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Joan of Arc's origins within the American cultural canon go back to the founding of the nation itself. In the years directly following the American Revolution, the newly formed United States developed a powerful friendship with the Kingdom of France, owing much of its success in the revolution to French intervention against the British. Gilbert du Motier, better known in the United States as the Marquis de Lafayette, achieved a legendary status within the American historical narrative and set the groundwork for the future place that Joan of Arc would likewise have within the American cultural canon. Below are some of the earliest mentions of Joan of Arc within American culture.
Courtesy of Gale
John Burk's Female Patriotism (1798)
John Burk's Female Patriotism (1798)
John Burk was an Irish immigrant who came to the United States just after the founding of the new republic. He wrote a five-act play titled Female Patriotism: Or, the Death of Joan of Arc. It was fitting for the fight for liberty that an Irish immigrant came to the newly founded United States and wrote a play about Joan of Arc, as the Irish, United States, and Joan of Arc all fought for freedom against the English.
Seneca Falls Convention Speech - Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1848)
Seneca Falls Convention Speech - Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1848)
In her keynote address to the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, American women's rights activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton compared the struggles of her movement to those of Joan of Arc, and called upon all women to take after Joan in their struggle to obtain equal rights and correct the moral failings of the United States.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
These early mentions of Joan laid the foundations for what we call her "Golden Age" (1898-1920) of popularity, where Joan is utilized frequently by a number of groups within American society as a symbol of their causes.
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