Journal on Constitutional Democracy

wrote in his 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death, the On one hand, empowerment and energy were simply a
transition from print to television function of scope. During the time period analyzed in
this section, when there were only three networks on
dramatically and irreversibly shifted the content television, each network would have tens of millions
and meaning of public discourse, since two of viewers. No one newspaper could reach that many
media so vastly different cannot accommodate readers, meaning the specific coverage ABC, CBS,
the same ideas. As the influence of print wane[d], and NBC aired had more influence than coverage of
the content of politics, religion, education, and the same event from any city or even national print
anything else that comprises public business [had news sources. More importantly though, increased
to] change and be recast in terms that [were] most empowerment and energy were a function of how
suitable to television.5 evolutions in delivery between these two mediums
changed the context in which viewers received and
As I will examine in the remainder of the article, that processed the major events of the day. Unlike the print
recasting played out in various ways—and to various culture it replaced at the center of news reporting and
ends—during what I deem to be television’s ascendant political discourse, television news could capture and
phase, from the Civil Rights Movement to the Vietnam convey the immediate realities of human pain and
War, and on through to the election of a former actor suffering. For example, television not only provided
as president. Civil Rights leaders with an outlet for amplifying
the movement’s voices, messages, and images; it also
*** intensified and personalized the audience’s experience
of the movement. The immediate act of bearing witness
When viewers of the early network news shows turned to mob violence against the Freedom Riders, to Black
on their televisions, the news experience they were demonstrators being hosed down in Birmingham, or
getting was vastly different from the print and radio to Bloody Sunday attacks on marchers in Selma added
news they had previously read or listened to. While
radio made news more immediate than print by
broadcasting the voices of reporters and sources into
the home of the listener, television added to this the
moving images of anchors, reporters, sources, and news
events, all of which brought the people involved in
creating and disseminating the news closer than ever to
consumers of it. This naturally created a more intimate
relationship between viewer and source or subject,
which in turn created both more investment from the
viewer in the events being reported on and more trust
in the veracity of these reports. According to a 1972
survey from the Roper Organization for the Television
Information Office, 48 percent of viewers were most
inclined to believe television if different mediums
contradicted each other in the information they
presented.6 The next highest choice was newspapers,
with 21 percent. CBS Evening News anchor Walter
Cronkite became known as the “most trusted man in
America,” finishing ahead of major politicians in a 1972
Quayle and Co. poll for the title, further suggesting
strong investment from newly engaged viewers.7 And
with increased engagement in the news came increased
political empowerment and energy.

Journal on Constitutional Democracy 101

an urgency to the national conversation about civil in so far as change cannot be explicitly traced back to
rights. Americans could no longer ignore the Civil it, viewers did respond viscerally, and then politically,
Rights Movement, and the bloodshed could no longer to a similarly charged television report on another
be denied, diminished, or passed off as someone else’s topic just a few years later: Morley Safer’s 1965 report
problem, because television viewers were seeing it for from the Vietnamese village of Cam Ne. Safer’s report
themselves on the news each night. The bloodshed included footage of U.S. Marines setting fire to homes
had become everyone’s problem, and the sense of while the villagers, dozens of them children, looked on
national crisis spurred by these images of anti-Black in despair. Safer framed this portrayal as the Marines
violence created results, outraging some viewers and seeking vengeance for some sniper fire that came from
leading them to seek out and promote channels for the village, reporting that a commanding officer told
confronting and reversing the reality of the oppression his unit to “level” Cam Ne, after which the visual of
they saw. Following the first voting rights march in Marines using a flamethrower on a home flashed on
Selma, President Lyndon Johnson sent a voting rights screen. The segment aired on the CBS Evening News
bill to Congress and urged a joint session of Congress with Walter Cronkite, and it was one of the first reports
to fulfill “the promise of equality” for Black citizens.8 that a U.S. audience received about the destruction
American troops were inflicting on civilians in Vietnam.
Even in accounts of violence without live television The footage of the Cam Ne villagers activated viewers
coverage, there is an activating and emotional charge emotionally, foreshadowing the political activism
that comes from their being broadcast through a surrounding the Vietnam War in the years to come.
visual medium. In 1961, CBS aired a special report However, the initial response was not necessarily
called “Who Speaks for Birmingham?” that contained what one might expect. The report did spark intense
an interview with Black activist Fred Shuttlesworth. backlash, both from viewers and from government
He was beaten by Klansmen four years prior while officials, proving the potency of this sort of imagery
attempting to enroll his children in a previously all- on television.10 But the focus of the outrage was the
white school. The segment switches between footage reporting itself. Rather than elicit visceral, emotional
of his interview and video footage from the beating, responses of support for Cam Ne residents—the
but the report was perhaps at its most effective when victims of violence—viewers and government officials
Shuttlesworth described his injuries and showed the were outraged that CBS would air a segment critical of
parts of his body that were most injured: “And this wrist the war. President Johnson himself called the president
was almost broken,” he told viewers. “And I was knocked of CBS to criticize the report, and a few days later,
to the ground five or six times. I was kicked. My face was he allegedly threatened to publicly identify Safer as a
terrifically scared. The skin were all off my ears…I have Communist.11 If this generally shows how the effect
scars now that are visible.”9 Shuttlesworth detailing the of the moving image can be clearly measured in the
attack in a video interview was more likely to evoke an potency of the backlash it generates, soon enough
emotional response from a viewer than an interview the effect of televised war coverage would evolve to
for a print article accompanied by a single still photo. fall in line with emotional expectations, as Americans
Speaking about his own experience in a medium that
allowed him to use his own voice was a powerful display
of agency and an equally powerful call for change, as
the testimonial transfered some level of responsibility
and agency to the viewer, who was being summoned to
action alongside Shuttlesworth to prevent violence like
this from happening again—being summoned, that is,
to join him in speaking for Birmingham, as the open-
ended title of the segment demands.

While this analysis of the emotional effect of
Shuttlesworth’s interview is technically hypothetical,

102 Kinder Institute

increasingly came to lash out against U.S. involvement understanding how people in positions of power would
in Vietnam rather than against reports perceived as attempt to shape not only what was presented to the
critical of that involvement. country through television news but also how viewers
would respond to it. Again, those gruesome images
The perception of Vietnam, the “first televised war” of young Americans dying in war were a significant
as it is often called, was shaped largely by American contributing factor to the outrage that was stirred
television media. It was the first war in which among U.S. citizens, who in turn put pressure on
reporters accompanied troops without being subject politicians to end the war. From the point of view of
to censorship, meaning that not only were a majority military officials, however, media coverage was to
of Americans receiving footage of a war in their living blame for America losing the war. Echoing Johnson’s
rooms for the first time, but also that the military had original reaction to Safer’s 1965 report, the way these
little to no say over what could be filmed.12 If President officials saw it, those images from Vietnam jaded the
Johnson thought Safer’s report was damaging to American public and caused them to lose support for
the government’s cause in the Vietnam War, all he the war. According to William Hatchen and James
would have to do is wait a few more years. By 1968, Scotton, “a view prevailed within the military that the
there would be about 600 journalists reporting on free rein given to reporters in Vietnam led to reporting
the ground in Vietnam,13 and a study of Department that seriously damaged morale and turned American
of Defense tapings of the CBS Evening News from public opinion against its own troops.”15 In subsequent
1965-1968 found that the program spent 52 percent conflicts, the military would thus attempt to re-seize
of Vietnam coverage time on military activity.14 Every control by restricting coverage of their actions.
camera in Vietnam was another opportunity to record
the brutalities of war and place the viewer alongside When U.S. forces initially invaded Grenada in 1983,
the troops and Vietnamese civilians. And as television for example, American reporters were barred from
gave millions of Americans a firsthand look at the covering the offensive. A pool of 12 reporters was
destruction, these newly empowered viewers acted. Just eventually granted access two days into the invasion,
like during the Civil Rights Movement, large numbers but they had a military escort, and it would take a week
of them protested and created pressure on their leaders for more reporters to be granted access under the same
to act. condition.16 Restraints on the wartime press would
continue with the invasion of Panama in 1989, during
*** which reporters had to wait hours before filing stories,
and then with the Gulf War in the 1990s, during which
As television came to control more of the national Pentagon officials would give news conferences intended
narrative, it became increasingly important for political to “mislead the enemy, not inform the public.”17 Similar
actors to receive favorable television coverage and they
developed a number of strategies for doing so. This
would mark a shift from viewers taking the political
reins to viewers being led where an institution wanted
them to go. More and more, political news came to be
centered around staged events or, in some cases, images
crafted by those in power, and the trust that a plurality
of viewers reported having in television over other
media—a function of the viewer’s own trust in what they
were witnessing—became harnessed for manipulation,
fundamentally altering how television inspired viewers
to become more engaged and politically active.

The government response to media coverage of
the Vietnam War provides an early case study for

Journal on Constitutional Democracy 103

to media management strategies used by the British the administration should take when it comes to the
during the 1982 Falklands War, which “expected [the people with divergent points of view with whom Nixon
media] to help in leading and steadying public opinion would be meeting, making it clear that he sought only
in times of national stress or crisis,”18 these restrictions to manipulate broadcast images to create the façade
essentially sought to dictate what images news reporters that the president was listening to all sides. He believed
could capture and when they could capture them, in the this impression-building was necessary to match and
hopes that this would leave the media no other option counteract “the publicity and the audience” given to
than to report a favorable message. the “most vocal and disorderly dissenters” in the media.
As Postman wrote in “Amusing Ourselves to Death,”
Though it preceded the events mentioned above, “‘giving off’ impressions … is what television does
President Richard Nixon’s administration would best.”
go one step further than what was just described Nixon was hardly the first president whose advisers
in pondering how to control the message about attempted to craft a public image for him; he wasn’t
military action by introducing staged images into the even the first president concerned with his perception
national conversation. Less than two weeks after the based on television news. Still, Buchanan’s memo sheds
1970 shootings of student protestors at Kent State light on the influence a dominant news medium can
University, White House adviser Pat Buchanan sent a have on the thinking and actions both of those in
memorandum to some of his colleagues suggesting a power and those subject to this power.
course of action regarding the Cambodian Campaign
(the subject of the protests). In it, Buchanan suggested The memo also illuminates the substantive difference
that the president “take live time” on the major between an image that is staged for and an image
television networks to explain the campaign, which he that is captured by television cameras. For example,
believed had been “partially discredited” by the media.
He noted that such an address “ought to be tough and
straight,” and he mused that it could be beneficial if
the military flew home rockets and mortars captured in
the military operation “to show them to the American
people.”19 The emphasis on the curated image—and the
significance of this emphasis—is unmistakable here:
Not only was Buchanan suggesting that introducing
visuals of these items through the media would be
highly effective in convincing the American people of
the Cambodian Campaign’s necessity and success; he
was also lobbying for these visual symbols of success
and strength to effectively replace logical explanation
of the military action.

Buchanan’s memo also addressed this kind of
“coverage’s” broader potential to counter existing
negative narratives about the administration. He saw
the national television media as having a “distorted
lens” when it came to Nixon, and his solution for
correcting it was, again, the staged image. Buchanan
wrote that “there is merit” in President Nixon meeting
with groups of protesters with “different points of
view” from the administration, “but the merit lies
solely in the public impression conveyed.” Buchanan
conspicuously did not mention any policy-related steps

104 Kinder Institute

Buchanan’s idea to stage Nixon’s meeting with student Lou Cannon, a former Washington Post reporter and
demonstrators was one designed only for the camera, Reagan biographer, found a deep and logic-defying
with its only desired effect taking place on viewers at public trust in the president: “He’s telling these stories
home. His plan did not suggest a larger effort to listen to and he’s essentially unbelievable, as every poll said.”
and consider the points of view of these demonstrators. And yet, “people always believe Reagan.” One of his
Nor did he expect the handful of hypothetical student biographies of Reagan was subtitled “The Role of a
demonstrators meeting with Nixon to be swayed by the Lifetime,” because, as Cannon once explained, what
president listening to them. Public relations stagings Reagan “valued most was the performance aspect of
like this have symbolic appeal alone, and they are the presidency.”21 Reagan criticized his immediate
designed only to willfully mislead and manipulate the predecessors, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, for
viewing public. As a counterpoint, one could in theory lacking in performative ability, and legend has it that he
argue that Civil Rights demonstrators had a clear once responded to a question about how an actor could
media strategy and that images of their actions might become president by quipping, “How can a president
therefore seem a bit staged. But the primary concern not be an actor?” It’s hard to imagine a president
of their demonstrations was not to convey an image emphasizing and modeling performance so heavily if
specifically to the cameras, and the primary motivations not for the influence of television.
for their demonstrations was not to lash back against
unfavorable TV coverage but against violence directed Television aided in a shift in American politics, both
toward them. These televised images carried meaning in policy and in elections. The accessible, immediate
and helped a movement of millions of people gain moving image empowered viewers by bringing the
momentum; Nixon’s planned televised images helped news to them unfiltered, but it also gave those in
only him and his administration. power a more immediate way of crafting their public
image and manipulating public opinion. In the days
*** since television’s ascendance in the 1960s and 1970s,
television news has continued to evolve, both because
One of the best examples of the effect television had on of advances in technology and because of competition
political discourse is President Ronald Reagan, a walking from digital news platforms. From shorter and shorter
metaphor for the influence of the epistemological shift soundbites to the emergence of social-media-friendly
to television. Reagan had a long acting career before segments, there is much more to examine about the
being elected governor of California in the 1960s and effect of television news on politics in recent years.22
then U.S. president in 1980. His two nicknames as But it is also increasingly important to learn from
president speak to his television expertise: “The Great the last major epistemological shift as the digital age
Communicator” and “The Teflon President,” the latter takes hold and alters the relationship between media,
derived from a belief that his public image “[would] be politics, and viewer once again.
forever sealed in a Teflon coat” that deflected criticism
and blame. As the Congresswoman who coined the 1“The Ailes Files.” Gawker. 2011. edge-cache.gawker.
latter nickname explained, “Reagan’s incredible ability com/gawker/ailesfiles/ailesfiles.html
to communicate and his staff’s genius in exploiting 2“Statistics on Radio and Television 1950-1960.”
that ability” insulated him from blame: “Americans UNESCO. 1963. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/
are optimistic by nature, and they loved that Reagan images/0003/000337/033739eo.pdf
believed to his core in the American Dream. If someone 3“Newspapers Fact Sheet.” Pew Research Center’s
accused him of hurting college students by cutting Journalism Project. 1 June 2017. www.journalism.org/
loans, President Reagan could be seen on the nightly fact-sheet/newspapers/
news writing a personal check to a struggling student.”20 4“Sixty Years of Daily Newspaper Circulation Trends.”
Reagan was a natural at the exact same staging tricks the Communic@tions Management Inc. 2011. media-
Buchanan memo discussed. cmi.com/downloads/Sixty_Years_Daily_Newspaper_

