Woman Thinking

Feminism and Transcendentalism in Nineteenth-Century America

By (author) Tiffany K. Wayne

Publication date:

01 December 2004

Length of book:

172 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

Dimensions:

234x164mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9780739107591

This book explores the theoretical relationship between feminism and transcendentalism through the ideas and activism of prominent 19th century female thinkers and activists. By analyzing the work of such important figures in post-Civil War American intellectual life_such as Ednah Cheney, Caroline Dall, Margaret Fuller, and Elizabeth Oakes Smith_Tiffany Wayne demonstrates how transcendentalism provided a language with particular appeal to women and helped promote an emerging feminist movement with a similar goal of acknowledging women's right to self-development. Bridging the gap between the traditionally disparate fields of women's history and American intellectual history, this book is as much a re-visioning of transcendentalism_arguing for recognition of its more widespread and long-lasting influence in American cultural life_as a project in historicizing feminist theory.

Chapter 1 Introduction: The Transcendental Arc
Chapter 2 "The Seeds of Thought": The Feminist Reform Vision of Margaret Fuller
Chapter 3 "Woman's Right to Think": Transcendentalism in the Organized Women's Movement
Chapter 4 "A Woman's Life and Work": Self-Culture, Vocation, and the Female Intellectual
Chapter 5 The Concord School of Philosophy and the Feminization of Transcendentalism after the Civil War
Chapter 6 Epilogue: Feminism and American Intellectual History

This is potentially the most clear-sighted analysis of Transcendentalist gender-essentialism and its constructive uses to date. There is a growing interest in women identified with Transcendentalism beyond Margaret Fuller, as well as in certain aspects of their involvement in the women's rights movement. No one else to date, however, has attempted a narrative of the whole, let alone with this double grounding in feminist and Transcendentalist history and grasp of feminist theory. The argument for post-bellum Transcendentalism is itself an important contribution to collective rethinking about periodization and feminization.