A Vast Field of Political Controversies: Gilded Age Political Rhetoric and the Construction of a Public Speaking Self-Identity

Abstract

Histories of speech education tend to treat the period from 1890 to 1910 from the perspective either of the rhetorical tradition that came before or of the communication discipline that followed. A more complex pattern emerges when looking at a specific school, such as the University of Minnesota. New pedagogical approaches arose in response to political events of the 1880s and 1890s and propagated through informal in-person contacts between educators. Prior to 1890 Minnesota followed a traditionalist approach that focused on developing students' character. A brief elocutionist period followed, but, by the early twentieth century, a public speaking approach trained students to publicly engage policy issues. Minnesota learned about public speaking through its participation in intercollegiate debate, and in the early twentieth century it became a fervent proponent. As Minnesota and other midwestern schools embraced the new practices, public speaking educators formed a self image that evoked the political orators who had inspired them, contrasted the vital activism of the speaker with the effete passivity of the literary scholar, and incorporated their desire to revitalize the nation by training ordinary citizens for active civic participation. This self-image guided and strengthened them when organizing to separate speech from English.

Keywords:

• University of Minnesota
• Maria Sanford
• Edward Eugene McDermott
• Intercollegiate Debate
• Elocutionism

Notes

[1] Herman Cohen, The History of Speech Communication: The Emergence of a Discipline, 1914–1945 (Annandale, VA: Speech Communication Association, 1995), ix.

[2] David Beard, “Forum: On the History of Communication Studies,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 93, no. 3 (July 20, 2007): 344.

[3] William Keith, “Crafting a Usable History,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 93, no. 3 (July 20, 2007): 345.

[4] Pat J. Gehrke, “Historical Study as Ethical and Political Action,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 93, no. 3 (July 20, 2007): 355.

[5] Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (New York: Crossroad, 1982), 567–68, 570–71.

[6] Mary Margaret Robb, Oral Interpretation of Literature in American Colleges and Universities: A Historical Study of Teaching Methods (Johnson Reprint Corp., 1968), 137; Giles Gray, “Some Teachers and the Transition to Twentieth-Century Speech Education,” in History of Speech Education in America Background Studies, ed. Karl Wallace (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1954), 422. Robb identifies these years as the period when public speaking crept back into the curriculum through the English departments. Gray gives 1890–1920 as the period of transition.

[7] James O'Neill, “Public Speaking and English,” Public Speaking Review III, no. 5 (January 1914): 132.

[8] Thomas Trueblood, “Pioneering in Speech,” Quarterly Journal of Speech XXVII, no. 4 (December 1941): 503–11.

[9] Thomas Coulton, “Trends in Speech Education in American Colleges, 1835–1935” (Ph.D., New York University, 1936).

[10] Gray, “Some Teachers.”

[11] Cohen, The History of Speech Communication, 13–36.

[12] J. Michael Sproule, “Discovering Communication: Five Turns Toward Discipline and Association,” in A Century of Communication Studies: The Unfinished Conversation, ed. Pat J. Gehrke and William M. Keith (New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2015), 26–45.

[13] William M Keith, Democracy as Discussion: Civic Education and the American Forum Movement (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007), 50.

[14] I use the term “public speaking” in order to distinguish that field from the communications discipline that evolved from it.

[15] Frank Rarig and Halgrave Greaves, “National Speech Organizations and Speech Education,” in History of Speech Education in America; Background Studies, ed. Karl Wallace (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1954), 502; “The Minnesota State Oratorical,” The Public Speaking Review II, no. 2 (October 1912): 56. Rarig began by quoting that “it would be interesting to know what connection there is between oratory and debate work … and the various political reform movements that are going on all over the country.”

[16] Rarig and Greaves, “National Speech Organizations,” 500.

[17] Keith, Democracy as Discussion, 31–33, 59.

[18] Helen Ardell Whitney, Maria Sanford (University of Minnesota Press, 1922), iii.

[19] Ibid., 146.

[20] Ibid., 50–57.

