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- Title
The First Female Public Speakers in America (1630-1840): Searching for Egalitarian Christian Primitivism.
- Authors
Casey, Michael W.
- Abstract
Overlooked female exhorters and preachers established a two-hundred-year-old tradition of female oratory before the nineteenth-century secular reformers emerged. Through primitivist beliefs, this tradition of female public speaking was established in four ways. One, female preachers claimed to be prophets who received authority to speak directly from God. The prophetic persona undercut the traditional authority of male preachers that was based on ecclesiastical power. Second, they defended their right to speak using biblical precedents of women leaders and speakers. Third, they attacked the oppressive practices of patriarchy and racism. Fourth, they established a vernacular preaching that emphasized orality in contrast to literate preaching rooted in classical rhetoric.
- Subjects
PUBLIC speaking; LECTURERS; PUBLIC speaking for women; ORATORY; EQUALITY; PRIMITIVISM
- Publication
Journal of Communication & Religion, 2000, Vol 23, Issue 1, p1
- ISSN
0894-2838
- Publication type
Article