Capitola, the Newsboy, as a Story-Paper: Movement, Serialization, and the Rewriting of Domestic Space in E.D.E.N Southworth’s the Hidden Hand

E.D.E.N. Southworth’s The Hidden Hand was immensely popular among nineteenth century American readers. These readers would have read the novel in a story-paper before it made its debut in novel form. Similar to a newspaper with the exception being that the content is fiction, readers would rush to purchase a new edition each week. In this thesis, I argue that both the content and print form of The Hidden Hand disrupt the separate gender spheres in nineteenth century America by encouraging a young girl’s movements in public spaces. What I call a separate separate gender sphere allows women and young girls, both in the story and those outside of it, to have the newfound agency to move in public spaces as they please. While the novel’s protagonist, Capitola, prompts more equality between the separate spheres, I argue that her independence also encourages other young girls to devise their own separate separate spheres that afford the many privileges of movement that men are accustomed to.