Female Tract Distributorsand Their Door-to-Door Rhetorical Education

Abstract

In the nineteenth century, religious tract distribution was a popular form of evangelism. Drawing on evidence from the American Tract Society’s periodical, American Tract Magazine, and tract society reports, this essay claims tract distribution as an early site for women’s rhetorical education. While distributing tracts, women received a door-to-door rhetorical education where they acquired and honed skills including canvassing, establishing ethos, and adapting appeals and evidence to different audiences and rhetorical situations. Ultimately, this essay contributes to a broader understanding of what counts as rhetorical education and how and where that education takes place.

Notes

1 I want to thank RR reviewers Nan Johnson and Lynee Gaillet for their helpful comments.

2 See this discussion in the third chapter of Shaver, Lisa J. Reforming Women: The Rhetorical Tactics of the American Female Moral Reform Society, 1834-1854. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019.

3 Prior was active in all three of these reform movements.

4 With regards to free blacks, their access to literacy was limited. Indeed, I found stories of distributors reading tracts to free black audiences (ATM 1830: 27; 1831:110). Moreover, even though the ATS was ecumenical, it was primarily dominated by Calvinists. For this reason, the Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) maintained its own tract society (Pilkington 192). Historically black Christian denominations such as the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church would have aligned more closely with the MEC. Hence, they may have received or purchased tracts from the MEC or the ATS.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lisa Shaver

Lisa Shaver ([email protected]) is an associate professor and director of women’s and gender studies at Baylor University, where she teaches courses in rhetoric and professional writing. She is the author of Reforming Women: The Rhetorical Tactics of the American Female Moral Reform Society, 1834-1854 (U of Pittsburgh P, 2019), and Beyond the Pulpit: Women’s Rhetorical Roles in the Antebellum Religious Press (U of Pittsburgh P, 2012). Her essays have also appeared in College English, Rhetoric Review, Journal of Business and Technical Communication, Pedagogy, Peitho, and several edited collections.