Oratory emerged as the first major form of verbal art in early America because, as John Quincy Adams observed in 1805, "eloquence was POWER." In this book, Sandra Gustafson examines the multiple traditions of sacred, diplomatic, and political speech that flourished in British America and the early republic from colonization through 1800. She demonstrates that, in the American crucible of cultures, contact and conflict among Europeans, native Americans, and Africans gave particular significance and complexity to the uses of the spoken word. Gustafson develops what she calls the performance semiotic of speech and text as a tool for comprehending the rich traditions of early American oratory. Embodied in the delivery of speeches, she argues, were complex projections of power and authenticity that were rooted in or challenged text-based claims of authority. Examining oratorical performances as varied as treaty negotiations between native and British Americans, the eloquence of evangelical women during the Great Awakening, and the founding fathers' debates over the Constitution, Gustafson explores how orators employed the shifting symbolism of speech and text to imbue their voices with power.

Taking a fresh look at the first two centuries of French colonialism in the Americas, this book answers the long-standing question of how and how well Indigenous Americans and the Europeans who arrived on their shores communicated with each other. French explorers and colonists in the sixteenth century noticed that Indigenous peoples from Brazil to Canada used signs to communicate. The French, in response, quickly embraced the nonverbal as a means to overcome cultural and language barriers. Celine Carayon's close examination of their accounts enables her to recover these sophisticated Native practices of embodied expressions. In a colonial world where communication and trust were essential but complicated by a multitude of languages, intimate and sensory expressions ensured that French colonists and Indigenous peoples understood each other well. Understanding, in turn, bred both genuine personal bonds and violent antagonisms. As Carayon demonstrates, nonverbal communication shaped Indigenous responses and resistance to colonial pressures across the Americas just as it fueled the imperial French imagination. Challenging the notion of colonial America as a site of misunderstandings and insurmountable cultural clashes, Carayon shows that Natives and newcomers used nonverbal means to build relationships before the rise of linguistic fluency--and, crucially, well afterward.

What makes political speech powerful? How does eloquent rhetoric transcend ordinary language? Which stylistic choices allow effective orators to stir emotions and spur action? And in the age of Donald Trump, does political eloquence still matter? This book examines a wide swath of political discourse to shed new light on the meaning and significance of eloquence. Roderick P. Hart, a leading scholar of political communication, develops new ways of measuring persuasiveness and rhetorical power through the use of computer-based methods. He examines one hundred of the most important speeches of the twentieth century, given by presidents and politicians as well as leaders, activists, and cultural figures including Martin Luther King Jr., Lou Gehrig, Mario Savio, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Stokely Carmichael. Deploying the tools of the digital humanities as well as critical rhetorical analysis, Hart considers what distinguishes the linguistic properties of iconic oratory from those of more mundane texts. He argues that eloquence represents the confluence of cultural resonance, personal investment, and poetic imagination, providing empirical metrics for assessing each of these qualities. A quantitative and qualitative exploration of American political speech, this interdisciplinary book offers a powerful argument for why eloquence is essential for a functioning democracy.

American Eloquence in 4 volumes presents a study in American political history and it contains a selection of great speeches of American statesmen showing the spirit and motives which have triggered these leaders throughout several phases of American history. The work divides history of United States in 9 stages: Colonialism, Constitutional Government, the Rise of Democracy, the Rise of Nationality, the Slavery struggle, Secession, Civil War and Reconstruction, Free Trade and Protection, and Civil Service Reform. Each of these is marked by important orations of nation's great leaders, from Colonialism and orations of Alexander Hamilton, through Anti-Slavery speeches of John Quincy Adams and Abraham Lincoln to Free Trade and Reform era and lectures of Henry Clay and George William Curtis.

"A penetrating account of the long debate about the kind of public language appropriate for a democratic society. . . . Cmiel manages to do justice to both sides."--Christopher Lasch, author of The Culture of Narcissism "Every scholar interested in the English language will put this book next to Mencken and Baugh. It will be indispensable to writing the social history of English into the 20th Century."--Joseph Williams, author of Origins of the English Language