[21] Ibid., 60–63.

[22] Ibid., 76–80, 83.

[23] Maude Shirley Shapiro, “A Rhetorical Critical Analysis of Lecturing of Maria Louise Sanford” (University of Minnesota, 1959), 43–45.

[24] University of Minnesota, The Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the University of Minnesota to the Governor of Minnesota for the Fiscal Year Ending November 30, 1869 (St. Paul, MN: Press Printing, 1870), 24; University of Minnesota, The Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the University of Minnesota to the Governor of Minnesota for the Fiscal Year Ending November 30, 1870 (St. Paul, MN: Press Printing, 1871), 65; University of Minnesota, The Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the University of Minnesota to the Governor of Minnesota for the Fiscal Year Ending November 30, 1874 (St. Paul, MN: Press Printing, 1875), 9.

[25] University of Minnesota, University of Minnesota Annual Report, 1870, 28.

[26] Ibid., 64–65.

[27] Maria Sanford to William Watts Follwell, July 1, 1880, Folwell Papers, University of Minnesota Archives, Minneapolis; Edward Magill to To Whom it May Concern, April 14, 1879, Maria L. Sanford Papers, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul; Edward Magill to Andrew D. White, April 14, 1879, Maria L. Sanford Papers, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul. She also enclosed a letter from Swarthmore President Edward Magill, probably recommending her as an outstanding teacher of history. This letter may be Magill's letter to “To Whom It May Concern.” Sanford asked for the letter back, suggesting that it was not specifically addressed to Folwell. Magill wrote an identical recommendation letter to Cornell President Andrew White, and it is unlikely that any letter to Folwell varied significantly.

[28] “Here Is Dr. Maria Sanford's Own Story, As She Herself Told It,” Minneapolis Sunday Tribune, April 25, 1920, 4ff.

[29] William Watts Folwell to Maria Sanford, “Note on Circular Announcing Stops of Hiring Committee,” July 9, 1880, Maria L. Sanford Papers, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul.

[30] State of Minnesota Executive Department to Maria Sanford, August 6, 1880, Maria L. Sanford Papers, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul.

[31] Shapiro, “Rhetorical Critical Analysis,” 521–22.

[32] Maria Sanford to Governor Johnson, May 21, 1907, Maria L. Sanford Papers, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul.

[33] Shapiro, “Rhetorical Critical Analysis,” 65.

[34] Whitney, Maria Sanford, 79.

[35] Shapiro, “Rhetorical Critical Analysis,” 619.

[36] Ibid., 64–65.

[37] Michael Schudson, The Good Citizen : A History of American Civic Life (New York: Martin Kessler Books, 1998), 145–46.

[38] Richard Jensen, The Winning of the Midwest: Social and Political Conflict, 1888–1896 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), 58–62.

[39] Schudson, The Good Citizen, 147–53.

[40] Michael E. McGerr, The Decline of Popular Politics: The American North, 1865–1928 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 22–29, 37.

[41] Philip Ethington, The Public City : The Political Construction of Urban Life in San Francisco, 1850–1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 6–8.

[42] Ibid., 56–57.

[43] Schudson, The Good Citizen, 153–55.

[44] Andrew Robertson, The Language of Democracy : Political Rhetoric in the United States and Britain, 1790–1900 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995), 156.

[45] Ibid., 152–59.

[46] Ibid., 70–90; quote is on 85.

[47] Ibid., 95–103.

[48] “Oratory at Hamilton,” Hamilton Literary Monthly, October 1883, 24–25.

[49] Henry Allyn Frink, “Rhetoric and Public Speaking in the American College,” Education XIII, no. 3 (November 1892): 130–135.

[50] Thomas Trueblood, “Autobiography” n.d., 146, Thomas Trueblood Papers, Bentley Historical Library.

[51] Ibid., 148–49.

