Why We Should Trust Harriet Beecher Stowe

Abstract

Shows how women considered “sentimental authors” took part in a discourse that most have considered male, desperately wanting to persuade their audience of the validity of their view of the world. Argues that, to learn how to do this, they looked to the discipline of rhetoric and oratory, even though they were barred from formal education in the discipline. Explains how these women still took up the strategies promoted by rhetoricians of the day, not simply drawing on the work of these men, but also offering a solution to a crucial problem in the discipline, a problem that had stymied the professionals.