Bordelon

CCC 61:3 / february 2010
Suzanne Bordelon
Composing Womens Civic Identities during the

Progressive Era: College Commencement
Addresses as Overlooked Rhetorical Sites
This essay examines womens commencement addresses presented from 1910 to 1915 at
Vassar College. These addresses are significant because they reveal the students rhetorical education and the available means upon which these women drew in developing a
public voice. By prompting reflection and the potential for change, the commencement
addresses also demonstrate the civic importance of epideictic rhetoric.
Two generations ago, when for the first time, in the educational
history of women, the Young Ladies of one of the old fashioned
Seminaries read aloud their graduation essays, a storm of disapproval followed. For the reading of a commencement essay to
the friends and relatives of the graduating class was considered
startling publicity. . . . Today, such exercises as these are not
considered scandalous.
Elizabeth B. French
A Young Ladys Seminary and a Womans College
n Regendering Delivery: The Fifth Canon and Antebellum Women Rhetors,

Lindal Buchanan questions the scholarly assumption that since antebellum
women were excluded from the public realm, they received no formal rhetorical training. One way she resists this assumption is by demonstrating that
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bordelon / composing womens civic identities
middle- and upper-class schoolgirls had generally secured access to what she
calls the academic platform by the 1850s. As Buchanan explains, the term
encompasses all of the curricular and extracurricular sites and activities
that permitted pupils to practice the arts of oral expression, including formal
classroom exercises, school exhibitions, college commencements, and literary
club events (4142). Buchanan contends that the academic platform is an
overlooked yet important site in womens rhetorical education because it allowed generations of women to hone their skills of oral expression and practice
addressing large, mixed-sex, influential audiences (74).
Building on Buchanans argument for the significance of the academic
platform, I investigate womens commencement addresses from the early
twentieth century at Vassar College. This analysis first examines contemporary
genre theory and epideictic rhetoric to understand the civic function of these
addresses and then focuses specifically on Vassars commencement addresses.
Beginning with an exploration of some of the colleges reform-minded teachers, I place particular emphasis on the addresses delivered from 1910 to 1915
and subsequently published in Vassar Colleges monthly magazine, the Vassar
Miscellany.1 These commencement addresses are significant because they reveal
the rhetorical education of these women. More specifically, these addresses
demonstrate that Vassar women were learning what Catherine Hobbs refers
to as effective literacy, or a level of literacy that enables the user to act to
effect change, in her own life and in society (1). Vassar womens deployment
of effective literacy is evident in the fact that students frequently used their
commencement addresses to advocate for Progressive ideals by highlighting
womens advancing status and issues related to social justice and democracy.
In addition, these addresses reveal the social significance of commencement addresses during this period. Extending the work of contemporary genre
theorists and, more specifically, recent
scholarship investigating epideictic rheto- In light of this reconceptualized view of
ric, I demonstrate how these addresses not epideictic rhetoric, I consider how the Vassar
only display the rhetorical and intellectual addresses serve a civic function by promoting
abilities of the speakers and potentially critical reflection and potential transformation.
build the reputation of the school but also
serve an important social function. As Cynthia Miecznikowski Sheard explains,
epideictic rhetoric can be viewed not only as an invitation and an opportunity
for engagement . . . but as a means of envisioning and urging change for the
better (788). In light of this reconceptualized view of epideictic rhetoric, I
consider how the Vassar addresses serve a civic function by promoting critical
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reflection and potential transformation. In demonstrating the social importance of the genre, this analysis contributes to recent scholarship recasting
epideictic rhetorics civic role.
In a broader sense, this analysis demonstrates the ways that these college
women discovered the available means to construct their civic identities
to speak in public. My use of Aristotles words reflects Joy Ritchie and Kate
Ronalds efforts to reclaim his terminolIn a broader sense, this analysis demon- ogy and to mark the ways in which women
strates the ways that these college women have discovered various means by which to
discovered the available meansto construct make their voices heard (xvii). They explain
their civic identities to speak in public. that they use the words available means
both to intersect with and diverge from the
traditional history of rhetoric (xvii). Both aspects are evident in these womens
addresses, as well as their participation in this developing tradition of womens
rhetorics. In investigating these students available means, I demonstrate that
their addresses are an important site of rhetorical education for what they
reveal about middle-class womens development of a civic voice in the early
decades of the twentieth century.
Genre Theory and Epideictic Rhetoric

In her influential article Genre as Social Action, Carolyn R. Miller argues that
a rhetorically sound definition of genre must be centered not on the substance
or the form of discourse but on the action it is used to accomplish (151). Millers
article expanded genre research by shifting the focus from the formal features
of discourse to a more pragmatic, sociocultural view of genre. Echoing Millers
perspective, Charles Bazerman has emphasized the inextricably social nature
of genre: Genres are not just forms. Genres are forms of life, ways of being.
They are frames for social action (19). Thus, genres have a power that extends
beyond their textual formsthey both construct and constrain social interaction. Because genres encompass this dual process, Kathleen M. Hall Jamieson
asserts that genres need to be investigated not as static forms but as evolving phenomena (168). Although new genres do emerge, rhetors also help to
encourage this evolutionary process by continually modifying existing genres.
Given this understanding of genre, I consider the social action that is
accomplished by commencement addresses at Vassar. In other words, what
types of social frames did these addresses authorize? To begin such an analysis,
it is necessary first to consider the genre of the commencement address. In
their investigations of genre, scholars have tended to classify commencement
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addresses as epideictic rhetoric (Agnew; Condit); however, scholars have long

