Witness to Reconstruction: Constance Fenimore Woolson and the Postbellum South, 1873-1894
An examination of the defining role played by one woman writer who covered the South during reconstruction Anne E. Boyd Martin T. Buinicki Kathleen Diffley Annamaria Formichella Elsden Janet Gabler-Hover Caroline Gebhard Michael Germana Carolyn Hall Sharon Kennedy-Nolle John Lowe Geraldine Murphy Kevin E. O'Donnell John H. Pearson Timothy Sweet Anthony Szczesiul Cheryl B. Torsney In the wake of the Civil War, Constance Fenimore Woolson became one of the first northern observers to linger in the defeated states from Virginia to Florida. Born in New Hampshire in 1840 and raised in Ohio, she was the grandniece of James Fenimore Cooper and was gaining success as a writer when she departed in 1873 for St. Augustine. During the next six years, she made her way across the South and reported what she saw, first in illustrated travel accounts and then in the poetry, stories, and serialized novels that brought unsettled social relations to the pages of Harper's Monthly, the Atlantic, Scribner's Monthly, Appletons' Journal, and the Galaxy. In the midst of Reconstruction and in print for years to come, Woolson revealed the sharp edges of loss, the sharper summons of opportunity, and the entanglements of northern misperceptions a decade before the waves of well-heeled tourists arrived during the 1880s. This volume's sixteen essays are intent on illuminating, through her example, the neglected world of Reconstruction's backwaters in literary developments that were politically charged and genuinely unpredictable. Drawing upon the postcolonial and transnational perspectives of New Southern Studies, as well as the cultural history, intellectual genealogy, and feminist priorities that lend urgency to the portraits of the global South, this collection investigates the mysterious, ravaged territory of a defeated nation as curious northern readers first saw it. Kathleen Diffley, Iowa City, Iowa, is associate professor of English at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. She is the author of Where My Heart Is Turning Ever: Civil War Stories and Constitutional Reform, 1861-1876 and editor of To Live and Die: Collected Stories of the Civil War, 1861-1876.
1112400592
Witness to Reconstruction: Constance Fenimore Woolson and the Postbellum South, 1873-1894
An examination of the defining role played by one woman writer who covered the South during reconstruction Anne E. Boyd Martin T. Buinicki Kathleen Diffley Annamaria Formichella Elsden Janet Gabler-Hover Caroline Gebhard Michael Germana Carolyn Hall Sharon Kennedy-Nolle John Lowe Geraldine Murphy Kevin E. O'Donnell John H. Pearson Timothy Sweet Anthony Szczesiul Cheryl B. Torsney In the wake of the Civil War, Constance Fenimore Woolson became one of the first northern observers to linger in the defeated states from Virginia to Florida. Born in New Hampshire in 1840 and raised in Ohio, she was the grandniece of James Fenimore Cooper and was gaining success as a writer when she departed in 1873 for St. Augustine. During the next six years, she made her way across the South and reported what she saw, first in illustrated travel accounts and then in the poetry, stories, and serialized novels that brought unsettled social relations to the pages of Harper's Monthly, the Atlantic, Scribner's Monthly, Appletons' Journal, and the Galaxy. In the midst of Reconstruction and in print for years to come, Woolson revealed the sharp edges of loss, the sharper summons of opportunity, and the entanglements of northern misperceptions a decade before the waves of well-heeled tourists arrived during the 1880s. This volume's sixteen essays are intent on illuminating, through her example, the neglected world of Reconstruction's backwaters in literary developments that were politically charged and genuinely unpredictable. Drawing upon the postcolonial and transnational perspectives of New Southern Studies, as well as the cultural history, intellectual genealogy, and feminist priorities that lend urgency to the portraits of the global South, this collection investigates the mysterious, ravaged territory of a defeated nation as curious northern readers first saw it. Kathleen Diffley, Iowa City, Iowa, is associate professor of English at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. She is the author of Where My Heart Is Turning Ever: Civil War Stories and Constitutional Reform, 1861-1876 and editor of To Live and Die: Collected Stories of the Civil War, 1861-1876.
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Witness to Reconstruction: Constance Fenimore Woolson and the Postbellum South, 1873-1894

Witness to Reconstruction: Constance Fenimore Woolson and the Postbellum South, 1873-1894

Witness to Reconstruction: Constance Fenimore Woolson and the Postbellum South, 1873-1894

Witness to Reconstruction: Constance Fenimore Woolson and the Postbellum South, 1873-1894

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Overview

An examination of the defining role played by one woman writer who covered the South during reconstruction Anne E. Boyd Martin T. Buinicki Kathleen Diffley Annamaria Formichella Elsden Janet Gabler-Hover Caroline Gebhard Michael Germana Carolyn Hall Sharon Kennedy-Nolle John Lowe Geraldine Murphy Kevin E. O'Donnell John H. Pearson Timothy Sweet Anthony Szczesiul Cheryl B. Torsney In the wake of the Civil War, Constance Fenimore Woolson became one of the first northern observers to linger in the defeated states from Virginia to Florida. Born in New Hampshire in 1840 and raised in Ohio, she was the grandniece of James Fenimore Cooper and was gaining success as a writer when she departed in 1873 for St. Augustine. During the next six years, she made her way across the South and reported what she saw, first in illustrated travel accounts and then in the poetry, stories, and serialized novels that brought unsettled social relations to the pages of Harper's Monthly, the Atlantic, Scribner's Monthly, Appletons' Journal, and the Galaxy. In the midst of Reconstruction and in print for years to come, Woolson revealed the sharp edges of loss, the sharper summons of opportunity, and the entanglements of northern misperceptions a decade before the waves of well-heeled tourists arrived during the 1880s. This volume's sixteen essays are intent on illuminating, through her example, the neglected world of Reconstruction's backwaters in literary developments that were politically charged and genuinely unpredictable. Drawing upon the postcolonial and transnational perspectives of New Southern Studies, as well as the cultural history, intellectual genealogy, and feminist priorities that lend urgency to the portraits of the global South, this collection investigates the mysterious, ravaged territory of a defeated nation as curious northern readers first saw it. Kathleen Diffley, Iowa City, Iowa, is associate professor of English at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. She is the author of Where My Heart Is Turning Ever: Civil War Stories and Constitutional Reform, 1861-1876 and editor of To Live and Die: Collected Stories of the Civil War, 1861-1876.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781617030253
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
Publication date: 06/30/2011
Pages: 288
Product dimensions: 6.40(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Kathleen Diffley, Iowa City, Iowa, is associate professor of English at the University of Iowa. She is the author of Where My Heart Is Turning Ever: Civil War Stories and Constitutional Reform, 1861-1876 and editor of To Live and Die: Collected Stories of the Civil War, 1861-1876.

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