Feminist Interventions in Early American Studies

The intersections of gender, race, and class in the culture and literature of early America to 1830. Because feminist scholarship is thriving in the field of colonial American studies, this volume is timely. It showcases new feminist perspectives on the literature of the period, addressing the diverse experiences of European, African, Latin, and Native Americans. The essays synthesize feminist perspectives from a number of approaches, including cultural studies, gender studies, new historicism, and race theory. They treat a variety of literary genres, from sermons, travel narratives, letters, and diaries to poetry, drama, and early novels. Some of the essays recover little known texts, such as the travel records of women Quakers and colonial accounts of the Creek "Indian princess" Mary Musgrove. Other essays consider the lesser-known texts of established writers, such as the unpublished essays of Crevecoeur and the letters of Judith Sargent Murray. Finally, other essays bring new perspectives to texts that are the subjects of ongoing scholarly debates, such as the poetry of Anne Bradstreet and Phillis Wheatley and the fiction of Tabitha Tenney and Lucy Brewer.