disagreed about the scope, purpose, and worth of epideictic oratory (Sheard
769). Although there are more perspectives on epideictic rhetoric than I discuss, I focus on recent scholarship that synthesizes previous research and
contributes to a broader, civic conception of the genre. Historically, according
to Sheard, epideictic rhetoric has been viewed as a rhetoric of identification
and conformity whose function is to confirm and promote adherence to the
commonly held values of a community with the goal of sustaining that community; unlike deliberative or forensic rhetoric, epideictic rhetoric can be seen
as both beginning and ending in agreement (766). Although epideictic rhetoric
is based on a framework of shared values and agreement, such a perspective
ignores the persuasive potential of this rhetoric to invite reflection and change.
As Sheard explains, negative perceptions of epideictic rhetoric as mere
show pieces meant solely to reflect upon the speaker and his oratorical talent
have persisted since the time of the First Sophists (767). Often, discussions
about epideictic rhetoric are linked to Aristotle and his classification of the
genre as one of the three major discourses of rhetoric. According to Aristotle,
epideictic rhetoric is limited to either praise [epainos] or blame [psogos]
(48), and its audience is a spectator (focused on the speakers ability) and not
a judge, as is the case in deliberative and forensic rhetoric. The speaker is said
to target the present, for all speakers praise or blame in regard to existing
qualities, but they often also make use of other things, both reminding [the
audience] of the past and projecting the course of the future (4849). In her
analysis, Lois Agnew underscores Aristotles stress on audience (1367b), which
she contends demonstrates his recognition that the province of epideictic
resides within a realm of values that must be publicly negotiated (150). The
speakers praising or blaming would thus be based on an evaluation of the
audiences values and the give-and-take process involved in clarifying those
values. Agnew asserts, though, that Aristotles genre classifications and his
praising and blaming framework have historically limited epideictics function (150). After surveying scholarship published in five major rhetoric and
composition journals from 1976 to 1996, Sheard also notes that these ancient
perspectives still are influential, particularly in terms of the limited social nature of epideictic and the restricted role of the audience. Sheard contends that
this perspective hinges on an audience that receives it [the epideictic] as the
inspired discourse of ritual celebration, invoking traditional values. Members
of the epideictic audience are therefore typically viewed, at best, as aesthetic
judges of the speakers talent and, at worst, as victims of the speakers logos
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(776). As scholars have noted, the rhetorical impact of epideictic rhetoric is

circumscribed since the audience members are given a view of reality with
which they already agree, which leaves little room for change (Sheard 776).
Recently, though, scholars such as Sheard, Agnew, and others have reconceptualized epideictic rhetoric by synthesizing research demonstrating that
the genre serves a broader social function. Drawing on the works of scholars
such as Celeste Michelle Condit, Gerard A. Hauser, Christine Oravec, Chaim
Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, and Dale L. Sullivan, Sheard and Agnew
emphasize the civic potential of epideictic rhetoric. Although their views are
not completely identical, Sheard and Agnew generally describe epideictic
rhetoric as offering a framework that reflects both constraint and creativity,
as serving an educational function that simultaneously creates harmony and
disruption as the speaker and audience acknowledge mutual values as well
as points of disagreement, and as inspiring a shared viIn other words, epideictic sion that reinforces values while fostering the potential
rhetoric functions socially by for change (Agnew 152). According to Sheard, epideictic
appealing to shared values as a rhetoric represents not so much a genre as a rhetorical
basis for fostering reflection and gesture that moves its audience toward a process of
inspiring potential change. critical reflection that goes beyond evaluation toward
envisioning and actualizing alternative possible realities,
possible worlds (787; emphasis in original). Likewise, Agnew contends that
epideictic rhetoric potentially works both to reinforce and to transform the
community through creating a shared vision, even as it acknowledges the difference that ultimately creates the potential and the need for change (153). In
other words, epideictic rhetoric functions socially by appealing to shared values
as a basis for fostering reflection and inspiring potential change. Although the
Vassar addresses include display to a certain degree, they also reveal aspects of
the fuller, civic function that Sheard and Agnew credit to epideictic rhetoric.
Womens Progressivism, Vassar College, and Its Reformist

