Abstract

The writing of five American women who were published authors between 1830 and 1865 is used in a comparative approach to demonstrate that they were representative of a generation of women who became active in politics on a wide scale during the antebellum period. While most women in the nineteenth century did not actively seek self-representation in electoral politics, and while few would have defined their activities in reform and benevolent societies as "political," many women, in increasing numbers participated in activities and associations with the express purpose of influencing and affecting public policy and engaging in social reform. Women often joined associations or signed petitions as part of a larger group. Individual authors, such as Sarah Grimké, Angelina Grimké, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Louisa McCord, and Augusta Jane Evans, also made their political positions known, and actively campaigned for the abolition of slavery, for the continuation of slavery, and for secession through the medium of their writing. The goal of this study is to present the five women as individual political thinkers who can also be viewed as part of a growing trend in the nineteenth century that saw women become increasingly engaged in American political life.