Thursday, December 8, 2011

Annotated Bibliography: Compiled while Developing “A Cultured City Woman and Her Horse”


Well, the semester is all over; so, here is my annotated bibliography of all of the sources that I read in search of my methodology and argument. You can see my evolution from a landscape argument, to a animal argument, a brief diversion with a landscape/animal painting argument, then to an animal activist argument, to an animals as curiosity argument, and finally I stumbled into this curious tension between Trist and her horse when I realized that for more than half of the diary she spends hours each day on her horse. Because I plan to use this idea in my thesis I will not post the final version of my paper on this public blog. It is, however, posted in UCF Webcourse for classmates to read.

Thanks for a wonderful semester every one!

If you fall off of your horse get right back up and keep on riding.

~Blake

L. Blake Vives

Dr. Lisa Logan

LIT 6936: Early American Women and/in Cultural Studies

8 December 2011

Annotated Bibliography:

 Compiled while DevelopingA Cultured City Woman and Her Horse”



Adams, Carol J. The Sexual Politics of Meat. New York: Continuum, 1990. Print.

Adams defines the concept of the “absent referent” and argues that perceiving our food in this manner affects the human-animal perception and treatment of non-human animals in a way that makes it easier to mistreat and abuse animals.  She also explores the ways that meat eating is built into the conceptualization of the American man and power.  She explains how the vegetarian body is thought of as deformed and “weaker” and even points out how our language reduces animals to unsexed goods.  I read this book because I thought it might help in my discussion of the Trist’s perception of game and farm animals but I found that it was too contemporary and did not work with Trist’s early American diary; I am also personally fascinated with the topic.  

Alaimo, Stacy. Undomesticated Ground: Recasting Nature as Feminist Space. Ithaca: Cornell

            UP, 2000. Print.

Alaimo argues against Annette Kolodny’s claim that early American women envisioned the frontier as a domestic garden.  Alaimo says that instead of seeing a domestic space women actually viewed an “undomesticated” space free from the restraints of domestic confines such as gender norms and used the wilderness to subvert and escape these ideological restrictions. This book was the first theoretical text that I read (and I did read all of it because I actually had free time in the first week of the semester) when I was searching for my methodology.  I did not use it because I shifted my focus from landscape to animals.

Bell, Aaron. “The Dialectic of Anthropocentrism.” Critical Theory and Animal Liberation. Ed.

John Sanbonmatsu. New York: Rowman, 2011. 160-75. Print.  

Philosopher Aaron Bell argues that because Enlightenment thinkers believed that nonhuman nature operated mechanically it was easy to see nature as something “other” than human, claim superiority, and assert the right to dominate (165-166).  I read this book chapter because it traces the philosophical origins of speciesism and human domination over animals.  It did not end up working with my argument but I was able to use it in another paper.   

Culley, Margo. ‘I Look at Me’: Self as Subject in the Diaries of American Women.” Women’s

 Studies Quarterly 17.3/4 (1989): 15-22.  JSTOR. Web. 4 Oct. 2011.

Culley explains the evolution of American diary practices in the past two hundred year and the development of the author as a subject of the diary. She defines the genre of eighteenth-century American secular journals as a semi-public document written by both men and women, which contrasts with the modern idea that diaries are kept by women as private documents (16).  This source helped me explain and contextualize the physical artifact of Trist’s travel diary.

Donovan, Josephine.  “Sympathy and Interspecies Care: Toward a Unified Theory of Eco and

Animal Liberation.” Critical Theory and Animal Liberation. Ed. John Sanbonmatsu. New York: Rowman, 2011. 277-94. Print.

Donovan argues for a feminist-ethics-of care when conceptualizing animal welfare.  She says that humans need to re-learn how to have sympathy for animals; she specifically discusses the treatment of livestock.  I intended to use this source to examine how Trist views livestock but I edited that section out of the final draft.

Freeman, Carrie Packwood.  “Embracing Humananimality: Deconstructing the Human/Animal

Dichotomy.”  Arguments about Animal Ethics. eds. Greg Goodale and Jason Edward Black.  New York: Rowman, 2010. 11-29. Print.

