Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Richmond, Virginia's Every Monday Club, 1889-1919, Maureen Elizabeth Salmon

Master's Theses

This thesis examines the formation and growth of the Every Monday Club, a woman's literary club in Richmond, Virginia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Since the group has never been researched before, most of the study concentrates on untouched archives. The study uses the extensive Every Monday Club papers which include club meeting minutes, letters, papers, pictures, yearbooks, and newspaper clippings. This information is also supplemented with obituaries, census, and other primary data. The records disclose issues of class, race and education.

The Battle For Women's Suffrage In The Old Dominion, Amanda Garrett

Master's Theses

In 1909, twenty women launched an eleven-year campaign to win the vote in the Old Dominion. In 1920, the necessary number of states ratified the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution. However, Virginia was not among these states; her General Assembly rejected the "Anthony Amendment" by a wide margin. This study attempts to answer the following question: What was the woman's suffrage movement like in Virginia? By exploring the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia, its leaders, arguments for and against suffrage, the public's reaction, the reaction of the legislature and the conclusion, the answer(s) to this multi-dimensional question can be discovered. …

The Civil War And Social Change : White Women In Fredericksburg, Virginia, Edward John Harcourt

Master's Theses

This thesis concerns the white women of Fredericksburg, Virginia, during and immediately after the Civil War. Between 1861-1865, Fredericksburg existed in the no-man's land between Washington, D.C. and Richmond, Virginia. The town was bombarded, occupied by enemy forces, and ransacked. Military control of the town changed hands 10 times. Four major battles were fought around Fredericksburg, resulting in over 100,000 casualties. Throughout the conflict, Fredericksburg's white women were in the thick of the action - supporting their troops, nursing the wounded, and managing the increasingly desperate struggle to provide food and shelter for their families. By 1865, many lives were …

In Search Of A Female Self : The Masculinization Of May In Chaucer's Merchant's Tale, Kimberly Diane Whitley

Master's Theses

This examination of Chaucer's Merchant's Tale was undertaken as a response to existing scholarship. While criticism in the past tended toward a literal reading of the text, viewing it as a misogynist Merchant's story attesting to the innate depravity of women, more recent feminist criticism has leaned toward a reading which endeavors to defend the actions of May, claiming an evolvement on her part towards autonomy and self-knowledge. This thesis, taking its cue from French feminist theoretical assertions concerning self, refutes both of these readings. While it acknowledges the subversive nature of May's actions, it is unable to recognize any …

They Also Served : The Women Of Southwestern Virginia During The American Revolution, Rebecca A. Vaught

Master's Theses

This thesis looks at the legal status and the daily lives of the women living on the Virginia frontier in the counties of Augusta, Botetourt, Montgomery and Washington during the period of the American Revolution. All ages and all levels of society are given consideration in developing the theme that the service performed by the women who survived the rigors of frontier life during this crucial period in American history was as valuable in its own way as was the service performed by their male contemporaries. Court records give insight into the plight of servants and slaves. Court records also …

The Glasgow Paradox : A Study Of Ellen Glasgow's Sad Ladies, Frank Alexander Lovelock

Master's Theses

This study intends to examine the career of Ellen Glasgow to determine how her personal philosophy is re­ flected in her work--and more especially in the characters of her long-suffering heroines (the sad ladies). It is hoped that the reader will come to understand how Glasgow moved from an initial phase of hope, through a period of pain and sorrow, and into a final time of despair .

For the purpose of this study, special emphasis has been placed. on the importance of the novels which were written after 1900. It is these novels that have come to be considered …

Realism, Heroines, Flaubert, George Gouldin

Master's Theses

Since Flaubert has been called "le chef de l'ecole realiste", an attempt will be made in this thesis to show how he used realism in the treatment of heroines in his novels. The first chapter will be dedicated to realism itself, showing first how the movement began in France in the mid-nineteenth century before Flaubert and Balzac were considered realists, followed by a modern definition and characteristics, such as: truth, materialism, scientific approach, document­ary method, tediousness, mediocrity, sympathy with ordinary life and sociological features.

The other four chapters will be dedicated to Flaubert' s main heroines. Each chapter will have …

An Introduction To The Victorian Woman : A Comparative Study Dealing With Poetical And Historical Sources, Lois Iffert Rudge

Master's Theses

The purpose of studying the Victorian women in poetry has been to find some relation between the historical woman and the literary woman. Louise E. Rorabacher in a similar thesis considered only the novels of the day (Victorian Women in Life and Fiction, University of Illinois, 1942). Her purpose was to determine the validity of the concept of the woman in the novel in terms of historical fact. She concluded that the fictional woman was real, in a narrow, myopic sense, but that she did not reflect the social change. The picture of her social and conservative home life was …