Date of Award

Fall 12-2011

Degree Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

English

Committee Chair

Luis Iglesias

Committee Chair Department

English

Committee Member 2

Jameela Lares

Committee Member 2 Department

English

Committee Member 3

Kenneth Watson

Committee Member 3 Department

English

Abstract

In 1798, Judith Sargent Murray published a three-volume collection of one hundred miscellaneous essays on topics ranging from social politesse to women’s education to international politics. Her diligence, forethought and manipulation of pseudonyms in the print-hungry post-Revolutionary America create a unique place for her in the history of American letters. However, in the twentieth century, modern feminism has attempted to claim Murray as one of their own, choosing between one and four examples of her work as proof of her forward-looking philosophy, while ignoring significant pieces of those same works as well as much of her oeuvre as a whole which espouse much more firmly the place of the woman in the home.

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