Teachers
The spirit of reform that pervaded the Progressive Era (18901920) informed
womens colleges and their commencement activities.2 In her analysis of the
generation of women who attended American colleges and universities during
this period, Lynn D. Gordon writes that women established a unique campus
life in which [f]emale separatism, social activism, and a belief in a special
mission for educated women characterized their activities (1). According to
Gordon, college women were not isolated behind ivy walls but took part in
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the political and intellectual ferment of the Progressive Era (23). This stress
on social activism was felt at Vassar, where female students displayed a particularly strong sense of social mission and where the faculty was steeped in
progressive reform ideology (Gordon 8).
Although students at Vassar, established in 1861 as a school for women,
were highly privileged and did not represent all women of the period, their addresses represent the influential first generations of women who went to college.3 Although students at Vassar, established in 1861
In fact, several early Vassar alumnae as a school for women, were highly privileged
established themselves as intellectual and did not represent all women of the period,
and progressive leaders throughout the their addresses represent the influential first
United States (Bohan, Go to 60).4 Gor- generations of women who went to college.
don points out, As faculty and alumnae,
the first generation of Vassar women became a compelling campus presence
during the 1890s and continued to be throughout the Progressive Era (127).
Aware of this tradition of achievement, the Vassar commencement speakers
had a sense of themselves as leaders in expanding opportunities for women,
which is evident in their commencement addresses.
During this period, a small circle of professors helped shape Vassars progressive outlook for at least twenty-four years, with two professors teaching
for forty and forty-one years, respectively. This group included Laura Johnson
Wylie and Gertrude Buck, who collaboratively administered the English Department from 1898 until Bucks death in 1922; Herbert E. Mills, who chaired
the Economics Department from 1893 until his retirement in 1934 (Gordon
133); and Lucy Maynard Salmon, who chaired the History Department from
1887 to 1927 (Bohan, Lucy 50). These teachers distinguished themselves as
advocates for suffrage and democratic reform, pioneers in progressive education, and educators and mentors of women during the early development of
womens higher education.
Noting that the efforts of this intellectual community and its students
have been little explored, Katherine Pandora asserts, It is clear, however, that
this cohort of students absorbed lessons in egalitarian politics along with critical theory (162). This focus is evident in an article written by Wylie in 1918,
in which she contends that the demands by business for productive workers
conflict with the democratic goal of educating all children to be active, thinking
citizens: [T]he American people, democratic in little more than name, have
at least, till very lately, been in the main satisfied with an ideal of democracy
as superficial as shortsighted; have considered its workmen chiefly as hands
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and have seen in its workmens children future employees rather than future
citizens (What 136). Although the article was written after the 191015 period under investigation, Wylie was long recognized for such egalitarian ideals.
Wylies stress on training students to become critically thinking citizens
is evident in Vassars English Department curriculum and textbooks. More
specifically, the curriculum emphasized questioning received knowledge and
developing student voices through training in argumentation and debate. In
1899, Gertrude Buck authored A Course in Argumentative Writing, and in 1906,
she and Kristine Mann co-authored A Handbook of Argumentation and Debating.5 Both texts developed out of Bucks and Manns teaching of argumentation
and debate at Vassar. In A Course in Argumentative Writing, Buck introduced
students to argumentation inductively from experience and practice rather
than starting deductively from principles of formal logic. According to Buck,
such an approach is at once more difficult and more stimulating than the
typical method because the student is not asked simply to accept certain logical formulae on the authority of text-book or teacher . . . ; but first to quarry
out these formulae from his own writing and then to use them for such modification of that writing as may seem necessary (iii). For Buck, the inductive
method was consistent with her feminism, and it equated with the laboratory
or experimental method of inquiry (154). Such a thought process, highlighting
the exploratory side of knowledge rather than relying on tradition or principle,
was also consistent with and necessary for a democratic society. By starting
with inductive reasoning, Vassar women were not simply accepting received
knowledge and, in so doing, preserving cultural authority. Instead, they were
learning to examine traditional assumptions and think for themselves.6 This
emphasis on investigation and questioning received knowledge is evident in
several of the commencement speeches.
In addition, assignments in Bucks textbooks demonstrate that in her
classes students debated suffrage and topics that often placed women in strong,
nontraditional roles. For instance, in A Course in Argumentative Writing, students were asked to write specific kinds of arguments leading to the following
conclusions: Women will be allowed to vote on all questions in all States (125);
Freedom of thought is essential to intellectual growth (150); Every woman
should be able to earn her own living; and Women who desire to do so should
enter the profession of medicine (151). Moreover, students were asked to analyze arguments that include claims such as Shakspere [sic] has no heroeshe
has only heroines (36) and then to consider that [t]he catastrophe of every
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play is caused always by the folly or fault of a man; the redemption, if there be
any, is by the wisdom and virtue of a woman (37). Although Bucks textbook
also includes examples that place women in more traditional roles, many encourage Vassar students to consider women in a positive and powerful light
and to envision themselves in ways that extend beyond the domestic sphere.7
Wylie and Buck werent alone in their views. According to Chara Haeussler
Bohan, Salmon possessed a distinctive vision of education in America that was
progressive, democratic, and pluralistic (Lucy 48). She encouraged students
to examine primary sources, sift through the material, and develop their own
conclusions instead of relying on traditional opinion. Salmon also underscored
a pluralistic view of history that included all aspects of human endeavors rather
than one limited only to military and political events (48). For instance, in her
own research, she investigated the history of everyday aspects of life, including
the newspaper and domestic service. In addition, this cohort of teachers urged
their students to become involved in their communities, and they themselves
were active in civic affairs. Buck, Wylie, and Salmon participated in community
improvement groups and suffrage organizations, with Wylie and Salmon taking on leadership positions. Mills was also extremely involved in community
affairs, serving from 1896 to 1899 as Almshouse Commissioner of the City of
Poughkeepsie and from 1899 to 1904 as a member and then president of the
Board of Managers of the House of Refuge at Hudson, New York, which was
then a womens state reformatory prison (MacCracken xii). In significant ways,
this progressive group of Vassar teachers fostered the development of effective
literacy and the growth of more independent and socially conscious women.
Vassar Commencements, 19101915

