Mary Wollstonecraft, Margaret Fuller, and Angelina Grimke: Symbolic convergence and a nascent rhetorical vision

Critics have never conceptualized Wollstonecraft, Fuller and Grimke as a unified trio of feminist angst in the age of reform in which they lived. This essay invites rhetorical critics to re‐appraise the way we study discrete social movements and pay isolated tribute to woman's rights figures. It examines how each rhetor co‐opted the ideational and stylistic rhetorical characteristics of pre‐existing social movements (The Enlightenment, Transcendentalism, and Abolitionism) to create symbolic convergence and nascent rhetorical visions of woman's rights.

Key concepts:

• Mary Wollstonecraft
• Margaret Fuller
• Angelina Grimke
• The Enlightenment
• Transcendentalism
• Abolitionism
• woman's rights
• symbolic congruence
• rhetorical visions
• social movement co‐optation
• enactment