Women's Rights and Transatlantic Antislavery in the Era of Emancipation

Description

Two epochal developments profoundly influenced the history of the Atlantic world between 1770 and 1870—the rise of women’s rights activism and the drive to eliminate chattel slavery. The contributors to this volume, eminent scholars from a variety of disciplines, investigate the intertwining histories of abolitionism and feminism on both sides of the Atlantic during this dynamic century of change. They illuminate the many ways that the two movements developed together and influenced one another. Approaching a wide range of transnational topics, the authors ask how conceptions of slavery and gendered society differed in the United States, France, Germany, and Britain; how women’s activism reached across national boundaries; how racial identities affected the boundaries of women’s activism; and what was distinctive about African-American women’s participation as activists. Their thought-provoking answers provide rich insights into the history of struggles for social justice across the Atlantic world. Contents Illustrations Introduction Part I: Context—Then and Today 1. Declaring Equality: Sisterhood and Slavery 2. Sisterhood, Slavery, and Sovereignty: Transnational Antislavery Work and Women’s Rights Movements in the United States During the Twentieth Century Part II: The Impact of Antislavery on French, German, and British Feminism 3. How (and Why) the Analogy of Marriage with Slavery Provided the Springboard for Women’s Rights Demands in France, 1640–1848 57 Karen Offen 4. Frauenemancipation and Beyond: The Use of the Concept of Emancipation by Early European Feminists 5. Women’s Mobilization in the Era of Slave Emancipation: Some Anglo-French Comparisons 6. British Abolition and Feminism in Transatlantic Perspective Part III: The Transatlantic Activism of African-American Women Abolitionists 7. Sarah Forten’s Anti-Slavery Networks 8. Incidents Abroad: Harriet Jacobs and the Transatlantic Movement 9. ‘‘Like Hot Lead to Pour on the Americans . . .’’: Sarah Parker Remond—From Salem, Mass., to the British Isles 10. Literary Transnationalism and Diasporic History: Frances Watkins Harper’s ‘‘Fancy Sketches,’’ 1859–60 Part IV: Transatlantic Influences on the Emergence of Women’s Rights in the United States 11. ‘‘The Throne of My Heart’’: Religion, Oratory, and Transatlantic Community in Angelina Grimké’s Launching of Women’s Rights, 1828–1838 12. The Redemption of a Heretic: Harriet Martineau and Anglo-American Abolitionism 13. ‘‘Seeking a Larger Liberty’’: Remapping First Wave Feminism 14. Ernestine Rose’s Jewish Origins and the Varieties of Euro-American Emancipation in 1848 Part V: Transcultural Activism Against Slavery by African-American Women 15. Writing for True Womanhood: African-American Women’s Writings and the Antislavery Struggle 16. Enacting Emancipation: African American Women Abolitionists at Oberlin College and the Quest for Empowerment, Equality, and Respectability 17. At the Boundaries of Abolitionism, Feminism, and Black Nationalism: The Activism of Mary Ann Shadd Cary 346 Contributors Index