I've had to write several papers for my COMS 435 class - papers that I freaked over at the beginning of the semester. My room mate had to talk me through what was nearly a breakdown, y'all! That's how stressed I was about this class! Thankfully, the teacher is absolutely awesome (I gave her a glowing evaluation) and she's extremely helpful. Now, the papers that I've had to write for this class cover an extensive amount of history, so I thought I'd go ahead and share them with you. Some of these are very informative, and I've learned a whoooole lot while writing them. So if you see anything tagged "COMS 435" or see the COMS 435 in the heading, you know that you're going to be reading an academic paper. (I hope they don't bore you too much - I really think they're interesting!)
Of course, all the papers are going to have to be split into an after-the-jump way on my blog so the posts don't look ridiculously long.
The first paper I'm going to be sharing with you is a historiographical essay on the abolitionist and women's rights activist, Angelina Grimké. (I think I've mentioned her before.) I hope y'all have fun! (As a side note, I got a 46/50 on this paper! She really liked it, especially considering that it was the first time I'd ever used APA style and whatnot!)
See ya after the jump!
Angelina Grimké was born in 1805 in Charleston, South Carolina, as the youngest of fourteen children. When she was young, she created an underground school on her plantation to teach the slaves to read and write. When her father discovered her, she ran away to Philadelphia, along with her sister, Sarah Grimké. While in Philadelphia, she sent an antislavery letter to Garrison, which was published in The Liberator in September 1835. The next year, she published a pamphlet entitled “Appeal to the Christian Women of the South.” She said, “Persuade your husband, father, brothers, and sons that slavery is a crime against God and man” (Campbell, Huxman & Burkholder, 2009). In the South, especially in her hometown of Charleston, this pamphlet was considered heretical, and Grimké was threatened with imprisonment if she returned to the city. In Amesbury, Massachusetts in 1837, Grimké took place in the first public debate between a man and a woman in the United States (Campbell, Huxman & Burkholder, 2009). Grimké married Thomas Weld and continued her quest for abolition.
In May 1838, Grimké spoke at Pennsylvania Hall in Philadelphia. In the days leading up to the speech, she was denounced in papers as a “Godless woman,” a “he-woman,” and “the devil incarnate” (Campbell, Huxman & Burkholder, 2009). She was introduced by Maria Chapman, an African-American, who was so overwhelmed by the hatred of the crowd that she fainted. Grimké then spoke for over an hour to the hostile crowd, who burned the Hall to the ground when Grimké’s speech was over. Since Grimké was one of the first female abolitionists, this was an issue for many of the speech-goers, as it was still considered improper and unseemly for women to speak in public. Not only that, but Grimké was speaking out about abolition, something that was highly debated at the time and was a great cause of tension between the North and the South. William Gilmore Simms was a prominent anti-abolitionist during this time period.
One of the social constraints was that Grimké was a woman and, as such, she did not have the same “right” to speak in public as a man did. People sneered at her for getting up and talking to crowds. The political constraints were that slavery was a hot topic (essentially, “Who are you to tell me what to do with my property?”) and, again, that Grimké was a woman who did not have any political standing whatsoever. A cultural constraint is that slavery was “accepted” into the Southern society because the Southerners did not see any other way that their society could continue forward without thousands of blacks working on their plantations. An ideological constraint at the time was that slavery had almost equally divided the country: usually the Northerns were anti-slavery and the Southerners would pro-slavery. This continued for many years, and it would take a war for the opinions to even begin to change. The audience created the constraint of safety: they mobbed the building and eventually burned it to the ground. The locus of power seemed to be in Grimké’s hands (she did get up amongst a hostile crowd and speak for over an hour), but after the speech was over, the power shifted to the crowd, when they burned down the Hall. If there were any unspoken “rules” in this case, they probably would have been something along the lines of, “If you step out of the line, the crowd will hurt or kill you.” The crowd’s hostility was enough to cause one woman to faint, and what the crowd did to the building afterwards shows that they did not care much for following “rules.” Grimké herself was constrained because she was a woman (and women, as aforementioned, were not supposed to speak in public), but she also had the opportunity to not only campaign for the abolition of slavery, but also for women’s rights.
The immediate audience was the rioting crowd outside of Pennsylvania Hall, but the audience in general was the abolitionists or those who were on the fence about the abolition movement. The audience could also have been pro-slavery groups. The audience knew only what the papers had told them - that she was a “Godless woman” and would be speaking to them. The audience was not in a position to respond appropriately (they were rioting) and were not receptive to Grimké’s speech (they burned the Hall to the ground). The audience was motivated by their hatred of the speaker and the topic Grimké was speaking on.
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Sources
Campbell, K. K., Huxman, S. S., & Burkholder, T. R. (2009). The rhetorical act: Thinking, speaking, and writing critically. (pp. 204-208). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.
Grimké, A. (1838, May). Angelina Grimké Weld's speech at pennsylvania hall. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2939t.html
National Women's Hall of Fame. (1998). Angelina Grimké Weld. Retrieved from http:// www.greatwomen.org/women-of-the-hall/search-the-hall/details/2/68-weld
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