Journal on Constitutional Democracy 105

Circulation_Trends_050611.pdf and “Historical Daily Prism.” Challenges of Digital Communication 8
Viewing Activity.” The Nielsen Company. (2012): 188.
5Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public 19Buchanan, Patrick J. “Media Memorandum for the
Discourse in the Age of Show Business. New York: President.” 21 May 1970. Richard Nixon Presidential
Penguin Books, 1986. 8. Library and Museum. http://www.nixonlibrary.gov/
6Hallin, Daniel C. The Uncensored War: The Media virtuallibrary/releases/jan10/025.pdf
and Vietnam. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of 20Schroeder, Patricia. “Nothing Stuck to ‘Teflon’
California Press, 1986. 106. President.” USA Today. 6 June 2004. usatoday30.
7Plissner, Marty. “The Most Trusted Man In America.” usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2004-06-06-
CBS News. 4 February 2003. http://www.cbsnews. schroeder_x.htm
com/news/the-most-trusted-man-in-america/ 21“Ronald Reagan: Role of a Lifetime, Part 1.” C-SPAN.
8Wicker, Tom. “Johnson Urges Congress at Joint 18 April 1991. http://www.c-span.org/video/?17936-1/
Session to Pass Law Insuring Negro Vote.” 16 March ronald-reagan-role-lifetime-part-1
1965. The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/ 22Adatto, Kiku. “The Incredible Shrinking Sound Bite.”
learning/general/onthisday/big/0315.html The New Republic. 28 May 1990.
9“CBS Reports: Who Speaks for Birmingham.” The
Civil Rights Movement and Television. The Paley
Center for Media. www.paleycenter.org/cbs-reports-
who-speaks-for-birmingham
10“Reporting Vietnam: Cam Ne.” Newseum. 5 August
2015. www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjP9C_fODfI
11“Safer’s Watershed Report from Cam Ne.” CBS News.
15 May 2016. www.cbsnews.com/news/controversial-
report-changed-war-coverage-in-america/
12Hallin, Daniel C. The Uncensored War: The Media
and Vietnam. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 1986. 6.
13“The Vietnam War and the media.” Encyclopedia
Britannica. 27 April 2016. https://www.britannica.com/
topic/The-Vietnam-War-and-the-media-2051426
14Hallin, Daniel C. The Uncensored War: The Media
and Vietnam. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 1986. 112.
15Hachten, William, and James Scotton. “War
Reporting: Fire and Misfire in The World News
Prism.” Challenges of Digital Communication 8
(2012): 188.
16Hachten, William, and James Scotton. “War
Reporting: Fire and Misfire in The World News
Prism.” Challenges of Digital Communication 8
(2012): 188.
17Hachten, William, and James Scotton. “War
Reporting: Fire and Misfire in The World News
Prism.” Challenges of Digital Communication 8
(2012): 189-190.
18Hachten, William, and James Scotton. “War
Reporting: Fire and Misfire in The World News

106 Kinder Institute

Journal on Constitutional Democracy 107

Constructing the American Identity
in the Trump Era

by Matt Orf

108 Kinder Institute

I. Introduction develop out of the limits inherent in such a constricted
information marketplace. With time, however, both
November 22, 1963, is a day that will forever be this collective truth and this shared identity would
remembered in the American consciousness. President begin to fray.
John F. Kennedy was assassinated, his youthful image
permanently etched into the American story. CBS With the rise of cable news during the 1980s and
was the first of the major broadcast stations to break 1990s—and after that, the advent of the internet—the
the news, beating out NBC by less than one minute. vehicle through which news was consumed pivoted
There was no one better to rise to this monumental and pivoted again. The broadcast networks’ relatively
challenge than Walter Cronkite, who delivered the consolidated control over what news was worthy
first report of the incident just over an hour after the of public consumption deteriorated, as these new
shots had been fired. Scheduled programming was outlets provided platforms from which individuals
interrupted to inform viewers of the event, and within could project their experiences without standards of
two hours, virtually the entire nation had heard the objectivity. In this landscape, it became increasingly
news.1 Cronkite spoke evenly and to the point, and he possible to seek out affirmation of one’s beliefs, with or
had removed his glasses—a clear sign of the weight of without evidence to support them. The “most trusted
the information he was prepared to share. But after man in America” became the individual.
having broken the news of the president’s death with
strength, Cronkite allowed himself to be visibly shaken With increasing media fragmentation came a coinciding
by the moment, exuding a calming, resolute humanity. fragmentation of the collective truth previously alluded
This event would be the single most viewed television to. And as new authorities continue to take advantage of
event of the 20th century and remains surpassed only this fragmentation to define reality in their own manner,
by the events of September 11, 2001. Throughout it is necessary for institutions within American society
the aftermath, Walter Cronkite was there, bringing to loudly protest and to demand the employment of the
the details to the American public as they developed, best tools for discerning truth available to humanity:
coverage that solidified his authority as a source of rationality and empiricism.
truth, a title and ethos that would grow until it reached
the zenith of his being named “the most trusted man II. Media Fragmentation and the Rise of
in America.” “Alternative” Media

Cronkite was a figure whom Americans sought out At the height of its popularity, between 27 and 29
for some of the biggest stories of the 20th century: million Americans—more than 10% of the total
the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr., Robert American population—tuned in to CBS Nightly News
Kennedy, and John Lennon; the every night to watch Walter Cronkite.3 And again, the
moon landing; and the Vietnam potential for some semblance of a collective truth that
War, to name only a few. While these figures demonstrate has been challenged and
the title of “most trusted man fragmented by new and emerging technologies, which
in America” may be equal parts
how CBS wanted the American
public to view Cronkite and how
the American public actually
viewed him, what this moniker demonstrates about
collective truth in the era is authentic.2 During this
first wave of television news, there were only three
broadcast networks to choose from. And as this essay
will unpack in greater detail later, as television became
the preferred source of news in American households,
a sense of collective truth and identity began to

Journal on Constitutional Democracy 109

have increased the number of truth sources while equally divided. As understanding of events has
simultaneously loosening the standards to which these fragmented, so has the American identity.
sources are held.
All of the issues (good and bad) associated with
The first major technological shift away from the cable news—the rise of partisan programming, the
broadcast era came with the emergence of cable news undermining of media credibility, dissemination of a
programming. Cable News Network, or CNN, was the wider range of images and information—would increase
first such channel to take hold, and by the mid-1990s, in magnitude with the rise of the internet. Now, anyone
the big three of Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN had with internet access has the ability to project their
formed. These new cable channels brought round- opinions and ideas to the world, regardless of empirical
the-clock coverage, revolutionizing the way news was support or accuracy. (Though a bit of an aside here, the
consumed. During the era of broadcast news,Americans fragmentation of truth—or, perhaps more accurately,
would tune in to one of three nightly news programs the ability to fragment truth—would be influentially
at roughly the same time to consume accounts of exploited by one of the United States’ greatest
a roughly similar slate of events that constituted the geopolitical rivals during the 2016 presidential election.)
day’s most important occurrences. In this essay’s
vocabulary, these broadcast networks thus provided Despite their shortcomings, major cable news networks
the common source material for a collective process of demonstrated at least some commitment to objectivity
truthmaking—i.e., a shared set of images, knowledge, in the information they gathered and disseminated.
and experiences around which individuals across the By contrast, an individual’s blog, of which there are
country could unite in forming unique ideas of truth. hundreds of millions at this point in time, makes no
This collective experience became fragmented by 24- promise of and, in reality, is not at all beholden to
hour news programming, as individuals could now accuracy or objectivity, and it very well could be crafted
tune in at different times to consume different images for the purpose of deception. And this is not at all a
about different events. While access to a broader, more small-scale problem. The rise of alternative media sites
global range of information is, of course, not at all an such as Breitbart and InfoWars created mainstream
implicitly bad thing, fragmentation was beginning to platforms from which conspiracy theories (vs. verifiable
occur, and the rise of partisan programming would facts) could be widely peddled. For reference, Breitbart
greatly exacerbate a divide that was forming. had over 2.2 billion pageviews in 2017, and InfoWars
averages roughly 50 million pageviews per month.7
In a recent Gallup Poll, 45% of Americans responded The unsubstantiated claims made by outlets like these
that they see a great deal of bias in the news media.4 not only loosened the standard to which journalistic
Although the specific effect that partisan media has sources of news are held; they also compromised the
upon its viewers is debated, that there is some tangible personal standards of truth that individuals use to
effect on political decision making is abundantly clear,5 inform and shape their beliefs.
as the mere perception of bias logically correlates to the
perception of a media outlet’s lack of trustworthiness With this new, increasingly fragmented, 24-hour
or authority. Worse, the assumption of bias in a media landscape where the subjective experience of
cable news program often becomes associated with anyone is given a platform, the once relatively unified
or projected upon other news media that may not be experience of images and information fostered during
biased in the same ways,6 ultimately undermining the the broadcast news era is gone. Instead, as a result of the
credibility of all news media, regardless of individual seemingly infinite range of news and opinions to which
outlets’ attempts at objectivity. Even when viewing a people have access, they have begun to develop wildly
similar set of images about the same event—as one different perceptions of the status of America and what
might have during the broadcast era—the assumption it means to be American. And as people search for a
of bias introduced by partisan programming created worthy source of truth amidst the morass of perceived
a situation in which the understanding of the reality (and real) bias, they turn to other authorities in their
behind this event became startlingly different and lives—namely, politicians and other public figures. It

110 Kinder Institute

is within this landscape where the line between reality of distress and emergency, contextualizing his overall
and fiction became blurred that President Trump goal in terms of an “effort to rebuild our country and to
emerged. restore its promise for all of our people.”8 If something
must be rebuilt, something has been destroyed, and if
III. American Identity in the Age of Trump something must to be restored, something has been lost.
On January 20, 2017, the eyes of the world were
trained on what to many had seemed impossible—the If President Trump was making the claim that America
inauguration of Donald J. Trump as the 45th President had been destroyed and that the American dream
of the United States of America. After taking the oath had been lost, the question of who was responsible
of office, he addressed the nation and the world, laying for this destruction immediately comes to bear. The
out his vision of what America would look like at answer for President Trump could not be clearer. His
home and abroad. At home, Trump’s definition of who assignment of responsibility manifested itself in the
is American would be reoriented to a definition from following juxtaposition: “Politicians prospered—but
the nation’s past where race and ethnicity determined the jobs left, and the factories closed.”9 It is no secret
one’s acceptance in society—a significant shift from the that President Trump had been critical of the political
increasingly inclusive identity adopted under President establishment throughout his campaign, and it quickly
Obama. Abroad, the definition of America would also became evident in his speech that this same disdain
be reoriented to an earlier definition, one similar to the would continue during his time in office. By pitting
America-first, isolationist policies of the pre-World the success of the political class in Washington against
War II era. In effect, Trump’s vision of America is one the experiences of the American workers who had lost
bleakly familiar in American history, featuring nativism, their jobs, blame is cast upon these “self-interested”
racism, and most of all, nationalism. politicians, and jealousy is stirred. President Trump
It became clear that President Trump wished to initiate doubled down on this accusation, stating: “Their
radical change through this inauguration ceremony victories have not been your victories; their triumphs
when he endowed it with “very special meaning.” What have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated
this change is became increasingly clear throughout in our nation’s capital, there was little to celebrate for
the course his speech, which effectively served as a first struggling families all across our land.”10 It is clear from
official vehicle for outlining, promoting, and spreading these comments that President Trump, newly ordained
the aforementioned vision of the American identity. as the highest profile member of the political elite,
He began this process by working to imbue collective wished to differentiate the interests of the political
understanding of the state of the country with a sense class from those of the American people and, in doing
so, write them [these prosperous politicians] out of his
definition of who is American.

Trump went on to indicate that all of this would change
during his presidency, “starting right here, and right
now.” But what does this jarring prediction of change
really mean? As Trump told us, it first and foremost
means that“we are transferring power fromWashington,
D.C., and giving it back to you, the American People.”
But as he has already made clear, not all Americans
fall within his definition of the American People. The
larger implication, then, is that only those who do fall
within this limited definition will be beneficiaries of this
transfer. In other words, not everyone will hold equal
political power or enjoy equal political privileges in
Trump’s America—just those he deems fit.

Journal on Constitutional Democracy 111

And politicians are not the only people written out of unmistakable: the people who “the righteous public”
this definition. The exclusion of racial minorities from has already marked as obstructing greatness have no
President Trump’s notion of who is American is likewise claims to the “just demands” of this public for great
implied with thin veiling through his articulation of schools, safe neighborhoods, and good jobs.
the nation’s universal desires: “Americans want great
schools for their children, safe neighborhoods for their Lastly, the president defines America and American
families, and good jobs for themselves. These are the in opposition to the global system at large, preying
just and reasonable demands of a righteous public,” on feelings of nationalism, isolationism, and nativism
he stated. And he’s right. What is problematic about that have grown in the face of increasing globalization.
this claim, though, is not the enumeration of these He pounced on these sentiments, stating that “we’ve
universal desires, but the racial subtext that President enriched foreign industry at the expense of American
Trump strategically deploys here to alienate and industry” and, in this, exploiting the acute fear of
disenfranchise people of color. overseas manufacturing that is ever-present in discourse
around globalization.12 He continued in this vein,
For decades, some of the highest profile domestic decrying how “[o]ne by one, the factories shuttered
policy issues—issues, importantly, that Trump brings to and left our shores,” stoking further animosity toward
the fore here—have been driven by troubling discourse foreign nations whose shores have benefitted from this
about race and equality. Desegregation, for example, exchange.13 What’s more, in the course of villainizing
was plagued by complaints and accusations that it these foreign countries that have been involved in
would deteriorate the quality of education provided globalization, President Trump found a way to make
at white schools. African Americans, particularly both a nationalist argument against the global economy
African-American males, have been disproportionately and a nativist argument against immigrants in America.
portrayed as violent criminals in the news media, a
stereotype that extends back at least to the Jim Crow In regard to the latter spoke of this strategy, Trump
South and that is direly codified today in equally implicitly targeted immigrants who have come from
Mexico to America, stating that “[w]e’ve defended
disproportionate incarceration rates.11 The issue of other nation’s borders while refusing to defend our
illegal immigration, one of the most visible policy issues own” (one can assume he is not speaking of the United
in the most recent election, has long been dominated States-Canada border). The rhetorical double-weight
by discussions of how illegal immigrants either bring that claims like this pull for Trump is evident, as he
crime into American communities or take jobs from encouraged an extraction from America’s international
hard-working white Americans. When the historical obligations in partnerships like NATO while
bigotry of the broader narratives and discourse about simultaneously writing immigrants from Mexico—
the universal desires Trump outlined is considered, legal or illegal; past, present, or future—out of the
the underlying racial dimension of his claims becomes American identity. Specifically, immigration writ large
becomes something to be defended against here,
with legal status seemingly replaced by whiteness, for
Trump, as grounds for inclusion in his construction
of “the American people.”14 Moreover, in justifying
American removal from the international system by
conjuring the threat of a non-white foreign invader
of America’s borders, all non-white immigrants in
or to America—and not just those who have crossed
the Southern border—come to fall outside President
Trump’s prescriptions for American identity.

