A word about . . . mythmaking, gender, and race in the histories of Ann Judson and Sojourner Truth

Abstract

This article investigates two instances of the nineteenth-century American impulse to create national saints and fabricate myths about them. It focuses on the gender and racial stereotyping involved in the creation of the popular history and characterizations of two celebrated American women, Ann Judson and Sojourner Truth. Ann Judson’s case is an example of American myth-making in the service of both American Christian missions and nineteenth-century constructs of womanhood. Sojourner Truth’s case involved two white women re-inscribing racial stereotypes to serve their own purposes, even though one was motivated by financial gain and the other by women’s rights. The author argues that American biographers created these myths to deliver eternal and transcendent values embodied in remarkable lives of women like Judson and Truth. In doing so, they distorted the complex reality of these women’s lives and stifled the women’s ability to tell their own stories. The article concludes with an appreciation for the author’s growing awareness of the values and motives she brings to her work, which she gained by studying the myths as well as the historical figures.