Clovis G. Chappell - "Sermons on Biblical Characters"

Bret Harte - "East and West"

John Morley - "Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3)"

Theodor Mommsen - "Römische Geschichte Book 5"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Ten American Girls From History

K >> Kate Dickinson Sweetser >> Ten American Girls From History




Well had her mother's struggle to make a fine woman of her turbulent
daughter been repaid. Never was there such a furore over any orator in
the history of this country. The critical time of her appearance, the
excited condition of the people, her youth, beauty, and remarkable
voice, all heightened the effect of her genius. Her name was on every
lip. Ministers preached about her, prayed for her as a second Joan of
Arc raised up by God to save their State for the loyal party, and
through it the nation to freedom and humanity. And through all the
excitement and furore the youthful heroine moved with calm poise and a
firm determination toward her goal, attempting to speak clearly and
truthfully in regard to what were her sacred beliefs.

Election Day was at hand, and missionary work must not slacken even
for one moment. On the Saturday night before the fateful day Anna
spoke before an audience of over one thousand of the working-men of
Hartford, Connecticut. This was the last effort of the campaign, and
it was a remarkable tribute to a young woman's powers that the
committee of men were willing to rest their case on her efforts. A
newspaper account of the meeting said:

"Allyn Hall was packed as it never was before. The aisles were full of
men who stood patiently for more than three hours; the window-sills
had their occupants, every foot of standing room was taken, and in the
rear of the galleries men seemed to hang in swarms like bees. Such was
the view from the stage.... To such an audience Miss Dickinson spoke
for two hours and twenty minutes, and hardly a listener left the hall
during that time. Her power over the audience was marvelous. She
seemed to have that absolute mastery of it which Joan of Arc is
reported to have had over the French troops. They followed her with
that deep attention which is unwilling to lose a word, but greeted
her, every few moments, with the most wild applause.... The speech in
itself and its effect was magnificent--this strong adjective is the
proper one.... The work of the campaign is done. It only remains in
the name, we are sure, of all loyal men in this district to express to
Miss Dickinson heartfelt thanks for her splendid, inspiring aid. She
has aroused everywhere respect, enthusiasm and devotion, let us not
say to herself alone, but to the country; while such women are
possible in the United States, there isn't a spot big enough for her
to stand on that won't be fought for so long as there is a man left."

Even that achievement was not the height of the young orator's
attainment. Her next ovation was at Cooper Institute in New York City,
where she spoke in May of the same year. Faded newspaper accounts of
that meeting fill us with amazement that such a triumph could be, with
only a girl's indomitable will, an insufficient education and much
reading of books back of it.

"Long before the appointed hour for the lecture the hall was crowded.
The people outside were determined to get in at all hazards, ushers
were beaten down, those with tickets rushed in, and those without
tickets were pushed aside, while thousands went home unable to get
standing room even in the lobbies and outer halls.

"On the platform sat some of the most distinguished men of the day:
clergymen, lawyers, generals, admirals, leaders of the fashionable
set--all eager to do homage to the simple girl of whom the press said:

"'She is medium in height, slight in form, graceful in movement, her
head, well poised, adorned with heavy dark hair, displaying to
advantage a pleasant face which has all the signs of nervous force and
of vigorous mental life. In manner she is unembarrassed, without a
shade of boldness; her gestures are simple, her voice is of wonderful
power, penetrating rather than loud, as clear as the tone of metal,
and yet with a reed-like softness. Her vocabulary is simple, and in no
instance has there been seen a straining after effective expressions;
yet her skill in using ordinary language is so great that with a
single phrase she presents a picture and delivers a poem in a
sentence.'"

At the close of the meeting, which had been opened by Henry Ward
Beecher, he rose and said, with real emotion, "Let no man open his
lips here to-night; music is the only fitting accompaniment to the
eloquent utterances we have heard." Then the famous Hutchinson family
sang and closed the meeting with the John Brown song, in which the
vast audience joined with thrilling effect.

From that Cooper Institute meeting Anna received almost one thousand
dollars, an incredible amount for a simple speech to her unmercenary
spirit, but one which was to be duplicated many times before her
career was over.

After that meeting in New York her reputation as a public speaker was
established, despite the carping critics, and she continued to win
fresh laurels, not only for herself, but for vital issues. When doing
more campaigning in Pennsylvania she had to travel through the mining
districts, where her frank words were often ridiculed and she was
pelted with stones, rotten eggs, and other unpleasant missiles. But
she bore it all like a warrior, and made a remarkable record for
speeches in parts of the State where no man dared to go. Despite this
and the fact that the victorious party owed its success largely to the
young orator, the committee never paid her one cent for her
services--to their great discredit, probably having spent all their
campaign funds in some other less legitimate way and thinking they
could more easily defraud a girl than a more shrewd man.

