Signatures of Citizenship: Petitioning, Antislavery, and Women's Political Identity

Summary

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[Susan Zaeske]'s study divides women's antislavery petitioning into five chronological phases between the years 1831 and 1865 when the Thirteenth Amendment was passed. Initially, women not surprisingly displayed the supplicating and reverential attitude characteristic of the so-called cult of true womanhood. Following the form of a prayer, their petitions stressed the humility and modesty of the petitioners, appealed to the wisdom and authority of male superiors, and identified the signers as "residents" or "inhabitants" rather than citizens. To readers familiar with the extensive scholarship on nineteenth-century domesticity, Zaeske's analysis makes perfect sense. But Zaeske's book distinguishes itself by bringing the voices of so very many antebellum women into the forefront and giving them the analytical attention they deserve.

In response to the gag rules, petitioners modified their rhetorical approach. According to Zaeske, their tone became increasingly bolder and more assertive and their anti-slavery societies more systematic and centralized. Women ultimately began identifying themselves as "citizens" and abandoned much of their supplicating language and defensiveness about public action. At this point, prayers turned into demands, and women signed petitions using their own first and last names rather than their husbands'. In her discussion of these phenomena, however, Zaeske sometimes seems to stretch the extent of these women's self-assertions through over-generous close readings of their language. For example, when discussing one petition that argues for "supplication" as women's "one inalienable mode of representing" their interests (99), Zaeske marks a major shift in strategy and attitude, even though the feminine claim of the right to pray for the country hardly seems an entirely new approach.

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Signatures of Citizenship: Petitioning, Antislavery, and Women's Political Identity

By Susan Zaeske. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003. 253 pp. $49.95/$19.95 paper.

The relationship between middle-class antebellum white women and the various reform movements to which they chose to dedicate seemingly inexhaustible supplies of time and energy has sparked some of the most livel...

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