For every action there is a reaction, and President
Trump’s inaugural address appears to usher in the

112 Kinder Institute

latter by seizing on resentment toward the increasingly of the American identity.19 Both are skeptical of and wish
inclusive and global ideas about American identity that to turn away from America’s global obligations.20 The
flourished under Obama in the hopes of returning to a shared basis of their formulation of a narrower, hatefully
narrower and more inward-looking understanding of exclusionary American identity is a return to an earlier
American-ness. As President Trump seeks to narrow definition of what it means to be “American.”
the American identity—to narrow ideas about who
constitutes “the American People”—the questions But how did these groups come to new prominence?
of how such a man came to power, and what the The story in many respects maps onto the narrative
consequences of his coming into power are, become of media evolution and truth fragmentation from
more salient. this essay’s first two sections. In a 2017 article in The
Guardian, Jamie Bartlett highlighted the significance
IV. America in the Age of Trump of the internet to the formation and growth of white
supremacist organizations.21 In 1995, Bartlett noted,
It should go without saying that the rhetoric used by the leader of the white supremacist movement
public figures is not without impact; the effects of it “Stormfront” had established a website to “provide
are tangible. For example, President Johnson stated an alternative news media.”22 Other sites emerged
in his inaugural address that “[j]ustice requires us to which promoted similar ideas and sentiments, creating
remember that when any citizen denies his fellow, virtual communities in which people skeptical of the
saying, ‘His color is not mine,’ or ‘His beliefs are strange mainstream media could reject popular conceptions of
and different,’ in that moment he betrays America.”15 reality in favor of those more agreeable to their own
Prior to him, President Kennedy demanded of his sentiments. Once again, we see individuals retreat
“fellow citizens of the world: Ask not what America from the sources from which collective truth might
will do for you, but what together we can do for the be forged in favor of seeking out images and sounds
freedom of man.”16 These messages do not simply still which confirm what they already believe, and which
resonate within the American conscience; they have lack standards of evidence and objectivity.
directly and materially shaped the political forms that
this conscience takes. What message from President Far from restrained to the abstract recesses of the
Trump will continue to ring? internet, these virtual communities have mobilized
white supremacists to transform digital idea into
The message of implicit racism within President action, as seen recently and tragically in Charlottesville,
Trump’s rhetoric has resounded strongly with white Virginia. White supremacists took efforts in the city
supremacist organizations, which have been mobilizing to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E.
across the country and largely embracing Trump as one Lee as an affront and, organizing via the internet, came
of their own. One of the most visible of leaders of this out by the hundreds to protest. Counter-protesters
movement is Richard Spencer who, in the aftermath gathered and tensions arose, eventually boiling over. A
of Trump’s victory in the general election, remarked: pro-statue protester ran his car into a group of counter-
“We willed Donald Trump into office. We made this protesters, killing a young woman. The digital presence
dream our reality. And if we will it, it is no dream.”17 For of white supremacy had moved into the light of day.
Spencer, President Trump is clearly key to representing According to The Washington Post, the perpetrator was
the interests of white supremacists, and the similarities an “…admirer of Hitler and his Nazi Party.”23 The
between his and Trump’s rhetoric reflect this. More dehumanizing and exclusionary ideas disseminated by
specifically, while the explicitness of the language used figures like President Trump and Richard Spencer have
may set Richard Spencer and President Trump apart, the consequences that are all too real. The communities in
nature of the American identity that they both promote which these ideas are promoted are largely dependent
is fundamentally similar. Both men seek to undermine upon the internet, which has not only given white
support for establishment politicians and bureaucrats.18 supremacists a place to commune, but an opportunity
Both seek to exploit fears of minorities to write them out to organize and move into physical spaces.

Journal on Constitutional Democracy 113

V. Conclusion Gallup News. 14 January 2018. http://news.gallup.

Through the fragmentation of media, a collective truth com/poll/225755/americans-news-bias-name-neutral-
formed through the consumption of similar images and
information has fractured. The new media landscape source.aspx
leaves individuals uncertain as to what to believe,
leading them to turn to other sources of authority to 5DellaVigna, Stephano and Ethan Kaplan. “The Fox
find truth. This has allowed individuals like Donald
Trump to fill the void with their own subjective vision News Effect: Media Bias and Voting.” The Quarterly
of reality and what it means to be American. His
vision is one that returns to an earlier, darker time in Journal of Economics 122.3 (2007): 1187-1234.
America’s past. His definition of American denigrates
the men and women who serve in the government, 6Daniller, Andrew, et al. “Measuring Trust in the Press
excludes minorities, and shirks the nation’s global
responsibility. But that is not all. His definition of the in a Changing Media Environment.” Communication
American identity has mobilized white supremacists
nationwide. The effects are tangible. Methods and Measures 11.1 (2017): 76-85.

As Americans look to the future with uncertainty, there 7“Boom: Breitbart.com Breaks Web Traffic Record
is a way forward. For every action, there is a reaction,
and as noted previously, this moment in time can be Set in 2016 - By Mid-November!” Breitbart News.
viewed as a reaction to an era of inclusion and growing
connection between nations and peoples. But to move 26 November 2017. http://www.breitbart.com/big-
forward from—to react to—this reaction, clarity and
dedication are demanded. Truth-seeking institutions journalism/2017/11/26/boom-breitbart-com-breaks-
must demand high standards of evidence and vivid
portrayals of reality to drown out the falsehoods with web-traffic-record-set-2016-mid-november/
credible information. The Founding Fathers were a
product of the Enlightenment, an era of empiricism 8Trump, Donald J. “The Inaugural Address.” 20 January
and rationality. Only through a return to a vigorous
commitment to empiricism can collective truth be re- 2017, U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C. Inaugural
established, once again uniting the American population
and vanquishing the charlatans and demagogues who Address.
have exploited our fragmentation.
9Ibid
1Sneed, T. “How John F. Kennedy’s Assassination
Changed Television Forever.” U.S. News and 10Ibid
World Report. https://www.usnews.com/news/
articles/2013/11/14/how-john-f-kennedy- 11Gilens, Martin. Race and the Politics of Welfare
assassination-changed-television-forever
2“Walter Cronkite wasn’t the Most Trusted Man Reform. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,
in America? Q&A with author Joseph Campbell.”
Reason TV. 26 June 2012. https://www.youtube.com/ 2003. 101-130.
watch?v=G_5mNYxyW3E
3Bowman, Karen. “The Decline of the Major 12Ibid
Networks.” Forbes. 27 July 2009.
4Jones, Jeffrey and Zacc Ritter. “Americans See More 13Ibid
News Bias; Most Can’t Name Neutral Source.”
14Trump, Donald J. “The Inaugural Address.” 20

January 2017, U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C.

Inaugural Address.

15Edwards, Breanna. “12 Great Inaugural Quotes.”

Politico. 18 January 2013. https://www.politico.com/

gallery/12-great-inaugural-quotes

16Ibid

17Spencer, Richard. National Policy Institute

Conference, 21 Nov 2016, Ronald Reagan Building,

Washington, D.C. The author transcribed this

quotation from a video of Richard Spencer’s lecture

at the November 21, 2016 National Policy Institute

Conference in Washington, D.C. A video of that lecture

is available here: https://youtu.be/Xq-LnO2DOGE

18Ibid

19Ibid

20Ibid

21Bartlett, Jamie. “From Hope to Hate: How the Early

Internet Fed the Far Right.” The Guardian. 31 August

2017. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/

aug/31/far-right-alt-right-white-supremacists-rise-

online

22Ibid

114 Kinder Institute

23“Charlottesville Mourns Woman Killed in Rally That
Turned Violent.” Washington Post. 16 August 2017.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/kidspost/
charlottesville-mourns-woman-killed-in-rally-that-
turned-violent/2017/08/16/29975362-8296-11e7-
902a-2a9f2d808496_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_
term=.fef8575d26ce

Journal on Constitutional Democracy 115

116 Kinder Institute

Journal on Constitutional Democracy 117

118 Kinder Institute

The Mobilization of Language

Journal on Constitutional Democracy 119

A Poem of Her Own:
Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s
Re-Appropriation of Alfred, Lord
Tennyson’s The Princess.

by Abigail Kielty

120 Kinder Institute

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, first Baron and beloved bard of has earnestly revolved the problems of life, and his
the Victorian era, was Poet Laureate of Great Britain conclusions are calmly noble…I have loved him much
and Ireland for much of his adult life, penning classics this time, and taken him to heart as a brother.”2
such as “The Charge of the Light Brigade” and “In
Memoriam A.H.H.” Despite the success of many of his While Tennyson, himself, never documented having
works, the one he poured the most consideration into read Fuller’s Woman in the Nineteenth Century, it is
was his unusually long, blank verse narrative poem, The not at all unreasonable to expect that he was familiar
Princess: A Medley, which he began in 1839 and did not enough with the book to have had at least a working
complete until its publication in 1847. knowledge of the grievances and demands of the first-
wave feminists.3 This is significant for my purposes
A mere two years before the publication of The here, because it makes the ending that Tennyson pens
Princess, Tennyson’s wife, Lady Emily Tennyson, for the female characters in The Princess—and, even
wrote in a journal entry dated August 6, 1845, “A. more than this, Fuller’s lauding of his work—wholly
reads Margaret Fuller to me,”1 a reference to the early counterintuitive. Opposite Fuller, however, stood famed
women’s rights activist and Transcendentalist, whose suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who interpreted—
Woman in the Nineteenth Century—a call for equality, and manipulated—Tennyson’s poetry in a much
especially in terms of education—is acknowledged as different and less celebratory (to say the least) fashion.
among the first major feminist works to come out of
the United States. The aforementioned anecdote does In September 1848 at Waterloo, New York, mere
not fully encompass the relationship betwixt Lord months after the groundbreaking convention on
Tennyson and Margaret Fuller, as Fuller even helped women’s rights held at nearby Seneca Falls, Elizabeth
publicize The Princess upon its publication in the U.S. Cady Stanton delivered an address triumphantly
In an August 1842 journal entry, Fuller articulated her decimating the notion of the superiority of men—
fondness for Tennyson and his poetry, noting, “I have intellectually, morally, and physically—via unremitting
just been reading the new poems of Tennyson…He assertions of women’s warranted position of equality
has not suffered himself to become a mere intellectual in all arenas of society. Though the exact number of
voluptuary, nor the songster of fancy and passion, but occasions on which Stanton would go on to deliver
this address is debated, there are two dates that are
indisputable: that September at Waterloo and days
later, on October 6, 1848, to the Congressional Friends
at Farmington. In this 1848 address on the rights of
women, Stanton seamlessly embedded lines from The
Princess, with emphasis on ‘seamlessly’: she gaveno
credit to the author at any point and manipulated
Tennyson’s lines of verse in such a way that they
blended into her own prose with ease. These instances
of re-appropriating Tennyson served, at the most literal
level, to enrich Stanton’s arguments for propelling
suffrage and general equality for women of the
nineteenth century; however, and more importantly
here, they functioned as a profound, politically charged
stripping of male voice and agency that effectively
rewrites the troubling ending of the poem’s narrative.

The title page of New York publisher Maynard,
Merrill, & Co.’s 1897 printing of The Princess reads
“The Princess, By Alfred, Lord Tennyson, With
Introductory and Explanatory Notes.”4 The 1897

Journal on Constitutional Democracy 121

edition is a reproduction of the fifth and final version The rest of the note strikes a similar, anti-feminist
of the poem, which was published in 1853, and it is chord, citing, for example, a passage from Auguste
of distinctive interest on account of the five additional Compte’s Systems of Positive Polity that further justifies
words that were emblazoned on the title page after the the continued marginalization of women on the dual
poet’s name. In particular, the editor’s explanatory note grounds that men have superior mental capacity and
following the introduction is essential for the soon-to- that women’s greatest strength, their ability to feel and
be-made-clear purposes of my overall argument, as it love, is not suited for political participation.6
serves the purpose of acquainting the audience with the
time period in which Tennyson wrote as well as with Though the editor’s words have deep meaning on their
his feelings on the subject matter at hand. “At the time own, they take on a new life once one reads Tennyson’s
of [The Princess’] first publication,” the note reads: narrative in their shadow. The Princess begins with
a Prologue and ends with a Conclusion, figurative
the movement in favor of women’s rights was bookends for the tale contained in Parts I-VII of the
in great danger, because of the absurd length to poem. The Prologue opens on the scene of a certain
which it had been carried by ill-advised and short- Sir Walter Vivian hosting a lavish lawn party at Vivian-
sighted reformers, of defeating its own ends. The place. Sir Walter presents a guest with the chronicles of
general public did not, as a rule, see the importance his great family, and buried within the text is the story
and significance of the agitation underlying of a heroic noble woman. As the guest, now joined
the absurdities and violence which had become by Walter’s aunt Elizabeth and sister Lilia, reads the
incorporated with the movement. “If women ever story, Walter interjects, asking where such women live
play such freaks,” wrote Tennyson to Mr. Dawson today. Lilia quickly responds that there are thousands
in a letter expressing the poet’s appreciation of the of heroic women, but they are beaten down by
latter’s “Study of ‘The Princess,’” “the burlesque convention. Continuing in this vein, she prophesizes
and the tragic might go hand[-in-hand],” and this the primary setting of the poem’s forthcoming saga:
remark is significant of the poet’s method in the
attempt to point out the true life of woman.5 …O I wish
That I were some great princess, I would build
Far off from men a college like a man’s
And I would teach them all that men are taught.7

This women’s university imagined by Lilia comes to
fruition within the first parts of the poem proper, and
though the reader could not know it at this point in
the Prologue, Lilia’s fantasy operates as the earliest
opportunity to see The Princess for what it truly is—
an anti-feminist tirade with a pro-feminist façade. To
close the Prologue, Walter’s aunt calls for the guest to
conjure up his own story, and Parts I through VII of
Tennyson’s work are the guest’s tale, with the poem’s
Conclusion returning to Sir Walter’s estate once more.

