"Womanliness is an attribute not a condition": Conceptions
of Civic Womanhood in the Woman's Era, 1894-1897
Presented to the Association for Education in Journalism and
Mass Communication, Minorities and Communication Division,
National Convention, August 10-13, 1996, Anaheim, California
By Janet M. Cramer, University of Minnesota
Abstract
This examination of the Woman's Era, a national publication
for African American women, from 1894 until 1897, reveals
constructions of women's citizenship based on race and class.
Content did not conform to arguments for women's suffrage based
on particular roles identified by historians; rather, it
supports advancement of the race and a rationale for civic
participation based on the attribute of womanliness. Such
results suggest that prevailing ideologies of women's citizenship
promote particular interests based on race and class.
"Womanliness is an attribute not a condition": Conceptions
of Civic Womanhood in the Woman's Era, 1894-1897
In the decades following the Civil War, and continuing
through the turn of the twentieth century, massive social and
political change forced women to reconceptualize their roles in
public and civic life. Beginning in Seneca Falls in 1848,
American women stressed the importance of their involvement in
political affairs as full-fledged citizens. Challenging
prevailing notions of true womanhood, which limited women's
influence to the private sphere, women became committed to social
concerns and formed public organizations as they fought for
political enfranchisement.1
Coincident with their increased public activity, women
founded, published and edited an unprecedented number of
publications that were tailored to their specific interests and
involvements. Never before or since has there been such a flurry
of publishing activity. Politically aware, educated women, who
were excluded or misrepresented in mainstream publications, began
newspapers and magazines designed to inform, mobilize, and
inspire their readers regarding women's nascent civic
involvement. As the history of journalism continues to be
written, these publications need to be inserted into the body of
journalism scholarship and examined for their role in forming
and/or reinforcing notions of women's public identity.
This paper examines content in the Woman's Era, a
publication for African American women, published in Boston,
Mass., and distributed nationally from 1894 until at least 1897,
to discern its constructions of women's citizenship. Such an
examination assists the wider investigation and fuller
understanding of how media contribute to prevailing notions and
ideas held within society. Moreover, examination of publications
for particular groups may provide insight regarding the race and
class dimensions of certain constructions. For this specific
study, because the Woman's Era was written for and by African
American women with stated political or social service
inclinations (as members of the National Association of Colored
Women), it provides the necessary material for an analysis of the
constructions of women's citizenship and how these interfaced
with, influenced, or were influenced by, aspects of race and
class realities. In this way, it may further our understanding of
the role of the women's press toward the creation and
maintenance of the ideology of women's citizenship.
Questions regarding social constructions of identity, the
relationship of media and culture, and the formation of ideology,
may be examined within the theoretical framework of cultural
studies. Within this framework, it is supposed that media are not
merely carriers of ideology that manipulate and indoctrinate;
rather, they shape people's very ideas of themselves and the
world.2 A key concept in this exploration is Antonio Gramsci's
notion of hegemony--the process whereby a cultural 'common sense'
is produced.3 Hegemony is manifest in the general notions people
of any culture have about the way things should be; it is a
dominant world-view, usually culturally expressed and
discursively articulated. Gramsci considered the press a
"prominent and dynamic part" of how ideological hegemony is
achieved, when ideology is defined--as it is for this study--as a
set of ideas and beliefs that reproduce a particular social order
or construction.4 Similarly, Stuart Hall has written that "the
mass media are more and more responsible for providing the basis
on which groups and classes construct an 'image' of the lives,
meanings, practices and values [that] can be coherently grasped
as a 'whole'."5 This construction of what Hall refers to as
"social knowledge" or "social imagery" occurs within a mass-
mediated cultural sphere. The Woman's Era sought to convey to
women this social knowledge in a way the mainstream media and
the publications published by African American men did not.6
Although this was not a mass-produced publication, it was the
first national publication for African American women, and thus
provides a unique opportunity to analyze the ideology of women's
citizenship propagated and promoted through its pages.
Considerations of ideological hegemony must take into
account the dimensions of race and class, as well as gender. The
social construction of women's citizenship is an ideology that
promotes particular interests based on class and race. This
assumption is based on Raymond Williams' observation that
ideology is a reflection of particular class interests.7
Considered here is how the ideology of women's citizenship was
informed not only by class relations, but also by race relations,
reproducing what Hall terms a "structure in dominance."8 Using
gender, race, and class as tools of analysis assists in
uncovering relations of dominance. As the notion of women's
citizenship was being formed, defined, and debated, how did
different groups achieve dominance? What other voices and
perspectives were silenced?
Historian Gerda Lerner offers a perspective on the
intricacies of gender, race, and class, and how attitudes of
sexism, racism, or classism are interdependently used to
reinforce a system of oppression or dominance. Within the system
Lerner describes, any group may exhibit attitudes that serve to
establish their dominance over another group. In her example,
white, upper-class males exert dominance over other groups
through systems that perpetuate sexism, racism and classism,
while African American, lower-class males may exert dominance
over women through attitudes of sexism, and white, upper-class
women may exert dominance over African American men through
attitudes of racism, and so on. The interrelated nature of
sexism, classism, and racism ultimately serves and perpetuates a
society based on exploitation and dominance. As Lerner writes,
"race, class, and gender oppression are inseparable, they
construct, reinforce, and support one another."9
Historically, we should not assume, however, that women
represented a monolithic segment of an oppressed or marginalized
group, for within this group, there were divisions, conflicts,
and negotiations that both replicate and create the entire social
fabric of exploitation and domination. In considering the
hegemonical construction of women's citizenship, the ideology
that promotes particular interests based on race and class must
be uncovered.
