This essay examines the ways the image of Sojourner Truth has developed through her representation by historians and critics in primary and contemporary works about her life and oratory. Two processes of rhetorical construction are described. “Transformation” functions in discourses about Truth when the selected or altered details of her life render her into the image of the brutal history of slavery. “Transfiguration” occurs in contemporary re‐presentations of Truth when her reductive image becomes an iconic sign for various purposes and causes. The authors argue that transformation and transfiguration are the result of rhetorical figurations inherent in academic and popular depictions of historical personae.
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