The vast majority of the tale is narrated by the Prince,
though the story revolves around the Princess Ida, to
whom the Prince has been betrothed since infancy but
who has since left her family, sworn to never marry, and
begun a women’s university with the two widows, Lady
Psyche and Lady Blanche, who taught and advised her
as a child. The Prince, along with his friends Cyril and

122 Kinder Institute

Florian, decide that the most promising course of action this, Cyril is encouraged to sing a song and naively
in regard to convincing Ida to marry the Prince would begins the opening lines of a traditional tavern tune,
be to purchase women’s clothing, pose as women, and making clear the identities of the three men. The men
take up residence at Ida’s women’s university. The three flee and Ida gives chase, and the Prince ultimately has
men first meet Princess Ida at her throne while she is to save Ida from drowning after she falls into a river
speaking about the mission of the university, and she mid-pursuit. The Prince and Florian are subsequently
advises them to attend lessons with their instructors, captured and brought to the feet of Ida’s throne, where
Ladies Psyche and Blanche. The instructors almost she shows to the Prince two letters: the first from
immediately unearth the true identities of the three Ida’s father, stating that he will be held captive until
men—Lady Psyche recognizes her brother Florian— Ida accepts the Prince’s hand, and the second from
yet the two women fail to share their revelation with the Prince’s father, essentially affirming Ida’s father’s
Ida. The three men, still disguised, are summoned to claim. Though under immense pressure, Ida once
accompany Ida and others on a journey north. Along again declines to honor her betrothal with the Prince,
the ride, a dress-clad Prince approaches Ida to convince asserting, “Sir,/your falsehood and yourself are hateful
her of the Prince’s/his greatness, and in the course of to us:/I trample on your offers and on you.”10 The
this appeal, he bombastically asserts that Ida should falsehood of which Ida speaks is, of course, not the
accept the Prince’s hand, as a woman’s self-worth is, prince’s charade but the patriarchy under which women
indeed, tethered to three factors: love, children, and operate and of which the Prince is an embodiment.
happiness.8 Ida rebuffs this patriarchal construction of
worth, vehemently declaring her disdain at the thought As with Lilia’s vision of the women’s university in
of bearing children and, in this, affirming the purpose the Prologue or Ida’s prior rebuff of the patriarchal
of her university: determinants of women’s worth, this passage, when read
alone, would seem to serve as an example of pro-feminist
Yet we will say for children, would they grew rhetoric penned by Tennyson. But this passage cannot
Like field-flowers everywhere ! we like them well : be read alone; it has to be interpreted as part of a larger
But children die ; and let me tell you, girl, narrative construct in which the Prince literally saving
Howe’er you babble, great deeds cannot die.9 Ida’s life precedes and hangs conspicuously over her
ability to even utter these lines. As the poem progresses,
This response, if analyzed independent of the Tennyson finally makes clear the anti-feminist ideology
larger context of the poem, could serve not only as that has been elusively present throughout.
a mission statement for Ida’s university but also as a
condensed version of the women’s rights movement’s Later, the Prince speaks to Ida’s father, who agrees
mid-nineteenth-century “thesis statement”—that that upon approval from Ida’s brother, Arac, the Prince
women are capable of accomplishing great deeds, may marry her. Knowing Ida well, Arac advises the
surely including intellectual achievements, though not Prince to renounce his marriage claim, and at first,
while remaining subject to the confines of gendered the Prince is relatively receptive to the notion. Alas,
norms and expectations. Or, perhaps more forcefully,
the above excerpt makes clear that women’s capacity
for greatness is contingent upon their collectively
dismantling the oppressive system of expectations with
which women are burdened, namely childbirth and
familial/marital obligations. However, it becomes clear
upon reaching the end of the poem that this is but one
of many instances of the kind of pro-feminist rhetoric
that is later obliterated by Tennyson’s own hand.

As the motley crew reaches its destination, Ida asks a
maiden, and then the Prince, to sing songs. Following

Journal on Constitutional Democracy 123

after a minor altercation, it is decided that Arac and generous reading, an appalling and disheartening
two additional brothers will battle the Prince, Florian, suggestion that a woman’s worth is defined and gifted
and Cyril for Ida—a determination of a woman’s future to her by man. This paves the way for Part VII to end
via masculine agency and tropes that further unveils with the Prince’s dictation to Ida of what equality will
the thinking underlying Tennyson’s true rhetoric. look like in their relationship. As the penultimate and
Ida remains unwavering in her refusal to marry the ultimate parts of Ida’s story unfold, she freely discards
Prince, and before the battle starts, she writes Arac a any agency she once commanded.
letter—one that is read by the Prince before conflict
commences—that instructs Arac to conquer the Prince One year after Tennyson’s The Princess was published
but to not kill him, as he saved her life. Ida’s letter for the first time, approximately 300 women and
includes a postscript in which she reverses her original men, including Frederick Douglass, the only African
sentiments on children and states that she has grown to American in attendance, assembled for two days in
love the young daughter Lady Psyche abandoned at the New York for the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, the
university. Ultimately, Ida’s brothers defeat the Prince first American convention on women’s rights. On
and his comrades. the convention’s first day, Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Though Tennyson’s anti-feminist sentiments have
been long hinted at in the poem, the final two parts
of his narrative conclusively stray away from the
themes of empowerment present in the earlier
sections and mirror more closely the attitudes and
thoughts expressed in the explanatory note added to
Maynard, Merrill, & Co.’s 1897 version of The Princess.
Following Arac’s triumph, the Prince is believed to
be dead, though Ida soon realizes that he is in a coma
and promises to tend to him, an oath which not only
transforms the women’s university into a hospital but
also reduces Ida’s role from the university’s president to
the Prince’s caretaker. Continuing this transformation,
Ida pines over the Prince as he sits near-lifeless beside
her, and upon waking, the Prince assumes control of
the narrative:

My spirit closed with Ida’s at the lips;
Till back I fell, and from mine arms she rose
Glowing all over noble shame ; and all
Her falser self slipt from her like a robe,
And left her woman, lovelier in her mood
Than in her mold that other when she came
From barren deeps to conquer all with love.11

By the end of this passage, any sentiment previously
thought to be even the slightest bit pro-feminist
is exposed as fraud. The notion that all Ida had
accomplished before realizing her love for the Prince
was “her falser self”—and, moreover, that it is the
Prince who sits in judgment of what constitutes her
true or false selfhood—is, in the least offensive/most

124 Kinder Institute

read aloud the Declaration of Sentiments, a document include a demand for women’s suffrage, Stanton’s 1848
modeled after the 1776 Declaration of Independence address on women’s rights was unwavering in its call for
but with the goal of securing for women the civil and the franchise. Stanton began the address by asserting
political rights and freedoms that men had asserted for that the question of “Woman’s rights” is the most
themselves seventy-two years prior. History shows that important and impactful public issue ever raised,15 and
the Seneca Falls Convention, along with the Rochester she went on to note the ever-changing “habits, manners,
Convention held a month later, were not without and customs” of the nations of the old world as a way
ideological flaws, chief among them the prioritization to argue that the stagnancy of discourse about women’s
of the rights and fate of white women over those of rights in the United States runs counter to the natural
enslaved African Americans. Still, even when those course of politics and government.16 Before discussing
flaws are taken into account, the two events were a far how she and the suffragettes planned on tackling the
cry from the “ill-advised” and “short-sighted” attempts task of changing the lot of women, Stanton addressed
at reform cited in the introductory note of the 1897 the counterarguments she anticipated hearing: namely,
printing of The Princess. the notions of men as intellectually, morally, and
physically superior.
While Stanton contributed at-length to the proceedings
at Seneca Falls that July, there is no official evidence As for the idea of men as intellectually superior to
to substantiate the widely-accepted claim that her first women, Stanton asserted, “When we shall have had
speech took place there, or at the August convention our colleges, our professions, our trades for a century
at Rochester. Instead, research suggests that Stanton’s a comparison may be then justly instituted.”17 Next
self-proclaimed first speech took place at Waterloo in combatting claims of men’s moral superiority, Stanton
September of 1848.12 Stanton would go on to use the answered her own sarcastic rhetorical questions about
content of the Waterloo speech as a source for short the perfection of male religious leaders by arguing
articles for three years afterward, and it is believed, that “not a year passes but we hear of some sad soul
via notations on the cover sheet made by Susan B. sickening deed perpetrated by some of this class.”18 As a
Anthony, that Emma Robinson Coe borrowed the result of men’s seemingly ingrained selfishness, women
speech from Stanton when visiting her in 1851. Later, are not their moral equals, according to Stanton, but
in 1866, Theodore Tilton spotted a ragged copy of the their moral superiors.19 Finally, coming head-to-
manuscript while interviewing Stanton for a biography head with those claiming man’s physical superiority,
and wrote that he knew it to be the first speech Stanton Stanton re-purposed her sentiment concerning men
delivered and that it had been “repeated at several as intellectual superiors, stating that until men and
places in the interior of the State of New York, during women have had the same physical education for many
the first months that followed the first convention.”13 years, no comparison can be made.
Eventually, possession of the manuscript fell to
Stanton’s daughters, who turned it over to Susan B. In the course of Stanton’s discussion of mental
Anthony. Anthony delivered the manuscript to its final superiority, she set her sights on attacking the
resting place: The Library of Congress.14 patriarchal appropriation of the theories and
terminology of phrenology, and it is here that one
Tracing the origin of the speech back to Waterloo in encounters the first instance of her using lines from The
1848 allows for a definitive answer to the question of Princess (highlighted in red below and in all following
what Stanton’s personal politics looked like during quotes). Embedding prose from Tennyson within
the time immediately following the Seneca Falls and the framework of her own argument, she specifically
Rochester Conventions. Moreover, a clear picture of its rebuked the phrenologist’s study of the implications of
provenance also requires that we see Stanton’s voice as measurements of the human skull on brain functions, a
distinct from what is often misconstrued as a collective correlation that was, interestingly enough, popularized
voice or agenda that emerged from these conventions. in the United States after a series of lectures delivered
For example, though there was much debate at Seneca in 1834 by Auguste Compte, the figure from the 1897
Falls over whether the Declaration of Sentiments should explanatory note cited earlier. “The Phrenologist,”

Journal on Constitutional Democracy 125

Stanton wrote, men’s are small, not they the least of men;/For
often fineness compensates for size;/Beside the
says that woman’s head has just as many organs as brain/is like the hand and grows,/With using.20
man’s and that they are similarly situated. He says
too that the organs that are the most exercised For context, the exact lines from The Princess that
are the most prominent. They do not divide Stanton quotes (highlighted in blue here and
heads according to sex but they call all the fine throughout) read:
heads masculine and all the ill shaped feminine,
for when a woman presents a remarkably large Here they might learn whatever men were taught:
well developed intellectual region, they say she Let them not fear: some said their heads were less:
has a masculine head, as if there could be nothing Some men’s were small; not they the least of men;
remarkable of the feminine gender and when a For often fineness compensated size:
man has a small head very little reasoning power Besides the brain was like the hand, and grew
and the affections inordinately developed they With using… 21
say he has a woman’s head thus giving all glory
to masculinity. Some say our heads are less./Some Stanton’s unbroken embedding of a near-replica of
Tennyson’s verse into her own prose marked a re-
126 Kinder Institute appropriation of the male voice that is significant on
many fronts. In a historical sense, by using Tennyson’s
own language to bolster her anti-phrenological claim,
Stanton created an intriguing, intentional convergence
of male voices that successfully stripped the two
contemporary figures in play—the patriarchal poet
(Tennyson) and phrenologist (Compte)—of their
logical agency by placing them in a framework in which
they suddenly contradicted, rather than supported,
one another. In terms of literary significance, in
revoking male agency, Stanton gave revived authority
to the voice of Lady Psyche, from whom the lines
in the poem come. Specifically, the quoted lines are
part of one of Lady Psyche’s lessons, which the three
disguised men attended and in which she highlighted
the historical accomplishments of women as a way to
dispel the myth that the university’s students would
never be able to achieve the highest echelons of
intellectualism on account of their small head sizes. If
Tennyson ultimately reinforced this myth by poem’s
end and, in this, retroactively silenced Lady Psyche
and her teachings, Stanton did the opposite here: using
Tennyson’s own language to dismiss the implications of
the poem’s ending while re-empowering Lady Psyche
(and projecting outward from the poem, empowering
the women’s right movement as a whole).