The women's movement of the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, as well as the publications created to
support the movement and its various faces, needs to be
reconsidered in terms of these race/class distinctions. Women's
publications on the whole, and African American women
publications in particular, have received limited attention in
journalism scholarship. Most studies are descriptive treatments
of the content, structure, and functions of these periodicals,
with little or no attention to the ideological dimension of the
content.10 While elements of race or class may have been noted
in these studies, such analyses are not situated within the
larger framework that assumes the construction of ideologies (in
this case the ideology of women's citizenship) informed by
differences in race and class. This study situates the Woman's
Era as a formative force in the conceptualization of women's
civic identity, specifically addressing relations of oppression
or domination. Such distinctions lead to a more holistic analysis
and understanding not only of women's publications, but also of
media influences and phenomena in general. Specific research
questions are listed below, but first, it is necessary to provide
the context in which the Woman's Era was published.
Woman's Era and the National Association of Colored Women
The Woman's Era was founded, published, and edited by
Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, a member of Boston's African
American elite. Ruffin's mother was white, a native of Cornwall,
England, and her dark-skinned father, a prominent and wealthy
Boston clothier, was of mixed ancestry. The light-skinned Ruffin
married in 1858, at age 15, to George Lewis Ruffin, also of
Boston's elite. George Ruffin was the first African American to
graduate from Harvard Law School. He served in the Massachusetts
State Legislature and was the first African American judge in the
North, appointed to serve the municipal court of Charlestown.11
Josephine Ruffin's wealthy existence was apparently not a
sheltered existence, however. She was aware of suffering and
need, and used her resources and talents to engage in relief
efforts. She assisted soldiers during the Civil War with the
Sanitary Commission; in 1879, she helped establish a relief
effort to provide clothing and money for Southern blacks
relocating to Kansas, and in 1889, offered the help of Northern
African American women to assist the Georgia Educational League
for Southern children.12 In 1893, she continued her involvement
in civic and social affairs by founding the Woman's Era Club.
The Woman's Era Club was among a proliferating number of local
groups that, in 1892, would form The Colored Women's League. The
League was analogous to the General Federation of Women's Clubs,
an organization of white middle and upper-class women who
augmented their literary and social pursuits with concern for
various social problems.13 Though clearly a club with elite
membership, the Woman's Era Club, along with other African
American women's clubs at this time, was devoted to "racial
uplift."14
Although records indicate that Ruffin may have been
publishing the Woman's Era locally in Boston from as early as
1890, the first issue, Vol. 1, No. 1, is dated March 24, 1894.15
Ruffin was the editor, Florida R. Ridley her assistant, and six
women and two men were on her editorial staff. According to its
masthead, the publication was "the organ of the Woman's Era Club
and devoted to the interests of the women's Clubs, Leagues, and
Societies throughout the country. . . ." With its national
circulation, it is not surprising that when the Federation of
Afro-American Women formed in 1895, the Woman's Era was chosen as
its official organ. One year later, the Federation merged with
two other groups to form the National Association of Colored
Women, and the Era was retained as its publication.16
The National Association of Colored Women (NACW) was not a
suffrage organization. Ironically, though African American women
were, as a group, considered supportive of a federal suffrage
amendment, the National American Woman's Suffrage Association--
led by white, middle to upper-class, women--discriminated against
African American women and discouraged their participation in the
movement through the first decade of the twentieth century.17
Similarly, the General Federation of Women's Clubs (which did not
advocate openly for women's suffrage until 1916) failed to fully
embrace African American women.18 Discrimination in white
women's organizations, then, may have led African American women
to form their own organizations. These organizations were formed
for similar reasons as groups of white women--education,
enrichment, concern for social problems--but formation may also
have been stimulated from a sense of race consciousness.19
The clubs that comprised the NACW thus combined their
educational and social concerns with a sense of "racial uplift."
Although domestic and cultural concerns were predominant in the
early years of its formation, the emphasis of these clubs shifted
to civic reforms. In addition, and perhaps primarily, they were
strongly organized in the effort to combat lynching. Adopting as
their motto, "Lifting as we climb," the purposes of the NACW
were:
To secure and enforce civil and political rights for
ourselves and our group. To obtain for our colored women the
opportunity of reaching the highest standard in all fields of
human endeavor. To promote interracial understanding so that
justice and goodwill may prevail among all people.20
Though similar to the General Federation of Women's Clubs,
the stated purposes of the NACW are distinguished in terms of
racial awareness and need. These women combined racial
awareness, social welfare, and advocacy for greater political and
civic involvement in their organization's platform. Thus, as its
official organ, the Woman's Era should reflect the concerns of
these elite, African American women regarding woman's civic role
and duties of citizenship and how this is informed by realities
of race and class.
Method: Analyzing the Discourse of Citizenship
Content of the Woman's Era provides material for a discourse
analysis that seeks to uncover the constructions and ideology of
women's citizenship, and how this is related to race and class.