[52] University of Michigan, Calendar of the University of Michigan for 1889–90 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1889), 53. The calendar described the class as “designed to develop readiness of extemporization.” The course description in the 1891–92 calendar added that it included “practical application of the principles of formal logic. Leading questions of the day debated in class. Lectures on argumentation and persuasion.” The course description in the 1895–96 calendar added as a prerequisite completion of a course in formal logic.

[53] Ibid., 146.

[54] Jackson Lears, Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877–1920, 1st Harper Perennial ed. (New York: Harper Perennial, 2010), 169–74.

[55] Ibid., 174; Shapiro, “Rhetorical Critical Analysis,” 1A, 4A–6A.

[56] Lears, Rebirth of a Nation, 175.

[57] David P. Thelen, The New Citizenship: Origins of Progressivism in Wisconsin, 1885–1900 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1972), 55, 68–71.

[58] “Professor McDermott Is Dead,” The Minnesota Alumni Weekly, March 2, 1908, 6; Elwin Bird Johnson, “McDermott, Edward Eugene,” Dictionary of the University of Minnesota, January 1908, 135; Charles Atwell, Alumni Record of the College of Liberal Arts (Evanston: Northwestern University, 1903), 171. Unless otherwise noted, these sources are used for other basic details about McDermott's life. “Alumni of Delta U.,” Delta Upsilon Quarterly, June 1886, 142; “News and Notes,” Wisconsin Journal of Education, September 1886, 397; “Official Department,” Wisconsin Journal of Education, November 1887, 521.

[59] Northwestern University, Catalogue of Northwestern University and the Garrett Biblical Institute, Evanston, Ill., vol. 1885–86 (Northwestern University, 1886), 9, 31, 45, 110; Atwell, Alumni Record of the College of Liberal Arts, 171; “Alumni of Delta U.,” Delta Upsilon Quarterly, November 1886, 305. The Northwestern catalog indicates that McDermott had taken a diverse set of courses, including extensive work in natural history. The alumni record reports that he read law in office for a year, and the Delta Upsilon publiction reports that he spent the year following his graduation “in business” in Elgin, IL.

[60] Jensen, The Winning of the Midwest, 123–48; Commemorative Biographical Record of the Counties of Rock, Green, Grant, Iowa and Lafayette, Wisconsin (Chicago: J. H. Beers & Co., 1901), 149–50; Thomas J. Cunningham, ed., The Blue Book of the State of Wisconsin, 1891, 217–18; Thelen, The New Citizenship, 143. Jenson describes how the the Bennett Law became a partisan issue, with Republicans supporting it and Democrats opposed. McDermott's father was an Irish immigrant, a group that was heavily Democratic at the time. Election returns in the Wisconsin Blue Book show that McDermott's home town, and the town and county in which he taught, although predominantly Republican, saw significant Democratic gains in the watershed 1890 statewide election. Thelen mentions that McDermott's home town elected a fusion ticket in the 1890s, selected by a joint meeting of Democratic, Republican, and Populist parties, further evidence that it hosted significant political discussions.

[61] Northwestern University, Catalogue of Northwestern University, and the Garrett Biblical Institute, Evanston, Ill., vol. 1889–90 (Chicago: Index Company Printers, 1889), 43, 45, 123; “Chapter Correspondence,” Delta Upsilon Quarterly, May 1890, 238.

[62] Northwestern University, Northwestern University Catalog, 1889:46–47. The catalogue does not list a graduate curriculum, but merely the states that “Bachelors’ of three years’ standing” need to pursue “professional or other advanced studies.”

[63] Biographical file in the Minnesota Historical Society, citing Emerson College of Oratory, Annual Catalogue of Emerson College, 1895 and 1896, 54.

[64] University of Minnesota, The Catalogue and Announcement, College of Science, Literature, and Arts (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1892), 77–78, 88. The course covers reading, voice building, interpretation, impersonation, gesture, oratory, and dramatic recitation.

[65] “Hiawatha's Prophecy,” in Gopher (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1898), 193; “To Santa Claus,” Ariel, December 22, 1899, 166; “Home Hits and Happenings,” Ariel, October 3, 1890, 10.

