My essay is now complete and I have discovered my scholarly voice in the process. Here is a summary of the scholarship that I reviewed in order to formulate my informed argument about Sampson:
Blake Vives
Dr. Lisa Logan
LIT 6216
7 December 2010
Annotated Bibliography:
Discovering Deborah Sampson in Herman Mann’s The Female Review:
Life of Deborah Sampson: The Female Soldier in the War of Revolution
Adamson, Lynda G. Notable Women in American History: A Guide to Recommended Biographies and Autobiographies. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1999. Print.
This book features a chapter about women in the American Revolution. I found Deborah Sampson listed there along with several other women know to have participated in the war. Reading this helped me understand the roles women served in the revolution in comparison to Sampson’s actual service.
Berkin, Carol, and Leslie Horowitz. Women’s Voices, Women’s Lives: Documents in Early American History. Boston: Northeastern UP, 1998. Print.
This book discusses the lives of women in early America. Unfortunately, it does not reference Sampson like I had hoped; however, it was an interesting read that helped me understand the lives of the women I was studying in my Early American Literature course.
Binhammer, Katherine. "The Sex Panic of the 1790s." Journal of the History of Sexuality 6.3 (1996): 409-434. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 17 Oct. 2010.
Binhammer illustrates how in England in the 1790s women who sought equal rights were characterized as unfeminine and unattractive as a way to manipulate public behavior. This article demonstrates the power literature holds to create a “sex panic” in order to reinforce more conservative gender roles. Though not as immediately relevant to my argument as I had hoped, this article still helped me better understand why Mann needed to shape Sampson, a woman who demonstrated the capacity for women to equal men, into a more traditionally feminine woman for her to be accepted.
Bloch, Ruth H. “Untangling the Roots of Modern Sex Roles: A Survey of Four Centuries of Change.” Signs 4.2 (1978): 237-252. Print.
Bloch gives a clear picture of how American sex roles have evolved since colonial days. What was most surprising was learning that sex roles do not progress steadily in a more liberal direction; they fluctuate according to the perceived “needs” of society. For my paper, I learned that women in Sampson’s time “gained ascendancy” in sentimental fiction and in religious life. The Female Review uses sentimental language and presents Sampson as a pious figure, therefore, granting her ascendancy via her biography through these rhetorical devices.
Brown, Herbert R. The Sentimental Novel in America, 1789-1860. New York: Octagon Books,1975. Print.
Brown claims that Mann’s attempts to minimize descriptions of Sampson’s military service and regulate the novel to the domestic sphere reflect elements of a sentimental novel and the perceived limitations of its female audience. This book showed me what constitutes elements of a sentimental American novel and helped me identify them in my primary text. I also used this source to prove that Mann tried to keep Sampson within the domestic sphere with his language; However, I later showed that he failed in this attempt.
Burnham, Michelle. Captivity & Sentiment: Cultural Exchange in American Literature, 1682-1861. Reencounters with Colonialism—New Perspectives on the Americas. Hanover: UP of New England, 1997. Print.
This book addresses concepts such as captivity, republican motherhood, nationalism, sympathy, and the sentimental novel in early America. This source features a section on Sampson and was useful when I considered addressing Sampson as a captive in her biography. Burnham describes how Mann attempted to control his audience’s responses to Sampson by shaping her as an acceptable Republican Mother. However, my essay actually sought to prove that the text presents an unruly Sampson to audiences.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge,1999. Print
Butler explains her theory of gender performativity in this book. This theory helped me realize that Sampson was performing traditionally male actions. I used this text in the core of my essay to show that Sampson can perform any gender she wishes.
Butler, Judith. Undoing Gender. New York: Routledge, 2004. Print.
In this more recent theory from Butler, she explains that because gender is performative the gender norms can be altered through performance of gender outside of the norms. She also introduces the idea that fantasy is one of the main vehicles for change in gender norms; people must imagine the alternatives before adopting them. This theory was essential in allowing me to bypass concerns of authorship of The Female Review and historical inaccuracies.
Cohen, Daniel A. “Heroic Women Found: Transgressive Feminism, Popular Biography, and the ‘Tragical Deaths of Beautiful Females’.” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society: A Journal of American History and Culture Through 1876 109.1 (1999): 51-97. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 17 Sept. 2010.
In Cohen’s article, he claims to identify three never before defined genres of antebellum Anglo-American feminist biography: transgressive feminism, which was written by male writers and seen as less than reputable; heroic feminism, which was written by reputable male writers; and feminism which operated within the bounds of acceptable gender behaviors and was usually written by women. This article helped me understand possible ways early American feminism operated. I saw that if Cohen believed the transgressive women sentenced to death in could still incite feminist thinking among their readers, the Sampson could too.
Evans, Elizabeth. Weathering the Storm: Women of the American Revolution. New York: Scribner, 1975. Print.
