Traces Of A Stream: Literacy and Social Change Among African American Women

by Jacqueline Jones Royster

Overview

Traces of a Stream offers a unique scholarly perspective that merges interests in rhetorical and literacy studies, United States social and political theory, and African American women writers. Focusing on elite nineteenth-century African American women who formed a new class of women well positioned to use language with consequence, Royster uses interdisciplinary perspectives (literature, history, feminist studies, African American studies, psychology, art, sociology, economics) to present a well-textured rhetorical analysis of the literate practices of these women. With a shift in educational opportunity after the Civil War, African American women gained access to higher education and received formal training in rhetoric and writing. By the end of the nineteenth-century, significant numbers of African American women operated actively in many public arenas.

In her study, Royster acknowledges the persistence of disempowering forces in the lives of African American women and their equal perseverance against these forces. Amid these conditions, Royster views the acquisition of literacy as a dynamic moment for African American women, not only in terms of their use of written language to satisfy their general needs for agency and authority, but also to fulfill socio-political purposes as well.

Traces of a Stream is a showcase for nineteenth-century African American women, and particularly elite women, as a group of writers who are currently underrepresented in rhetorical scholarship. Royster has formulated both an analytical theory and an ideological perspective that are useful in gaining a more generative understanding of literate practices as a whole and the practices of African American women in particular. Royster tells a tale of rhetorical prowess, calling for alternative ways of seeing, reading, and rendering scholarship as she seeks to establish a more suitable place for the contributions and achievements of African American women writers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780822957256
Publisher:	University of Pittsburgh Press
Publication date:	03/24/2000
Series:	Composition, Literacy, and Culture
Edition description:	1
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Jacqueline Jones Royster, associate professor of English at the Ohio State University, has three complementary areas of interest: the rhetorical history of women of African descent, the development of literacy, and delivery systems for the teaching of writing. Royster was a member of the editorial collective of SAGE: A Scholarly Journal of Black Women (1983–1996), with whom she co-edited Double-Stitch: Black Women Write About Mothers and Daughters; she also edited Southern Horrors and Other Writings: The Anti-Lynching Campaign of Ida B. Wells, 1892–1900, and served as the consulting author for composition of Writer’s Choice, Grades 6–8.

Table of Contents

	Preface and Acknowledgments	ix
	Introduction: A Call for Other Ways of Reading	3
Part 1.	A Rhetorical View
1.	In Search of Rivers: Womanist Writers and the Essay	17
2.	Toward an Analytical Model for Literacy and Sociopolitical Action	42
Part 2.	A Historical View
3.	The Genesis of Authority: When African Women Became American	77
4.	Going Against the Grain: The Acquisition and Use of Literacy	108
5.	From This Fertile Ground: The Development of Rhetorical Prowess	176
	Photographic Essay: African American Women Rhetors, When and Where They Enter	239
Part 3.	An Ideological View
6.	A View from a Bridge: Afrafeminist Ideologies and Rhetorical Studies	251
Appendix 1.	Some Early African American Women Contributors, Editors, Publishers, and Owners of Periodical Publications	289
Appendix 2.	Some Early Periodical Publications with Which African American Women Writers Were Associated	295
	Notes	297
	Bibliography	307
	Index	327

What People are Saying About This

Lucille M. Schultz

Lucille M. Schultz, University of Cincinnati

Traces of a Stream is stunning. I would recommend it with great enthusiasm to anyone interested in nineteenth-century studies, African American studies, women’s studies, or composition and rhetoric. Royster brings to light writers whose work is simply not included in the current research on literacy. And the primary sources she draws on—especially those periodicals with which nineteenth-century African American women writers were associated— serve as a powerful reminder that scholars interested in literacy and social change have only begun to explore nineteenth-century archives.—Lucille M. Schultz, University of Cincinnati

Editorial Reviews

In this engaging new work, Royster shows how eloquent, well-educated black women used essay writing as an act of resistance against white oppression. The periodical press became an ally of these courageous women, publishing early civil rights and anti-lynching essays  by Maria W. Wtewart, Ida B. Wells, and other writers of sociopolitical import. According to Royster, literacy and knowledge were crucial for the success of the community, and she documents the history of African American schooling from antebellum times, when slaves were taught to read despite legal sanctions, to the later rise of historically black colleges. She also profiles a number of prominant  black women educators and discusses the Black Clubwomen’s movement for public discourse. Highly recommended for most libraries.”
—Library Journal

From the Publisher

Struggling under the double burden of racial and sexual inequality, 19th-century African American women sought for ways to gain empowerment. In this engaging new work, Royster (English, Ohio State) shows how eloquent, well-educated black women used essay writing as an act of resistance against white oppression. The periodical press became an ally of these courageous women, publishing early civil rights and anti-lynching essays by Maria W. Stewart, Ida B. Wells, and other writers of sociopolitical import. According to Royster, literacy and knowledge were crucial for the success of the community, and she documents the history of African American schooling from antebellum times, when some slaves were taught to read despite legal sanctions, to the later rise of historically black colleges. She also profiles a number of prominent black women educators and discusses the Black Clubwomen's Movement, which provided a unique forum for public discourse. Highly recommended for most libraries.--Ellen Sullivan, Ferguson Lib., Stamford, CT Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

Library Journal