Packwood claims that humans are morally obligated to understand that animals are our kin.  She makes suggestions for how to go about recognizing our “humanimality” in our daily lives including using the terms “human-animal” and “non-human animal” to signal a recognition of our own animality.  This source was helpful to my paper because I used it to explain to my reader the human/animal boundary, which I focused on in my exploration of Trist’s relationship with her horse.

Gray, Kathryn Napier. “Captivating Animals: Science and Spectacle in Early American Natural

Histories.” A Companion to the Literatures of Colonial America. Eds. Susan Castillo and Ivy Schweitzer. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005. 517-32. Print.

Gray argues that colonial American travelers’ descriptions of the environment as a spectacle inspired expansion of the colonies and the eventual independence of America.  She says that these travelers depicted nature as “a captivating spectacle,” which affected American politics and ideology (530).  I found this source valuable to my original argument about landscape but I was unable to relate it to her relationship with her horse.

Grenby, M. O. “‘A Conservative Woman Doing Radical Things’: Sarah Trimmer and The

Guardian of Education.” Culturing the Child, 1690-1914: Essays in Memory of Mitzi

Myers. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2005. 137-161. Print.

Grenby argues that although Trimmer was a conservative woman in her religious beliefs work with her periodical The Guardian of Education was radical because she built up children’s literature as the essential way to maintain a stable nation, especially during times of war.  I read this source when I planned to compare Trimmer’s conduct manual about how children should treat animals with Trist’s perception of animals because I narrowed my focus to Trist I did not need this source.   

Guardian of Education.

Holinger, Bruce.  “Of Pigs and Parchment: Medieval Studies and the Coming of the Animal.”

PMLA 124.2 (2009): 496-502. Print.

Hollinger chronicles criminal prosecutions of animals in the Middle Ages.  He also argues that in a “parchment culture” there are ethical implications to the mass slaughter of animals for the production of literature.  While the idea of books as animal parts was certainly related to the content of our course it was not related to my argument.

Imbarrato, Susan C. “Dr. Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth House Trist.” Declarations of               
               Independency in Eighteenth-Century American Autobiography. Knoxville: U of                      
               Tennessee P, 1998. 40-85. Print.

Imbarrato argues that Trist’s first-person observations provide scholars with the opportunity to see the early American landscape through a female settler’s eyes, which show Trist imagining herself as a landlady anticipating the prospect of human improvement of the raw “wilderness” (69-76).  Imbarrato extends Kolodny’s argument to claim that Trist’s observations of nature show that she and other settlers viewed the environment in relation to its ability to support the developing American nation, and that these attitudes were “an unfortunate premonition of greater environmental neglect to come” (74).  This source was useful for my literature review of the scholarly conversation. 

Johnson, Rochelle. “Placing Rural Hours.” Reading Under the Sign of Nature. eds. John

 Tallmadge and Henry Harrington. Salt Lake: U of Utah P, 2000. 64-84. Print.

            Johnson argues that her examination of Rural Hours reveals overlooked ways that nature is represented in nineteenth-century America.  She focuses on the way that the text literally describes aspects of the natural world, instead of human-centered metaphors.  I read this source during the early stages of planning my paper when I considered examining nature and landscape in Trist’s text; I did not pursue this topic.

Johnson, Victoria. “Everyday Rituals of the Master Race: Fascism, Stratification, and the Fluidity

of ‘Animal’ Domination.” Critical Theory and Animal Liberation. Ed. John Sanbonmatsu. New York: Rowman, 2011. 277-94. Print.

            Johnson argues that the “animalization” of humans to justify horrific violence towards them is only possible because humans are taught through our cultures that it is alright to kill animals because they are less than human.  Further, she says that the spatial separation of “farm” from the “urban” city also separates humans from the living animals that that eat, which leads to a desensitized view of their deaths.  I planned to use this source to examine the city/frontier dynamic in Trist’s perception of the animals that they hunted.  I found this text to be superfluous once I changed my argument.   

