Your Daughters Will Prophesy: Religion and Rhetoric in the Nineteenth-Century Woman’s Movement

How nineteenth-century women used the Bible to claim their voice on the moral questions of their day

Caught between their identity as Christians and social norms that silenced them, American women used scripture to claim moral and then rhetorical agency. They reinterpreted familiar biblical passages, recovered previously ignored stories about women, and contested passages used to circumscribe women’s activities. By strategically adopting a rhetorical posture of dissent, these women became prophetic voices in American society. In Your Daughters Will Prophesy, Lisa Marie Gring-Pemble and Martha Watson analyze the argumentative resources four women--Jarena Lee, Sarah Moore Grimké, Lucretia Coffin Mott, and Frances Willard--used to counter gendered restrictions and gain access to platform and pulpit, catalyzing what became known as the woman’s movement.

Martha Watson is author and editor of several books, including Lives of Their Own: Rhetorical Dimensions in Autobiographies of Women Activists. She is a minister in the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland.