| abstract | This dissertation explores the life and thought of Annis Ford Eastman, one of the first women ordained in U.S. Congregationalism,
in relation to the early intellectual development of her son, Max Eastman, well-known publisher of The Masses and participant in New York City's early
twentieth-century radical subculture. Contributing the first systematic treatment of Annis Eastman's sermons, lectures, and personal papers, this dissertation presents
her pursuit of ordination, ministerial career, and participation in the women's movement as a distinct trajectory within religious liberalism, and as a vital groundwork
in relation to which Max Eastman's political and cultural radicalism emerged. Building from a combination of romantic idealism and evolutionary science acquired through
study at Oberlin College in the 1870s, Annis Eastman developed a form of subjectivity that supported her pursuit of ordination in transgression of gendered conceptions
of religious leadership. Articulated through the term "self-realization" during the 1890s and 1900s, Annis Eastman advanced a critique of gender, particularly in relation
to religion, that envisioned its abolition as a primary category of social distinction. When interpreted from the vantage of Annis Eastman's work, Max Eastman's early
critiques of philosophy, psychology, art, and politics reveal the substantial influence of his mother's thought. This dissertation thus identifies points of continuity
between religious liberalism and political radicalism, which previous scholarship has framed as opposed social orientations. |
