Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-qsmjn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T01:10:47.654Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Awful Disclosures: Women's Evidence in the Escaped Nun's Tale

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Susan M. Griffin
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Popular American tales of women's escapes from Roman Catholic convents were important manifestations of the virulent anti-Catholicism of the 1830s and 1850s. These stories also reveal how questions of evidence were imbricated with the woman question in nineteenth-century American culture. “Fictional” and “nonfictional” versions of these narratives attempt to prove their veracity, using a common standard of evidence and shared methods of authentication, documentation, and corroboration—including a reliance on their Protestant audience's reading history. Yet the multiple voices and forms and the visual, as well as verbal, rhetoric that the telling of the escaped nun's story entails work to destabilize feminine spiritual, religious, and moral authority. The escaped nun's intertextual story expresses and contains a cultural anxiety about young Protestant women and their influence in the remaking of American Protestant religious practices.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 111 , Issue 1: Special Topic The Status of Evidence , January 1996 , pp. 93 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Archdeacon, Thomas J. Becoming American: An Ethnic History. New York: Free, 1983.Google Scholar
Arnheim, Walter L. Protestant versus Catholic in Mid-Victorian England: Mr. Newdegate and the Nuns. Columbia: U of Missouri P, 1982.Google Scholar
Barker, Benjamin. Cecilia: or, The White Nun of the Wilderness: A Romance of Love and Intrigue. Boston: Gleason, 1845.Google Scholar
Baym, Nina. Woman's Fiction: A Guide to Novels by and about Women in America, 1820-1870. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1978.Google Scholar
Beecher, Edward. The Papal Conspiracy Exposed and Protestantism Defended in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture. 1855. New York: Arno, 1977.Google Scholar
Beecher, Lyman. A Plea for the West. 1835. New York: Arno, 1977.Google Scholar
Bennett, David H. The Party of Fear: From Nativist Movements to the New Right in American History. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1988.Google Scholar
Billington, Ray Allen, introd Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk. Hamden: Archon, 1962.Google Scholar
Billington, Ray Allen. The Protestant Crusade, 1800-1860: A Study of the Origins of American Nativism. New York: Macmillan, 1938.Google Scholar
Binder, William Earle. Madelon Hawley: or, The Jesuit and His Victim: A Revelation of Romanism. New York: Dayton, 1857.Google Scholar
Binder, William Earle. Viola; or, The Triumphs of Love and Faith: A Tale of Plots and Counterplots. New York: Evans, 1858.Google Scholar
Bourne, George. Lorette: History of Louise: Daughter of a Canadian Nun, Exhibiting the Interior of Female Convents. 1833. 2nd ed. New York: Small, 1834.Google Scholar
Brodhead, Richard. Cultures of Letters: Scenes of Reading and Writing in Nineteenth-Century America. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1993.Google Scholar
Bunkley, Josephine M. The Testimony of an Escaped Novice: From the Sisterhood of St. Joseph, Emmettsburg, Maryland, the Mother-House of the Sisters of Charity in the United States. Philadelphia: Harper, 1855.Google Scholar
Caldicott, Thomas Ford. Hannah Corcoran: An Authentic Narrative of Her Conversion from Romanism, Her Abduction from Charlestown, and the Treatment She Received during Her Absence. Boston: Gould, 1853.Google Scholar
Cott, Nancy F. The Bonds of Womanhood: “Woman's Sphere” in New England, 1780-1835. New Haven: Yale UP, 1977.Google Scholar
Cross, Andrew B. Priests' Prisons for Women; or, A Consideration of the Question, Whether Unmarried Foreign Priests Ought to Be Permitted to Erect Prisons…. Baltimore: Sherwood, 1854.Google Scholar
Culbertson, Rosamond. Rosamond; or, A Narrative of the Captivity and Sufferings of an American Female under the Popish Priests…. Introd. and annotated by Samuel B. Smith. 2nd ed. New York: Leavitt, 1836.Google Scholar
Davidson, Cathy N. Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America. New York: Oxford UP, 1986.Google Scholar
Davis, David Brion “Some Themes of Counter-subversion: An Analysis of Anti-Masonic, Anti-Catholic, and Anti-Mormon Literature.” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 47 (1960-61): 205–20.Google Scholar
[Potter, De] Female Convents: Secrets of Nunneries Disclosed. New York: Appleton, 1834.Google Scholar
Douglas, Ann. The Feminization of American Culture. New York: Knopf, 1977.Google Scholar
Dwight, Theodore. Open Convents; or, Nunneries and Popish Seminaries Dangerous to the Morals, and Degrading to the Character of a Republican Community. New York: Van Nostrand, 1836.Google Scholar
Eckel, L. St. John [Lizzie Harper]. Maria Monk's Daughter: An Autobiography. New York: United States, 1874.Google Scholar
The Escaped Nun; or, Disclosures of Convent Life…. New York: De Witt, 1855.Google Scholar
Franchot, Jenny. Roads to Rome: The Antebellum Protestant Encounter with Catholicism. Berkeley: U of California P, 1994.Google Scholar
Frothingham, Charles W. The Convent's Doom: A Tale of Charlestown in 1834, also The Haunted Convent. 5th ed. Boston: Graves, 1854.Google Scholar
Frothingham, Charles W. Six Hours in a Convent; or, The Stolen Nuns! A Tale of Charlestown in 1834. 8th ed. Boston: Graves, 1855.Google Scholar
