ABell ENGL 227F09
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"If de fust woman God ever made was strong enough to turn de world upside down all alone, dese women all togedder ought to be able to turn it back right side up agin." This is the caption below a standing portrait of Truth. She is dressed to go out and about most likely going to give a speech about her beliefs. She also holds a cane to support herself which could be because of old age or because there is so much built up knowledge and gumption in her frail body that she needs a strong foundation to lean on each day. Truth spoke these words during of her many speeches. It was almost as if it was a command to all the women in the audience. She could not read or write but she could hear and as far as she was concerned, if Eve had the power to cause the world to sin, the women of the world have the power to make the evils of the world go away and never come back.
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Sojourner Truth was a stranger and a pilgrim when she first began to speak in public. She was illiterate which was an obstacle in itself but it didn't stop her from providing the substance of her message. Truth was also one of the first women who stood up on her petticoats to tell the world that a woman has an idea and it needs to be heard. Like some of the other women of her time, Truth fought against the normal day to day activity of women. The "proper place" for women according to men was in the home, domesticating. A soap box was not a place that a woman should ever be. However, women like Truth found speaking in public a moral obliagtion and spoke with the eloquence of any man. Women may have been strangers and pilgrims to speaking in public yet, without the exploration and the conversion to public speaking, women today may have been less adequately equipped to take on the issues of the world. |
Strangers and Pilgrims: Female Preaching in America, 1740-1845
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Going Public: Women in Nineteenth-Century Cultural History
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Going public during the nineteenth century was a term that described anything that took place outside of the standardized home. Many women were often not involved in public politics but they did find a way to become participants in the public sphere by advocating women's rights. The middle class women as well as African American women found that there were many ways in which to be involved in public whether it be through a rally or protest or even an organization formed to fight the evils of the world such as drinking and slavery. The temperance movement as well as the anti-slavery movement are two causes that women of all races fought for. Without such platforms to stand on and prove themselves worthy, women of the nineteenth century might not have had the opportunity to speak on their opinions. The world to this day might have still remained a masculine world where only men speak in public and women are the domestication of society. Sojourner Truth went public with all she had. Nothing stood in the way of her voice and nothing hindered her from showing the world that she was able to communicate despite the fact that she was never educated properly. Very much like the middle class women of the nineteenth century, Truth decided to take action concerning her surroundings to make the world a better place for all concerned.
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Sojourner Truth was an exceptional woman in every way possible and her gift of public speaking is still remembered today through sculpture busts and readings of "Ain't I A Woman". Women of her time period took risks and stood tall in public to make sure that their lives were meaningful and that issues that affected their families and communities were taken care of. Women, public speaking, and Sojourner Truth have one main thing in common, the truth. Women stand by the truth as well as speak the truth about the world and Sojourner, she claimed solely that the Lord bid her to be called Truth that she might bring it to the rest of the world.
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