Sex and Citizenship in Antebellum America / Edition 1

by Nancy Isenberg

Overview

With this book, Nancy Isenberg illuminates the origins of the women's rights movement. Rather than herald the singular achievements of the 1848 Seneca Falls convention, she examines the confluence of events and ideas—before and after 1848—that, in her view, marked the real birth of feminism. Drawing on a wide range of sources, she demonstrates that women's rights activists of the antebellum era crafted a coherent feminist critique of church, state, and family. In addition, Isenberg shows, they developed a rich theoretical tradition that influenced not only subsequent strains of feminist thought but also ideas about the nature of citizenship and rights more generally.
By focusing on rights discourse and political theory, Isenberg moves beyond a narrow focus on suffrage. Democracy was in the process of being redefined in antebellum America by controversies over such volatile topics as fugitive slave laws,
temperance, Sabbath laws, capital punishment, prostitution, the Mexican War, married women's property rights, and labor reform—all of which raised significant legal and constitutional questions. These pressing concerns, debated in women's rights
conventions and the popular press, were inseparable from the gendered meaning of nineteenth-century citizenship.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807847466
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	12/14/1998
Series:	Gender and American Culture
Edition description:	1
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.76(d)

About the Author

Nancy Isenberg is the Mary Frances Barnard Chair in History at the University of Tulsa.

Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Firstborn Feminism
2. Citizenship Understood (and Misunderstood)
3. Visual Politics
4. Conscience, Custom, and Church Politics
5. The Political Fall of Woman
6. The Bonds of Matrimony
7. The Sovereign Body of the Citizen
Notes
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

Jan Lewis

Original and significant...shows us how antebellum feminists engaged the era's political culture, thereby laying the basis for American feminism's rich theoretical tradition.

Michael Grossberg

Greatly increases our understnading of the power of the [women's rights] movement during its time and over time.

From the Publisher

Isenberg has a finely honed sense of the ironies that emerged within the antebellum polity, which she illustrates to great benefit.—American Quarterly



A complex and challenging book. . . . The substantive chapters of the book contain consistent interest and insight and pockets of brilliant research and analysis.—Law and History Review



[An] impressive study of antebellum feminist activism in the United States. . . . Sex and Citizenship admirably executes its stated mission to recapture the variety and theoretical sophistication of U.S. feminism at its origins.—American Literature



At a time when it is fashionable among scholars and students to emphasize the limitations and failures of the antebellum women's rights movement, Nancy Isenberg's brilliant study represents a much-needed corrective. Her book illuminates the ideas of well-known stalwarts of the struggle for gender equality, such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and brings to life lesser-known figures such as Clarina Howard Nichols. . . . Whether as an introductory survey for nonspecialists or a handy reference work for scholars, this book deserves a wide readership.—Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography



Provides the closest reading yet of the arguments of antebellum woman's rights activists and, as such, sheds entirely new light on this important chapter in women's political history in the United States.—Journal of Interdisciplinary History



[A] pathbreaking book.—Virginia Quarterly Review



Essential reading for graduate students and researchers interested in the intellectual history of the women's movement and for those interested in the discourse on the very nature of the American polity.—Choice



Sex and Citizenship in Antebellum America resurrects the breadth and complexity of the antebellum women's rights movement. In this major reassessment of antebellum political culture, Isenberg greatly increases our understanding of the power of the movement during its time and over time.—Michael Grossberg, Indiana University



An original and significant contribution to the literature of women's history. Nancy Isenberg shows us how antebellum feminists engaged the era's political culture, thereby laying the basis for American feminism's rich theoretical tradition.—Jan Lewis, Rutgers University at Newark

Editorial Reviews

[S]heds entirely new light on this important chapter in women s political history in the United States.

"Journal of Interdisciplinary History"

ÝA¨ pathbreaking book.

"Virginia Quarterly Review"

ÝA¨dmirably executes its stated mission to recapture the variety and theoretical sophistication of U.S. feminism at its origins.

"American Literature"

ÝS¨heds entirely new light on this important chapter in womens political history in the United States.

"Journal of Interdisciplinary History"

Isenberg has a finely honed sense of the ironies that emerged within the antebellum polity, which she illustrates.

"American Quarterly"

"Isenberg has a finely honed sense of the ironies that emerged within the antebellum polity, which she illustrates.

"American Quarterly""

[A] pathbreaking book.

"Virginia Quarterly Review"

[A]dmirably executes its stated mission to recapture the variety and theoretical sophistication of U.S. feminism at its origins.

"American Literature"

The substantive chapters of the book contain consistent interest and insight and pockets of brilliant research and analysis.

"Law and History Review"

From the Publisher