Motherhood, Race, and Gender: The Rhetoric of Women's Antislavery Activism in the Liberty Bell Giftbooks

Abstract

Motherhood has often been understood as an important rhetorical appeal for nineteenth-century women. In this essay I argue that rhetorical constructions of motherhood grounded in a myth of “true motherhood” can be understood to function as both a persona and topos in nineteenth-century women's rhetoric, and motherhood worked in complex ways in relation to race. By examining the Liberty Bell, an antislavery giftbook series. I suggest that rhetorical constructions of motherhood worked on a dialectic of sameness and difference to create a unification of persona across race while highlighting the difference in conditions created by slavery. This relationship between sameness and difference enabled the persuasion of white female readers to work to end slavery.

Keywords:

• motherhood
• race
• gender
• slavery
• rhetoric
• Liberty Bell
• giftbook