Kolodny, Annette. Introduction. “The Travel Diary of Elizabeth House Trist: Philadelphia to

Natchez, 1783-84.” By Elizabeth House Trist. Journeys in New Worlds: Early American Women’s Narratives. Ed. Annette Kolodny. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1990. 181-200. Print.

Kolodny explains that Trist’s text includes many observations about the frontier landscape and natural resources because Jefferson, her close friend who was interested in naturalist science, was her intended audience.  She says that the diary is much more than that because it offers Trist’s unique perspective of frontier conditions when she authored the diary.  This text gave me the contextual and foundational information from which to build my own argument.

----.  The Land Before Her: Fantasy and Experience of the American Frontiers, 1630-1860.

            Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1984. Print.

Kolodny explains that Trist imagined that the “wild” frontier would be developed into garden cities, and that Trist saw beauty in raw nature only when it resembled a domestic garden (39-47).  I used this source as a part of my literature review to describe the surprisingly short scholarly conversation about the text.       

----. The Lay of the Land: Metaphor as Experience and History in American Life and Letters.

            Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1975. Print.

Kolodny argues that since the beginning of America’s colonization its settlers have viewed the land as a feminine figure.  She explores the implications and psychological impact that this view has had on Americans and on the environment that we call home. Because Imbarrato quoted this text to build her argument I wanted to go directly to the source and quote from that for my literature review.  Despite only playing a small part in my literature review I actually read this entire text because it was fascinating.

Lewis, Andrew J.  “Gathering for the Republic: Botany in Early Republic America.”  Colonial

 Botany: Science, Commerce, and Politics in the Early Modern World. Eds. Londa L.

Schiebinger, and Claudia Swan. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2005. 66-80. Print.

Lewis argues that early American views of nature were influenced by botanists’ attempts to appropriate British colonial naturalist specimen gathering and cataloging methods, which were based on Enlightenment science, for use in the new republic (68).  I originally included this source as a way to contextualize Trist’s desire to see the mammoth bones.  When I revised my paper to focus on the horse, I took this section out.  I did leave a citation in my introduction, which helped me contextualize the subject matter in Trist’s diary.  

Lundblad, Michael.  “From Animal to Animality Studies.” PMLA 124.2 (2009): 496-502. Print.

Michael Lundblad introduces the concept of animality studies to separate it from animal studies—which he argues is more focused advocacy for nonhuman animals and their needs (496-97, 500).  Lundblad defines animality studies as “work that emphasizes the history of animality in relation to human cultural studies, without an explicit call for nonhuman advocacy” (500).  This source was vital to my paper because this theoretical lens allowed me to focus on how animality, specifically “horseness,” is defined in relation to “humanity” in the historical context of early America.

Philippon, Daniel J. “Is Early American Environmental Writing Sustainable? A Response to

            Timothy Sweet.” Early American Literature 45.2 (2010): 417-23. MLA International

            Bibliography. Web. 30 September 2011.

In response to Sweet, Philippon argues that human behavior and beliefs are at the root of the damage to the environment and to truly find solutions to our environmental problems we must examine ourselves, our definition of “human,” and ultimately change our behaviors (432-34).  He agrees with Sweet that that early American writing is a good place to look for the unsustainable behaviors that are currently overlooked today (436-37).  I tried to apply Philippon’s argument to Trist’s attitudes towards animals to argue that they relate to our perception of animals today.  I found that this argument was much too broad to work in a conference paper and revised my paper to take this source out.

Pratt, Mary Louise. “Scratches on the Face of the Country; or, What Mr. Barrow Saw in the

            Land of the Bushmen.” Critical Inquiry 12.1 (1985): 119-43. JSTOR. Web. 4 Oct. 2011.

Pratt defines the discourse of “Othering” and argues that European language for the Other should not simply be read as one formulaic pattern but as a discourse with  a “proliferation of meaning” (122).   I planned to use this source to discuss landscape in Trist’s diary and evaluate whether or not she used Othering discourse but because I shifted my focus to her horse it became unnecessary. 

Raber, Karen L. “How to Do Things with Animals: Thoughts on/with the Early Modern Cat.”