Discourse analysis is a method that studies not only the text,
but also the unspoken underpinnings of that text--that is, it
seeks to uncover the codes, constructions, cultural assumptions,
connotations, and underpinnings embedded in the text, treated
here as the content of the Woman's Era. This process involves
locating correspondences between a text and social structures and
identities, noting recurring patterns in discourse, such as the
repetition of certain themes, phrases, rhetoric, and so on.21
Significant in terms of locating ideological roots are two
ideas presented by Stuart Hall and Michel Foucault. Hall claims
that ideological systems of representation may be identified
through an analysis of discourse that uncovers an unspoken pre-
defined terrain, a "field of meanings."22 Similarly, Foucault
refers to "discursive formations" as arenas for discourse,
representing a set of assumed--possibly unconscious--rules
regarding what can be written, thought, and acted upon in a
particular field.23 Locating the discursive formation related to
women's citizenship--the field of meanings--would thus enable
identification of a particular ideology.
According to historians, arguments for women's citizenship
revolved around assumptions regarding woman's nature and what she
would bring to the polls and accomplish with her vote. These
arguments were based on the notions of motherhood, women's moral
superiority and altruistic motivations, and the value of
equality.24 To what extent are these arguments based on a vision
of white, upper-class ideals? Do positions expressed in the
Woman's Era reflect these same arguments; are they positions
that reflect dimensions of race and class? Is the ideology of
women's citizenship a race and class-bound ideology?
In order to address these broad questions regarding the
ideology of women's citizenship as expressed in the Woman's Era,
twenty-two extant issues of the publication from March, 1894,
until January, 1897, were read to discern the arguments and
images regarding woman's social and political identity. Research
focused on specific themes reflected in the content, noting
whether these themes conformed to the categories of motherhood,
altruism, moral superiority, and equality with men, or whether
there were additional arguments and constructions related to
women's citizenship. References to race and class realities were
also specifically noted in order to address the question of
whether these differences were acknowledged or articulated. The
specific research questions, therefore, were:
1. To what extent does discourse in the Woman's Era conform
to the four constructions of motherhood, altruism, moral
superiority and equality with men?
2. Are there alternative constructions/themes around which
African American women defined their citizenship?
3. Were issues of race and class difference acknowledged or
articulated?
Since the four predominant constructions, listed in the
first question, have been identified by historians and reflect
the culture and conditions in late nineteenth-century America, it
was expected that they would be present in the Woman's Era.
Further, racial awareness was expected, as well as attitudes of
classism. If, as Lerner suggests, groups maintain particular
positions in order to preserve dominance--or resist oppression--
it would be expected that upper-class African American women
would cling to their class status as the remaining niche from
which to resist full-scale oppression under a system that
reinforces sexism, racism, and classism. This expectation is
also based on Hall's observation that language usage reflects
class structures within a capitalist society--that "it will be
dependent on the nature of the social relations in which it is
embedded, the manner in which its users are socially organized
together, [and] the social and material contexts in which it is
employed."25
Employing discourse analysis and a reading of ideology
within the framework of cultural studies accomplishes the main
purpose of this study: examining the role of the Woman's Era in
articulating and defining women's civic identity, and determining
to what extent this definition is informed by realities of race
and class.
Findings
In general, in response to the questions stated above, the
four categories of motherhood, altruism, moral superiority, and
equality with men did not constitute content regarding civic
identity in the Woman's Era. Though arguments occasionally
appeared that used these identity categories, the civic identity
presented in the Woman's Era was more distinctly tied to race and
class identity. Moreover, woman's contribution to civic and
political life was not defended on the basis of particular
qualities of womanhood or what women would accomplish at the
polls. Conversely, "womanliness" was defended in and of itself as
an attribute. Self-improvement and advancement of one's own
causes and concerns were heralded over the use of the ballot to
effect improvements in the social welfare of others. Advocating
for greater civic involvement based on woman's equality with man
was virtually absent (with a single exception noted below), even
though interest and concern over men's affairs was expressed. As
the following examples will illustrate, the predominant
construction of woman's citizenship in the Woman's Era was of an
educated, class-conscious woman, concerned with self-advancement
as well as the advancement of her race, and worthy of
enfranchisement on the basis of her womanliness.
In response to the first question, regarding the use of the
four constructions of woman's value as citizen based on the
notions of motherhood, altruism, moral superiority and equality
with men, there was little that would support the identification
of these as components of an ideology of women's citizenship
promoted by the Woman's Era. When these arguments were used,
there were conflicting messages. For instance, if woman's civic
value was predicated on a notion of service to others, later in
the same article would be the notion of self-interest, self
respect and self-protection as benefits and requisites of civic
involvement.26
Most striking was the relative absence of an assertion of
woman's moral superiority as a justification for citizenship.