Nothing daunted, she continued to speak wherever she could get a
hearing, and at last came an invitation to make an address in
Washington, D. C. Here indeed was a triumph! She hesitated long before
accepting the invitation, for it would be a trying ordeal, as among
her audience would be the President and many diplomats and high
government officials. But with sturdy courage she accepted, and as a
result faced, as she later said, the most brilliant audience ever
assembled to hear her speak. It was a unique sensation for the
dignitaries and men of mark to sit as listeners at the feet of this
slender girl, who was speaking on profound questions of the day; but
she made a deep impression, even on those who did not agree with her
opinions, and it was a proud moment of her life when at the close of
the meeting she met the President and his Cabinet. The Chief Executive
gladly granted her an interview for the following day, and like other
men of lesser rank, was carried out of himself as he watched the play
of expression, the light and shade on her mobile face, as they talked
together of the vital topics of the day.

Anna Dickinson was now an orator beyond a doubt; in fact, the only
_girl_ orator the country had ever known. More than that, she made use
of her eloquence, her magnetism, her flow of language, not for any
minor use, but in presenting to the public the great problems of her
day and in pleading for honor and justice, freedom and fullness of joy
for the individual, with such intensity of purpose as few men have
ever used in pleading a cause.

That she wrote and acted in a play dealing with one of the subjects
nearest her heart, and that she published a novel of the same kind,
added nothing to her fame. She was wholly an orator with an
instinctive knowledge of the way to play on the emotions of her
listeners. Her faults were the faults of an intense nature too early
obliged to grapple with hard problems; her virtues were those of a
strong, independent, unselfish nature. It has been said that she rose
to fame on the crest of three waves: the negro wave, the war wave, and
the woman wave. If that is so, then was her success as a public
speaker something of which to be proud, for to have spoken on such
subjects surely betokens a great nature. Anna Dickinson has been
called the "Joan of Arc" of her day and country. If she had not the
delicate spiritual vision of the Maid of France, she had her superb
courage in reaching up toward an ideal. What she was and what she
accomplished as an American girl, who was an orator at eighteen, gives
an incentive and a new enthusiasm to young Americans of the twentieth
century, for what girls have done girls can do, and we believe, with
that greatest of poets, that "the best is yet to be."




ACKNOWLEDGMENT


The writer of this book gratefully acknowledges her indebtedness for
valuable material gleaned from many sources. Especially does she
tender appreciative thanks to the authors of the following works:

S. G. Drake; _Book of the Indians of North America_.

John Esten Cooke; _My Lady Pocahontas_.

Woodrow Wilson; _History of the American People_.

Mrs. Eliz. (Eggleston) Seelye; _Pocahontas_.

Smith, Elmer Boyd; _Story of Pocahontas & Capt. Smith_.

Mabie, H. W.; _Heroines Every Child Should Know_.

Holland, R. S.; _Historic Girlhoods_.

Woodbury, E. C. D. Q.; _Dorothy Quincy, Wife of John Hancock_.

Sears, Lorenzo; _John Hancock, the Picturesque Patriot_.

_National Cyclopaedia of American Biography._

Raum; _History of New Jersey_.

Stockton, Frank; _Stories of New Jersey_.

McGeorge, J. C.; "A N. J. Heroine of the Revolution" (_Am. Monthly
Magazine_).

Beymer, W. G.; _On Hazardous Service_.

James, George Wharton; _Heroines of California_.

Houten, E. L.; _The Donner Party_.

Murphy, Virginia Reed; "Across the Plains in the Donner Party."
(_Cent. Mag., 1891._)

Ellet, E. E.; _Pioneer Women of the West_.

Ellet, E. E.; _Women of the American Revolution_.

Parton, James; _Eminent Women of the Age_.

Barton, Clara; _Story of the Red Cross_.

Epler, P. H.; _Life of Clara Barton_.

Bonselle & De Forest; _Little Women Letters from the Home of Alcott_.

Cheney; _Life and Letters of Louisa Alcott_.

Morris, Clara; _Life on the Stage_.

_Outlook_, _Outing_, _Century_, _Munsey_, _Hist. Mag._, Etc.

Christian; _History of Richmond_.

Anonymous; _Famous Prison Escapes_.

Anonymous; _Richmond Prisons_.

McMasters; _Primary History of United States_.

_Memorial to Clara Barton._




BOOKS BY

KATE DICKINSON SWEETSER

TEN AMERICAN GIRLS FROM HISTORY. Illustrated.
BOOK OF INDIAN BRAVES. Illustrated.
BOYS AND GIRLS FROM ELIOT. Illustrated.
BOYS AND GIRLS FROM THACKERAY. Illustrated.
TEN BOYS FROM DICKENS. Illustrated.
TEN BOYS FROM HISTORY. Illustrated.
TEN GIRLS FROM DICKENS. Illustrated.
TEN GIRLS FROM HISTORY. Illustrated.
TEN GREAT ADVENTURERS. Illustrated.


HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK
[ESTABLISHED 1817]




Transcriber's Notes:

Printer errors (omitted punctuation, omitted or transposed letters,
etc.) have been corrected without note.

Hyphenation has been made consistent without note; it has been left
unchanged where there is variation in quotations.

Page 128 had an obscured section of text, which reads "... then the
children must [blank] back after school hours." In the context, and
with the space and few visible marks, the missing text would seem to
be "be rowed" so those words have been used.

Page 258 contains a quotation which includes the term "scrape-goat"
which would appear to be a deliberate spelling on the part of the
writer rather than a printing error. It has therefore been retained.

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