20th Annual Student Research Conference
Language & Literature
Women’s Glacial Slide to Recognition: Henry Adams’ Theory of History and the American Venus
Alexander B. Stoll
Dr. Hena Ahmad, Faculty Mentor
The Education of Henry Adams traces the steps of a well-to-do white male that enters Harvard to be educated. After college the introduction to mystical forces such as Farady’s Dynamo revealed him to religiosity inherent within intellectualism. The Dynamo and the Virgin is a defining chapter in his memoirs where Adams begins to piece together the neglected feminine Versi, with his conception of America. This paper will deal with this unification of the overlooked American Venus and the theory of history Adams devises to describe the political and social impetus of feminism in America. Adams believed that the climate in America was such that women had not even begun to express their identity. As an historian Adams utilizes idiosyncratic techniques of satire and humor to illuminate the disparities between genders and add momentum to the gradual slide toward recognition of the feminine element within ideas, life, and society.
Keywords: America, History, Women
Topic(s):English
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 10-1
Location: VH 1232
Time: 8:15 am