Respectability discourse valorized industrious work over liberal-arts refinement

Evidence

In October 1909, after five years of planning and fund raising, the Woman’s Convention opened the National Training School for Women and Girls under the presidency of Nannie Burroughs.” It was Burroughs who first introduced the idea for a school to the black Baptist women and inspired their enthusiasm: “This is going to be the ‘national dream’ realized [and] a million women in our churches will make us have it.” The convention’s identification with the working poor and its concern for the employment options of black women led to the establishment of an industrial school rather than a liberal arts college. The school adopted for its motto: “Work. Support thyself. To thine own powers appeal.”?! The motto captured the convention’s valorization of work— a central tenet in the discourse of respectability. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 959

Categorization

• DEFINE: Shows that respectability’s valorization of work, not education per se, shaped institutional choices among black Baptist women.
• XREF: connects to: Respectability discourse centered on collective self-definition against external inferiority labels — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 1001; Value hierarchies become second-nature through historically embedded discourse — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education: Toward Diverse,…, 1099; Discourse constructs subject positions that speakers must occupy regardless of belief

Broader Connections

• Value hierarchies become second-nature through historically embedded discourse #expands (0.78) — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education, 1099
• Discourse constructs subject positions that speakers must occupy regardless of belief #corroborates (0.75)
• Respectability discourse centered on collective self-definition against external inferiority labels #expands (0.72) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 1001