Early Modern Ecostudies: From the Florentine Codex to Shakespeare. Eds. Thomas Hallock, Ivo Kamps, and Karen L. Raber. New York: Palgrave, 2008. 93-112. Print.  

            Karen Raber claims that animal studies can yield productive investigations of animals in the early modern field of studies.  To illustrate her argument she reads a painting of a gentleman and his cat and derives meaning about the human/cat relationship in the early modern period from this analysis.  She concludes that the cat is posing for his own separate portrait.  I loved this source and was briefly inspired to try to read paintings of humans and animals in relation to Trist’s perception of them but I found the subject too nebulous and my experience with paintings lacking.   

Sweet, Timothy. “Projecting Early American Environmental Writing.” American Literary

History 22.2 (2010): 419-31. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 1 October 2011.

Sweet explains that because contemporary Americans still view nature from a colonial perspective it is vital to explore early American nature writing, such as travel writing, in order to find sustainable (non-colonial) ways to live with nonhumans (426-28).   I originally wanted to use Sweet’s argument to argue that Trist’s colonial perception of animals extend beyond the temporal constraint and relates to contemporary definitions of animality and “humanness;” however, I revised my paper to make my argument specifically about Trist in the context of the early American frontier. 

Wolfe, Cary. “Human, All Too Human: “Animal Studies” and the Humanities.” PMLA 124.2

(2009): 496-502. Print.

Wolfe gives an overview of the major thinkers in animal studies theory and explains how it has evolved.  This article was useful to my personal understanding of the field of animal studies but was not useful to my project because Wolfe stressed that studying the non-human to understand the human leads to a biased “humanist” reading of the text.  His definition of animal studies did not fit what I needed to do with Trist and her horse.


Sunday, November 27, 2011

Study Guide for: The Travel Diary of Elizabeth House Trist

Below is my study guide for undergraduates to help them understand Trist's text and life.  I hope students will enjoy the journey though the information and visual images.


Early American Women’s Words: AML 3286

 Study Guide for: The Travel Diary of Elizabeth House Trist


v  This week we will study The Travel Diary of Elizabeth House Trist, which Trist wrote from 1783-1784 as she traveled from her hometown of Philadelphia via horse and later by flatboat down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to the frontier settlement of Natchez, Mississippi. 

Timeline of Events

1774: Philadelphia Quaker Elizabeth House and Nicholas Trist Marry

1775: Their son Hore Browse Trist is Born

1775: American Revolutionary War begins

The war is bad for the Trist family because Nicholas is British.

Later in 1775: Nicholas Trist departs for Natchez to secure land investments to farm

1783: Peace treaty signed after Revolution; it is now safer for Trist to travel

January 1784: Trist arrives in Pittsburgh after rough road travel via horseback

May 1784: Weather is warmer; Trist can continue travel via the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers

July 1784: Trist reaches Natchez; learns Nicholas died in February

1785: She sails home to Philadelphia

(Imbarrato 66-67, 69)


v  Understanding early America women’s travel journals:

Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in America, the secular journal served a number of semi-public purposes and the writers of many of these secular journals intended them to be read. Women diarists in particular wrote as family and community historians. They recorded in exquisite detail the births, deaths, illnesses, visits, travel, marriages, work, and unusual occurrences that made up the fabric of their lives. Women for whom that fabric had been torn, who emigrated to this country, traveled as part of the westward migration, joined their husbands on whaling ships, or went to distant lands as missionaries, used journals to maintain kin and community networks. The diaries kept b y these women functioned as extended letters often actually sent to those left behind. (Cully 16)


v  Trist’s intended audience was her close friend Thomas Jefferson, who was interested in naturalist science, which is why she records careful observations of the landscape and natural resources of the early American frontier (Kolodny 185-89). 

Follow the link below and read Jefferson’s his brief letter written to James Madison in 1783.  What does Jefferson say about Trist?


v  Why would a middle-class woman who lived comfortably in the city of Philadelphia with her young son embark on what was then a treacherous journey through the early American frontier?  Trist was traveling to visit her husband whom she had not seen in almost eight years because he left shortly after the birth of her their son to secure land investments to farm in what was then British West Florida (Kolodny 183). 