Having reviewed the Vassar context during this period, I now turn to the 191015
addresses.8 Although I refer to these presentations as addresses, they typically
were described as essays in newspaper accounts and in departmental reports.
At normal schools, the word essay was characteristically used to reflect the
gender distinction that men orated while women simply read (Ogren 101).
Vassar also appears to have maintained this gender distinction. In addition, the
newspaper print version of these addresses reflects a type of textual circulation,
suggesting that the process of writing needs to be considered more broadly than
the mere act of composing. As John Trimbur has argued, ignoring the canon
of delivery has led writing teachers to equate the activity of composing with
writing itself and to miss altogether the complex delivery systems through
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which writing circulates (18990). It is also important to emphasize that Vassar wasnt alone in providing women access to the commencement podium.
As early as the 1790s, schoolgirls at the Young Ladies Academy of Philadelphia
often used their addresses as an occasion to examine the politics of gender
(Buchanan 48).9 In addition, normal schools, which often were dominated by
female students, had elaborate commencement ceremonies in which each
graduating student presented an oration, essay, or declamation (Ogren 19).
Each year during commencement activities from 1910 to 1914 at Vassar,
five seniors were selected to present addresses. In 1915, when a new college
president was appointed, only one
The addresses were given at the conclusion student gave a speech. The addresses
of commencement week, which, based on the ranged roughly from one to two thou191015 programs, was an elaborate celebration sand words, with the single presentathat typically featured a baccalaureate sermon tion at the 1915 commencement being
by the college president; Class Day exercises that upward of two thousand words. The
often included orations, tree-planting ceremonies, addresses were given at the conclusion
and the carrying of a daisy chain; an alumnae of commencement week, which, based
luncheon; and a trustees dinner. on the 191015 programs, was an elaborate celebration that typically featured a
baccalaureate sermon by the college president; Class Day exercises that often
included orations, tree-planting ceremonies, and the carrying of a daisy chain;
an alumnae luncheon; and a trustees dinner. The audience at commencement
appears to have been large and diverse, including students families, alumnae,
faculty, and administration. Articles on commencement exercises typically were
published in the local Poughkeepsie newspapers, and larger newspapers, like
the New York Times, often listed the names of the commencement speakers,
demonstrating the significance of these celebrations.10
To understand how these women speakers constructed their civic identities, I first consider the rhetorical traditions available to them. As Kathleen
M. Hall Jamieson explains, perception of the proper response to an unprecedented rhetorical situation grows not merely from the situation but also from
antecedent rhetorical forms (163; emphasis in original). Since speaking at
commencement was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, these college women,
as my analysis shows, constructed their civic identities from the antecedent
rhetorical materials available to themclassical and reform strands as well as
new rhetorical traditions evident in clubwomen and settlement house reform.
In addition, several common topoi identified by Ritchie and Ronald in womens
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rhetorics are apparent, including arguing for womens right to speak publicly
and to receive an education, refashioning representations of womanhood, and
redefining what counts as evidence.
In the second part of this section, I investigate the civic function of these
epideictic addresses. In todays commencement ceremonies, the addresses often
are delivered by a featured guest or the university president. However, during the
period under investigation, all of the commencement addresses at Vassar were
delivered by students, and these addresses typically were connected directly to
their studies. Clearly, these addresses were important in terms of display and
in enhancing the colleges reputation by demonstrating the students speaking skills and intellectual abilities. However, they also served a broader civic
function, providing an opportunity for both the speaker and the audience not
only to evaluate traditional assumptions by considering them in light of new
ideas but also as a way to imagine possible, alternative worlds that might accommodate us all (Sheard 791). A common theme in several of the addresses
is the need for the audience and speaker to
imagine a more just and democratic society. Since speaking at commencement was a
In a 1909 editorial questioning the over- once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, these college
all value of student commencement address- women, as my analysis shows, constructed
es, one student noted the potential positive their civic identities from the antecedent
as well as negative effects of these presenta- rhetorical materials available to them
tions: The training in public speaking (which classical and reform strands as well as new
the new department in spoken English now rhetorical traditions evident in clubwomen
provides) and the literary criticism received
and settlement house reform.
are both invaluable. On the other hand, the
writing of them may either exhaust the student or prohibit her from doing
some other more congenial pieces of work in the last few months of college
(Commencement Essays 177). The editorial reveals how demanding the writing of these addresses was and that students received faculty assistance in the
drafting and presentation of their speeches. In fact, in the May 13, 1912, Report
of the Department of English, Laura Johnson Wylie notes that Gertrude Buck
has had the <entire> responsibility for the commencement essays (Report
4).11 Thus, Buck seems to have played a significant role in helping students to
write and research their addresses. In addition, the editorial demonstrates that
writing and speech both were considered as part of English at Vassar, which
was not the case at many leading universities.12
Although the researching and writing of the addresses at Vassar may
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have been challenging, the performances showcased the students intellectual

pursuits and their progressive training. According to an article on the 1914
Commencement Week, The five seniors who spoke presented the results of the
work which had interested them most throughout their course, with the result
that the audience was shown very concretely certain phases of modern thought
which rarely come to so public and popular a formulation (Smith 649). This
forward-looking perspective is evident in the 1914 speeches. For instance, the
first speaker highlighted differences between traditional ladies seminaries and
contemporary womens colleges. Another student touched on Freuds research
in psychoanalysis, and the concluding speaker emphasized opportunities for
women in chemistry. According to an article by Winifred Smith of the Vassar
English Department, the speeches all exemplified unmistakeably the rationalistic and progressive training which the college is providing for at least its
best students (649). The emphasis on using the commencement addresses to
display the colleges progressive educational agenda
In examining these addresses, we is evident in Smiths statement.
can see that just as women were
The specific training the students received is
also
evident
in the addresses themselves, particugaining more of a public voice in the
national arena, students at Vassar larly the classical rhetorical tradition. From 1910
were learning to use that voice in to 1915, several of the commencement addresses
their commencement addresses. resemble classical arguments, complete with relevant background information, clear assertions,
and anticipation of potential opposition. This blending of deliberative with
epideictic rhetoric is not unusual and is often featured, for example, in sophistic
epideictic argument with political topics (Sheard 780). In examining these addresses, we can see that just as women were gaining more of a public voice in
the national arena, students at Vassar were learning to use that voice in their
commencement addresses.
Several of the 191015 addresses resist received notions of gender by
focusing on women and their specific achievements and advancing status and
by questioning conventional stereotypes. For example, Elizabeth Amanda Kittredge (1912) investigated women characters in the novels of Charles Dickens;
Charlotte Moffett Gailor (1910) examined the writing of novelist Maria Edgeworth; and Helena Doughty (1913) discussed The Spirit of Japanese Women
in her speech of the same title. In her presentation, Doughty emphasized the
significant impact women have had on Japanese history, noting their specific achievements from antiquity throughout the centuries: A brief survey of
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womans position in Japanese history reveals the fact that she has had a will
and an intellect equal to that of men (770). These addresses demonstrate how
students challenged traditional gender assumptions by investigating womens
significance in everything from literature to history.
This focus on womens achievements is evident in Elizabeth B. Frenchs
address examining advances in womens education and status. In her speech
contrasting a traditional young ladys seminary and a womans college, she
asserts that reading an address before a public audience was viewed once as
startling publicity because it went against the unstated duty of those receiving education, which was to prove, by their meek and gentle manners, by
their pious walk and conversation, that the Daughters of Eve could eat at the
Tree of Knowledge without danger of sin (3). French asserts that in 1914,
such speeches are no longer considered scandalous (3). Her comparison of
the old form of education with the new privileges the latter and affirms such
changes to her Vassar audience. In her analysis of women physicians in the
nineteenth century, Susan Wells demonstrates how Ann Preston, dean of the
Womens Medical College of Pennsylvania, often provided her students with
an image of their studies as a historical movement rather than as a marginalized fad and of their own role as serious intellectual workers (63). In so doing,
Preston helped to create a space for her female students in a profession that
was anything but welcoming (64). Like Preston, French deploys a story of
progress that strategically depicts womens education as an inevitable trend,
thereby justifying her own education and right to speak publicly, a common
theme in womens rhetorics, according to Ritchie and Ronald.
Narratives of progress were a staple of reform discourse and associated
with a tradition of female speakers in the abolitionist and womens rights
movements (Wells 64). Such narratives of progress and womens advancing
status were particularly prominent in debates about the New Woman of the
period. As Carroll Smith-Rosenberg explains, the New Woman, rejecting conventional female roles and asserting their right to a career, to a public voice, to
visible power, laid claim to the rights and privileges customarily accorded the
bourgeois men (176). Although Vassar students dont specifically mention the
New Woman in their speeches, they do attempt to revise traditional images of
womanhood, suggesting the debates may have provided influential material
for their addresses. Anne Ruggles Gere, for instance, demonstrates how clubwomenincluding African American, Jewish, Mormon, white middle-class,
and working-class womenparticipated in debates about the New Women
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from 1890 to 1920 by refashioning new ideologies of American womanhood.

