Writing Educated Femininity: Race, Class, and Intellect in Early American Women's Literature.
This article examines how late eighteenth-and early nineteenth-century white, middle-class American women authors constructed the trope of educated femininity in their literary works. It argues that these authors played a critical role in shaping cultural norms that framed women's education to enhan...
| Publicado en: | Early American Studies, An Interdisciplinary Journal Vol. 24; no. 2; pp. 229 - 257 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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University of Pennsylvania Press
Spring2026
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=193501562&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 193501562 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 15434273 00N jtl: Early American Studies, An Interdisciplinary Journal issn: 15434273 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Spring2026 vid: 24 iid: 2 pid: 4636 pub: University of Pennsylvania Press artinfo: ui: 193501562 10.1353/eam.2026.a989504 ppf: 229 ppct: 28 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 1.3MB tig: atl: Writing Educated Femininity: Race, Class, and Intellect in Early American Women's Literature. aug: au: Rambold, Sarabeth affil: University of Rochester sug: keyword: Critical Whiteness Studies Early American Women's Fiction Early Nineteenth-Century Literature Educated Femininity Ideologeme Late Eighteenth-Century Literature Women's Authorship Women's Education ab: This article examines how late eighteenth-and early nineteenth-century white, middle-class American women authors constructed the trope of educated femininity in their literary works. It argues that these authors played a critical role in shaping cultural norms that framed women's education to enhance domestic roles within a white, patriarchal, and middle-class framework. By defining "proper" uses of women's intellect, their texts simultaneously offered a limited pathway for some marginalized women to access respectability—contingent upon assimilation—and reinforced rigid hierarchies based on race, class, and gender. Drawing on feminist literary scholarship and critical whiteness studies, the article analyzes how educated femininity functioned as a conservative ideologeme that contained women's intellectual agency within prescribed social boundaries. It highlights the tensions in these authors' works, revealing how education was both a potential tool for empowerment and a mechanism to uphold social order. Offering new readings of foundational novels and short stories written by white women between 1791 and 1853, this study demonstrates that the trope of educated femininity not only celebrated women's intellect but also sustained white middle-class normativity by linking intellectual worth to racial and class privilege. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Early American Studies, An Interdisciplinary Journal is the property of University of Pennsylvania Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Early American Studies, An Interdisciplinary Journal holder: University of Pennsylvania Press dt: @attributes: year: 2026 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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