[66] “Changes in Curriculum,” Ariel, June 3, 1897, 141.

[67] University of Minnesota, Bulletin of the College of Science, Literature and the Arts (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1899), 94–95. The course is “gesture, voice building and principles of vocal expression.”

[68] Margaret Marry Robb, “The Elocutionary Movement and Its Chief Figures,” in History of Speech Education in America; Background Studies, ed. Karl Wallace (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1954), 189–97.

[69] Samuel Silas Curry, The Province of Expression: a Search for Principles Underlying Adequate Methods of Developing Dramatic and Oratoric Delivery (Boston: School of Expression, 1891), 46–47; Thomas Trueblood, “A Chapter on the Organization of College Courses in Public Speaking,” Quarterly Journal of Speech Education XII, no. 1 (February 1926): 1.

[70] Thomas Trueblood, “The Educational Value of Training in Public Speaking,” Werner's Magazine, 1899, 528–36; University of Minnesota, Bulletin of the College of Science, Literature and the Arts (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1901), 96. In 1901 the two vocal-expression classes were listed as “the physical side” and “the psychological side,” even more closely echoing Trueblood's schema.

[71] Elwin Bird Johnson, “Debate,” Dictionary of the University of Minnesota, January 1908, 58; Elwin Bird Johnson, “Debates with Iowa,” Dictionary of the University of Minnesota, January 1908, 59.

[72] Thomas Trueblood to Maria Sanford, December 6, 1897, Maria L. Sanford Papers, Minnesota Historical Society. Significantly, Trueblood's letter indicates that he did not know her before writing to her.

[73] Elwin Bird Johnson, Forty Years of the University of Minnesota (Minneapolis: General Alumni Association, 1910), 207; “Then and Now in Debate and Oratory,” in Gopher (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1904), 282–83.

[74] David Potter, “The Literary Society,” in History of Speech Education in America; Background Studies, ed. Karl Wallace (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1954), 238–58; L. Leroy Cowperthwaite and A. Craig Baird, “Intercollegiate Debating,” in History of Speech Education in America; Background Studies, ed. Karl Wallace (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1954), 259–76.

[75] Whitney, Maria Sanford, 146; “Orators, Attention!,” Ariel, December 9, 1899, 141. Even Sanford's admirer, Whitney, writes that she “was not methodical, and did not adhere closely even to a subject. She was not logical in her thought.” “Orators, Attention!” mentions the shift to policy debate.

[76] “A New Oratorical League,” Ariel, November 17, 1899, 121.

[77] “Minutes” (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Board of Regents, April 6, 1899), University of Minnesota Archives; “Minutes” (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Board of Regents, May 31, 1899), University of Minnesota Archives.

[78] “Untitled Notice [‘Professor McDermott … ’],” Ariel, November 1, 1900, 16. Student newspaper notice spoke of elocution as McDermott's department.

[79] Cyrus Northrop to Maria Sanford, April 10, 1900, Maria L. Sanford Papers, Minnesota Historical Society; “Regents Are to Decide,” The Minneapolis Tribune, June 5, 1900, 5; “Retained,” The Minneapolis Tribune, June 7, 1900, 7; Frank Rarig to Margaret Rarig, March 13, 1962, Frank M. Rarig Papers, University of Minnesota Archives. Frank Rarig's letter to his daughter tells how, when he was hired by Minnesota, Sanford feared that she would be fired if the university failed to win debates. It is conjecture, but these fears might have stemmed from earlier confrontations, and 1900 might have been one such.

[80] “Extemporaneous Debate,” Minnesota Daily, October 6, 1900, 2; “An Assured Fact,” Minnesota Daily, December 5, 1900, 1; “Untitled Article [‘Extemporaneous Oratory … ’],” Ariel, April 21, 1900, 355.

[81] “Extemporaneous Oratory … ”; “Students Orate,” Daily Pioneer Press, April 7, 1894, front page; “Preliminary Pillsbury Contest,” Ariel, March 17, 1900, 1. “Extemporaneous oratory” echoed ideas about the benefits of extemporaneous speech that McDermott later expressed. Previously, even contest orations were judged for composition as a written text; only delivery was judged orally.