Only occasionally was there reference to "good women."27
Assertions of African American woman's morality were usually made
in defense against charges that African American women were
immoral. Ruffin's address to the NACW conference was reprinted in
the August, 1895 issue. In it, she referred to the southern women
who "have protested against the admission of colored women into
any national organization on the ground of the immorality of
these women" and defended the NACW as "an army of organized women
standing for purity and mental worth."28 Another article by New
York correspondent Victoria Earle, was a similar defense against
charges of immorality: "We should realize, and let the world know
that we realize it, that America, and the south in particular,
owes a deathless bond of gratitude to the now slandered class,
that the fair sons and daughters of the south were not corrupted
or demoralized during their young and tender years."29
Morality was linked to racial realities--in the cruel,
inverted logic of racism, the virtue of African Americans was
held suspect because of the sexual transgressions and immorality
of white southern men against slave women. African American women
could not, then, easily claim moral superiority as a basis for
citizenship. Still, the virtue of woman's nature was occasionally
invoked and linked to service to others. Fannie Williams, who
wrote about the need for women and men to cooperate in
correctional work, asserted that "it should be the mission of
woman, with her warmer heart and finer instincts" to care for
children in correctional institutions. Further, she linked these
virtues to a sense of altruism when she asserted that "women come
to the study of these new responsibilities, not with selfish
motives . . . but rather with a burning desire to make better the
world. . .."30 But an editorial by Ruffin in that same issue
refuted superiority claims in favor of cooperation between
sexes. Criticizing the organization of "plans and schemes for the
public good on sex lines," Ruffin urged instead that men and
women work together on worthy causes.31 In one article by
Colorado correspondent Ida de Priest, the "selfishness" of
convention delegates in that state was lauded: "Those who think
of women voting only in connection with reforms should have
visited the convention and have seen the adroit proceedings of
the two leading women of the party . . . how they . . . did work
. . . for their own personal interests." Furthermore, referring
to arguments for women's civic involvement based on virtue or
altruism, De Priest claimed that "too much glimmer has been
thrown over the real. Articles have been written from
superabundance of self conceit, in which opinions are given
instead of facts."32 These examples reflect the double-edged
message of altruism: Women were equipped to care for others, but
the African American woman must do all she can to advance herself
and her race as well.
Equality with men as a rationale for suffrage or increased
civic involvement was also rarely stated. Rather, there were
statements that suggested that African American women needed to
find their own way and do for themselves. Although cooperation
with men was encouraged, as the above example illustrated, there
were not assertions that men possessed greater rights that should
be extended to women as well. In the only exception noted--an
article praising the first woman named to the school board in
Washington, DC--Ruffin wrote, "women should indulge and pursue
special bent or cultivate a peculiar power as do the men."33
Another article suggested that women would be superior to men in
terms of exercising the franchise for the good of the race.
Attacking the system of party politics, and probably the
practice of some African American men to trade their votes for
material goods (CITE), correspondent Fannie Williams wrote that
if women followed the same practices, "we shall be guilty of the
same folly and neglect of self-interest hat have made colored men
for the past twenty years vote persistently more for the special
interests of white men than for the peculiar interests of the
colored race. . . . Much more ought to be expected of colored
women in 1894 in the exercise of their suffrage than was expected
of the colored men who first voted under the Fifteenth
Amendment."34 In one article, men were mentioned as providing
impetus to the suffrage movement by their opposition to it. A
sardonic note of gratitude was extended to the "Man Suffrage
Association for the impetus their organized opposition to Woman
Suffrage has given to that cause."35
The notion of motherhood was presented in dual fashion,
with statements exalting motherhood and others that defended
women who chose not to be mothers or who did not embrace the role
enthusiastically. But the concept was not tied to civic
responsibility. While domestic life and the role of the mother
were honored, there is no evidence that Ruffin or her
contributors to the Woman's Era extended motherhood into the
civic realm, as white women had done earlier under the notion of
"Republican Motherhood."36 They acknowledged the role of mother
in its importance to home life: "True, honored womanhood,
enlightened motherhood, and happy, comfortable homes can only be
secured by concerted effort on the part of the women of our
land."37 There was a regular column on "Domestic Science" and
brief items on housekeeping, but Ruffin also asserted that "not
all women are intended for mothers . . . clubs will make women
think seriously of their future lives, and not make girls think
their only alternative is to marry."38 Such a statement reflects
the opposite of linking motherhood to civic life.
Refusal of the categories of motherhood, moral superiority,
altruistic impulse, and equality with men, was evident by the
absence of these arguments, but also by the assertions made in
the Woman's Era that womanhood, in and of itself, was a good and
powerful attribute. That is, these women did not seem to need to
justify their role and contribution to civic affairs on the basis
of some particular quality or behavior. Eschewing valuation of
"womanliness that only manifests itself in certain surroundings,"
Ruffin claimed, "womanliness is an attribute not a condition,"
and her contributors wrote of the "united, earnest and
determined uplifting efforts of strong vigorous womanhood."39
Fannie Williams wrote that as women entered the political arena,
they would have their "womanly worth tested by the high standards
of important public duties."40 Ida De Priest was confident that
womanhood was qualification enough for full enfranchisement when
she wrote: "When we should gain the franchise, we must carry our
womanhood there. Let true womanhood enter into every part of
politics and be used as the instrument of all reforms."41
Therefore, in response to the second research question, this
theme of womanhood presents an alternative construction as a
basis for African American woman's citizenship.
Regarding the third research question, issues of race and
class difference were frequently and specifically acknowledged.
The primary themes expressed in the Woman's Era were racial
advancement and class awareness. Concerns for racial advancement
and awareness of discrimination and oppression were most
frequently expressed. Often, such awareness was coupled with
recrimination toward oppressors, particularly white women.