As Stanton’s speech progressed, her references to The
Princess became all the more pointed. For example,
though she was writing in 1848, Stanton ambitiously
tackled an issue still relevant in contemporary

discourse—putting the experiences and realities words in the speech itself, Stanton’s two appropriations
of American women in a more universal context. of Tennyson’s prose come from two very distinct events
Following her condemnation of American women for within The Princess, the first of which is cited below.
being content as lambs requiring a wolf’s protection,22 The Prince’s comrade Cyril is glorifying the Prince,
Stanton noted that this observation is not unique to and Ida replies:
women in the United States and that one can see
parallels of complicity in women of the Turkish We scarcely thought in our own all to hear
Harem, “where intellect and soul are buried beneath This barren verbiage, current among men,
the sensualism and brutality which are the inevitable Light coin, the tinsel clink of compliment.
result of the belief in woman’s inferiority…even here …
she is not only satisfied with her position but glories You likewise will do well,
in it.”23 Referencing the travels and writings of one Ladies, in entering here, to cast and fling
Harriet Martineau—a Victorian sociologist with The tricks, which make us toys of men, that so,
feminist leanings and, interestingly, a regular translator Some future time, if so indeed you will,
of Auguste Compte’s works—Stanton wrote that, You may with those self-styled our lords ally
though Turkish women feel pity for Western women, Your fortunes, justlier balanced, scale with scale.25
believing that their relative freedom is equated with
them not being cared for, this partial freedom should In this case, Stanton’s use of “This barren verbiage,
by no means be seen as “enough.” She continued: current among men,/Light coin the tinsel clink of
compliment” mirrors the exact purpose of the lines in
Can women here, although her spiritual and The Princess, which occur in Part II of the poem, when
intellectual nature is recognized to a somewhat the men first meet Ida at the university. Upon Cyril’s
greater degree than among the Turks, and she is lauding the Prince, Ida, still unenlightened in regard
allowed the privilege of being in her nursery and to the true identity of the three new students, replied
kitchen, and although the Christian promises her that they do not use empty or “barren,” unprovoked
the ascendancy in heaven as man has it here, while praise at the university, as such language contradicts
the Mahomedan closes the golden gates of the the desire to acquire knowledge that puts them on
Celestial city tight against her—can she be content par with men. Ida continued by telling the disguised
notwithstanding these good things to remain cohort that the scales of fortune will be balanced, so
debarred from an equal share with man in the to speak, when women no longer subscribe to the
pure enjoyments arising from the full cultivation patriarchal philosophies and no longer accept the
of her mind and her admission into the rights and “tinsel compliments” that men use to undermine them.
privileges which are hers. She must and will ere In other words, what Ida spoke to her three new pupils,
long, when her spirit awakens and she learns to Stanton communicated verbatim to a larger audience
care less for the Barren verbiage current among in 1848.
men/Light coin the tinsel clink of compliment.
She must and will demand Everywhere/Two In further insisting that women demand their rightful
heads in counsel, two beside the hearth/Two in position in society and shun what obstructs them from
the tangled business of the world/Two in liberal ascending to it, Stanton used lines from a lengthy
offices of life/Two plummets dropped to sound lesson by Lady Psyche, an excerpt of which follows:
the abyss/Of science and the secrets of the mind.24
At last
Here, while weaving Tennyson’s lines into her own, She rose upon a wind of prophecy
Stanton contended that until women actively disregard Dilating on the future; “everywhere
the “barren” words uttered by men concerning their Two heads in the council, two beside the hearth,
freedom and assert their equal position in all facets of Two in the tangled business of the world,
society, including the academy, they will not enjoy equal Two in the liberal offices of life,
rights and privileges. Though separated by only five Two plummets dropt for one to sound the abyss

Journal on Constitutional Democracy 127

Of science, and the secrets of the mind: women will only see the light of equity if they demand
Musician, painter, sculptor, critic, more: it. If Lady Psyche provided the “what,” Elizabeth Cady
And everywhere the broad and bounteous Earth Stanton delivered the “how,” giving her audience an
Should bear a double growth of those rare souls, even more pro-active glimpse into a world that does
Poets, whose thoughts enrich the blood of the not revert back to the patriarchal vision with which
world”26 Tennyson’s poem ends.

The above lines come after Lady Psyche’s accounts of Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s words and ideas do not at all
great women, including Queen Elizabeth and Joan of require elaboration from outside to read as eloquent,
Arc, which she framed as direct prophecy—a “dilating profound, and enthralling. And yet, despite her ability
on the future.” While Lady Psyche forecasted a future to capture her own thoughts in her own voice, Stanton
defined by egalitarianism in the realms of governance, still very purposefully chose to supplement her prose
home, business, science, and art, Stanton transformed with another text: Tennyson’s. As seen in these last
prophecy into imperative, using Lady Psyche’s words as two instances of cross-textual citation, this outside
a metaphorical stepping stone to her proclamation that voice gave her speech a new dimension. Distant
from the first occasion of re-appropriation—where
she challenged the male voice of phrenology and by
nature Tennyson himself—through the voices of Lady
Psyche and Princess Ida, Stanton’s subsequent acts of
re-appropriation placed their words into conversation
with hers, creating an exquisite symphony of women’s
voices for the purpose not only of opposing male-
centric and male-created ideas but also of giving birth
to fresh, enlightened rhetoric.

In the final act of Tennyson’s The Princess, Lady Psyche
and Princess Ida not only see the decimation of any
figments of agency and autonomy they once had in
the poem—especially in the case of Ida, who gives up
agency on her own accord­—they also participate in this
decimation. Upon his conclusion of the plot, Tennyson
re-turns the poem to the party at Vivian-place. As
“compensation” for the jarring ending, Tennyson offers
only a line from Walter: “‘I wish she had not yielded!’”27
Posing the exact questions I did upon finishing the body
of the narrative poem, Tennyson asks, “A gallant fight, a
noble princess—why/Not make her true-heroic, true-
sublime?/Or all, they said, as earnest as the close,” to
which he answers, “Which yet with such a framework
scarce could be.”28 For Tennyson, there is ultimately no
logical, tenable, or desirable social “framework” that
could facilitate an ending in which Ida, and the women
she represents, remains the sole proprietor of her voice
and agency. Rather than tackling the rigid, oppressive
structures and institutions of society under which
women were kept, Tennyson frustratingly teases the
breaking down of patriarchy, only to leave the audience
unsatisfied and Ida still disenfranchised.

128 Kinder Institute

In contrast, Elizabeth Cady Stanton unwaveringly We touch on our dead self, nor shun to do it,
called for the franchise for American women in Being other—since we learnt our meaning here,
her 1848 address. Following her discrediting of the To uplift the woman’s fall’n divinity
argument that men are intellectually, morally, and Upon an even pedestal with men”30
physically superior to women, Stanton delved into the
most consequential portion of the speech. She began Prior to the above lines, Ida and the disguised Prince
by explaining that individuals did not meet at Seneca discussed their proposed marriage. Ida’s response was
Falls and Rochester only to oppose women’s position teeming with humor and wit, but the exchange’s last two
within social and political life but also to lobby for lines serve the higher purpose of articulating the direct
legislative updates that would bring about meaningful, mission statement of the women’s university. Though
lasting change. In explicitly stating the motives behind the previously discussed lines, “Barren verbiage current
calling the conventions, Stanton asserted: among men/Light coin, the tinsel clink of compliment,”
speak to the reasons why a women’s university is
But we did assemble to protest against a form of necessary, these speak to the results of the higher
government existing without the consent of the education of women. This vision of empowered women
governed, to declare our right to be free as man is
free—to be represented in the government which
we are taxed to support—to have such disgraceful
laws as give to man the right to chastise and
imprison his wife—to take the wages she earns,—
the property which she inherits and in the case of
separation the children of her love—laws which
make her the mere dependent on his bounty—it
was to protest against such unjust laws as these
and to have them if possible forever erased from
our statute books, deeming them a standing shame
and disgrace to a professedly republican, Christian
people in the nineteenth century. We met To
uplift woman’s fallen divinity/Upon an even
pedestal with man And strange as it may seem to
many we then and there declared our right to vote
according to the Declaration of the government
under which we live. This right no one pretends
to deny.29

In crafting the climax of the entire address, a statement
of how the ultimate goals of the conventions were to
establish the equality of men and women and to secure
the right of women to vote, Stanton again turns to
Tennyson, re-appropriating the following scene:

“Poor boy,” she said, “can he not read—no books?
Quoit, tennis, ball—no games? Nor deals in that
Which men delight in, martial exercise?
To nurse a blind ideal like a girl,
Methinks he seems no better than a girl;
As girls were once, as we ourself have been:
We had our dreams; perhaps he mixt with them:

Journal on Constitutional Democracy 129

elevated to the same level as men, however, is not the 9Tennyson, Lord, Alfred. The Princess. Maynard,
ending written for the characters within The Princess. Merrill, & Co., 1897. 64, III:234-37.
10Tennyson, Lord, Alfred. The Princess. Maynard,
Upon discussing the mission statement, so to speak, of Merrill, & Co., 1897. 90. IV:524-25.
the Seneca Falls Convention, Stanton artfully chose 11Tennyson, Lord, Alfred. The Princess. Maynard,
to integrate the same lines Ida used to characterize Merrill, & Co., 1897. 135. VII:143-9.
the foremost objective of her university. More than 12Rutgers University Press included this editorial
simply re-purposing Tennyson’s male-centric verse to note in its publication of Stanton’s 1848 Waterloo
make an argument for the same right that he thought Address: “[n]o contemporary record of Seneca Falls
undesirable, this re-appropriation of male verse at such noted a major speech by Stanton, thought small parts
a prodigious moment in the speech—and in history— of her address might match her several contributions
allowed Ida’s ideal goal for the women’s university to to the meeting…Lucretia Mott, present at both [the
find a new home in the women’s rights movement. Seneca Falls and Rochester] conventions, referred to
Again, Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a gifted, expressive Stanton’s speech in September at Waterloo as ‘thy
writer and could have turned innumerable phrases to maiden speech.’” Stanton, Elizabeth Cady and Susan
describe why the convention was called and why the B. Anthony. The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady
franchise was imperative. Yet out of all the possible Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, Vol. 1. New Brunswick,
permutations of language and all the literary references NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997 (Ann D. Gordon,
at her disposal, she chose two lines of Alfred, Lord ed.). 94-95.
Tennyson’s The Princess. Though Tennyson’s ending 13Stanton, Elizabeth Cady and Susan B. Anthony. The
for Princess Ida was dismal, it was not fixed. In making Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan
space for Ida and Lady Psyche within the movement, B. Anthony, Vol. 1. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
Stanton, an activist, wrested the role of poet away from University Press, 1997 (Ann D. Gordon, ed.). 94.
the patriarchal, anti-change Tennyson, rewriting the 14Ibid
end of The Princess and giving Ida the title of progressive 15Stanton, Elizabeth Cady and Susan B. Anthony. The
women’s rights advocate that she deserved. Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan
B. Anthony, Vol. 1. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
1Tennyson, Emily. Lady Tennyson’s Journal. University Press, 1997 (Ann D. Gordon, ed.). 96.
Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1981 16Stanton, Elizabeth Cady and Susan B. Anthony. The
(James O. Hoge, ed.). 49. Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan
2Ossoli, Margaret Fuller. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller B. Anthony, Vol. 1. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
Ossoli, Vol. 2. Boston: Phillips, Sampson, and Co., University Press, 1997 (Ann D. Gordon, ed.). 97.
1852. 190. 17Stanton, Elizabeth Cady and Susan B. Anthony. The
3Hall. Donald E. “The Anti-Feminist Ideology of Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan
Tennyson’s ‘The Princess.’” Modern Language Studies B. Anthony, Vol. 1. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
21.4 (1991): 50. University Press, 1997 (Ann D. Gordon, ed.). 98.
4Tennyson, Lord, Alfred. The Princess. Maynard, 18Stanton, Elizabeth Cady and Susan B. Anthony. The
Merrill, & Co., 1897. 1. Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan
5Tennyson, Lord, Alfred. The Princess. Maynard, B. Anthony, Vol. 1. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
Merrill, & Co., 1897. 8. University Press, 1997 (Ann D. Gordon, ed.). 101.
6Tennyson, Lord, Alfred. The Princess. Maynard, 19Ibid
Merrill, & Co., 1897. 9. 20Stanton, Elizabeth Cady and Susan B. Anthony. The
7Tennyson, Lord, Alfred. The Princess. Maynard, Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan
Merrill, & Co., 1897. 19. I:133-5. B. Anthony, Vol. 1. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
8Tennyson, Lord, Alfred. The Princess. Maynard, University Press, 1997 (Ann D. Gordon, ed.). 103.
Merrill, & Co., 1897. 63. III:229. 21Tennyson, Lord, Alfred. The Princess. Maynard,
Merrill, & Co., 1897. 40. II:130-35.

130 Kinder Institute

22Stanton, Elizabeth Cady and Susan B. Anthony. The
Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan
B. Anthony, Vol. 1. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
University Press, 1997 (Ann D. Gordon, ed.). 106.
23Stanton, Elizabeth Cady and Susan B. Anthony. The
Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan
B. Anthony, Vol. 1. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
University Press, 1997 (Ann D. Gordon, ed.). 106.
24Stanton, Elizabeth Cady and Susan B. Anthony. The
Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan
B. Anthony, Vol. 1. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
University Press, 1997 (Ann D. Gordon, ed.).107.
25Tennyson, Lord, Alfred. The Princess. New York:
Maynard, Merrill, & Co., 1897. II:34-52.
26Tennyson, Lord, Alfred. The Princess. New York:
Maynard, Merrill, & Co., 1897. 41. II:153-164.
27Tennyson, Lord, Alfred. The Princess. New York:
Maynard, Merrill, & Co., 1897. Conclusion:4-5.
28Tennyson, Lord, Alfred. The Princess. New York:
Maynard, Merrill, & Co., 1897. 143. Conclusion:19-23.
29Stanton, Elizabeth Cady and Susan B. Anthony. The
Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan
B. Anthony, Vol. 1. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
University Press, 1997 (Ann D. Gordon, ed.). 104.
zTennyson, Lord, Alfred. The Princess. New York:
Maynard, Merrill, & Co., 1897. 62. III:198-208.

Journal on Constitutional Democracy 131

The Mistress Persists:
Historicizing the 53%
of White Women Who
Voted for Donald Trump

By Carley Johansson

132 Kinder Institute

It is no secret that Donald Trump is anti-woman. From In moving forward with this piece, it is crucial to lay
his degrading tweets to the numerous accusations of some theoretical groundwork. First, intersectionality—
assault, Trump has built his empire over and against this concept is fairly new to interdisciplinary studies,
women, only counting them in when they can bolster but it is one that has developed and been developed
his career through votes or ideological support. Why, well.4 Intersectionality is centered around the idea
then, did 53% of white women vote for him, creating that every facet of our identities—race, gender, sexual
the demographical bloc of support that pushed him orientation, disability and ability, etc.—contributes
to victory in the 2016 presidential election? Suzanne to our social categorizations, daily interactions, and
Moore of The Guardian explained this phenomenon as ways of experiencing the world. Intersectionality is
a byproduct of misogyny: a trait that is not exclusive to be understood, especially in this work, as being
to men, nor embodied by all women.1 This is but part multiplicative. This is to say that while one can never
of the story. A sizable majority of black and Hispanic stop occupying any facet of their identity, certain
women cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton, suggesting facets may become more consequential or more visible
that the stark contradiction of women helping to elect depending on context. Multiplicative intersectionality
an anti-woman president lies specifically with white is, however, a concept that is frequently overlooked
women, whose internalized misogyny and relationship in both discussion and practice, an outcome that is
with larger patterns of white dominance combined detrimental to pursuits of equality because of how it
to make them uniquely complacent.2 By choosing to obstructs inclusivity. For example, feminism is easily
ignore and/or excuse the actions that left powerhouse whitewashed when it becomes a movement that is
heroes like Michelle Obama “shaken” as she listened preoccupied only with gender. Specifically, when
to lewd tapes of “a powerful individual speaking freely gender is perceived through a non-multiplicative lens,
and openly about sexually predatory behavior,” white other discriminatory hierarchies become internalized
women buttressed—and are buttressing—Trump’s within feminism, creating women who either cannot
power. We can see this even in his own daughter, or will not see the ways in which they are privileged
Moore argued, who seeks to empower women while over other women. This frame of mind is dangerous
standing behind the man that has fetishized her.3 for many reasons, but particularly for how it creates a
form of white complacency that disadvantages women
of color. White women who occupy this frame of mind
cease to think about the forms of oppression, like racial
inequality and racism, that they do not personally face;
and as they do this, they vote as if they do not have
to consider how these forms of oppression are part
of a larger, systemic problem that is perpetuated—or,
alternately, that could be ad- or redressed—by their
habits at the polls.