How far did Trist travel?  What path did she follow? Follow this link to see a map of her journey and her trip literary:


v  1) Now, read: Journeys in New Worlds: Early American Women’s Narratives, pages 183-232. 


As usual, follow the prompts and links below; record all of your answers and any questions in your class journal and bring this to our next meeting prepared to discuss your findings.

v  2) Visit this link to the Paris Peace Treaty of 1783 that made it safer for Trist to travel.  Note how the natural environment plays a role in defining the United States.  Which rivers, lakes, bays, and forests were used as important markers to draw the boarders of the fledgling nation? Why do you think the agreement about fishing in Article Three was important to the new citizens of America?




After answering those questions, look through Trist’s journal and mark all of the places where she discusses relying on natural resources for survival. Note when she discusses fishing, hunting, and eating wild fruits and vegetables.  Is there always enough food for the settlers? How does Trist imagine Americans will provide for themselves after the revolution? What conclusions can we make about life in early America from this evidence? 

v  3) As a Quaker woman, Trist would have worn plain dress according to her religion.  Quakers dressed simply to signal that they were different from other Euroamericans in their beliefs and actions. Follow the Google Books link below and read pages 1-26 of Daughters of the Light by Rebecca Larson.  Note some of the ways that Quakers differed in their religious beliefs and behaviors from other Euroamericans.


 Now, follow these links below to the National Gallery of Art’s web page and look at the paintings of Quaker dolls in plain dress.  Try to imagine Trist on horseback in the snow wearing dresses like these.  How do you think her clothes affected her perception of the environment that she traveled through? Imagine her when she took a walk the woods wearing this or standing on the flatboat in rough waters.  Mark all of the places where Trist remarks on the appearances of the people she boards with and observes along her journey.  What can we learn about Quaker standards for dress and behavior from her comments? How do Trists attitudes and behaviors relate to what you read in  Daughters of the Light? What can we learn about the lives of the people living in the early American frontier from her comments?      




Follow this link, which is a painting of George Washington’s family roughly around the time Trist was traveling; how does Quaker plain dress compare to the clothes worn by the Washington women?
 


v  4) Trist makes many observations about the environment of the American frontier: she describes a hill that has been mined for coal, tries to visit Mastodon bones deep in the woods, and climbs inside of a cave to view strange rock formations (212-13, 217, 222-24). 

What type of woman do you think she was based on these excursions? 

Follow the link to see recently excavated Mastodon Bones in North Eastern Pennsylvania:



Considering that Trist was writing just before the time when Naturalists were the authority on defining and cataloguing American national resources.  Read the quote below about the role of Naturalists in early America.  How might we view her observations after looking at this quote? Remember, Trist was writing to Jefferson who was interested in Naturalist Science and thought it would help American develop economically and culturally.      


Naturalists considered themselves uniquely positioned—situated in regional economic centers and intellectually prepared with botanical training—and offered the new nation their identification skills to classify its flora and fauna in the years following the 1783 Treaty of Paris. They reasoned in private and public that their classificatory expertise would assist the republic in the effort to catalog its natural resources.  In turn, these resources—various plants, minerals, and other raw materials—would provide the economic foundation essential to the fragile nation’s political success. (Lewis 69)   

Now, read both instructions for activities A and B. Chose one of the two activities to do and bring your letter to our next class to share:

v  Activity A: Go to the Project Gutenberg link below, read pages 1-14 of The Little Quaker or, the Triumph of Virtue:  A Tale for the Instruction of Youth, and scroll through images. What you can infer about early American Quaker dress, manners, and treatment of animals from the attitude of the Quaker boy Josiah Shirley? Record the quotes that lead you to make these conclusions in your journal for discussion.