Reporting on the convention for the Association for the
Advancement of Women (AAW), Ruffin claimed white women were
hindered only by lack of suffrage and that they enjoyed growing,
"almost unlimited" influence; but "realizing . . . this, we want
to say a word to the A.A.W. on the responsibility of the white
women for the wrongs and outrages done the black race in this
country."42 Ruffin called on the AAW women to "boldly face" the
race question. In this same issue, Illinois correspondent Fannie
Barrier Williams blamed the "exclusion of colored women and girls
from nearly all places of respectable employment" on "the
meanness of American women."43 References to racial injustice
were apparently deliberate. Ruffin editorialized that such
representations were more accurate than "can be in any paper that
has no colored man or woman on its editorial staff."44
Implied or directly stated in most references to women's
civic responsibilities and identity was the notion of self-
protection and elevation. This stands in contrast to the
arguments for women's suffrage that proposed what women would do
with the vote for others, as cited by historians. African
American women, as portrayed in the Woman's Era, either saw the
vote as a means of self-empowerment, or simply defended the need
for their own development and enrichment in connection with their
civic responsibility. Education was promoted, and terms such as
"self-help," "self-respect," "self-interest," and "advancement"
were used frequently. Notions of altruistic service were mixed
with messages for self-improvement--care for others was pre-
empted in favor of self-interest or advancement of the race as a
whole. Suffrage was seen as a remedy for racial discrimination,
but predominantly, observances of racial inequality were
supported by exhortations for self-advancement and education.
References to "advancement," the importance of education,
and concern for one's position in life, conveyed a tone that may
be described as elitist. Certainly, readers of the Woman's Era
were aware of their relative privileges; the editors and
contributors to the journal then reflected this status back to
themselves. But simultaneously, there was an awareness of the
plight of the lower classes. Rather than vaulting their position
to the exclusion of others, the tone of articles and editorials
regarding woman's civic role suggested that such elevation and
status was to be recognized and honored, but not necessarily
construed as a license of superiority. The literary and cultural
roots of the NACW were reflected in the content of the Woman's
Era, and this social and artistic flavor certainly contrasted
with the lives of other African American women of lesser means,
and particularly, those in the South. But it was not clear that
such positions were classist in terms of oppression of those less
fortunate. Rather, these authors seemed aware that no matter
their status, they would still be discriminated against on the
basis of their race and sex. Recognition of race was
occasionally coupled with references to class, conflating the two
conditions, as when Ruffin wrote, "There is no class in the
United States that suffers under such disadvantages as colored
women. This class has everything to gain and nothing to lose by
endorsing the woman suffrage movement."45 The Woman's Era,
then, became vital, as Ruffin stated, as a medium of exchange
among educated and reformed women who were "prevented from taking
their legitimate place among advanced women."46
In sum, constructions of women's citizenship based on
the rationale of equality with men, expectation of altruistic
service, and in women's role as mothers and moral superiors, was
limited in the content of the Woman's Era. An alternative
construction was based on the unadorned notion of womanhood--that
is, womanliness as an attribute in and of itself. Racial and
class differences and the experience of oppression was not simply
acknowledged and articulated, it was the theme most frequently
expressed in the content.
Discussion and Conclusion
It was expected that the four categories historians have
identified as rationale for women's increased civic involvement
would be present in the Woman's Era. That the Woman's Era refused
the categories suggests that the rationale for suffrage, and its
corresponding range of discourse, was based on white ideals and
the experiences of white women. For instance, though racial
uplift may be construed as a kind of altruistic impulse, it was
obviously racially bound. Moreover, it was construed in terms of
advancement for women and not in terms of selfless service to
others, as altruism was defined and used by white suffragists.
The absence of motherhood, equality with men, and moral
superiority also illustrate race-differentiated discourse.
African American women faced dilemmas following emancipation. For
some, to work in one's own home rather than serving another was a
sign of freedom and status. For others, it still represented a
form of limitation, especially if such service meant deferring to
a husband or was experienced as a relegation to a non-public
sphere. Surely, African American women were aware of the emerging
public role of women, so that just when embracing home life may
have meant increased status, it was juxtaposed against the
emergence of a woman's movement that was calling women out of the
home. Thus, it is not surprising that Ruffin and other
contributors to the Woman's Era presented both sides of the
motherhood coin.
Arguments of equality with men also raised a situation
informed solely by race. For white women to argue for equality
with white men in a white patriarchal society was to argue for
full privilege and status. For African American women to make
similar claims could only have attacked limitations based on
sexism. In other words, their men were still oppressed in a
racist system, and to argue for equality with them may have
advanced women's status in terms of gender, but was still
problematic in terms of racial uplift.
Moral superiority was another category that African American
women could not fully embrace. As mentioned earlier, African
American women were held suspect in terms of morality. Their only
recourse was to defend themselves against these attacks. Unlike
white women (especially upper-class white women), African
American women were limited in their use of moral virtue as
rationale for suffrage.
Positioning these four categories against the realities of
late nineteenth-century life for African American women
highlights the racism implicit in these arguments, and offers an
explanation for their absence in the discourse around women's
citizenship in the Woman's Era. Instead, the primary arguments
for civic womanhood were based, as expected, on racial awareness
and advancement, as well as the virtue of womanhood--unadorned
and unjustified. Paula Baker has suggested that, because of the
race and class-bound nature of most arguments for suffrage,
womanhood was the only category that women of all races and
classes could claim in their demands for the franchise.47
Promotion of the African American race was certainly vital for
self-interests and morale, but it also situates a group on the
margins in a white-dominated society. This is a familiar dilemma
for alternative publications that must speak forcefully to one's
own faithful, but that often keeps them on the fringes as well.
Still, the arguments in the Woman's Era were based on the belief
that self advancement would ultimately lead not only to
enfranchisement, but total equality and justice as well.
