Nineteenth-century feminist historiography: continuities, intersections, and breakthroughs

Key Points

Interpretations of nineteenth-century women's rights movements reveal both continuity and debate, shaping feminist historiography distinctly.
The analysis shows that critiques of racism in the feminist origins have stabilized key narratives like suffrage and the Seneca Falls convention.
The article examines how intersectionality and queer theory have interacted with traditional narratives without causing fracture.
Recent scholarship indicates alternatives to the established spheres-to-suffrage narrative in feminist historiography.

Abstract

This article assesses the interpretations of nineteenth-century movements for women's rights and finds that the historiography has been shaped equally by narrative continuity and interpretive debate. Intersectionality and queer theory have not fractured women's history as some feared during the theory wars of the 1990s. Persistent critiques of the racism inherent in Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony's feminist origin story have ironically stabilized its core elements. These include the development of separate spheres of ideology, gender issues in abolitionist activism, the Seneca Falls convention, the prioritization of suffrage, and the schism of 1869. Recent scholarship suggests alternatives to this spheres-to-suffrage arc.

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Nineteenth-century feminist historiography: continuities, intersections, and breakthroughs

Key Points

Abstract

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