Elizabeth Oakes Smith

Working from the research of Mary Kupiec Cayton and Angela Ray, this paper provides the economic context of Elizabeth Oakes Smith's unpublished lecture, "The Dignity of Labor" (1851-1867?).  Far from a critique of her economic moment, in my view the lecture adopts the logic of upward mobility and manifest destiny in order to advance woman's relative position of power in US culture.

Elizabeth Oakes Smith's 1842 novel The Western Captive has been recently re-published in an excellent critical edition (reviewed in Legacy this year).  While the editor of this edition, Caroline Woidat, has done a fine job introducing the reader to Oakes Smith's life and career, and more specifically, to her work with editors like Henry Schoolcraft to translate Native American stories, what no scholar has explained is why this novel disappeared so quickly in literary history--and more surprisingly, why it was originally advertised as "The Western Captain" in Park Benjamin's The New World, where it was published as one of the first paperback novels.  Here I argue for its jingoist advertising as no mistake, but the publisher's attempt to align what was a truly radical work with the dominant imperialist attitude of most American readers at the time--sure, to sell it.