It was also expected that classism would be evident in the
Woman's Era. Based on Lerner's observations regarding the
tradeoffs between members of a particular sex, race, and class,
one might expect to see African American club women asserting and
maintaining their class privilege. Instead, these women, while
aware of their position, seemed sympathetic to the needs of their
less privileged sisters. Though the content of the Woman's Era
reflects literary, artistic, cultural and privileged pursuits, it
also contained items that expressed concern for working women,
southern women, and women who were denied opportunities because
of their race. Historians, however, have observed that such
attitudes were condescending; critics in the African American
community accused clubwomen of abandoning the concerns of their
race for their own advancement. Involvement in social activities
and leisure pursuits would surely blind these women to the
realities of their poorer, less fortunate sisters, other African
American women charged.48 Still other historians suggest that
clubwomen did advance their race and instill a sense of pride.
African American club women were more successful than white club
women in bridging class boundaries between women, according to
Lerner.49 This observation is more consistent with the rhetoric
in the Woman's Era, which stressed interdependence, concern for
the welfare of all women, and progress and advancement of the
entire African American race. African American club women
experienced racism, and this informed their arguments regarding
the role and duty of women in civic and public life--that is, to
combat inequality and injustice.
Observations regarding racist structures and forms of
discourse informed by race raises again the questions of
dominance and ideological hegemony. Though affiliated with an
established organization and distributed nationally, this
publication was short-lived. It was one of a handful of a
publications addressed to African American women. Its ideological
force was thus diluted in the face of a growing white suffrage
movement and an entire social fabric that privileged whiteness.
For lack of resources, advertising and subscribers, its voice was
ultimately silenced. If the ideology of woman's citizenship that
has persisted remains in a realm defined discursively as the
importance of motherhood, the defense of moral superiority, the
value of altruistic service, and the position of equality with
men, it is an ideology that, given the results of this study,
promotes particular interests based on race. Therefore, to the
extent that women's publications conformed to this discursive
realm they contributed to ideological hegemony and structures of
dominance. Such knowledge is useful in terms of reconstructing
the history of women and journalism, as well as informing our
present understanding of the relationship between media discourse
and ideology. The Woman's Era may not have had long-lasting
influence; still, during its existence, it presented a
counterhegemonic voice, if only in its refusal of standard
arguments for woman's suffrage and the labels upon which
enfranchisement was defended.
ENDNOTES
1. Works that address the woman's suffrage movement and
this time period include Catherine Clinton, The Other Civil War:
American Women in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Hill and
Wang, 1984); Nancy F. Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood: "Woman's
Sphere" in New England, 1780-1835 (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1977); Nancy F. Cott, The Grounding of Modern Feminism
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987); Ellen Carol DuBois,
Feminism and Suffrage: The Emergence of an Independent Women's
Movement in America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978);
Barbara Leslie Epstein, The Politics of Domesticity: Women,
Evangelism and Temperance in Nineteenth-Century America
(Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1981); Sara M.
Evans, Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America (New York:
The Free Press, 1989); Eleanor Flexner, Century of Struggle: The
Woman's Rights Movement in the U.S. (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1975); Lori D. Ginzberg, Women and the Work of
Benevolence: Morality, Politics, and Class in the Nineteenth-
Century U.S. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990); Charles E.
Rosenberg, "Sexuality, Class and Role in Nineteenth-Century
America," in Elizabeth and Joseph Pleck, eds. The American Man
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1980), pp. 219-254; Sheila
M. Rothman, Woman's Proper Place: A History of Changing Ideals
and Practices, 1870 to the Present (New York: Basic Books, 1978);
Mary P. Ryan, Cradle of the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida
County, New York, 1790-1865 (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1981); Mary P. Ryan, Women in Public: Between Banners and
Ballots, 1825-1880 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992);
Anne Firor Scott, Natural Allies: Women's Associations in
American History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991);
Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, "The Hysterical Woman: Sex Roles and
Role Conflict in NIneteenth-Century America," Social Research 39
(Winter, 1972): 652-678. Barbara Welter, "The Cult of True
Womanhood," American Quarterly 18 (Summer, 1966): 151-174.
2. Peter Golding and Graham Murdock, "Ideology and the Mass
Media: The Question of Determination," in Ideology and Cultural
Production, ed. Michele Barrett, Philip Corrigan, Annette Kuhn
and Janet Wolff (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1979); Stuart
Hall, "Culture, the Media and the 'Ideological Effect'," in Mass
Communication and Society, ed. James Curran, Michael Gurevitch,
Janet Woollacott (Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1979):
Stuart Hall, "The rediscovery of 'ideology': Return of the
Repressed in Media Studies," in Culture, Society, and the Media,
ed. Michael Gurevitch, Tony Bennett, James Curran and Janet
Woollacott (New York and London: Routledge, 1982); Stuart Hall,
"Cultural Studies: Two Paradigms," in Media, Culture and Society,
a Critical Reader, ed. Rochard Collins, James Curran, Nicholas
Garnham, Paddy Scannell, Phillip Schlesinger and Colin Sparks
(Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1986); Stuart Hall,
"Signification, Representation, Ideology: Althusser and the Post-
Structuralist Debates," in Critical Perspectives in Media and
Society, ed. Robert K. Avery and David Eason (New York: The
Guilford Press, 1991); Armand Mattelart, Mass Media, Ideologies
and the Revolutionary Movement, trans. Malcolm Coad (Sussex:
Harvester Press, 1980); Angela McRobbie, "Jackie: An Ideology of
Adolescent Femininity," in Popular Culture: Past and Present, ed.
