Neither Lady nor Slave: Working Women of the Old South

by Susanna Delfino (Editor), Michele Gillespie (Editor)

Overview

Although historians over the past two decades have written extensively on the plantation mistress and the slave woman, they have largely neglected the world of the working woman. Neither Lady nor Slave pushes southern history beyond the plantation to examine the lives and labors of ordinary southern women—white, free black, and Indian.Contributors to this volume illuminate women's involvement in the southern market economy in all its diversity. Thirteen essays explore the working lives of a wide range of women—nuns and prostitutes, iron workers and basket weavers, teachers and domestic servants—in urban and rural settings across the antebellum South. By highlighting contrasts between paid and unpaid, officially acknowledged and "invisible" work within the context of cultural attitudes regarding women's proper place in society, the book sheds new light on the ambiguities that marked relations between race, class, and gender in the modernizing South.The contributors are E. Susan Barber, Bess Beatty, Emily Bingham, James Taylor Carson, Emily Clark, Stephanie Cole, Susanna Delfino, Michele Gillespie, Sarah Hill, Barbara J. Howe, Timothy J. Lockley, Stephanie McCurry, Diane Batts Morrow, and Penny L. Richards.ContributorsE. Susan Barber, College of Notre Dame of Maryland (Baltimore, Md.)Bess Beatty, Oregon State University (Eugene, Ore.)Emily Bingham (Louisville, Ky.)James Taylor Carson, Queen's University (Kingston, Ontario, Canada)Emily Clark, University of Southern Mississippi (Hattiesburg, Miss.)Stephanie Cole, University of Texas at Arlington (Arlington, Tex.)Susanna Delfino, University of Genoa (Genoa, Italy)Michele Gillespie, Wake Forest University (Winston-Salem, N.C.)Sarah Hill (Atlanta, Ga.)Barbara J. Howe, West Virginia University (Morgantown, W. Va.)Timothy J. Lockley, University of Warwick (Coventry, England)Stephanie McCurry, Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.)Diane Batts Morrow, University of Georgia (Athens, Ga.)Penny L. Richards, UCLA Center for the Study of Women (Los Angeles, Calif.)—>

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807861301
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	10/15/2003
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Susanna Delfino is senior researcher and professor of American history at the University of Genoa in Italy.
Michele Gillespie is associate professor of history at Wake Forest University

Table of Contents

Introduction Part I. The Rural World and the Coming of the Market Economy James Taylor Carson Chapter 2. Made by the Hands of Indians: Cherokee Women and Trade Sarah H. Hill Chapter 3. Producing Dependence: Women, Work, and Yeoman Households in Low-Country South Carolina Stephanie McCurry Part II. Wage-Earning Women in the Urban South Chapter 4. A White Woman, of Middle Age, Would Be Preferred: Children's Nurses in the Old South Stephanie Cole Chapter 5. Spheres of Influence: Working White and Black Women in Antebellum Savannah Timothy J. Lockley Chapter 6. Patient Laborers: Women at Work in the Formal Economy of West(ern) Virginia Barbara J. Howe Part III. Women as Unacknowledged Professionals Chapter 7. Depraved and Abandoned Women: Prostitution in Richmond, Virginia, across the Civil War E. Susan Barber Chapter 8. The Female Academy and Beyond: Mordecai Sisters at Work in the Old South Emily Bingham and Penny Richards Chapter 9. Peculiar Professionals: The Financial Strategies of the New Orleans Ursulines Emily Clark Chapter 10. Faith and Frugality in Antebellum Baltimore: The Economic Credo of the Oblate Sisters of Providence Diane Batts Morrow Part IV. Working Women in the Industrial South Chapter 11. I Can't Get My Bored on Them Old Lomes: The Work and Resistance of Female Textile Laborers in the Antebellum South Bess Beatty Chapter 12. To Harden a Lady's Hand: Gender Politics, Racial Realities, and Women Millworkers in Antebellum Georgia Michele Gillespie Chapter 13. Invisible Woman: Female Labor in the Upper South's Iron and Mining Industries Susanna Delfino Contributors Index

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Neither Lady Nor Slave appreciably widens our acquaintance with the kinds of economic activities of prewar southern women, the wider consequences of some of those developments, and the varieties of women who worked. . . . This compilation makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the developing prewar southern economy and women's complex role in it.—Southern Carolina Historical Magazine



This concentration on the 'ordinary' women of the Old South helps to place in proper context women's roles in this society.—Civil War Book Review



Adds intriguingly to the evidence about women, work, and the antebellum south.—Journal of Economic History



If one wants to blast the myth of the 'Southern Lady' clean out of the water, run, do not walk, to buy this book. This outstanding collection of essays on women who worked in the Old South will provide plenty of ammunition. . . . This is a wonderful book-informative, well-edited, and springing from a serendipitous SHA conference conversation. May there be many more such conversations if this kind of scholarship is the result.—Georgia Historical Quarterly



An invaluable collection of thirteen highly original and well-written essays. . . . Neither Lady nor Slave is an exciting and important study that enriches the historiography of women. Beautifully illustrated and impressively researched, it will appeal to the general public and academic specialists alike.—Florida Historical Quarterly



These essays represent the cutting edge of the discipline of southern women's history. They are deeply and thoroughly researched, powerfully conceived and elegantly presented.—LeeAnn Whites, University of Missouri



The editors have assembled a collection that is remarkable for its diversity and breadth. It brings together outstanding examples of current scholarship on women's work and the economic impact of women in a wide variety of settings.—Robert C. McMath Jr., Georgia Institute of Technology

Editorial Reviews

These essays represent the cutting edge of the discipline of southern women's history. They are deeply and thoroughly researched, powerfully conceived and elegantly presented.
(LeeAnn Whites, University of Missouri)

The editors have assembled a collection that is remarkable for its diversity and breadth. It brings together outstanding examples of current scholarship on women's work and the economic impact of women in a wide variety of settings.
(Robert C. McMath Jr., Georgia Institute of Technology)

From the Publisher