavery as it exists in America: Slavery as it exists in England (Boston: J. Haven, c. 1850). Library Company of Philadelphia, Print Department, Political Cartoons, P.9675 164

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xx LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 5.2 William H. Helfand, “You think no doubt you’re quite the style,” c. 1840–1880. Library Company of Philadelphia, Comic

Valentine Collection, 17.16 202

Fig. 6.1 “The Two Platforms,” 1866. Library Company of Philadelphia Print Department, Political Cartoons: 1866–1868, 9387.F 222 Fig. 6.2 National American Woman Suffrage Association, “Abraham

Lincoln” (Grand Rapids: The Cargill Co., 1910). Catherine H. Palczewski, Postcard Archive, University of Northern Iowa,

Cedar Falls, IA 253

Fig. 6.3 Nina Allender, “Great Statues of History,” Suffragist, January

1915. Wikimedia Commons 254

Fig. 6.4 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races 10, no. 4 (August 1915).

Brown University, The Modernist Journals Project 255 Fig. 7.1 “Circassian Beauty,” c. 1865. Wisconsin Historical Society,

Image ID: 109430 262