[82] Edward Eugene McDermott, “Professor McDermott's Reply,” in Annual Report, by Minnesota High School Debating League, 1902, 22–24.

[83] “How Michigan Did It,” Ariel, April 14, 1900, 335; University of Minnesota, Bulletin of the College of Science, Literature and the Arts (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1903), 71; “Debate and Oratory,” in Gopher (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1901), 170; “Debate and Oratory,” in Gopher (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1902), 262; “A New Editor,” The Minnesota Daily, November 13, 1900, 2; “Some of Our New Instructors,” in Gopher (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1905), 45. Gislason represented Minnesota in the April 1900 debate against Michigan and in the March 1901 debate against Iowa; his team was defeated in both cases, although Gislason had publicly renounced other extracurricular activities to prepare for the Iowa debate. Before returning to the university as an instructor in rhetoric Gislason studied at the Emerson School of Oratory and was principal of a rural school district.

[84] “Parody Advertisement in ‘McShure's Magazine,’” in Gopher (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1905), 193.

[85] McDermott, “Professor McDermott's Reply,” 21.

[86] Edward Eugene McDermott, “Debate and Oratory,” Minnesota Alumni Weekly, December 19, 1904, 8.

[87] “An Appreciation,” Minnesota Alumni Weekly, October 24, 1904, 8.

[88] “English Preparation,” Minnesota Alumni Weekly, October 5, 1903, 7.

[89] McDermott, “Professor McDermott's Reply,” 21; McDermott, “Debate and Oratory”; Edward Eugene McDermott, “The Fraternity Chapter House,” Minnesota Alumni Weekly, April 12, 1909, 4–7; J[ames] A[lbert] Winans, “The Need for Research,” Quarterly Journal of Public Speaking, no. 1 (1915): 23. Winans' opinions about the value of organization sounds very much like those that McDermott had earlier expressed.

[90] General Alumni Association of the University of Minnesota, “Debate,” The Minnesota Alumni Weekly University Dictionary, November 10, 1913, 49.

[91] McDermott, “Debate and Oratory.”

[92] Ibid.

[93] Edward Eugene McDermott, “Forensic Honor League,” in Gopher (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1906), 225; Edward Eugene McDermott, “The Forensic Honor League,” in Gopher (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1907), 218; “Delta Sigma Rho,” in Gopher (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1909), 55; “Delta Sigma Rho,” in Gopher (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1911), 420; Thomas Trueblood, “Delta Sigma Rho” n.d., Thomas Trueblood Papers, Bentley Historical Library.

[94] University of Minnesota, Bulletin of the College of Science, Literature and the Arts (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1909), 198–99; Rarig to Rarig, March 13, 1962.

[95] University of Minnesota, University of Minnesota Bulletin, 1909, 198.

[96] Lears, Rebirth of a Nation, 181–92.

[97] Frank Rarig, “The Influence of the Orator” (Minneapolis, n.d.), Frank M. Rarig Papers, folder 115, University of Minnesota Archives; Frank Rarig, “A Few Dangers Threatening American Democracy” (Minneapolis, n.d.), Frank M. Rarig Papers, folder 115, University of Minnesota Archives.

[98] Frank Rarig, “Draft of ‘National Speech Organizations and Speech Education’ Chapter for The History of Speech Education in America” n.d., 12, Frank M. Rarig Papers, folder 108, University of Minnesota Archives, Minneapolis.

[99] Charles Woolbert, “The Organization of Departments of Speech in Universities,” Quarterly Journal of Public Speaking, no. 2 (1916): 67.

[100] Curry, The Province of Expression, 42.

[101] Robert Wiebe, The Search for Order, 1877–1920, 1st ed. (New York: Hill and Wang, 1967), 77.

[102] Curry, The Province of Expression, 42–43.

[103] Woolbert, “The Organization of Departments of Speech in Universities,” 66, 67.