While the complacency of white women voters is
appalling, it is not difficult to understand how it
operates and why it exists in the first place. Moore
explained it well in her Guardian piece, writing that
“[if] one grows up in a culture in which one’s self-
worth is measured primarily by one’s desirability to
men, then your energy is consumed into this horizontal
competition with other women that can never be totally
won.”5 This internalized misogyny pits women against
each other, which becomes especially consequential
when it comes to race, an arena in which white women
occupy a historically dominant position that ultimately

Journal on Constitutional Democracy 133

fosters a privilege to vote only in relation to their Historically speaking, this trend is most easily seen
whiteness. While many might think that this would through plantation life, and it is excellently and starkly
have encouraged women to vote for Trump in 2016, it exhibited through the voice of Harriet Ann Jacobs.
is more nuanced than this. In voting for Trump, many
women were actively not voting for Hillary Clinton, In order to use Harriet Ann Jacobs as a representative
without any consideration of the adverse effect that voice in and for this argument, it must first be established
this decision would have on women of color.6 that plantation life demonstrated iterations of the race-
and gender-based hierarchies previously outlined. As
The quickest and easiest response to this phenomenon the Northern states continued to industrialize and
of complacency is to become emotional and condemn progress, the white women who lived there began
the powers that be. However, if there is any hope of to organize and form the beginnings of the suffrage
dismantling this power structure, seeking to understand movements.7 Meanwhile, the South stifled intellectual
how it works and why it exists is a crucial first step. freedom at every turn, particularly through the passage
And to understand the problem, we must historicize it. of gag laws in Congress that restricted education and
This requires one to acknowledge first and foremost communication.8 In suffocating the intellectual free
that the complacent white woman is not new. White market, Dixie elites and politicians hoped to choke any
women have always occupied a unique position at the semblance of progressive thinking that could bring the
intersection of being privileged in terms of their race abolition movement into the South and undermine the
and oppressed in terms of their gender. In fact, the slave labor system that the cotton dynasty inhumanely
privilege comes from the oppression. Specifically, and prospered from. But for the white women of
as I will argue here, the self-depression that comes plantations, losing the promise of educational freedom
with white women defining themselves in relation and the possibility of communication meant that they
to a misogynistic power structure produces forms of were further isolated from one another than they were
self-expression, often violent forms of self-expression, before and even more susceptible to the hostile whims
in which privilege is acted out upon women of color. of their plantation master patriarchs.9 Without any
opportunity for community, they harbored alienation-
based anxieties that their Northern counterparts did
not experience as intensely, miring them in oppressive
solitude.10 But their plight was nothing in comparison to
the appalling forms of dehumanization slaves suffered.
The white women of the plantations were still free in a
slaveholding society, a precious privilege that worked—
that they grotesquely worked—to their advantage.11

Most of the power in plantation society and culture
rested with the master. However, many of the domestic
responsibilities still fell to the mistress, who was not
typically trained in keeping house until she trained
herself once she was married, and these responsibilities
afforded her some means of reclaiming power.12
Mistresses, for example, kept the key for the storeroom
on their person always. They were up at dawn to direct
the daily operations in their kingdom: the plantation
home. The slaves within the domestic sphere were
their subjects, and the only people—though they were
not deemed to be people, legally or socially—who
could fall victim to what little power was held by the
white mistress.13

134 Kinder Institute

Occupying a powerless position in this particular consequences of the culture of internalized misogyny
hierarchy meant that it was the household slaves, discussed previously, planter wives would exercise the
typically girls, who faced the brunt of the mistress’s ire. only control they had at the expense of their black
This was especially true when it came to the physical counterparts.
and sexual assaults committed regularly and openly by
plantation masters upon these girls. For such men in Few narratives exemplify this compounding brutality
the South, such actions could be committed without more clearly than that of Harriett Ann Jacobs and her
fear of social consequences (so long as the woman was mistress, Mrs. Flint. For Jacobs, like many slave girls,
not white14) or legal punishment.15 Since marriage and the hierarchy of race and gender in the South was no
any issues pertaining to it were a part of plantation life secret. In fact, it was an inescapable truth of plantation
discussed only behind the closed doors of the mansion, life that was evident even from youth. As Jacobs wrote:
this left three parties affected by the master’s sexual
exploitation of his slaves—the mistress, the assaulted I once saw two beautiful children playing together.
slave, and “…the wretch who bears his name.”16 The One was a fair white child; the other was her slave,
only one of these who could exercise any modicum and also her sister. When I saw them embracing
of power over the other, of course, was the mistress. each other, and heard their joyous laughter, I
In terms of how this power was exercised, the sexual turned sadly away from the lovely sight. I foresaw
exploitation was never deemed the fault of the men.17 the inevitable blight that would fall on the little
Rather, planter women continually pretended and/or slave’s heart. I knew how soon her laughter
believed that the “Ethiopians” were to blame.18 What would be changed to sighs. The fair child grew
little authority over slave punishment the mistress up to be a still fairer woman. From childhood
had—and, moreover, what little opportunity the to womanhood her pathway was blooming with
mistress had to express anger toward her husband— flowers, and overarched by a sunny sky. Scarcely
would thus start to violently manifest itself upon one day of her life had been clouded when the sun
whatever slave was alleged to be sexually involved with rose on her happy bridal morning.
her husband.19 In a brutal expression of the horizontal
How had those years dealt with her slave sister,
the little playmate of her childhood? She, also was
very beautiful; but the flowers and sunshine of love
were not for her. She drank the cup of sin, and
shame, and misery, whereof her persecuted race
are compelled to drink.20

Although the children in this memory may not
recognize the paths laid before them by their society’s
reliance on slave labor, it seems that those around them
knew that one day they would fall into their respective,
pre-determined roles. The fair woman became the
oppressed housewife, her bridal day, Jacobs suggested,
bringing the clouds she had until then evaded. Her
slave sister, we are led to believe, remained her (or
rather, her husband’s) property and continued to
experience the coerced misery and violently compelled
stigma of sin that her “persecuted race” and gender so
often bore. The image Jacobs paints here isn’t isolated
but rather emblematic of the cyclical patterns of abuse
to which women on the plantation were subject and
which mistresses, including Mrs. Flint, played a role in

Journal on Constitutional Democracy 135

perpetuating. Fathers would raise their daughters with [Mrs. Flint] spoke in tones so sad, that I was
the promise of happy and lovely homes—“the flowers touched by her grief. The tears came to my eyes;
and sunshine of love”—yet would marry them into a but I was soon convinced that her emotions arose
disappointing household with an unregenerate husband from anger and wounded pride. She felt that
whose mixed-race children born out of rape would her marriage vows were desecrated, her dignity
play with those of his fair wife.21 These children, Jacobs insulted; but she had no compassion for the poor
went on to describe, were then treated “as marketable victim of her husband’s perfidy. She pitied herself
as the pigs on the plantation; and it is seldom that [the as a martyr; but she was incapable of feeling for
mistresses did] not make them aware of this by passing the condition of shame and misery in which her
them into the slave trader’s hands as soon as possible, unfortunate, helpless slave was placed.26
and thus getting them out of their sight.”22
Here again, it is evident that the only suffering Mrs.
In the case of Mrs. Flint, due to her limited power Flint allowed herself to sympathize with was that of
in her contained role, she could not confront her herself and her fellow white women, and that any blame
husband about his assaults (again, what to her were for the desecration of her (and others’) marriage vows
infidelities). She confronted her slaves instead. Like her was to be borne by the “helpless” and “poor victim[s] of
fellow planter wives, Mrs. Flint’s power could only be [a] husband’s perfidy” (Jacobs’ words, not Mrs. Flint’s).
wielded at home, in the domestic spaces where she was Moreover, in this and other cases, Mrs. Flint chose not
in charge. So while she was expected to maintain her only to blame but also to project punishment upon the
demure, submissive demeanor while out in important slave, her only subordinate, to protect her established
social spaces, like church, she was free to come home power and control, as well as what little domestic liberty
and spit in kettles and starve the slaves if dinner was not she had left. She moved Harriett into a bedroom near
made on time.23 Furthermore, Jacobs described, “she her own, for example, manipulating her by standing
could sit in her easy chair and see a woman whipped, over her in her sleep and whispering into her ear to
till the blood trickled from every stroke of the lash.”24 convince her she was going crazy.27 When that lost its
The aforementioned intersection of oppression and satisfaction, Mrs. Flint accused her husband while in
privilege is on full display in this scene from Jacobs’ the presence of the slave (he would of course deny it
narrative. Though often devoid of the energy needed and accuse his wife and his slave of lying). In moments
to superintend every household affair—a void that like these, knowing that Mrs. Flint was a second wife
deepened as she persisted in her obligations—the who was much younger than her husband, the full
mistress nonetheless maintained nerves of indifferent breadth of the abusive power dynamic in play on the
steel when confronted with—or, more specifically, plantation revealed itself to Harriett. She recognized
when participating in the infliction of—suffering that that the real power lay with Dr. Flint, who could
was not her own.

Mrs. Flint’s disregard for the inhumane treatment of
her slaves came to a particularly grotesque head upon
her discovery of her husband’s sexual involvement with
Harriet, who in turn quickly became a victim of her
master and her mistress. Her master sexually exploited
slaves like Harriet from young ages, and Mrs. Flint
would then subject them to the unsympathetic suspicion
and malevolence that her husband was continually able
to evade.25 After having sworn on the bible and told
her mistress of everything that had occurred between
her and her master, Harriett recorded Mrs. Flint’s
impactfully selfish response:

136 Kinder Institute

exercise it freely and with impunity over his slaves and power imbalances that continue to persist and evolve
his wife, who in turn could exercise it freely and with within the contemporary political and social landscapes.
impunity only over her slaves.28 White women are a product of intragender racism
that has allowed them privileges denied their sisters
This heavily maintained and protected hierarchy of of color, and they continue to vote in a manner that
power is clearly an epidemic that spread across the maintains this hierarchy in their favor, further stifling
antebellum South. However, it did not die out with the and oppressing nonwhite women and other minority
abolition of slavery. The language of the complacency groups, just as the 53% did in the 2016 election.
of white women is found not only in slave narratives;
it is also something that came up during the 2016 1Moore, Suzanne. “Why Did White Women Vote
presidential election. Just like planter wives before them, for Trump? Because Misogyny Is Not a Male-Only
the 53% of white women who voted Donald Trump Attribute.” The Guardian. 16 November 2016.
into office can be understood to have proven their “… 2Ibid
[S]elf-loathing. Hypocrisy. And, of course, a racist view 3Ibid
of the world that privileges white supremacy over every 4For a more complete discussion on Intersectionality,
other issue.”29 The white women that chose to vote for see Hancock, Ange-Marie. Intersectionality: An
Donald Trump chose to vote only for themselves, and Intellectual History. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
therefore voted against their sisters of color. 2016.
5Moore, Suzanne. “Why Did White Women Vote
Non-white women were left angry, and justifiably so. for Trump? Because Misogyny Is Not a Male-Only
94% of black female voters and 68% of Hispanic and Attribute.” The Guardian. 16 November 2016.
Latinx30 female voters cast their ballots in favor of 6Ibid
Hillary Clinton, a show of force that was ultimately
undermined by their white counterparts.31 Just as the
plantation mistress’s complacency helped to perpetuate
the institution of slavery in the South, white women’s
complacency has helped to perpetuate a generational
passing-down of racism, just as much as the actions of
their male counterparts have.

The 2016 presidential election took the world by
storm for countless reasons. A businessman with no
political experience whatsoever was elected to lead
one of the most powerful countries in the world. Even
more shocking is the reality that amidst allegations
of sexual assault and derogatory comments toward
women, white women still banded together to vote him
into office. Again, this phenomenon of white women
voting in favor of their whiteness and its associated
privileges is not a new one. In fact, it has a rich history
as a byproduct of social and cultural hierarchies, never
as apparent as they were on the plantation, that have
repeatedly placed white women in positions of power
over their nonwhite counterparts. In order to respond
to and move forward from white women’s complacency
and its consequences, we must collectively acknowledge
that this complacency is not new—that it is, in fact, a
result of hundreds of years of cultural and historical

Journal on Constitutional Democracy 137

7Clinton, Catherine. The Plantation Mistress: Woman’s
World in the Old South. New York: Pantheon Books,
1982.
8Ibid. 14
9Ibid
10Ibid. 164-165
11Ibid. 15
12Barry, William T. “William T. Barry to Susan Barry,”
August 1, 1824. Barry Papers, UVA. (cited in Clinton,
Catherine. The Plantation Mistress: Woman’s World in the
Old South. New York: Pantheon Books, 1982.)
13Cocke, Anne. “Anne Cocke to Ann Barraud,” April 16,
1807. Cocke Papers, UVA. (cited in Clinton, Catherine.
The Plantation Mistress: Woman’s World in the Old South.
New York: Pantheon Books, 1982.)
14Clinton, Catherine. The Plantation Mistress:
Woman’s World in the Old South. New York: Pantheon
Books, 1982.
15Ibid. 204
16Gayle, Sarah. Sarah Gayle Diary. Bayne-Gayle Papers:
SHC, n.d. (cited in Clinton, Catherine. The Plantation
Mistress: Woman’s World in the Old South. New York:
Pantheon Books, 1982.)
17Clinton, Catherine. The Plantation Mistress:
Woman’s World in the Old South. New York: Pantheon
Books, 1982.
18Ibid. 188
19Clinton, Catherine. The Plantation Mistress:
Woman’s World in the Old South. New York: Pantheon
Books, 1982.
20Jacobs, Harriet Ann. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000. 29.
21Ibid. 36
22Ibid.
23Ibid. 12
24Ibid. 12
25Ibid. 31.
26Ibid. 33.
27Ibid. 34.
28Ibid. 34-35.
29Rogers, Katie. “White Women Helped Elect Donald
Trump.” The New York Times. 9 November 2016.
30This term is a gender-neutral form of the traditional
“Latina” or “Latino.”
31Rogers, Katie. “White Women Helped Elect Donald
Trump.” The New York Times. 9 November 2016.

