ERIC Number: ED377487
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 1994-Jul
Pages: 13
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Women's Experience Studying Rhetoric and Composition, 1890-1910.
Bacon, Nora
Those who wish to learn about the experience of women studying rhetoric and composition at American colleges 100 years ago can draw upon two sorts of histories. The story of women's entry into higher education is told by such historians as Mabel Newcomer and Barbara Solomon, but such historians seldom focus on composition studies specifically. Indeed until recently, composition histories have had little to say about women. But now historians such as JoAnn Campbell are starting to uncover the story of women in the writing fields. Young women coming to the universities in the 1890s would have had to face a rough and tumble affair of warfare between the classes and countless rivalries and practical jokes, from which they were systematically excluded. After the turn of the century, however, women began to take matters into their own hands; they attempted to overcome their isolation and fashion a more hospitable environment by initiating several women's organizations separate from men's. Their lot was also difficult in the area of composition studies. Student comments during those years at Radcliffe reveal a clash between the learning styles of men and of women. Vainly, the young women hoped for some personal connection with the required writing; their professors; and the distant, authoritarian teaching style of the "section men." Many instructors seemed to respond to their students' writing in terms of precision and correctness. (Contains 23 notes.) (TB)
Publication Type: Historical Materials; Speeches/Meeting Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A