{"id":{"repo_id":"mississippi","oai_identifier":"oai:egrove.olemiss.edu:etd-2397"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/mississippi/oai:egrove.olemiss.edu:etd-2397","repository":{"repo_id":"mississippi","name":"University of Mississippi","base_url":"https://egrove.olemiss.edu/do/oai/"},"display":{"title":"Organic Angels: Innocence, Conversion, and Consumption in the Antebellum American Novel","abstract":"Midcentury American novelists variously reworked the traditional conversion narrative to reflect a marked cultural shift in attitude towards human \"nature,\" newly conceived as innocent and inclined to salvation. This liberalized aesthetic of conversion takes shape through the trope of the \"organic angel,\" a developmental female figure whose journey from childhood innocence to saintly womanhood merges the processes of sexual maturation and Protestant conversion. Because she purifies self-interested desire by redirecting it towards spiritual ends, the organic angel provides a symbolic reconciliation of the young nation's budding imperial capitalism with its millennial expectations. While traditional emphasis on a maternal ethos at work in sentimental fiction has obscured the thematic and generic traction of this nonmaternal female saint, my project traces her structural impact across a surprisingly diverse range of authors and works—Sylvester Judd's Margaret, Maria Cummins' The Lamplighter, Hawthorne's The Marble Faun, Melville's Pierre, Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Harriet Wilson's Our Nig. At once a remarkably flexible and legibly constraining trope, the organic angel determines the relationship between narrative form and nationalist commitment; her relative efficacy as an agent of conversion measures authorial confidence in a pre-Civil war era vision of a unified, prosperous, and evangelical nation.","abstract_html":"Midcentury American novelists variously reworked the traditional conversion narrative to reflect a marked cultural shift in attitude towards human "nature," newly conceived as innocent and inclined to salvation. This liberalized aesthetic of conversion takes shape through the trope of the "organic angel," a developmental female figure whose journey from childhood innocence to saintly womanhood merges the processes of sexual maturation and Protestant conversion. Because she purifies self-interested desire by redirecting it towards spiritual ends, the organic angel provides a symbolic reconciliation of the young nation's budding imperial capitalism with its millennial expectations. While traditional emphasis on a maternal ethos at work in sentimental fiction has obscured the thematic and generic traction of this nonmaternal female saint, my project traces her structural impact across a surprisingly diverse range of authors and works—Sylvester Judd's Margaret, Maria Cummins' The Lamplighter, Hawthorne's The Marble Faun, Melville's Pierre, Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Harriet Wilson's Our Nig. At once a remarkably flexible and legibly constraining trope, the organic angel determines the relationship between narrative form and nationalist commitment; her relative efficacy as an agent of conversion measures authorial confidence in a pre-Civil war era vision of a unified, prosperous, and evangelical nation.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Schrock, Laura Jean"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Ph.D. in English","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"English","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Kathryn McKee","John R. Neff","Cristin Ellis"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2015,"date_issued":"2015-01-01T08:00:00Z","date_published":"2015-01-01T08:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T03:06:53Z","subjects":["American","Antebellum","Novel","Protestantism","Religion","Sentimental","American Literature"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/1398","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Kathryn McKee","John R. Neff","Cristin Ellis"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Schrock, Laura Jean"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2020-01-23T08:00:00Z"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["English"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D. in English"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["American","Antebellum","Novel","Protestantism","Religion","Sentimental","American Literature"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/1398"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["Midcentury American novelists variously reworked the traditional conversion narrative to reflect a marked cultural shift in attitude towards human \"nature,\" newly conceived as innocent and inclined to salvation. This liberalized aesthetic of conversion takes shape through the trope of the \"organic angel,\" a developmental female figure whose journey from childhood innocence to saintly womanhood merges the processes of sexual maturation and Protestant conversion. Because she purifies self-interested desire by redirecting it towards spiritual ends, the organic angel provides a symbolic reconciliation of the young nation's budding imperial capitalism with its millennial expectations. While traditional emphasis on a maternal ethos at work in sentimental fiction has obscured the thematic and generic traction of this nonmaternal female saint, my project traces her structural impact across a surprisingly diverse range of authors and works—Sylvester Judd's Margaret, Maria Cummins' The Lamplighter, Hawthorne's The Marble Faun, Melville's Pierre, Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Harriet Wilson's Our Nig. At once a remarkably flexible and legibly constraining trope, the organic angel determines the relationship between narrative form and nationalist commitment; her relative efficacy as an agent of conversion measures authorial confidence in a pre-Civil war era vision of a unified, prosperous, and evangelical nation."]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Organic Angels: Innocence, Conversion, and Consumption in the Antebellum American Novel"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Kathryn McKee","John R. Neff","Cristin Ellis"],"dc:creator":["Schrock, Laura Jean"],"dc:date.available":["2020-01-23T08:00:00Z"],"dc:description.abstract":["Midcentury American novelists variously reworked the traditional conversion narrative to reflect a marked cultural shift in attitude towards human \"nature,\" newly conceived as innocent and inclined to salvation. This liberalized aesthetic of conversion takes shape through the trope of the \"organic angel,\" a developmental female figure whose journey from childhood innocence to saintly womanhood merges the processes of sexual maturation and Protestant conversion. Because she purifies self-interested desire by redirecting it towards spiritual ends, the organic angel provides a symbolic reconciliation of the young nation's budding imperial capitalism with its millennial expectations. While traditional emphasis on a maternal ethos at work in sentimental fiction has obscured the thematic and generic traction of this nonmaternal female saint, my project traces her structural impact across a surprisingly diverse range of authors and works—Sylvester Judd's Margaret, Maria Cummins' The Lamplighter, Hawthorne's The Marble Faun, Melville's Pierre, Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Harriet Wilson's Our Nig. At once a remarkably flexible and legibly constraining trope, the organic angel determines the relationship between narrative form and nationalist commitment; her relative efficacy as an agent of conversion measures authorial confidence in a pre-Civil war era vision of a unified, prosperous, and evangelical nation."],"dc:identifier":["https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/1398"],"dc:subject":["American","Antebellum","Novel","Protestantism","Religion","Sentimental","American Literature"],"dc:title":["Organic Angels: Innocence, Conversion, and Consumption in the Antebellum American Novel"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["English"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D. in English"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T03:06:53Z"}