Through their writing and reading, Gere asserts that clubwomen altered the
ways they and those they knew thought about the natures and capacities of
women (170). Vassar speakers focus on womens advancing status suggests
that they, too, participated in the New Women debates circulating during this
period and in efforts to change perceptions of womanhood.
Another way the Vassar commencement speakers redefined conceptions
of women was by questioning traditional gender stereotypes. In her 1914 speech,
Adeline M. De Sale highlights womens potential in chemistry, noting Vassar
graduate Ellen Swallow Richardss achievements and those of other women
scientists, including Dr. Mary E. Pennington, chief of the Federal Food Research
Laboratory, and Marie Curie, the discoverer of radium and the first woman
to win two Nobel Prizes. However, despite these successes, De Sale, who later
became a chemistry professor at the University of Chicago, contends that some
people still question womens abilities to complete chemical work (University
of Chicago 1, 7). To investigate whether such skepticism was justified, De Sale
explains that she visited research and industrial laboratories and interviewed
and wrote to professors in colleges and universities, to heads of laboratories, to
employment bureaus and to women engaged in chemical pursuits (7).
De Sales focus on womens potential in chemistry reflects the prominence
of scientific discourse at the turn of the century. The depth and scope of her
undergraduate project also demonstrate that women were capable of doing
such research. By focusing on women and including their voices in her project,
De Sale reveals her efforts to push beyond convention and accepted knowledge
and to gain an understanding of womens experiences. In so doing, she draws
on new forms of evidence relevant to women, challenging male knowledge and
dominance in the field of chemistry. Furthermore, in presenting her results,
De Sale makes a strong argument for womens potential in chemistry, asserting that for countless generations, women have been heavily handicapped by
tradition and by training which has been intended to dwarf if not destroy the
very capacities they are now accused of lacking (7). Blending cause-effect
logic with emotionally powerful word choice, De Sale asserts that womens
independence and intellect have been stunted by their limited opportunities.
De Sale draws on the commonplace argument used by womens rights advocates that both tradition and education have previously served to stifle, rather
than advance, womens opportunities. She stresses that much depends on an
individuals character and training.
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Social Justice and Democracy

Inextricably connected to this focus on advancing womens status is a stress on
social justice and democracy. This emphasis motivated many womens organizations of the period and their efforts to make government at all levels more
responsible for the social and
economic welfare of citizens Inextricably connected to this focus on advancing womens
(Muncy 2). In several com- status is a stress on social justice and democracy.
mencement speeches, social
justice ideals underscore the need for graduates to build more cooperative
communities. These ideals also reflect the democratic ethic prominent in the
ideas of individuals like Gertrude Buck, Laura Johnson Wylie, Lucy Maynard
Salmon, and Herbert Mills. In her 1912 speech, for example, Margaret Frances
Culkin, who later was known as Margaret Culkin Banning, contends that in
the final half of the nineteenth century, the increasing disdain for a world of
intellect has ironically paralleled the significant expansion of higher education (Banning, Social 868). Consequently, the general public often associates
[e]xtravagance, pedantry, snobbishness with the college graduate. However,
Banning argues that four years of intense study and relative detachment from
society have allowed college graduates to gain a birdseye view of society and
some understanding of the forces that move it (870). With this broadened
understanding of society and its stratification, college graduates should be
socially useful as a class: the graduates social function is to serve as the
go-between, his function is that of social arbitration (870). By taking such a
role, Banning concludes, [w]e hope that a future less distrustful, more classless society is going to welcome us (871). The purpose of the college graduate,
then, is to foster social cooperation by working as a liaison among the different
classes in society.
While Bannings commencement speech may have been her initial foray
into such issues, this stress on democracy, social justice, and womens advancing
status is also evident in her later reflections. In a collection honoring Herbert E.
Mills at his retirement in 1934, she discusses her training at Vassar in economics
and sociology. Banning, who became a best-selling author of novels investigating social problems and womens status in America (Vassar), explains that
students at this time had a conviction of social evolution and progress (166):
The difficulties of the world were the personal business of every student of economics. And along with this rose the growing enthusiasm for womans suffrage
and the belief that women stood on the edge of a new era. Inez Milholland, like a
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dramatic poster of her own cause, walked in sandals across the campus and the
Freshmen stared.
For me it is directly traceable. I have never been able to let social and political
problems alone since those undergraduate years. . . . Since I was touched by that
early (and very noble) determination of the feminist leaders to gain suffrage, I
have never been able to forget that in justice women must take a hand in politics.
(16667)
Bannings reflections reveal the sense of optimism Vassar women felt in the early
decades of the twentieth century. They also demonstrate her deep awareness
of the impact the Economics Department and famous Vassar graduates, such
as Milholland, had on her and other undergraduates interests in social and
political issues and the need for women to be politically active.
However, Banning notes a paradoxical outcome of their progressive
training. She asserts that their education was so strong and complete that it
actually put them ahead of their times and has made them unable to participate in many current political activities. To have done so would have been to
cheat themselves intellectually (Politics 168). Although women have been
involved in many social issues and reforms, Banning contends that they have
had an insignificant overall impact on politics. She adds that women have remained outside of politics and will continue to do so because there is so little
in common between their conception of political usefulness and party politics
as it exists in the United States today (16869). In effect, college women were
educated to play a more active and public role in a political life that was still
unavailable to them in society.
In addition to advocating for college women to serve as social arbitrators,
the commencement speakers contend that a more democratic nation can be
built by promoting the development of drama, and by improving relations between the college and the community. In her 1914 speech American Drama,
Edith R. Hilles emphasizes the Greek tradition of drama as an example of how
the stage can unite a nation: The Greek drama was a fine art for the manya
drama devoted to the public, democratic in the largest sense (5). Although
theater has the potential to promote a national spirit in America, it has moved
toward commercialism and is used as a money-making machine, to meet
private rather than public needs (5). While its influence has been diminished,
Hilles contends that theater still brings together people of different races and
ethnicities: Thus the point of view of each individual is broadened from petty
racialism to an understanding of the different people of a new country. In bringing about a common understanding, we are making American citizenship in the
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largest sense; creating democracy (56).13 She concludes by drawing on Drama

