How has this step deepened my understanding? I understand I am deeper under my pile of possible sources!

http://www.statesymbolsusa.org/Massachusetts/heroine_gannett.html
Statue of Deborah Samson Gannett at Sharon Public Library, Massachusetts - photo © Mike (mlcastle) on Flickr: use permitted with attribution.

I think I have reached source overload and my husband thinks I am crazy.


When I realized I may have found a bound journal in the library with copies of primary sources, I started my victory chair dance, a rather nerdy number performed from a seated position. My husband walked into the room and looked at me like I was having a seizure of some kind.

As I explained to him that I couldn’t wait to get to the library, I looked at the pile of other sources covering my desk and realized I need to narrow down my search and decide how important the actual history is compared to the sensationalized history in Mann’s memoir of Sampson.

There are so many historical sources out there trying to set the record straight. I found one saying that Sampson’s name is actually Samson and naming her the official heroine of Massachusetts.

If Mann’s text is my primary source how should I approach all of the false material?

How do I determine what is Sampson’s voice?

Do I discount all of the passages that Judith Hiltner proves are most likely based on Mann’s, personal religions beliefs and books Mann sold in his book trade business?

I definitely see parallels to Cotton Mather using Hannah Dustin’s captivity narrative to stir national pride. Mann holds Sampson captive as a character in his novel in order to invoke the popular allegory of early-American feminized national pride.

I know Hiltner makes a brief parallel to colonial captivity narratives, in her essay “‘Like a Bewildered Star’: Deborah Sampson, Herman Mann, and Address, Delivered with Applause,” saying the practice of a man taking historical agency of a woman’s story is nothing new and points to captivity narratives told by male Colonial religious authorities.

Basically, I want to make sure my thesis is different enough from Hiltner’s three articles (that I have found) on Sampson.

Possible thesis:

In The Female Review: Life of Deborah Sampson, Herman Mann takes agency of Sampson’s colonial cross-dressing war story in the same manner as Puritan church leader Cotton Mather took Hannah Duston’s captivity narrative because they both defied gender conventions with unruly violent behavior; therefore, Sampson is a captive in her own biography I need to investigate the passages where Mann’s voice retreats to the background while he narrates her most heroic but unruly behaviors to discover Sampson’s strong female voice.

Well, till next time, keep your gunpowder dry.

~Blake