Bernard Waites, Tony Bennett and Graham Martin (London: The Open
University, 1982).
3. As described and defined in Graeme Turner, British
Cultural Studies (New York and London: Routledge, 1992).
4. Antonio Gramsci, Selections from Cultural Writings, ed.
David Forgacs and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, trans. William Boelhower
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985): 386; useful
conceptions of ideology may also be found in John B. Thompson,
Ideology and Modern Culture: Critical Social Theory in the Age of
Mass Communication (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,
1990): 28-67.
5. Hall, "Culture, the Media and the 'Ideological Effect',"
340.
6. A useful compilation of studies regarding race and the
media is Gender, Race and Class in the Media: A Text Reader, ed.
Gail Dines and Jean M. Humez. Of special note in this reader are
Stuart Hall, "The Whites of Their Eyes: Racist Ideologies and the
Media," and Jane Rhodes, "The Visibility of Race and Media
History." Images of African American women in periodicals
published by African American men are explored in Judith
Sealander, "Antebellum Black Press Images of Women," Western
Journal of Black Studies 6:3 (Fall, 1982): 159-165. Sealander
found that images of African American women as portrayed in these
papers relied on ideals and values espoused by white culture.
7. Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1977), 108.
8. Hall, "Signfication, Representation, Ideology: Althusser
and the Post-Structuralist Debates," 88.
9. Gerda Lerner, "Reconceptualizing Differences Among
Women," Journal of Women's History (Winter, 1990): 116.
10. Literature primarily about the suffrage press includes:
Martha Solomon, ed. A Voice of Their Own (Tuscaloosa, AL:
University of Alabama Press, 1991), which cites several local and
national studies; Lana F. Rakow and Cheris Kramarae, ed. The
Revolution in Words: Righting Women, 1868-1871 (New York:
Routledge, 1990); Marion Marzolf, Up From the Footnote: A History
of Women Journalists (New York: Hastings House, 1977; Lynne
Masel-Walters, "To Hustle with the Rowdies: The Organization and
Functions of the American Suffrage Press," Journal of American
Culture 3 (Spring, 1980): 166-183; Lynne Masel-Walters, "A
Burning Cloud by Day: The History and Content of the Woman's
Journal," Journalism History 3:4 (Winter, 1976-77): 103-110;
Lynne Masel-Walters, "Their Rights and Nothing More: A History of
the Revolution, 1868-1870," Journalism Quarterly 53 (Summer,
1976): 242-251; Anne Mather, "A History of Feminist Periodicals,
Part I," Journalism History 1:3 (Autumn, 1974): 82-85; Linda
Steiner, "The History and Structure of Women's Alternative
Media," in Women Making Meaning, ed. Lana Rakow (New York:
Routledge, 1992); Linda Steiner, "Nineteenth-Century Suffrage
Periodicals: Conceptions of Womanhood and the Press," in Ruthless
Criticism, New Perspectives in U.S. Communication History, ed.
William S. Solomon and Robert W. McChesney (Minneapolis, MN:
University of Minnesota Press, 1993).
Other works on the Woman's Era include Penelope L. Bullock,
The Afro-American Periodical Press (Baton Rouge and London:
Louisiana State University Press, 1981); Willia M. Coleman, "The
Woman's Era, 1894-1897: Voices from our 'Womanist' Past," Sage
1:2 (Fall, 1984): 36-37; Rodger Streitmatter, Raising Her Voice:
African-American Women Journalists Who Changed History
(Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1994).
11. Biographical information on Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin
may be found in Rodger Streitmatter, "Josephine St. Pierre
Ruffin, Driving Force in the Woman's Club Movement," in Raising
Her Voice; Gayle J. Hardy, "Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin," in
American Women Civil Rights Activists, Biobibliographies of 68
Leaders, 1825-1992 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1993); Jessie
Carney Smith, ed. Notable Black American Women (Detroit: Gale
Research, 1992); Gerda Lerner, ed., Black Women in White America:
A Documentary History (New York: Random House, 1972), 433-458.
12. Hardy, American Women Civil Rights Activists, 331.
13. Histories of the General Federation of Women's Clubs
include Karen J. Blair, The Clubwoman as Feminist: True Womanhood
Redefined, 1868-1914 (New York: Holmes and Meier Publishers,
1980); Mildred White Wells, Unity in Diversity: The History of
the General Federation of Women's Clubs (Washington: General
Federation of Women's Clubs, 1953); Mary I. Wood, The History of
the General Federation of Women's Clubs for the First 22 Years of
Its Organization (New York: General Federation of Women's Clubs,
History Department, 1912).
14. Wilson Jeremiah Moses, "Domestic Feminism Conservatism,
Sex Roles, and Black Women's Clubs, 1893-1896," Journal of Social
and Behavioral Sciences 24:4 (Fall, 1987): 166-177.
15. Streitmatter, "Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin," footnote 9.
16. Streitmatter, "Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin," 65.
17. See especially Paula Giddings, "The Quest for Woman
Suffrage," in When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women
on Race and Sex in America (New York: William Morrow, 1984), 119-
131; Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, "Discrimination Against Afro-American
Women in the Woman's Movement, 1830-1920," in The Afro-American
Woman: Struggles and Images, ed. Sharon Harley and Rosalyn
Terborg-Penn (Port Washington, NY: National University
Publications, 1978), 17-27.