and Democracy, by Percy Mackaye. The son of playwright, theater director, and
actor Steele Mackaye and an originator of the U.S. pageantry movement, Percy
Mackaye viewed theater as the drama of democracy, emphasizing participation
and self-expression (Blair 136). Hilles stresses the need for a more egalitarian
nation and views drama as a vehicle for achieving it.
In terms of epideictic rhetoric, Hilless address is an argument that seeks
to prompt civic action by praising the social values and benefits of drama to
her audience. Hilles points out a specific exigencythe need for understanding across differences. Her address also envisions a way audience members
can resolve the issue through their participation in and support of drama.
Although many of Hilless peers and faculty members may have shared her
values, others in the audience would have still needed to be convinced. To
persuade this group, Hilles must accomplish a change in perspective in this
larger audience and make the vision appear as a viable and worthy possibility for the entire audience (Sheard 780). One way Hilles seeks to modify her
audiences perspective is by drawing on the exemplar of Greek drama, which
demonstrates both the vision and the sense of civic values she advocates in
creating a more democratic nation. Hilless address encourages the audience
to reflect on current values in light of the future vision she creates. In addition,
it encourages audience members ultimately to see themselves as participants
in this process of creating democracy.
This democratic, pluralistic outlook also informs Gertrude Caroline
Lovells 1910 address, Main Street. In her speech, Lovell discusses a Vassar
student who initially viewed riding the jerking streetcar down Main Street as
uncomfortable and the very essence of all that is commonplace and ordinary
(702). The student exclaims that she would rather never leave the campus than
come down this unendurable street again (702). Lovell then describes the same
girl riding the car three years later, asserting that she has experienced a dramatic transformation in her perspective: The obstructing medium of narrow
experience and narrow interests had vanished from the girls understanding;
she had come to see that everything had a meaning, and she was trying to read
it (703). Now the student considers how the towns history is revealed in the
buildings architecture. Fascinated by the people she sees living and working
on Main Street, she notes that a number of newsboys from diverse countries
are gathered on the corner of Main and Market streets, which suggests to her
that this corner is a meeting point of nations (703). Lovell concludes her address, explaining that [t]o those who begin to see a little of all this meaning
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2/9/10 2:31 PM
in common things, the commonplace is becoming glorified and transformed.

