Gertrude Buck: Revisioning Argumentation and the Role of Women in a Participatory Democracy‪.‬

In this essay, I examine Buck's A Course in Argumentative Writing (1899). More specifically, I show how Buck's textbook emphasizes a more democratic approach to argumentation and how this reflects her organic concept of language and society and her involvement in the woman suffrage movement. To provide a more textured understanding of Buck's approach to argumentation, I focus not only on her textbook but also on other primary sources including student correspondence, articles, yearbooks, and other related materials. Such an analysis is significant because it contributes to the history of a feminist rhetoric by showing how Buck challenges the dominant approach of the late nineteenth century. **********