South Carolina Women: Their Lives and Times, Volume 2

by Marjorie Julian Spruill (Editor), Valinda W. Littlefield (Editor), Joan Marie Johnson (Editor), Barbara Bellows (Contribution by), Ronald E. Butchart (Contribution by)

Overview

The biographical essays in this volume provide new insights into the various ways that South Carolina women asserted themselves in their state and illuminate the tension between tradition and change that defined the South from the Civil War through the Progressive Era. As old rules—including gender conventions that severely constrained southern women—were dramatically bent if not broken, these women carved out new roles for themselves and others.

The volume begins with a profile of Laura Towne and Ellen Murray, who founded the Penn School on St. Helena Island for former slaves. Subsequent essays look at such women as the five Rollin sisters, members of a prominent black family who became passionate advocates for women’s rights during Reconstruction; writer Josephine Pinckney, who helped preserve African American spirituals and explored conflicts between the New and Old South in her essays and novels; and Dr. Matilda Evans, the first African American woman licensed to practice medicine in the state. Intractable racial attitudes often caused women to follow separate but parallel paths, as with Louisa B. Poppenheim and Marion B. Wilkinson. Poppenheim, who was white, and Wilkinson, who was black, were both driving forces in the women’s club movement. Both saw clubs as a way not only to help women and children but also to showcase these positive changes to the wider nation. Yet the two women worked separately, as did the white and black state federations of women’s clubs.

Often mixing deference with daring, these women helped shape their society through such avenues as education, religion, politics, community organizing, history, the arts, science, and medicine. Women in the mid- and late twentieth century would build on their accomplishments.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780820336121
Publisher:	University of Georgia Press
Publication date:	01/25/2010
Series:	Southern Women: Their Lives and Times Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Marjorie Julian Spruill (Editor)
MARJORIE JULIAN SPRUILL is a professor of history at the University of South Carolina.

Valinda W. Littlefield (Editor)
VALINDA W. LITTLEFIELD is an assistant professor of history at the University of South Carolina.

Joan Marie Johnson (Editor)
JOAN MARIE JOHNSON is a lecturer in women’s history and southern history at Northeastern Illinois University. She is the cofounder and codirector of the Newberry Seminar on Women and Gender at the Newberry Library in Chicago and is the author of Southern Ladies, New Women.


MICHELE GRIGSBY COFFEY is an instructor of history at the University of Memphis. Her work has been published in the edited collection South Carolina Women: Their Lives and Times (Georgia), Louisiana History, and in the Encyclopedia of U.S. Political History.
GISELLE ROBERTS is a research associate in the department of history at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. She is the author of The Confederate Belle.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction
Marjorie Julian Spruill, Valinda W. Littlefield, and Joan Marie Johnson

Ruby Forsythe and Fannie Phelps Adams
Teaching for Confrontation during Jim Crow
Valinda W. Littlefield

Mary Gordon Ellis
The Politics of Race from Schoolhouse to Statehouse
Carol Sears Botsch

Julia Wood Peterkin and Wil Lou Gray
The Art and Science of Race Progress
Mary Mac Ogden

Dr. Hilla Sheriff
Caught between Science and the State at the South Carolina Midwife Training Institutes
Patricia Evridge Hill

Julia and Alice Delk
From Rural Life to Welding at the Charleston Navy Yard in World War II
Fritz P. Hamer

Louise Smith
The First Lady of Racing
Suzanne Wise

Mary Blackwell Baker
Her Quiet Campaign for Labor Justice
Constance Ashton Myers

Susan Dart Butler and Ethel Martin Bolden
South Carolina's Pioneer African American Librarians
Georgette Mayo

Harriet Simons
Women, Race, Politics, and the League of Women Voters of South Carolina
Jennifer E. Black

Alice Buck Norwood Spearman Wright
A Civil Rights Activist
Marcia G. Synnott

Modjeska Monteith Simkins
I Cannot Be Bought and Will Not Be Sold
Cherisse Jones-Branch

Septima Poinsette Clark
The Evolution of an Educational Stateswoman
Katherine Mellen Charron

Mary Elizabeth Massey
A Founder of Women's History in the South
Constance Ashton Myers

Polly Woodham
The Many Roles of Rural Women
Melissa Walker

Mary Jane Manigault
A Basket Maker's Legacy
Kate Porter Young

Dolly Hamby
The Rise of Two-Party Politics in South Carolina
John W. White

Harriet Keyserling
Political Trailblazer
Page Putnam Miller

Victoria Eslinger, Keller Bumgardner Barron, Mary Heriot, Tootsie Holland, and Pat Callair
Champions of Women's Rights in South Carolina
Marjorie Julian Spruill

Jean Hoefer Toal
The Rise of Women in the Legal Profession
W. Lewis Burke and Bakari T. Sellers

Notes on Contributors

Index

Editorial Reviews

“While the stories of towering figures like Septima Clark and Jean Hoefer Toal will ring familiar, most of this volume reveals women working in schools, farms, factories, and an astonishing array of voluntary associations to improve education and health, challenge racial discrimination, and open opportunities for women. South Carolina is a better place because of their unsung efforts, and their compelling stories challenge us to reframe our understanding of the twentieth century. This much needed book opens that possibility.”—Sara Evans, author of Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America

"These wonderfully diverse stories of the lives and works of South Carolina women will instruct, surprise, and inspire readers of all kinds. A must-read for anyone who wants to understand our common past."—Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, Julia Cherry Spruill Professor of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

“My hat is off to the editors and authors of South Carolina Women. They have done an enormous service to anyone who is interested in South Carolina history, women’s history, and southern history. . . This book is an excellent resource for scholars and students of southern and South Carolina history and politics, American studies, African-American studies, and women’s studies.”—Karen M. Kedrowski, Journal of Southern Religion

“The essays in this book individually and collectively bring to life a long history of female activism and agency and make a valuable contribution to the narrative of southern women’s efforts to shape the world around them. Volume 3 of South Carolina Women proves that these notable and exceptional female figures, rather than stand passively on the sidelines, claimed a space in the canon of American history by tirelessly constructing a better world for generations of women in the state and the nation.”—Victoria E. Ott, Journal of Southern History

From the Publisher