A modern American city is as intensely interesting as an old German town,
an ordinary thoroughfare as full of charm as [a] Princes Street (704). Lovells
speech demonstrates how the students negative assumptions about the commonplace and ordinary had been radically transformed by her progressive
education, by her ability to perceive and appreciate the significance of her
communitys history and people.
Lovells address specifically reflects the progressive teaching approach
of Lucy Maynard Salmon, who asked her students to investigate the question
What may be learned of the history of Poughkeepsie from a study of Main
Street? (Bohan, Lucy 63). According to Chara Haeussler Bohan, Salmons
democratic approach was evident in her belief that sources for potential historical study were available everywhere and that history could appeal to an
audience beyond an elite group of scholars (62). As Bohan explains, Salmon,
who published a pamphlet titled History in a Back Yard, tried to gain support for a new American Historical Association magazine focusing on literary
history that would appeal to a broader audience. Although Salmons efforts
were rejected, Bohan asserts that in her magazine idea, pedagogical methods,
and related efforts, her democratic principles were apparent, and her interest
presaged by some forty years the commercial success of American Heritage
magazine ( 62).
When considered as epideictic rhetoric, Lovells story of this Vassar girl
helps her audience to understand the value of this education, the way that it
encourages a reflective process of evaluating previous assumptions in light of
new conceptions. In this instance, it is clear that the Vassar girl has critically
reflected on her previous assumptions and has also completely transformed
her perspective, and that this new conception has positive social benefits.
The address reveals the transformational potential of education. In so doing,
it also demonstrates epideictic rhetorics educative function, which scholars
have noted.14 Christine Oravec contends that the word theoria (observation),
which Aristotle sees as the function of epideictic rhetoric, suggests judicial
and educative functions. As Oravec explains, There are indications in the
Rhetoric that the audience is educated by the experience of comprehending the
speaker as he presents praiseworthy or blameworthy objects (169). In Lovells
case, epideictic rhetoric educates by demonstrating that this process of critically evaluating previous assumptions against new information is positive and
central to education. In so doing, Lovell also encourages her audience to apply
this critical process within their own lives.
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2/9/10 2:31 PM
Conclusion
In this analysis of Vassar commencement speeches from 1910 to 1915, it is important to acknowledge that not all the presentations during this period demonstrate the progressive stance and focus on women apparent in several that I
have discussed. The speeches covered a range of topics, including everything
from King Arthur to westward expansion. As noted, Vassar College women were
also not typical of all women of the period. They represented a small elite group,
and those who became commencement speakers were part of an even smaller,
more select cohort. In addition, while womens organizations in the Progressive
Era were involved in many effective social justice campaigns, the outcome of
their efforts was, indeed, complex. However, despite these limitations, these
addresses are significant because they demonstrate the students emerging
effective literacy. As Catherine Hobbs explains, the phrase [t]he power to act
in society suggests both empowerment and transformation, encompassing
many of the functions we mean by the term effective literacy (2). As we have
seen, the development of effective literacy was fostered through their education.
In the addresses, this emerging power is apparent in the students attempts to
use their rhetorical knowledge to shape community values.
In exploring these students development of effective literacy, we can see
that these addresses provide a revealing way to investigate pedagogy, one that
extends beyond the more common analysis of textbooks. While textbooks
can be informative, student commencement speeches represent In exploring these students development of effective
virtually untapped archives. As literacy, we can see that these addresses provide a
John C. Brereton emphasizes, revealing way to investigate pedagogy, one that extends
historians of writing instruction beyond the more common analysis of textbooks.
have tended to view textbooks
as the embodiment of courses, rather than as necessary props (xiv). Student
commencement presentations help us to discover what Brereton calls the
everyday fabric of history as lived by the student, a voice often left out of
official accounts (xiv).
In addition, these addresses reveal the available means that these college
women drew upon in developing a public voice, including classical and reform
traditions as well as several common topoi identified by Ritchie and Ronald
in an emerging tradition of womens rhetoricsa long-standing tradition, yet
one so new that its primary texts have not until now been collected (xvi).
Influenced by their progressive college training and the reform efforts of clubwomen and settlement house women, these college women deployed this new
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2/9/10 2:31 PM
tradition and sought ways to applyin everything from chemistry to drama to

