History Bump

stance of researcher/writer
The author places herself as the working class daughter of a clubwoman, a feminist, a compositionist, and a mother with special sensitivity to issues of race. (16)

Author's purpose
to examine the literary work done by women in women's clubs, in the context of gender roles, composition, and rhetoric of the time period 1880-1920, with emphasis on women's self-identification and goals in reading, writing, and publishing within the club framework.

method of data collection
primarily archival, with supplementary interviews

method of analysis
The analysis is relatively "objective" in that it is carefully nonjudgmental of the "subjects" (clubwomen) under review. Clubs tended to limit membership along lines of race, religious observance, or class, and their stances on national issues were affected by these facctors. Gere reports both facts and conclusions about the meanings of facts in the same language.

method of representation
The historical, cultural context of the range of women's literary work is represented by specific texts from the period under review. The presentation of the con-texts is keyed to specific topics around which the chapters are organized: the 1917 Immigration Act (which included a literacy test for immigration) is paired with literacy, and the Ladies' Home Journal with advertsing and economic concerns, to name two examples. (14)

apparent disciplinary aim
Gere appears to be making an argument for the inclusion of women's writing and, in particular, cultural and social writing practices, within the folds of Composition History. During the period she examines, women had limited access to the type of formal higher education that defined Composition (or Literary Studies), and their lack of formal status, gendered expectations, and the professionalization of literary studies all restricted recognition of the writing women were doing in women's clubs.