138 Kinder Institute

The Past Was Female, Too

by Bailey Conard

Journal on Constitutional Democracy 139

In the early 1600s, what is now North America was England, and was a good soldier, by all accounts.
being explored and colonized by the Europeans, During one battle in India, she was shot six times in her
and the ways in which we have come to learn and right leg, five times in her left, and once in the groin.
understand this history is largely through their writings She refused the attention of surgeons for fear of her
on the experiences and hardships they faced.1 In early gender being revealed. However, with the help of an
American literature courses, students will study the Indian nurse, she was treated and her secret was safe.
diaries and journals of men which recount their While traveling back to London, Hannah was at a bar
interactions with Native Americans, their discoveries in Lisbon and learned that Summes had been executed
of the flora and fauna of the New World, and their tales for stabbing someone in Genoa. Her mission finally
of friends and loved ones who succumbed to diseases over, Hannah returned to London. She collected her
that ran rampantly throughout the settlements.2 There soldier’s payments, reunited with her family, and told
are, of course, other narratives that build a more some of her fellow soldiers her secret. They urged her
complex and rounded framework for understanding to petition the Duke of Chamberly for remittances for
life in the colonies. These latter works often show the her injuries, which she was granted. Hannah Snell’s
questions and confusions that swirled throughout the story attracted the attention of an anonymous author
colonies, the cultural differences people were facing, and was taken to the stage where it became a popular
and colonists’ fears of the Native American men play.5 Books were written about her, and woodworks
and women whom they termed “savages.” In 1675, were carved with her likeness. People loved the tale
during Metacom’s War, a woman was taken from her of the scorned woman-turned-soldier, toting her gun
home along with other colonists. This woman, Mary into battle and searching for her wretched husband.6
Rowlandson, authored a narrative that intimately Hannah Snell’s triumphant narrative was so popular,
details her capture and the subsequent 11 weeks she in fact, that her image was appropriated and used for
spent with her Native American captors. Moreover, the sale of another woman’s story, Mary Rowlandson’s.7
it does so in a way that explores Rowlandson’s own Mary Rowlandson was a woman, but unlike in the
understanding of faith and providence and that adds image below, she probably never held a gun; she was a
greater, more nuanced insight into colonists’ early Puritan pastor’s wife.
interactions with Native Americans.3 Rowlandson’s
work is often read by historians or English majors at
least once during their undergraduate studies; sadly, it
is often read poorly. To understand Mary Rowlandson’s
story more completely, though, we must first look to
the story of Hannah Snell.

One hundred years or so after Mary Rowlandson
crafted her narrative, and back in England, Hannah
Snell was also a woman with a story.4 She was born
in Worcester in 1723 to a family of modest means. In
1740, Hannah Snell moved to London; in 1744, she
fell in love with a man and wed him. His name was
James Summes. A sailor, he was really a rather poor
fellow, who did not treat Hannah well. After learning
she was pregnant, Summes fled. Hannah gave birth,
but the child died in infancy, and after hearing rumors
that Summes had joined the army, Hannah borrowed
men’s clothing from her brother-in-law, took on his
name, James Grey, and went after her derelict husband.
She joined the army when they arrived in Coventry,

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The woodwork of Snell above, which was used as profiteering appetite and general whimsy. Though
the cover image for a 1770 printing of Rowlandson’s these are the most damning visual re-appropriations of
Narrative, depicts a woman, scowl etched on her Rowlandson’s Narrative, there are, sadly, many others.
face, wearing a dress, gun in hand. She is alone. The
woodwork’s title, “The Life and Adventures of a Female Rowlandson herself perhaps would not be able to
Soldier,” was removed by the 1770 edition’s editor point out which story is hers if she only had the images
when he placed it on the cover. What a story this will scattered throughout this essay—all cover images for
appear to be, he must’ve thought. When readers see various editions of her Narrative—to choose from. Her
this, they will know that in America, even the women narrative was published with a variety of titles as well,
do not fear the “barbarians” of the land. but even these might not help her choose, since the
titles, too, have been altered at the liberty of the editors.
In another cover image, this one featured in a 1773
edition of the Narrative, Rowlandson points a gun at a Throughout history, not only the title but also the
group of Native Americans, her wooden cottage behind content of Rowland’s narrative has been worked and
her. Again, this is a completely inaccurate depiction of re-worked to suit and appeal to the agendas of men.
Rowlandson—daringly comical, actually, given her For instance, when Rowlandson’s narrative was first
surrender to her captors. What might have motivated published in 1682, an accompanying sermon from
the editor of the 1773 edition to place this image on her husband, “A Sermon of the Possibility of God’s
the cover? Perhaps he knew of the rising tensions with Forsaking a People That Have Been Near and Dear
Great Britain; an early American fiercely protecting to Him” (his last), was included as part of her text.
her home could spark a few fires and sell a few copies! By framing her narrative as something to be used to
But this was not Rowlandson’s intention for her piece. set the scene for her husband’s sermon, this inclusion
In fact, this cover image, like the cover image from strips away, layer by layer, Rowlandson’s authority as
the 1770 edition, depletes much of the value of her an author as well as the unique potency of her work.
narrative, which resides in Rowlandson’s recounting It is as if the only way we could have found value in
of the relationships she forms with her captors. This her journal was if her husband completed it for her,
is lost when paired with a violent cover image, as conclusively explaining why God allowed her to be
Rowlandson’s voice falls prey to the male editor’s held captive. Rowlandson may well have consented
to her husband’s sermon being published alongside
her Narrative, but there is also little doubt that she
was given a choice. Using his wife’s work to advance
his own agenda, Joseph Rowlandson’s sermon in and
of itself represents males’ historical desire to dominate
and control the way in which women understand their
lives and circumstances. Interestingly enough, in 1903,
after multiple editions without the sermon had been
published, we see a revival of Joseph’s voice. This
followed the Second Great Awakening in America,
again demonstrating what Rowlandson’s piece was
subjected to: the whims of male editors attempting to
advance their own political and religious agendas as if
authorial voice and intention mattered not.

Mary Rowlandson unfortunately does not represent a
singular, outlying example of the voices of women facing
execution. Born in 1612, Anne Bradstreet travelled to
America with her father and husband. Bradstreet was an
author throughout her life, but since it was unbecoming

Journal on Constitutional Democracy 141

at the time for women to have any kind of career, it was In this array ‘mongst vulgars may’st thou roam.
her brother-in-law, John Woodbridge, who took the In critic’s hands beware thou dost not come,
liberty of publishing a collection of Bradstreet’s works And take thy way where yet thou art not known;
titled, The Tenth Muse. In it, Woodbridge included an If for thy father asked, say thou hadst none;
introductory note explaining that Bradstreet, under no And for thy mother, she alas is poor,
circumstances, consented to or even had knowledge Which caused her thus to send thee out of door.
about the publication of the collection, adding that,
had she consented or known, it would have been On an initial read, the poem may seem to be Bradstreet’s
argued (as it still ultimately was argued) that she was call for mercy. In the very first line, for example, she
ignoring her duties as a wife and mother.8 Had she called her poetry “ill-formed” and her brain “feeble,” as
worked to see the poems published herself, the logic if to concede to the critics. This opening volley seems
went, how would the children have been fed, the floors to be an apologetic plea for the audience to understand
swept, and the clothes washed? This introduction that Bradstreet’s verses were never meant for an
is seemingly harmless; superficially, it might even be audience but inherently for herself, while reading on,
seen as progressive. But what could Woodbridge have we see a lament (or perhaps an indictment) of how
known about the thoughts of Bradstreet? We may the “less wise than true” Woodbridge, in relaying her
try to summarize an author’s work with the best of poems to readers without her consent, advice, or even
intentions, but it really cannot do justice to the writer knowledge, forces these readers to acknowledge the
herself. Woodbridge published the book without even fact that what they consumed was lacking in so many
mentioning Bradstreet by name, a violation of consent. ways. Upon careful inspection of the poem, however,
With her manuscript in hand, he exerted unwarranted the last few lines make Bradstreet’s message quite clear.
authority over determining when and how the works She was not apologizing for anything.
would be published, as well as the order in which they
would be read.

Thankfully, though, Bradstreet had a pre-emptory
response to the issues raised in and by the introduction
to The Tenth Muse: her poem, “The Author to Her Book.”

Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth didst by my side remain,
Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than
true,
Who thee abroad, exposed to public view,
Made thee in rags, halting to th’ press to trudge,
Where errors were not lessened (all may judge).
At thy return my blushing was not small,
My rambling brat (in print) should mother call,
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
Thy visage was so irksome in my sight;
Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy blemishes amend, if so I could.
I washed thy face, but more defects I saw,
And rubbing off a spot still made a flaw.
I stretched thy joints to make thee even feet,
Yet still thou run’st more hobbling than is meet;
In better dress to trim thee was my mind,
But nought save homespun cloth i’ th’ house I find.

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Specifically, Bradstreet introduced the metaphorical and topographical notes, George William Ellis and John
language of motherhood to provide insight into the true Morris used mostly narrative accounts of the war to
provenance/ownership and meaning of her poem(s). understand its broader significance, including: the
The lines are truly and solely of her—her children, her colonists’ accounts of failed battles; stories of the
offspring; she birthed the poems and held them close to various attacks of King Philip and his armies; and
her, making Woodbridge’s snatching them all the more first-person recollections of scenes from the bloody
insidiousness. She continued to use maternal language war. However, their collection of primary sources
throughout the poem—“mother,”“mine,”“my,”“own”— lacks the deeply personal and reflective work done by
and we can feel the connection between Bradstreet and Rowlandson, and though her Narrative is mentioned,
her writings grow stronger with each line. She spoke of their summary of her diary and what it teaches readers
the day-to-day tasks a mother performs for her children about the war is conspicuously and predictably lacking:
with dual meaning, as “I stretched thy joints to make
thee even feet” invokes both a mother tending to her The diary kept by Mrs. Rowlandson in the midst of
injured child and a poet measuring out the metrical feet her wanderings affords us an intimate knowledge
of her verse. These lines tell us that Bradstreet’s poems of the movements of Philip and of life among
are a collection she formed and wrote with the same the Indians during the winter. It is exceedingly
care, tenderness, and intention with which she treated her touching in its simplicity and pathos.12
own human children.
While the claim that Rowlandson “affords us intimate
The last five lines of the poem characterize the knowledge” seems like a compliment, the other ways
personal intimacy of the extended metaphor and in which they described her work completely degrade
serve as the seventeenth-century version of a clap- the Narrative and mark another example of editorial
back that shows Bradstreet’s skills as a writer and the malfeasance. The “intimate knowledge” they referred
reality of the conventional thinking she was facing. to has nothing to do with her account and only the
She reclaimed her poetry in these lines as definitively light it sheds on the tactical elements of War: the
hers, saying that her poems are to be critiqued on their movements of armies and how Native Americans
own merit as literary products that were created single- treated captives relative to how Europeans treated
handedly, yes, but also that they represent a strike at captives. Furthermore, the reductive language used by
the systematically oppressive male literary industry for Morris and Ellis—“touching,” “simplicity,” “pathos”—
even trying to possess and silence the female author’s completely diminishes the text’s significance to one
voice. Bradstreet deemed her poetry “fatherless,” and of “womanly sentiment.” The multitude of ways in
the asexual nature in which her poems were born which Rowlandson’s work adds to a more complex
screams Bradstreet’s demand that she be acknowledged understanding of the American colonists and the
as an author with agency. American colonies, including their relationships
with Native Americans, was completely ignored
Unlike Anne Bradstreet, Rowlandson was never able and subjected, once again, to the whims of male
to formulate a response to the appropriations of her appropriation.
Narrative, which largely took place after her death
and which are most vivid when her work is discussed Other editions and annotations of the work do,
within the context of its historical moment. For however, acknowledge how it has a special place in
example, historical accounts of Metacom’s War label history for its impact alone. The 1997 Bedford Series’
it as “a victory eliminating the threat of Indians”;9 as preface to the Narrative, for example, states:
“the bloodiest conflicts (per capita) in U.S. history;10
and as “the first great test to which the New England Although Metacom’s War was well documented,
Commonwealths were subjected.”11 In their collection, most written descriptions of it were provided
King Philip’s war; based on the archives and records of by clergymen and other English leaders. Their
Massachusetts, Plymouth, Rhode Island and Connecticut accounts help us understand the chronology of
and contemporary letters and accounts, with biographical events and illustrate what might be called the

Journal on Constitutional Democracy 143

“official,” or at least the elite, English viewpoints. about the beginnings of American literature. In that
But those accounts tell us little about the course, we were not provided with much detail about
experiences and perspectives of ordinary colonists her work or her life, and we read her alongside John
and even less about how Native Americans Smith’s diary, Christopher Columbus’ tall tales of the
perceived the conflict.13 New World, and other male accounts of their discovery
The “official” or “elite” accounts of “clergymen of “new” land and their delight in a newfound freedom
and English leaders” help us in some areas, but it is of religion. Re-visiting Rowlandson’s Narrative has
Rowlandson who provided an intimately detailed opened me up to an entirely different perspective on
account of Native American and European relations the New World. From here, I will utilize the Bedford
that goes beyond the classroom norms of “chronology.” edition to write about the pieces in Rowlandson’s
As I will argue, Rowlandson’s Narrative holds a unique narrative that stand out to me. I chose this edition
value in two specific ways: her writing depicts a precisely because there is no leading material, only
mutualistic economic relationship between herself and Rowlandson’s own words. The argument I truly intend
her captors that is unlike any account students will to make is this: Mary Rowlandson has been bogged
read; and her expressions of faith—and, even more, down or ignored for 336 years; it is time for her to get
her expressions of doubt—in the context of captivity her voice back.
provided deep understanding of Puritanism, as well as
a perfect glimpse into her genius as a writer. Rowlandson was captured “on the tenth of February
1675,”14 when Native Americans raided the homes
I purchased the Bedford text at an outdoor book sale. in her settlement. They killed many of the men and
This was not my first reading of Rowlandson, though, took most of the women and children with them.
as I was assigned her Narrative in an English course Rowlandson was separated from her family, except for
her youngest child, a six-year-old whom she carried
until the child’s death during the Narrative’s Third
Remove.15 She was then reunited with her daughter,
Mary, for a short while, but during the Fourth Remove,
she parted from Mary and was again alone among her
captors.16 After these first few Removes, or chapters,
when Rowlandson had travelled for some time alone
with her captors, what I find to be the most interesting
points of the Narrative begin.

