Your Daughters Will Prophesy

How nineteenth-century women used the Bible to claim their voice on the moral questions of their day Caught between their identity as Christians and social norms that silenced them, American women used scripture to claim moral and then rhetorical agency. They reinterpreted familiar biblical passages, recovered previously ignored stories about women, and contested passages used to circumscribe women's activities. By strategically adopting a rhetorical posture of dissent, these women became prophetic voices in American society. In Your Daughters Will Prophesy, Lisa Marie Gring-Pemble and Martha Watson analyze the argumentative resources four womenJarena Lee, Sarah Moore Grimk, Lucretia Coffin Mott, and Frances Willardused to counter gendered restrictions and gain access to political platform and church pulpit, catalyzing what became known as the woman's movement.