This book includes a lengthy chapter about Sampson’s life and primary historical documents. I found excerpts from the journal and the speech that she possibly wrote for her speaking tour. I found the image of an advertisement for Sampson’s appearance at the Federal Theater in Boston. I plan to add this as a contextual document to my blog because it is an example of how Sampson was “sold” to the public.
Halberstam, Judith. Female Masculinity. Durham: Duke UP, 1998. Print.
Judith Halberstam observes that historically our culture links masculinity with men, power and privilege and that female masculinity is usually ignored by our culture. She explains that masculinity is not inherently linked to the male body or the female body and can exist in either. Halberstam claims that because society associates masculinity only with the male body it is more easily located when it occupies a female body because it is perceived as odd. Halberstam’s term “female masculinity” refers to when masculinity occurs in the female body as opposed to the male body. This text is central to my argument that Sampson’s masculine actions in her distinctly female body are a demonstration of the historically ignore female masculinity.
Heather Smyth. “‘Imperfect Disclosures.’ Cross-Dressing and Containment in Charles Brockden Brown’s Ormond.” Sex and Sexuality in Early America. Ed. Merril D. Smith. New York: NYUP, 1998. 240-261. Print.
Smyth explains the effects of cross-dressing in the novel Ormond and concludes that it does not break down the boundaries of gender and class. I used this article to brainstorm ways to address drag in The Female Review. I asked myself if Sampson’s cross-dressing demonstrated that a woman in her time could resist being traditionally feminine. This was the beginning of my thesis that the literary Sampson offers an alternative to early American gender normative behavior.
Hiltner, Judith R. “‘Like a Bewildered Star’: Deborah Sampson, Herman Mann, and Address, Delivered with Applause.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 29.2 (1999): 5-24. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 17 Sept. 2010.
Hiltner elucidates how Mann most likely wrote Sampson’s speech about her time as a soldier during the revolution and describes cultural contexts which motivated him to squelch cultural fears of her gender transgression. She also seeks to differentiate the real Sampson’s voice from Mann’s in the speech. After reading this article, I decided that because Hiltner had investigated the truth of Sampson’s life so thoroughly I wanted to move in a different direction with my paper.
---. “‘She Bled in Secret’: Deborah Sampson, Herman Mann, and the Female Review.” Early American Literature 34.2 (1999): 190-20. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 17 Sept. 2010.
Hiltner examines how Sampson fits into the early American tendency, of male authors, to use women stories as a national icon, in a manner that reinforces typical gender conventions. She catalogues how Mann’s fabricated material in The Female Review corresponds with his political agenda. This article helped me understand the early American trend of feminizing national pride, that gender identities were shifting when Sampson’s biography was written, and that the dominant male culture would have encouraged women to act in accordance with traditional behaviors. After reading this article, I was inspired to find alternatives ways Sampson could functioning in her own biography.
Holbrook, Stewart H. Lost Men of American History. New York: Macmillan, 1946. Print.
This book is an attempt to write overlooked men from the American Revolution and the Civil War into history. I read the chapter featuring Robert Shirtleff, also known as Deborah Sampson. Though the chapter featured the same historical inaccuracies present in Mann’s text, I love the irony that in 1946 she was honored in a book named Lost “Men” of American History.
Juster, Susan. “‘Neither Male Nor Female’: Jemima Wilkinson and the Politics of Gender in Post-Revolutionary America." Possible Pasts: Becoming Colonial in Early America. Ed. Robert Blair St. George. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2000. 357-79. Print.
Juster theorizes about Jemima Wilkinson a woman who claimed a religious conversion and began to wear men’s clothes and speak with male authority. This article helped me see how a woman who blatantly claimed male authority would have been received in the Revolutionary era. After reading this article, I saw what an anomaly Sampson is for being widely accepted by the popular culture of her time; she could have been publically rejected like Wilkinson.
Leonard, Patrick L. “Deborah Samson: Official Heroine of the State of Massachusetts.” Minerva VI.3 (1988): 61. GW. Web. 23 Sep. 2010.
This article talks about the motivations behind naming Sampson the Massachusetts state heroine and points out Mann’s inaccuracies in The Female Review. It was an interesting historical piece that shows how Sampson is remembered in contemporary America. I used this as a contextual document for my undergraduate studyguide.
Logan, Lisa M. “Columbia’s Daughters in Drag; or, Cross-Dressing, Collaboration, and Authorship in Early American Novels.” Feminist Interventions in Early American Studies. 240-252. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 2006. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 19 Sept. 2010.
This article explores early American collaborative authorship and authorial cross-dressing. This article helped me understand Marjorie Garber’s third term and that rhetorical drag might be symptomatic of a category crisis where female authorship is taboo. It was especially important because it helped me think critically about the way cross-dressing in my text related to the discursive behavior. I began to see that Sampson could have acknowledged the benefits of a man writing her biography.
Lombard, Anne S. “Reviewed work(s): Masquerade: The Life and Times of Deborah Sampson, Continental Soldier by Alfred F. Young.” Reviews in American History 32. 4 (2004): 493-498. JSTOR. Web. 10 Sept. 2010.