One particular, recurring point of interest is
Rowlandson’s descriptions of the many transactions
she engaged in with her captors. Rowlandson was
first called upon by Metacom himself.17 She was
asked to make a shirt for his son, for which he paid
her a shilling. At first, she offered it to her master, and
when he told her to keep it, Rowlandson viewed his
generosity with surprise. With her hard-earned cash,
Rowlandson purchased a piece of horse flesh. Her
meal for one changed course when Metacom asked
Rowlandson to make a hat for his son and then invited
her to dinner, where her horse meat was combined
with “a pancake, about as big as two fingers…made
of parched wheat, beaten, and fried in bear’s grease,”
something Rowlandson savored.18 The transactional
relationships that began to form happened in part

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because of Rowlandson’s feminine skills of sewing and her captors—and they thus represent scenes that
patchworking. More than this, though, they provide elevate the Narrative as a whole far beyond being a
new insight into mutualistic, almost beautifully tale of “simplicity, pathos and touching moments.”24
communal economic relations that might inform our Specifically, Rowlandson was able to take back a small
overall understanding of the potential for more fruitful piece of control through these transactions, something
commerce that could have occurred, but too often did that she used to win favor from her captors, and that
not, in colonial America. These insights are all too additionally evidences her strength and will to live.
easily breezed over if we simply rely on male editors’
instructions about how to receive the text. If the economics of Rowlandson’s Narrative encourage
us to consider more deeply the complexity of relations
After this initial trade, the offers kept rolling in: “here that formed—or the potential relations that could
was a squaw who spake to me to make a shirt for have formed—between Native American and colonial
her sannup, for which she gave me a piece of bear. communities, her articulation of doubt adds to the
Another asked me to knit a pair of stockings, for which history of religion in early America and to the rich fabric
she gave me a quart of peas.”19 Mary cooked up her of female authorial genius. Even before she received
earnings together and invited her master and mistress the Bible from one of her captors, this reveals itself in
to dinner, again reconfiguring conventional wisdom how Rowlandson interjected her Narrative with what
about captive-captor relations (a reconfiguration seem to be memorized passages of Scripture. Not only
that is lost if we rely on the instructions for how to do these moments relay to us her religious beliefs and
read Rowlandson provided by her male editors). The knowledge; they also play this belief and knowledge
economic relationships between Rowlandson and her deftly against her doubt so that we have to consider
captors continued during her Ninth Remove, when, when she was or wasn’t actually discussing an act of
after travelling, Rowlandson and crew stopped to wavering. For example, at the beginning of her captivity,
set up camp and rest before their next journey. Here, Rowlandson recalled the story of her sister, who after
a man asked Rowlandson to make him a shirt, which watching her children be mercilessly murdered, was
she did, but she was upset to receive nothing in return. herself struck dead by a bullet. On the loss of her sister
After pestering him every time she would fetch water and her sister’s loss, Rowlandson wrote, “I hope she is
or walk near his home, Rowlandson wrote that, “at last reaping the fruit of her good labors, being faithful to
he told me if I would make another shirt, for a papoose the service of God in her place. In her younger years
not yet born, he would give me a knife,”20 a promise he she lay under much trouble upon spiritual accounts,
kept. Rowlandson gave the knife to her master, and she till it pleased God to make that precious scripture
was pleased to have provided him with something he take hold of her heart.”25 Rowlandson then quoted 2
wanted and to have won favor in the eyes of her captors. Corinthians 12:9: “And he said unto me, my Grace
is sufficient for thee.”26 It seems easy or obvious for
This trend persisted throughout Rowlandson’s Rowlandson to look to Scripture to heal any pain that
captivity. During the Thirteenth Remove, she described she went through during her captivity. Yet in many
how “an Indian came to me with a pair of stockings that instances, Rowlandson’s use of Scripture also seems to
were too big for him, and he would have me ravel them confirm or at least speak to the worry and doubt she felt
out, and knit them fit for him,” which Rowlandson throughout her removes. Here, for example, in addition
did.21 She then demanded the man ask her mistress if to the interesting use of “hope”—versus, perhaps,
she may “go along with him a little way.”22 When her “know”—it seems that Rowlandson used Scripture to
mistresses granted her permission, Rowlandson spent suspend the fear and doubt she experienced in the face
time with this man, who gave her “some roasted ground of her sister’s gruesome circumstances. Thus, after she
nuts, which did again revive my feeble stomach.”23 quoted Corinthians, Rowlandson returned to the scene
These trade deals were the culmination of an economy of the capture instantly,27 without allowing remorse,
in which people felt responsible toward one another— sorrow, or questioning to take hold.
Rowlandson’s skills as a seamstress were a commodity
that she was able to use in humanely bartering with Later, when Rowlandson received a copy of the Bible,

Journal on Constitutional Democracy 145

she told us that she at once turned to Deuteronomy realm of spiritual understandings and providence.29
28, “Blessings for Obedience.” This use of Scripture But as Rowlandson spent more and more time with
suggests more than Rowlandson’s desire to obey God’s them, she started to think beyond this. This shift
will during her captivity; it likewise suggests that she represents a different kind of doubt or questioning
needed the physical, textual reminder of what blessings than what was discussed before, as Rowlandson
will come after she endured the pain of captivity. In this, began to consider the implications of how the same
it reveals the deeper and more complicated, sometimes God who had provided for her was providing for her
even conflicted, nature of the faith possessed by captors, who have not converted to Christianity. For
Rowlandson, for she then stated: example, after being forced to work on the Sabbath
day, Rowlandson described how she “cannot but take
my dark heart wrought on this manner: that there notice of the strange providence of God in preserving
was no mercy for me, that the blessings were gone, the heathen.”30 She was curious as to how and why God
and the curses come in their room, and that I had had provided them, young and old, with the strength to
lost my opportunity. But the Lord helped me travel and cross so many rivers as they traipse her about
still to go on reading till I came to Chap. 30, the America. She also used Psalm 81:13-14 to reason why
seven first verses, where I found, there was mercy God had not allowed the English army to find her, kill
promised again.28 her enemies, and bring her home: “God did not give
them courage or activity to go over after us.”31
For this to be the first set of passages that Rowlandson
turned to shows the extent to which her faith had Rowlandson, of course, did use the Bible to combat
taken many hits while she was in captivity and how her cruel treatment; lacking brute strength and any
her worldviews and understanding of God were being kind of weapon, her faith was all she had. Many times,
shaken, torn, and rebuilt over and over again. This Rowlandson spoke of God’s ability to see her through
type of emotion did not appear when Rowlandson the dark moments. Other times, she stated her belief
had first been captured. Her faith then was iron-clad, that God would smite her enemies. But it is never quite
but as her captivity continued and she experienced this simple. Her complicated relationship with her
more and more loss, fear and uncertainty regarding captors—one in which she believed that they would pay
the fulfillment of her need to be graced by God found
their way into the Narrative.

These changes in Rowlandson’s perception can also be
seen when she wrote about God within the context of
the lives of her Native American captors. Initially, she
described her captors as heathens—barbaric peoples
who she believed existed completely outside her

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for their actions, but also in which she acknowledged 1Rowlandson, Mary White. The sovereignty and
their kindness to her—is epitomized in a powerful goodness of God: together with the faithfulness of His
moment recorded in her narrative. Rowlandson promises displayed: being a narrative of the captivity
recounted that she was crying and a Native American and restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson and related
came to her and asked her why she was weeping. “Yet I documents. Boston: The Bedford Series in History and
answered, ‘they would kill me.’ ‘No,’ said he, ‘none will Culture/St. Martin’s, 1997. Prologue.
hurt you.’ Then came one of them and gave me two 2Ibid
spoonfuls of meal to comfort me, and another gave me 3Ibid
half a pint of peas; which was more worth than many 4Anonymous. The Female Soldier; Or, The Surprising
bushels at another time.”32 The openness with which Life and Adventures of Hannah Snell. London: R.
she represented her complicated, personal relationship Walker, 1750. Electronic version available at www.
with her captors leads the reader to wonder what, in gutenberg.org/files/36461/36461-h/36461-h.htm
her experiences, did Rowlandson not include? She 5Gurman, Elissa. ““Never yet Did any Woman/More
knew how devout the people who would make up the for Love and Glory Do”: Gender, Heroism, and
audience for her writing were. But these moments when the Reading Public in the Female Soldier; Or, the
she was analyzing her relationship with her captors, as Surprising Life and Adventures of Hannah Snell.”
well as trying to understand God’s relationship with Women’s Studies 44:3 (Apr/May2015): 321-341.
them, unmistakably resemble moments of doubt. She 6Anonymous. The Female Soldier; Or, The Surprising
told us, many times, that she saw God provide for Life and Adventures of Hannah Snell. London: R.
her captors—could He favor them above her? What Walker, 1750. Electronic version available at www.
did God think of their rituals? Why was Rowlandson gutenberg.org/files/36461/36461-h/36461-h.htm.
suffering through so much while they benefited? 7“Treasures from the Library Company of Philadelphia:
Michael Zinman Collection.” The Library Company
Since Mary Rowlandson is not here today to reclaim of Philadelphia. www.librarycompany.org/treasures/
her Narrative, she cannot explain why she chose specific ad18.htm. (The woodblock carving of the cover page
passages or how she organized the traumatic events and of Rowlandson’s work is 3rd from the left at the bottom
recalled those dark moments of fear and desperation of this page. For the specific link to the image, but
during her captivity. She cannot choose or create her without the caption, please see
own cover pages, she cannot tell us who, if anyone, told http://www.librarycompany.org/treasures/essays/
her to write. She cannot tell us what she thinks about her ad18/zinman-108947-o-fr.jpg.)
own work or the subsequent changes that happened to 8Requa, Kenneth. “Anne Bradstreet’s Poetic Voices.”
the work throughout history. What Rowlandson can tell Early American Literature 9:1 (Spring, 1974): 3-18.
us, however, is more than what past editors have typically 9Ranlet, Philip. “Another Look at the Causes of King
allowed, as they obscured the richness of her narrative Philip’s War.” The New England Quarterly 61:1
with ill-fitting cover images and appropriations of her (1988): 79-100.
narrative. Rowlandson’s piece demands recognition of 10“King Philip’s War.” Encyclopædia Britannica. 2016.
its merit, not only on its own terms, as demonstrated www.britannica.com/event/King-Philips-War.
above, but also by virtue of the bare fact of its existence. 11Ellis, George W. King Philip’s war: based on the
The insights we gain from Rowlandson could not archives and records of Massachusetts,Plymouth,Rhode
have been written by a man, because all the men were Island and Connecticut, and contemporary letters and
slaughtered during the raids; only children and women accounts, with biographical and topographical notes.
survived. More than mere “womanly sentiment,” Mary New York: The Grafton Press, 1906.
Rowlandson’s The Sovereignty and Goodness of God, 12Ibid
Together with the Faithfulness of His Promises Displayed is a 13Rowlandson, Mary White. The sovereignty and
long-mistreated work of history, worthy of both critical goodness of God: together with the faithfulness of His
analysis and celebration. promises displayed: being a narrative of the captivity
and restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson and related

Journal on Constitutional Democracy 147

documents. Boston: The Bedford Series in History and 21Ibid. 90
Culture/St. Martin’s, 1997. Vii 22Ibid. 90
14Ibid. 68 23Ibid. 90
15Ibid. 74-75 24Ellis, George W. King Philip’s war: based on the
16Ibid. 78 “Heart-aking thoughts here I had about archives and records of Massachusetts,Plymouth,Rhode
my poor children, who were scattered up and down Island and Connecticut, and contemporary letters and
among the wild beasts of the forest. My head was light accounts, with biographical and topographical notes.
and dizzy (either through hunger or hard lodging, or New York: The Grafton Press, 1906.
trouble or all together), my knees feeble, my body raw 25Rowlandson, Mary White. The sovereignty and
by sitting double night and day, that I cannot express goodness of God: together with the faithfulness of His
to man the affliction that lay upon my spirit, but the promises displayed: being a narrative of the captivity
Lord helped me at that time to express it to Himself. and restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson and related
I opened my Bible to read, and the Lord brought that documents. Boston: The Bedford Series in History and
precious Scripture to me. “Thus saith the Lord, refrain Culture/St. Martin’s, 1997. 69-70
thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears, for 26Ibid.
thy work shall be rewarded, and they shall come again 27Ibid. 70
from the land of the enemy” (Jeremiah 31.16). This was 28Ibid. 76-77
a sweet cordial to me when I was ready to faint; many 29Rowlandson, Mary White. The sovereignty and
and many a time have I sat down and wept sweetly over goodness of God: together with the faithfulness of His
this Scripture. At this place we continued about four promises displayed: being a narrative of the captivity
days.” and restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson and related
17Rowlandson, Mary White. The sovereignty and documents. Boston: The Bedford Series in History and
goodness of God: together with the faithfulness of His Culture/St. Martin’s, 1997.
promises displayed: being a narrative of the captivity 30Ibid. 79
and restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson and related 31Ibid. 79
documents. Boston: The Bedford Series in History and 32Ibid. 82
Culture/St. Martin’s, 1997.
18Ibid. 82-83. “During my abode in this place, Philip
spake to me to make a shirt for his boy, which I did,
for which he gave me a shilling. I offered the money
to my master, but he bade me keep it; and with it I
bought a piece of horse flesh. Afterwards he asked me
to make a cap for his boy, for which he invited me to
dinner. I went, and he gave me a pancake, about as big
as two fingers. It was made of parched wheat, beaten,
and fried in bear’s grease, but I thought I never tasted
pleasanter meat in my life. There was a squaw who
spake to me to make a shirt for her sannup, for which
she gave me a piece of bear. Another asked me to knit
a pair of stockings, for which she gave me a quart of
peas. I boiled my peas and bear together, and invited
my master and mistress to dinner; but the proud gossip,
because I served them both in one dish, would eat
nothing, except one bit that he gave her upon the point
of his knife.”
19Ibid. 82-83.
20Ibid. 84

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Journal on Constitutional Democracy 149

150 Kinder Institute