Bagley’s rhetorical tone is remarkably sarcastic in her letters, especially considering the constraints of feminity that characterized women as demure and submissive. In private, it might have been acceptable for a woman to exercise a sarcastic mode; however, in public, restraint was expected. Though judging sarcasm in 150 year-old-letters is somewhat difficult, two examples should suffice. Bagley’s manner of sarcasm works by calling attention to the obvious. In this way she privileges common understanding over the intellectual, or elite understanding, of her detractors. When asked about the “state of morals among the factory operatives,” Bagley’s reply can only be characterized as snarky: “I can assure you it is just what any reflective mind would expect of seven thousand females thrown together under a great diversity of circumstances and with all kinds an no kind of cultivation.”[1] This remark functions as a public shaming of sorts. Instead of submitting to the authority of her male interlocutor, or instead of feigning the benign feminine, as would have been characteristic of female rhetors in this time period (cite), Bagley instead favors a forceful, evenly alienating response. It becomes clear in this instance that Bagley’s intent is not to persuade her interlocutor, but readers of the exchange. This exchange shows how Bagley is able to maneuver the argument in such a way as to change the intended audience, as well as to control the rhetorical situation. Bagley adeptly manipulates not only the message, but also the intended audience, in effect making the male interlocutor into a public cuckold.
As mentioned, Bagley’s characteristic use of sarcasm functions as a way to elevate the common while at the same time leveling the elite. In an exchange with Harriet Farley, editor of the Lowell Offering, Bagley continues the public dispute with Farley by crafting a letter-to-the-editor in the Lowell Advertiser. In it, she says, “I notice by the Advertiser of last week that I have been favored with a specimen of refined literature, from the pen of one of the geniuses of the age, and a feel myself highly honored with a passing notice from such a high source, although it comes in the form of personal abuse.”[2] Bagley’s own italicizing reveals the sarcastic nature of her reply, as well as the intended effect of that sarcasm. Of the four words italicized, three refer to high culture: “refined,” “geniuses,” “high.” The first word, “favored” serves to illuminate the connection between the four italicized words. The effect of this rhetorical maneuvering is to associate a particular social, or cultural consciousness, with upper class, the capitalists, or the bourgeousie. Bagley does this so that she might also dismantle it. By drawing attention to the high culture distinction with sarcasm, she privileges common understanding and being as superior to upper class distinctions. In doing so, even though Farley was once a working mill girl herself, Bagley aligns Farley with the interests of the upper class, and in aligning Farley with corporate interests, Bagley positions Farley as an actual member of that class. This is particularly interesting. For Bagley, class position appears to be rooted in the social, and not necessarily the mode of production (as Karl Marx would later say in his writings). Though Farley is a member of the lower class as a former operative herself and editor of a struggling publication, Bagley groups her with high culture and the upper class by virtue of Farley’s sympathies—Bagley, who did not hesitate to quote Christian scripture, might have agreed emphatically with the statement: for where your heart is, there will your treasure be also. This fact speaks to some of the inherent contradictions in Bagley’s writings. On the one hand, Bagley’s emphasis on consciousness-raising appears to represent an abandonment of revolutionary impulses while instead choosing to focus on pragmatic reforms. On the other hand, Bagley never abandoned a deep commitment to the intellectual condition of the working classes. In this sense, Bagley appears to align herself more clearly with Fourierism.
Fourierism was an early socialist movement begun by Charles Fourier, a French eccentric and perhaps early feminist. Sometimes noted as a pre-Marxist movement in a hopelessly anachronistic label, Fourierism was interested not in economic equality, but rather in social equality. Fourierism differs from the socialist school in “its respect for the wealthy classes, for property, inheritance, capital, and all that is commonly spoken of constituting the foundations of social order.”[3] In fact, Fourierism privileged social harmony over economic equality.[4] However, this, as mentioned, marks one of the tensions in Bagley’s writings. At times she calls for impassioned revolution, but she never calls for the overthrowing of the means of production. In this sense, the revolution that Bagley argues for is a revolution of consciousness. When assuming editorship of the Voice of Industry, Bagley claims as a policy statement: “Capital must not be permitted to demand so much of labor. Education of the mass, must be made to possess an individual certainty, past escape.”[5] This, too, is a decidedly Fourierst claim. In it, Bagley articulates a type of liberalism that privileges the individual, while at the same time remarking on the importance of the social. Also, Bagley does not insist on dismantling capital, or the relationship between capital and labor; rather, Bagley’s stated purpose is to improve the relationship, as well as the collective welfare of labor through the education of individual minds. This more interesting revolution—if it can still be called that—will be discussed latter in the paper as a proto-consciouness-raising that includes both gender and class.
[1] Voice of Industry, May 6, 1846
[2] VOI, July 23, 1845
[3] Charles Gide, "Introduction," in Design for Utopia: Selected Writings of Charles Fourier, (New York: Schocken Books, 1971): 31.
[4] For example, “Compound unity, which must be physical and passional and which can only be established in Harmony, requires that humans be identical in everything which concerns the fulfillment of the soul as well as the development of the body. Compound unity requires that men be homogenous in language and manner even though unequal in wealth” in Charles Fourier, The Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier: Selected Texts on Work, Love, and Passionate Attraction, ed. Jonathan Beecher and Richard Bienvenu, trans. Jonathan Beecher and Richard Bienvenu (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1983), 260.
[5] VOI, May 15, 1846
