Water drops from women writers : a temperance reader / edited by Carol Mattingly.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Mattingly, Carol, 1945-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Alcoholics--Family relationships--Fiction.

Alcoholics.

Drinking of alcoholic beverages--Fiction.

Drinking of alcoholic beverages.

Alcoholics--Rehabilitation.

Alcoholics--Family relationships.

Alcoholics--Rehabilitation--Fiction.

Alcoholics--Fiction.

Temperance--Fiction.

Temperance.

American fiction--Women authors.

American fiction.

American fiction--19th century.

Genre:

Fiction.

Physical Description:

xii, 292 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Carbondale : Southern Illinois University Press, [2001]

Summary:

The temperance movement was the largest single organizing force for women in American history, uniting and empowering women seeking to enact social change. By the end of the century, more than two hundred thousand women had become members of the largest organization for temperance women, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), and numerous others belonged to other temperance organizations. Despite the impact of the movement, its literature has been largely neglected. In this collection of nineteen temperance tales, Carol Mattingly has recovered and revalued previously unavailable writing by women. Mattingly's introduction provides a context for these stories, locating the pieces within the temperance movement as well as within larger issues in women's studies.

The temperance movement was essential to women's awareness of and efforts to change gender inequalities in the United States during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. And there is little doubt that women deliberately wrote temperance fiction to raise consciousness and unite women. In their fiction, these women writers protested physical and emotional abuse at the hands of men, argued for women's rights, addressed legal concerns, such as divorce and child custody, and denounced gender-biased decisions affecting the care and rights of children. Temperance fiction by women broadens our understanding of the connections between women's rights and temperance, while shedding light on women's thinking and behavior in the nineteenth century.

Mattingly organizes this reader according to the three general themes most explicitly addressed in women's temperance fiction: family relationships, legal inequities, and women's roles. Water Drops from Women Writers features biographical sketches of each writer as well as thirteen illustrations.

Contents:

Part 1 Family Relationships

Caroline Hyde Butler (Laing) 21

Emma Alton 22

Lydia Howard Huntley Sigourney 31

The Intemperate 32

Frances Dana Gage 46

Tales of Truth (No. 1) 47

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (Ward) 54

Jack the Fisherman 55

Mary Dwinell Chellis 85

from Our Homes 86

Caroline Lee Whiting Hentz 91

The Drunkard's Daughter 92

Julia Perkins (Pratt) Ballard [Kruna] 111

Only a Drunkard's Daughter 112

Corra Lynn 115

from Durham Village; A Temperance Tale 117

Part 2 Legal Inequities

Marietta Holley 125

from Sweet Cicely or Josiah Allen as a Politician 126

Elizabeth Cady Stanton 153

Henry Neil and His Mother 154

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper 167

from Sowing and Reaping 168

Mary Dwinell Chellis 175

from Wealth and Wine 177

Sophia Louisa Robbins Little 183

from The Reveille: or, Our Music at Dawn 184

Mrs. E. N. Gladding 190

Minnie

A Temperance Tale 191

Part 3 Women's Roles

Harriet Beecher Stowe 207

The Coral Ring 209

Louisa May Alcott 218

Silver Pitchers 219

Elizabeth Fries Lummis Ellet 250

A Country Recollection, or, The Reformed Inebriate 251

Frances Dana Gage 260

Tales of Truth (No. 2) 260

Caroline Hyde Butler (Laing) 268

Amy 268.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 291-292).

ISBN:

0809323990

OCLC:

45505979