Using files from data for research provided by JSTOR, as well as self digitized periodicals, I explore a corpus of feminist periodicals from 1978-1981. Corpus linguistics provides a methodology for uncovering mathematical patterns within large bodies of texts that ultimately reveal larger discourses. The history that I investigate here is that produced by Alice Echols in the highly influential Daring to be Bad in order to see if her concept of “cultural feminism” is supported by a large data analysis. In large part narratives of women’s history are driven by the limitations of the historian’s mind, but they also reflect historiographical trends. Histories from “the bottom up” still focus on a relatively limited number of grassroots activists and tend to favor certain groups in large cities. However, in the case of women’s history, that promise remains unfulfilled. Social history promised to decenter the few in favor of the many in historical narratives.
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