18. Giddings, When and Where I Enter, 95-117, 135-142;
Lerner, Black Women in White America, 447-450; Anne Firor Scott,
Natural Allies: Women's Associations in American History (Urbana
and Chicago, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1991).
19. Terborg-Penn, "Discrimination Against Afro-American
Women," 22-24; Gerda Lerner, "Community Work of Black Club
Women," in The Majority Finds Its Past: Placing Women in History
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 83-93.
20. Scott, Natural Allies, 147.
21. These methods are suggested in Clifford Christians and
James Carey, "The Logic and Aims of Qualitative Research," in
Research Methods in Mass Communication, 2nd edition, ed. Guido
Stempel and Bruce Westley (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall,
1989); Teun van Dijk, News Analysis (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 1988); Teun van Dijk, "The
Interdisciplinary Study of News as Discourse," in A Handbook of
Qualitative Methodologies for Mass Communication Research, ed.
Klaus Bruhn Jensen and Nicholas W. Jankowski (London and New
York: Routledge, 1991); Lawrence Grossberg, "Strategies for
Marxist Cultural Interpretation," in Critical Perspectives in
Media and Society, ed. Roberty K. Avery and David Eason (New
York: The Guilford Press, 1991); Hall, "Cultural Studies: Two
Paradigms," op cit.; John Pauly, "A Beginner's Guide to Doing
Qualitative Research in Mass Communication," Journalism
Monographs 125 (February, 1991).
22. Hall, "Signification, Representation, Ideology," 105.
23. Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge (New York:
Pantheon Books, 1972), 21-76.
24. These ideas are drawn from sources on women's history
and the nineteenth century cited above, as well as: Paula Baker,
"The Domestication of Politics: Women and American Political
Society, 1780-1920," in Unequal Sisters, A Multicultural Reader
in United States Women's History, ed. Ellen Carol DuBois and
Vicki L. Ruiz (New York: Routledge, 1990); Steven M. Buechler,
Women's Movements in the United States (London: Rutgers
University Press, 1990); Jean E. Friedman and William G. Shade,
Our American Sisters: Women in American Life and Thought (Boston:
Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 1973); Linda K. Kerber, Women of the
Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America (Chapel
Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1980); Aileen
Kraditor, Ideas of the Woman's Suffrage Movement (New York and
London: Columbia University Press, 1965); Aileen Kraditor, ed.,
Up From the Pedestal: Selected Writings in the History of
Feminism (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1968); Carol Lasser,
"Gender, Ideology and Class in the Early Republic," Journal of
the Early Republic 10 (Fall, 1990): 331-337; Meredith Tax, The
Rising of the Women: Feminist Solidarity and Class Conflict,
1880-1917 (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1980).
25. Hall, "Culture, the Media and the 'Ideological Effect',"
328.
26. Mary Church Terrell, "Washington," Woman's Era, July,
1895, 4-5.
27. Elizabeth Piper Ensley, "What Equal Suffrage Has Done
for Colorado," Woman's Era, November, 1894, 14.
28. "Address of Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin," Woman's Era,
August, 1895, 14.
29. Victoria Earle, "New York," Woman's Era, July, 1895, 3.
30. Fannie Barrier Williams, "Need of Co-operation of Men
and Women in Correctional Work," Woman's Era, May, 1895, 4.
31. Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, "Editorial," Woman's Era,
May, 1895, 10.
32. Ida De Priest, "Women in Convention," Woman's Era, July,
1895, 7-8.
33. Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, "Washington," Woman's Era,
May, 1895, 3.
34. Giddings, When and Where I Enter, 122-123; Fannie
Barrier Williams, "Women in Politics," Woman's Era, November,
1894, 13).
35. Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, "Editorial," Woman's Era,
January, 1896, 11.
36. The ideology of "Republican Motherhood" is explored in
Cott, Bonds of Womanhood, chapter 2; Evans, Born for Liberty, 58-
66, 142-143; Kerber, Women of the Republic, chapters 7, 9; Mary
Beth Norton, Liberty's Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of
American Women, 1750-1800 (Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, 1980),
chapter 9; Mary P. Ryan, Womanhood in America: From Colonial
Times to the Present (New York: Franklin Watts, Inc., 1975), 142-
147; 226-235.
37. Mrs. Booker T. Washington, "Call to the National
Federation of Afro-American Women," Woman's Era, November, 1895,
2.
38. Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, "The Woman's Era Club,"
Woman's Era, March, 1894, 4.
39. Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, "Woman's Place," Woman's
Era, September, 1894, 8; Ruffin, "Editorial," Woman's Era,
February, 1896, 6.
40. Fannie Barrier Williams, "Women in Politics," Woman's
Era, November, 1894, 12.
41. De Priest, "Women in convention," 8 (emphasis in
original).
42. Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, "A Word to the AAW,"
Woman's Era, November, 1894, 8.
43. Williams, "Women in Politics," 12-13.
44. Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, "Editorial," Woman's Era,
April, 1895, 8.
45. Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, "Colored Women and
Suffrage," Woman's Era, November, 1895, 11.
46. Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, "Editorial," Woman's Era,
March, 1894, 10.
47. Baker, "The Domestication of Politics," 73.
48. Willard B. Gatewood, Aristocrats of Color: The Black
Elite, 1880-1920 (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana
University Press, 1990), 245.
49. Gerda Lerner, "Early Community Work of Black Club
Women," Journal of Negro History 59 (1973), 167.
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