Abstract

Recently, rhetorical scholars have paid closer attention to how the politics of inclusion function in social movements and counterpublics. While these studies demonstrate how movement constituencies worked together as coalitions and alliances, they have yet to address how one group overcomes its resistance to another. To address this gap, this study turns to the rhetoric of Harriot Stanton Blatch. In the early twentieth century, Stanton Blatch successfully forged alliances between elite and working class suffragists. Yet, during the 1890s, Stanton Blatch’s appeals centered on persuading elite women to include working class women in the suffrage movement. Thus, this essay argues that Stanton Blatch advanced a rhetoric of inclusion that made visible, resisted, and rearticulated class difference toward more inclusive suffrage constituencies. This study finds that, through the process of redrawing boundaries of inclusion, a rhetor must confront the persistent and uneasy tension between inclusion and exclusion.

Journal
Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Published
2014-03-15
DOI
10.1080/02773945.2014.888465
CompPile
Search in CompPile ↗
Open Access
Closed
Topics
Export

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (2)

  1. Rhetoric Review
  2. Rhetoric Society Quarterly

References (60)

  1. American Periodicals
  2. 10.1080/10570311003767183
  3. Woman’s Signal
  4. 10.1080/01463370309370159
  5. Votes for Women
Show all 60 →
  1. 10.2307/3123393
  2. Counterpublics and the State
  3. Women and American Socialism, 1870–1920
  4. Bystydzienski, Jill M., and Steven P. Schacht, eds.Forging Radical Alliances across Difference: Coalition Pol…
  5. The Woman’s Journal
  6. 10.1215/9780822389200
  7. 10.1080/01463373.2010.541333
  8. 10.1080/00335630.2010.536564
  9. 10.1080/00335638109383573
  10. 10.1080/10570317409373836
    Western Speech  
  11. Rhetorical Democracy: Discursive Practices of Civic Engagement
  12. Harriot Stanton Blatch and the Winning of Woman Suffrage
  13. One Woman, One Vote: Rediscovering the Woman Suffrage Movement
  14. 10.1353/rap.2010.0212
  15. As Equals and As Sisters: Feminism, the Labor Movement, and the Women’s Trade Union Leagu…
  16. 10.2307/3177768
  17. Century of Struggle: The Woman’s Rights Movement in the United States
  18. 10.1080/00335630903140648
  19. 10.1080/08821127.2012.10677813
    American Journalism  
  20. In Suffrage & Beyond: International Feminist Perspectives
  21. Jakobsen, Janet R.Working Alliances and the Politics of Difference: Diversity and Feminist Ethics.Bloomington…
  22. Voices of Democracy 2
  23. Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States
  24. The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States
  25. The Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement, 1890–1920
  26. In Gender, Race, and Reform in the Progressive Era
  27. Voices of Democracy
  28. 10.1353/rap.2005.0012
  29. 10.1080/00947679.1976.12066826
    Journalism History  
  30. Milne, Sarah. “To the Editor of theWoman’s Signal”. 17 March 1898. 175. Print.
  31. 10.1353/par.2000.0019
  32. 10.1080/07491409.2008.10162522
  33. The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation
  34. 10.1080/0033563032000160981
  35. 10.1080/00335631003796677
  36. Civic Engagement: Social Science and Progressive-Era Reform in New York City
  37. 10.1080/00335630701449340
  38. Radical Protest and Social Structure: The Southern Farmers’ Alliance and Cotton Tenancy, …
  39. Civic Ideals: Conflicting Visions of Citizenship in U.S. History
  40. 10.2307/2711706
  41. The Woman’s Journal
  42. Fabian News
  43. The Woman’s Journal
  44. Fabian News
  45. Gunton’s Magazine of American Ecnonomics and Political Science (1896–1898)
  46. The Woman’s Signal
  47. Challenging Years: The Memoirs of Harriot Stanton Blatch
  48. Stanton Blatch, Harriot, Jane M. E. Brownlow, and Florence Balgarnie. “Correspondence: Women’s Liberal Federa…
  49. 10.1080/10510979109368340
  50. Militant Citizenship: Rhetorical Strategies of the National Woman’s Party, 1913–1920
  51. eds. Strategic Alliances: Coalition Building and Social Movements
  52. The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Britain, 1866–1928
  53. 10.1080/10510978409368190
  54. Woman’s Signal
  55. Signatures of Citizenship: Petitioning, Antislavery, and Women’s Political Identity