~Now with that in mind, try to imagine what Trist might have written in her journal if it was a private document about the men on the flatboat who killed the pelican merely to inspect it (Trist 229).  Write a one page, hand-written, journal entry as if you were Trist responding to the pelican killing (You may also respond to other animal encounters in this journal entry).    

v  Activity B: Trist’s travel journal is written in the style of an extended letter to her good friend Thomas Jefferson, whom she left behind in Philadelphia.  As a secular journal writer, Trist acted as a community historian recording Euroamerican attitudes about the environment and making careful observations about the prospects for developing the frontier.  Some scholars wonder if Trist’s observations inspired Jefferson to send Lewis and Clark on their mission.  Follow the link below to read Jefferson’s instructions to Lewis:





~Now with that in mind, try to imagine you are one of Trist’s and Jefferson’s friends who will travel along the same path that Trist took from Philadelphia to Natchez out into the early American frontier.  Write a one page, hand-written, journal entry as if you were following Jefferson’s request to record your observations of the environment and potential natural resources.  Remember, you are friends with Trist and read her journal to prepare for your trip.  What different decisions will you make on your journey? Will you visit some of the same places she did? What similar sights do you see?

Finally: Locate and review at least one of the following secondary sources to better understand this text.  Record in your journal the two pieces of information that were most helpful; be prepared to share this information in class:

Culley, Margo. ‘I Look at Me’: Self as Subject in the Diaries of American Women.”

Women’s Studies Quarterly 17.3/4 (1989): 15-22.  JSTOR. Web. 4 Oct. 2011.

Imbarrato, Susan C. “Dr. Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth House Trist.” Declarations of

            Independency in Eighteenth-Century American Autobiography. Knoxville: U of

            Tennessee P, 1998. 40-85. Print.

Kagle, Steven E., and Lorenza Gramegna. “Rewriting Her Life: Fictionalization and the

Use of Fictional Models in Early American Women’s Diaries.” Inscribing the Daily:

Critical Essays on Women's Diaries. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1996. 38-55. Print.

Martin, Wendy. Colonial American Travel Narratives. New York: Penguin, 1994. Print.

Pratt, Mary Louise. “Scratches on the Face of the Country; or, What Mr. Barrow Saw in the

            Land of the Bushmen.” Critical Inquiry 12.1 (1985): 119-43. JSTOR. Web. 4 Oct. 2011.

Works Cited

Culley, Margo. ‘I Look at Me’: Self as Subject in the Diaries of American Women.” Women’s

Studies Quarterly 17.3/4 (1989): 15-22.  JSTOR. Web. 4 Oct. 2011.
Imbarrato, Susan C. “Dr. Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth House Trist.” Declarations of               Independency
in Eighteenth-Century American Autobiography. Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 1998. 40-85. Print.
Jackson, Donald, Ed. “Jefferson’s Instructions to Lewis, 20 June 1803.” Letters of the Lewis and Clark
Expedition with Related Documents: 1783-1854. 2nd ed. vol. 1. Chicago: U of Illinois P, 1979. 61-
66. Print.  
Kolodny, Annette. Introduction. “The Travel Diary of Elizabeth House Trist: Philadelphia to Natchez,
 1783-84.” By Elizabeth House Trist. Journeys in New Worlds: Early American Women’s
Narratives. Ed. Annette Kolodny. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1990. 181-200. Print.
Lewis, Andrew J.  “Gathering for the Republic: Botany in Early Republic America.”  Colonial Botany:
 Science, Commerce, and Politics in the Early Modern World. Eds. Londa L. Schiebinger, and
Claudia Swan. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2005. 66-80. Print.
Trist, Elizabeth House. “The Travel Diary of Elizabeth House Trist: Philadelphia to Natchez, 1783-84.”
Journeys in New Worlds: Early American Women’s Narratives. Ed. Annette Kolodny. Madison: U
of Wisconsin P, 1990. 201-32. Print.

Friday, November 11, 2011

Jefferson's Guide to Exploring the American Frontier







Jackson, Donald, Ed. “Jefferson’s Instructions to Lewis, 20 June 1803.” Letters of the Lewis and
Clark Expedition with Related Documents: 1783-1854. 2nd ed. vol. 1. Chicago: U of Illinois P, 1979. 61-66. Print.