Women's Apostate Narratives and the Fate of the Family in Antebellum America

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dc.contributor.advisorLyons, Clareen_US
dc.contributor.authorBerman, Cassandra Nicoleen_US
dc.contributor.departmentHistoryen_US
dc.contributor.publisherDigital Repository at the University of Marylanden_US
dc.contributor.publisherUniversity of Maryland (College Park, Md.)en_US
dc.date.accessioned2012-07-10T05:38:06Z
dc.date.available2012-07-10T05:38:06Z
dc.date.issued2012en_US
dc.description.abstractThis thesis explores women's apostate narratives in antebellum America, focusing on best-selling literature castigating Shakers, Catholics, and Mormons. The narratives I analyze were also associated with mob activity against these religious communities. I argue that the narratives and their attendant mob activity did not function primarily as commentary against non-mainstream religious communities. Rather, they were fundamentally concerned with the fate of the patriarchal Protestant family. The texts depicted communities on the fringe of society, and their authorship was attributed to women who could not claim full rights as American citizens. In many ways these groups were relatively powerless, as were the female apostates who criticized them. In the antebellum period, however, these religious communities and the women who wrote against them became vehicles for profound commentary on the patriarchal family, an institution seen as central to maintaining social order and forging national identity in the newly United States.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/12805
dc.subject.pqcontrolledAmerican historyen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledWomen's studiesen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledReligious historyen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledapostatesen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledCatholicsen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledfamilyen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledMormonsen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledpatriarchyen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledShakersen_US
dc.titleWomen's Apostate Narratives and the Fate of the Family in Antebellum Americaen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

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