Halttunen, Karen. Confidence Men and Painted Women: A Study of Middle-Class Culture in America, 1830-1870. New Haven: Yale UP, 1982.Google Scholar
Hazel, Harry [Justin Jones]. The Nun of St. Ursula; or, The Burning of the Convent: A Romance of Mt. Benedict. Boston: Gleason, 1845.Google Scholar
Hedrick, Joan D. Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life. New York: Oxford UP, 1994.Google Scholar
Helen Mulgrave; or, Jesuit Executorship: Being Passages in the Life of a Seceder from Romanism: An Autobiography. New York: De Witt, n.d.Google Scholar
Hofstader, Richard. “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” and Other Essays. 1965. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1979.Google Scholar
Hogan, William. Auricular Confession and Popish Nunneries. 1845. 3rd ed. London: Hall, 1847.Google Scholar
Hogan, William. A Synopsis of Popery, As It Was and As It Is. Boston: Saxton, 1845.Google Scholar
Hyla [Jane Dunbar Chaplin] The Convent and the Manse. Boston: Jewett, 1853.Google Scholar
Kelley, Mary. Private Woman, Public Stage: Literary Domesticity in Nineteenth-Century America. New York: Oxford UP, 1984.Google Scholar
Kelso, Isaac. Danger in the Dark: A Tale of Intrigue and Priestcraft. 1854. 31st ed. Cincinnati: Queen City, 1855.Google Scholar
Kennedy, J. C. G. Catalogue of the Newspapers and Periodicals Published in the United States. New York: Livingston, 1852.Google Scholar
Lamed, L[ucinda Martin] The American Nun; or, The Effects of Romance. Boston: Otis, 1836.Google Scholar
Looby, Christopher “George Thompson's ‘Romance of the Real’: Transgression and Taboo in American Sensation Fiction.” American Literature 65 (1993): 651–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mary Magdalen [Norwood Damon] The Chronicles of Mount Benedict: A Tale of the Ursuline Convent: The Quasi Production of Mary Magdalen. Boston, 1837.Google Scholar
Moffatt, Mary Anne Ursula [Mary Edmund St. George], Answer to Six Months in a Convent, Exposing Its Falsehoods and Manifold Absurdities by the Lady Superior with Some Preliminary Remarks. Boston: Eastburn, 1835.Google Scholar
Monk, Maria. Awful Disclosures of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery of Montreal, Revised, with an Appendix: 1836. New York: Arno, 1977.Google Scholar
Mott, Frank Luther. Golden Multitudes: The Story of Best Sellers in the United States. New York: Macmillan, 1947.Google Scholar
Nasaw, David. Schooled to Order: A Social History of Public Schooling in the United States. New York: Oxford UP, 1979.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reed, Rebecca Theresa. Six Months in a Convent; or, The Narrative of Rebecca Theresa Reed…. 1835. New York: Arno, 1977.Google Scholar
“Review of the Case of Olevia Neal the Carmelite Nun, Commonly Called Sister Isabella.” Baltimore Literary and Religious Magazine Oct. 1839: 433–43.Google Scholar
“Review of the Correspondence between the Archbishop and the Mayor of Baltimore.” Baltimore Literary and Religious Magazine Nov. 1839: 481–48.Google Scholar
Reynolds, David S. Beneath the American Renaissance: The Subversive Imagination in the Age of Emerson and Melville. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1988.Google Scholar
Reynolds, David S. Faith in Fiction: The Emergence of Religious Literature in America. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1981.Google Scholar
Ryan, Mary P. Cradle of the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York, 1790-1865. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1981.Google Scholar
Scank, Philemon [George Elder] “The Ursuline Convent.” A Few Chapters to Brother Jonathan…. Louisville, 1835. 7–34.Google Scholar
Sekora, John “Black Message / White Envelope: Genre, Authenticity, and Authority in the Antebellum Slave Narrative.” Callaloo 10 (1987): 482–515.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sister Agnes; or, The Captive Nun: A Picture of Convent Life. New York: Riker, 1854.Google Scholar
Six Months in a House of Correction; or, The Narrative of Dorah Mahony…. Boston: Mussey, 1835.Google Scholar
Sklar, Kathryn Kish. Catharine Beecher: A Study in American Domesticity. New York: Norton, 1976.Google Scholar
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly. Ed. Sklar, Kathryn Kish. New York: Library of America, 1982.Google Scholar
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin; Presenting the Original Facts and Documents upon Which the Story Is Founded: Together with Corroborative Statements Verifying the Truth of the Work. Boston: Jewett, 1853.Google Scholar
Tompkins, Jane. Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790-1860. New York: Oxford UP, 1985.Google Scholar
Tyack, David, and Hansot, Elizabeth. Managers of Virtue: Public School Leadership in America, 1820-1980. New York: Basic, 1982.Google Scholar
Tyler, Alice Felt. Freedom's Ferment: Phases of American Social History from the Colonial Period to the Outbreak of the Civil War. 1944. New York: Harper, 1962.Google Scholar
“The Ursuline Convent: No. 8.” Christian Watchman 20 Mar. 1835:45.Google Scholar
Welsh, Alexander. Strong Representations: Narrative and Circumstantial Evidence in England. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1992.Google Scholar
Yeazell, Ruth Bernard. Fictions of Modesty: Women and Courtship in the English Novel. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1991.Google Scholar
Yellin, Jean Fagan, ed Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Written by Herself. By Harriet Jacobs. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1987.Google Scholar