literature and historythe progressive ideals they were learning.
Finally, these addresses demonstrate the social significance of epideictic
rhetoric. As we have seen, these commencement addresses were not merely
ceremonial addresses on topics of general agreement. Instead, they typically
included a persuasive function aimed at reformulating the communitys shared
values. In her discussion of how epideictic rhetoric shapes community, Celeste
Michelle Condit explains, The community renews its conception of itself and of
what is good by explaining what it has previously held to be good and by working through the relationships of those past values and beliefs to new situations
(289). The potential for such an evaluative process is evident in several of the
Vassar addresses. Perhaps because they emerged directly from the students
studies, the addresses often served an educative function in terms of their audience. Typically, they were aimed at instructing the audience about some aspect
of the students studies, shaping the communitys values in terms of these new
ideas. In addition, with their focus on topics such as womens achievements,
social justice, and democracy, the addresses often invite further reflection and
urge potential change in terms of creating a more just and democratic society.
Acknowledgment
I would like to thank Kathleen Blake Yancey and an anonymous reviewer for their
valuable and perceptive revision suggestions. I would also like to thank Catherine
Hobbs and Barbara McManus for their willingness to read and comment on
earlier drafts. I am especially grateful to Glen McClish for his guidance, encouragement, and generosity in reading various previous versions of this manuscript.
Notes
1. In February 1914, the Vassar Miscellany News Supplement was created as a
supplement to the monthly student magazine. In September 1915, the Supplement
became the Vassar Miscellany Weekly, which was succeeded in February 1917 by
the Vassar Miscellany News, a semi-weekly newspaper.
2. Here, I draw upon John D. Buenker and Edward R. Kantowiczs definition of the
era: For our purposes, the Progressive Era is defined as a broad-gauged response
by Americans from many backgrounds and walks of life to the emergence of the
United States as a modern, urban, industrial, multicultural world power between
1890 and 1920 (xiii).
3. Vassar became a coeducational institution in 1969.
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2/9/10 2:31 PM
4. Some notable early graduates include Ellen Swallow Richards (1870), the first
woman admitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the founder of
the home economics movement (Massachusetts Institute); Harriot Stanton Blatch
(1878), a leader in the suffrage movement and the daughter of famous suffragist
Elizabeth Cady Stanton; Julia Lathrop (1880), a colleague of Jane Addams at Hull
House in Chicago and the first chief of the U.S. Childrens Bureau; and several other
alumnae who taught at the Seven Sisters colleges and other prestigious institutions
(Bohan, Go to 6061).
5. An associate professor in the English Department from 1901 to 1905, Kristine
Mann went on to study philosophy and psychology at Columbia University and
medicine at Cornell University, where she received her medical degree in 1913.
According to Beth Darlington, Mann and three of her Vassar students, who later
earned medical degrees, played major roles in the early history of analytical psychology (20). For more information on Mann, see Darlington.
6. In her textbook, Buck emphasizes beginning inductively rather than deductively;
however, she clarifies the relationship in Appendix B of her book. Buck explains
that the processes of induction and of deduction arise side by side out of the chaos
of the childs earliest consciousness (160). For Buck, induction and deduction are
dialectically related. Both are two phases or aspects of the same process of thought,
each involving and each resting upon the other (160). Although Buck viewed
inductive and deductive reasoning as interdependent processes, her emphasis on
starting with inductive reasoning can be seen as a reaction against patriarchal
and conservative approaches. For more information on Buck and her approach to
argumentation, see Bordelon.
7. Vassar women were further able to develop their voice and skills in argumentation
through the interclass debate teams, which included the T. & M. House of Commons
(Tempus et Mores) for students in odd-year classes and Qui Vive for students in
even-year classes (Ellis 25). It is important to note that Vassar students werent
alone in their interest in debate. Mount Holyoke, Wellesley, Barnard, Bryn Mawr,
Radcliffe, and Smith all participated in intercollegiate debate, often with suffrage as
the topic (Mastrangelo 54). According to Kathryn M. Conway, as early as the 1880s,
Wellesley and Mount Holyoke had active debate clubs, and Vassar and Wellesley
held the first womens intercollegiate debate in 1902, before a public audience (215,
217). At Vassar, practice in debate, argumentation, and presenting commencement
essays helped to prepare the students for a more public role, one that encouraged
them to break away from domestic concerns and to focus on community activism.
8. The research for this article was obtained by visiting Vassar College twice and
making subsequent inquiries. In addition, I reviewed commencement activities at
the other Seven Sisters colleges; however, space limitations prohibit the inclusion
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of this material. As noted, Vassars addresses typically were vehicles for displaying
some aspect of the students education. Thus, the connection to Vassars curriculum
is more apparent in the content of their speeches. At the other Seven Sisters colleges,
though, it doesnt appear that undergraduates were given the same level of access
to the commencement stage as they received at Vassar. Instead, their presentations
from 1910 to 1915 often were limited to an audience of their peers during Class Day
celebrations. The social function of these presentations seemed primarily aimed at
identification and at building community cohesion. Yet students at Smith College
addressed a broader audience that included faculty and family members. Several
Smith addresses include aspects aimed at promoting critical evaluation and the
potential for change; thus, these addresses have the potential for a deeper social
function. In addition, similar themes in speeches at Smith and Barnard are evident
at Vassarthe connection between higher education and womens independence,
the need to challenge traditional gender assumptions, and the importance of furthering social justice and democracy.
9. In their discussion of Science Hill, a female academy founded in the early 1800s
in Shelbyville, Kentucky, Janet Carey Eldred and Peter Mortensen assert that young
women in the 1820s delivered commencement speeches that similarly resisted
accepted gender norms. However, they emphasize the limited outcomes of such
performances, underscoring the restrictive gender ideology of the times (8).
10. See, for example, Commencement Speakers. Those Chosen by VassarStudents
in Ibsen Play and Vassars Commencement to Follow Usual Lines: 1913 Speakers
Will Be Rebecca Lawrence, Miriam Winter, Helena Doughty, Ruth Holliday, Mary
Wilson and Helen Clark in the New York Times.
11. Angle brackets are used to indicate that the word entire was inserted by Wylie
in her typed report.
12. During this period, independent departments of public speaking developed,
and in 1914 the National Association of Teachers of Public Speaking was established as a separate association from the National Council of Teachers of English
(Cohen 2931).
13. Gertrude Buck participated actively in the Little Theater movement in the early
decades of the twentieth century. Not only did Buck pioneer the introduction of
the new drama curriculum in womens colleges, but she also helped to organize
the Poughkeepsie Community Theatre, creating an egalitarian connection between
the town and the college.
14. See, for example, Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca; Hauser; and Sullivan.
530
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Suzanne Bordelon
Suzanne Bordelon is an associate professor in the Department of Rhetoric and Writing Studies at San Diego State University. She is the author of A Feminist Legacy: The
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College Composition and Communication, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, the Journal of
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rhetorical education that women received at California State Normal School (now
San Jose State University) during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
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CCC 61:3 / february 2010

Composing Womens Civic Identities during the

n Regendering Delivery: The Fifth Canon and Antebellum Women Rhetors,

bordelon / composing womens civic identities

CCC 61:3 / february 2010

Genre Theory and Epideictic Rhetoric

bordelon / composing womens civic identities

addresses as epideictic rhetoric (Agnew; Condit); however, scholars have long

CCC 61:3 / february 2010

(776). As scholars have noted, the rhetorical impact of epideictic rhetoric is

Womens Progressivism, Vassar College, and Its Reformist

bordelon / composing womens civic identities

CCC 61:3 / february 2010

bordelon / composing womens civic identities

Vassar Commencements, 19101915

CCC 61:3 / february 2010

bordelon / composing womens civic identities

CCC 61:3 / february 2010

have been challenging, the performances showcased the students intellectual

bordelon / composing womens civic identities

CCC 61:3 / february 2010

from 1890 to 1920 by refashioning new ideologies of American womanhood.

bordelon / composing womens civic identities

Social Justice and Democracy

CCC 61:3 / february 2010

bordelon / composing womens civic identities

largest sense; creating democracy (56).13 She concludes by drawing on Drama

CCC 61:3 / february 2010

in common things, the commonplace is becoming glorified and transformed.

bordelon / composing womens civic identities

CCC 61:3 / february 2010

tradition and sought ways to applyin everything from chemistry to drama to

bordelon / composing womens civic identities

CCC 61:3 / february 2010

bordelon / composing womens civic identities

Agnew, Lois. The Day Belongs to the

Buck, Gertrude. A Course in Argumentative

. Lucy Maynard Salmon: Progressive Historian, Teacher, and Democrat.

Conway, Kathryn M. Woman Suffrage

CCC 61:3 / february 2010

Lovell, Gertrude Caroline. Main Street.

De Sale, Adeline M. Women in Chemistry.

MacCracken, Henry Noble. Preface. Mills

Doughty, Helena. The Spirit of Japanese

Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Institute Archives and Special Collections.

Pandora, Katherine. Rebels within the

Jamieson, Kathleen M. Hall. Generic

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