How Belletristic Rhetorical Theory in the Liberal Arts Tradition Led to Civic Engagement: Turn-of-the-Century Rhetoric Instruction at Bryn Mawr College

A reconstruction of the required two-year course in composition and rhetoric for all incoming students at Bryn Mawr College at the beginning of the twentieth century, based on archival sources such as college catalogs and related documents, administrative correspondence, and student papers-specifically those by Margery Scattergood, who entered Bryn Mawr in 1913-shows an adherence to the belletristic tradition. The course provided practice in criticism in the Arnoldian sense of the word. The focus on the role of the writer as critic provided Bryn Mawr students with opportunities to engage with issues of public interest.