Inventing a Space to Speak: Ethos, Agency and United States' Woman Suffrage Cookbooks (1886-1916)

Authors

Danielle Nielsen, Murray State UniversityFollow

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

4-16-2021

Publication Title

Gender & History

Department

English and Philosophy

College/School

College of Humanities and Fine Arts

Abstract

During the last forty years of the United States’ fight for woman suffrage, a handful of suffragists wrote cookbooks sponsored by suffrage organisations. These cookbooks created a rhetorical space and ethos within and through the kitchen. Because their activism was grounded in expected feminine actions, this home-bound ethos allowed the primarily white, middle-class suffragists to simultaneously advocate for women's suffrage in public and maintain their adherence to the Cult of True Womanhood. The arguments put forth in the cookbooks illustrate an ethos that is influenced by both personal agency and the rhetor's gendered, physical location in the kitchen. From this expected space, they made the more revolutionary argument for suffrage less discrediting.

Comments

This is an Accepted Manuscript of a peer-reviewed article published by Wiley in Gender & History, available at https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0424.12530

Recommended Citation

Nielsen, D. (2021). Inventing a Space to Speak: Ethos, Agency and United States' Woman Suffrage Cookbooks (1886‐1916). Gender & History. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0424.12530