[104] O'Neill, “Public Speaking and English,” 134. O'Neill quotes John Clapp's observation that English teachers had concentrated on literary and aesthetic compositions.

[105] Rarig, “Draft of ‘National Speech Organizations,’” 16.

[106] McDermott, “Professor McDermott's Reply.”

[107] Ibid., 22.

[108] Ibid., 23.

[109] Trueblood, “Organization of College Courses in Public Speaking,” 5. Trueblood listed William Jennings Bryan, Wisconsin governor Robert La Follette, U. S. Senator Albert Beveridge, and other politicians alongside notable academics when noting the accomplishments of college debaters.

[110] Thomas Trueblood, “Qualifications of the Orator,” in Proceedings of the National Association of Elocutionists, vol. V, 1896, 109.

[111] Ernest G Bormann, The Force of Fantasy: Restoring the American Dream (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1985), 9–10.

[112] John Kasson, Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man: The White Male Body and the Challenge of Modernity in America, 1st ed. (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001), 10–11. One factor that fed these fears was the comparison to the preceding Civil War generation, and McDermott's father was almost the perfect archetype of that generation: an Irish immigrant who ventured west to work the California gold fields, raised a company of volunteers to fight for the Union, and died in battle picking up his company's colors from its fallen flag bearer.

[113] Bormann, The Force of Fantasy, 3.

[114] Ibid., 10.

[115] Hamilton College, Hamilton College Catalogue (Clinton, NY: Hamilton College, 1877), 23, 43.

[116] Hamilton College, Hamilton College Catalogue (Clinton, NY: Hamilton College, 1884), 29, 55.

[117] “Oratory at Hamilton,” 24.

[118] “Delta U. News Items,” Delta Upsilon Quarterly, February 1885, 45; “Letters from Chapters,” Delta Upsilon Quarterly, February 1885, 29.

[119] Austin Phelps and Henry Allyn Frink, Rhetoric: Its Theory and Practice. “English Style in Public Discourse” (C. Scribner's sons, 1895), 142.

[120] “Murdoch Attacks Delsarte,” The Voice X, no. 5 (May 1888): 73–74. This report of a Murdoch speech, and the comments that follow it, are representative.

[121] Thomas Trueblood, “Small Black Diary of ‘trip East to Visit Colleges’” n.d., Thomas Trueblood Papers, box 2, Bentley Historical Library.

[122] Thomas Trueblood, “Red Diary Labeled ‘Record’” n.d., Thomas Trueblood Papers, box 2, Bentley Historical Library.

[123] Department of Speech, Communication and Theatre Arts Papers, 1911–1961, box 1, folder Debate 1911–1914, University of Minnesota Archives, Minneapolis.

[124] Charles Woolbert to Frank Rarig, November 4, 1914, Department of Speech, Communication and Theatre Arts Papers, 1911–1961, box 1, folder Debate 1911–1914, University of Minnesota Archives, Minneapolis; Frank Rarig to Charles Woolbert, October 10, 1914, Department of Speech, Communication and Theatre Arts Papers, 1911–1961, box 1, folder Debate 1911–1914, University of Minnesota Archives, Minneapolis.

[125] Charles Woolbert to Frank Rarig, February 1, 1923, Frank M. Rarig Papers, folder 71, University of Minnesota Archives, Minneapolis.

[126] Frank Rarig to James O'Neill, November 4, 1913, Department of Speech, Communication and Theatre Arts Papers, 1911–1961, box 1, folder Debate 1911–1914, University of Minnesota Archives, Minneapolis; James O'Neill to Frank Rarig, November 13, 1913, Department of Speech, Communication and Theatre Arts Papers, 1911–1961, box 1, folder Debate 1911–1914, University of Minnesota Archives, Minneapolis.

[127] O'Neill to Rarig, November 13, 1913.

[128] O'Neill, “Public Speaking and English,” 136, 140.

[129] Sproule, “Discovering Communication,” 33–34.

[130] Ibid., 32–33.