Rhetoric at the Margins: Revising the History of Writing Instruction in American Colleges, 1873-1947

Rhetoric at the Margins: Revising the History of Writing Instruction in American Colleges, 1873-1947 examines the rhetorical education of African American, female, and working-class college students in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Author David Gold uses archival materials to study three types of institutions historically under-represented in disciplinary histories: a black liberal arts college in rural East Texas; a public women's college; and an independent teacher training school. The rich case studies complement and challenge previous disciplinary histories and suggest that the epistemological schema that have long applied to pedagogical practices may actually limit our understanding of those practices. Gold argues that each of these schools championed intellectual and pedagogical traditions that differed from the Eastern liberal arts model - a model that often serves as the standard for rhetorical education. He demonstrates that by emphasizing community uplift and civic participation, these schools created contexts in which otherwise moribund curricular features of the era - such as strict classroom discipline and an emphasis on prescription - took on new possibilities. Rhetoric at the Margins describes the recent revisionist turn in rhetoric and composition historiography, argues for the importance of diverse institutional microhistories, and asserts that the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries offer rich lessons for contemporary classroom practice. The study brings alive the voices of black, female, rural, southern, and first-generation college students and their instructors, linking these histories to the history of rhetoric and writing.