Empowering words : outsiders and authorship in early America Karen A. Weyler

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Weyler, Karen A.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American literature--Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775--History and criticism.

American literature.

American literature--Revolutionary period, 1775-1783--History and criticism.

Outsiders in literature.

Authorship--Social aspects--United States.

Authorship.

Literacy--Social aspects--United States.

Literacy.

Physical Description:

xiii, 311 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Other Title:

Outsiders & authorship in early America

Place of Publication:

Athens : The University of Georgia Press, [2013].

Summary:

"Standing outside elite or even middling circles, outsiders who were marginalized by limitations on their freedom and their need to labor for a living had a unique grasp on the profoundly social nature of print and its power to influence public opinion. In Empowering Words, Karen A. Weyler explores how outsiders used ephemeral formats such as broadsides, pamphlets, and newspapers to publish poetry, captivity narratives, formal addresses, and other genres with wide appeal in early America. To gain access to print, outsiders collaborated with amanuenses and editors, inserted their stories into popular genres and cheap media, tapped into existing social and religious networks, and sought sponsors and patrons. They wrote individually, collaboratively, and even corporately, but writing for them was almost always an act of connection. Disparate levels of literacy did not necessarily entail subordination on the part of the lessliterate collaborator. Even the minimally literate and the illiterate understood the potential for print to be life changing, and outsiders shrewdly employed strategies to assert themselves within collaborative dynamics. Empowering Words covers an array of outsiders including artisans; the minimally literate; the poor, indentured, or enslaved; and racial minorities. By focusing not only on New England, the traditional stronghold of early American literacy, but also on southern towns such as Williamsburg and Charleston, Weyler limns a more expansive map of early American authorship."--Publisher's website.

Contents:

Introduction: Outsider authorship in early America

Mourning New England: Phillis Wheatley and The broadside elegy

An "Englishman under English colours": Briton Hammon, John Marrant, and the fungibility of Christian faith

"Common, plain, every day talk" from "an uncommon quarter": Samson Occom and the language of the execution sermon

Becoming "the American heroine": Deborah Sampson, collaboration, and performance

"To proceed with spirit": Clementina Rind and the Virginia Gazette

When barbers wrote books: mechanic societies and authorship

Conclusion: Uncovering other outsider authors.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 281-300) and index.

Local Notes:

HSP credit line -- Broadside, Phillis Wheatley, "To Mrs. Leonard, on the death of her husband" (DAMS 8730), call# Ab [1771]-8; page 34.

HSP credit line -- Frontpiece, portrait of Deborah Sampson (DAMS 8729), from "The female review: or, Memoirs of an American young lady, whose life and character are peculiarly..." call# LCP Ar.97 G 21; page 155.

ISBN:

9780820343235 (hbk. : alk. paper)

0820343234 (hbk. : alk. paper)

9780820343242 (pbk. : alk. paper)

0820343242 (pbk. : alk. paper)

OCLC:

819717583