This is a book review of the 2004 biography of Sampson. The article gave an excellent assessment of the book and endorsed it as accurate and interesting. After reading this article, I checked out Young’s book to use as a historically accurate source.
Marsden, Jean I. “Modesty Unshackled: Dorothy Jordan and the Dangers of Cross-Dressing.” Studies in Eighteenth Century Culture 22 (1993): 21-35. Project MUSE. 23 Sept. 2010. Web.
Marsden argues that by studying the how the cross-dressing, theater actress Dorothy Jordan was received by the public and critics the late eighteenth century development of the polarization of genders can be located and better understood. This article was useful because I learned that male and female were not always perceived as “natural” opposites of each other and that cross-dressing in the theater was not originally a transgressive act. This source helped me better understand the history of cross dressing and inspired me to look into Judith Butler’s gender theory, which argues that gender is not inherent but performative.
Mulford, Carla. “Writing Women in early American Studies: On Canons, Feminist Critique, and the Work of Writing Women into History.” Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 26.1 (2007): 107-18. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 13 Sept. 2010.
Mulford discusses the genesis of the American canon of literature and asserts that its evolution, to include works from a variety of authors of different sex, race and background, benefits all literary scholars. Her argument leads to her central aim and thesis, to compel scholars to accept non-published writing by early American women as a part of the cannon. This article supplied me with the context of early American feminine theory and allowed me to enter the scholarly conversation informed.
Norton, Mary B. Liberty's Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800. Boston: Little, 1980. Print.
This book gives a complete picture of what life was like for early American women including marriage, childbirth, education and their rights and duties through the revolution. This book included four entries on Sampson which I used as a historical resource to contextualize her life. It was especially useful for understanding that Sampson must have been an extremely politically assertive woman for her time to enlist in the Army.
Petter, Henri. The Early American Novel. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 1971. Print.
This book covers all of the different genres and stages in evolution of the early American novel. I read the chapter about semi-historical novels. In this chapter, Petter notes that while The Female Review contains elements of a romantic historical reconstruction of the revolutionary war, it does not successfully balance history, fiction and its moralizing agenda. This source helped me locate a tension present between Mann’s moralization and moderation of Sampson’s actions and his addition of “immoral,” fictional events.
Smith, Merril D. Women's Roles in Eighteenth-Century America. Santa Barbara, Calif: Greenwood, 2010. Print.
This book presents exactly what the title promises, the most recent scholarship explaining what women’s roles were in early America. Out of all of my sources, this book best contextualized what life was like for women in the eighteenth-century, and it was so well-written that I actually finished the entire book. This book helped me understand why Sampson was a servant, what was expected of her as a woman, and exactly how she would have been perceived if she wrote her own biography, and how transgressive her political actions would have appeared if she was dressed as a woman.
Weyler, Karen A. “An Actor in the Drama of Revolution: Deborah Sampson, Print, and Performance in the Creation of Celebrity.” Feminist Interventions in Early American Studies. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 2006. 183-193. Print.
Weyler challenges scholars in search of Deborah Sampson to look beyond her biography and public speech and examine her actions. She presents Sampson as the intelligent, successful architect of her public image, instead of the pawn of a masculine author. She claims that Sampson initially returned to an anonymous, feminine lifestyle after her military service because she knew her masculine actions would seem threatening to men (184,186). Weyler points out that Sampson most likely realized that positive, published accounts of her service and character lead to her successful petition for military back pay. This article was the source that allowed me to break from imagining Sampson as captive in her own text and freed me to investigate other ways it operates.
Whitton, Mary O. These Were the Women: U.S.A. 1776-1860. New York: Hastings House,1954. Print.
This book is a historical tribute to notable American women. In the chapter featuring Sampson, Whitton says that she is usually viewed (in the 1950s) as mentally unstable. I credit this to the conservative backswing of gender roles and women’s rights in the 1950s. Whitton does, however, try to claim that Sampson was merely a patriotic woman. This source helped me understand that interpretation of Sampson have changed over the decades, based on how the current social ideology works.
Young, Alfred F. Masquerade: The Life and Times of Deborah Sampson, Continental Soldier. New York: Knopf, 2004. Print.
Young uses historical documents, oral history, and historical artifacts to give a more accurate picture of Sampson’s life. I enjoyed this new version of Sampson’s biography, and actually read it in its entirety. This text was useful for identifying elements of fantasy in The Female Review and giving the history of Sampson’s statue which inspired my conclusion.
Zagarri, Rosemarie. “The Rights of Man and Woman in Post-Revolutionary America.” William and Mary Quarterly 55.2 (1998): 203-30. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 27 Oct. 2010.
Zagarri explains that the gender norms in post-Revolutionary America and elaborates upon how they restricted women to the private sphere of their homes. She says women’s rights did not include inherent, equal rights for women but instead imposed familial duties and responsibilities and called for subordination to men. This article was my source for understanding the world that Sampson lived in as establishing her behavior as unruly because it defied these gender norms.
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