I sing for I cannot be silent
Subtitle: the feminization of American hymnody, 1870-1920
By: June Hadden Hobbs.
Series: Pittsburgh series in composition, literacy, and culture
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Pittsburgh, Pa
Language: eng
Number of pages: 220
Subjects: Hymns, English -- United States -- History and criticism.; Women hymn writers -- United States -- History -- 19th century.; Women hymn writers -- United States -- History -- 20th century.; United States -- Church history -- 19th century.; United States -- Church history -- 20th century.
Description: Evangelical hymns constituted a cherished part of communal Christian life and served as an important and effective way to teach doctrine. These hymns - the focus of "I Sing for I Cannot Be Silent" - served an additional social purpose in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: they gave evangelical women a voice in their churches. Drawing upon her own experience as a Baptist, June Hadden Hobbs shows how women utilized the only oral communication allowed to them in public worship.

In this engaging study, Hobbs employs an interdisciplinary mix of feminist literary analysis, social history, rhetoric and composition theory, hymnology, autobiography, and theology to examine hymns central to worship in most evangelical churches today.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 203-211) and index.
Table of contents: title: Acknowledgments; title: Words and women in the evangelical community; title: Hymns as the cultural property of nineteenth-century women; title: His religion and hers; title: Women's hymns as narrative models; title: The patriarchal backlash.