The Plantation Mistress: Woman's World in the Old South

Author:   Catherine Clinton
Publisher:   Random House USA Inc
ISBN:  

9780394722535


Pages:   352
Publication Date:   12 February 1984
Recommended Age:   From 2 to 12
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
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The Plantation Mistress: Woman's World in the Old South


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Overview

"This pioneering study of the much-mythologized Southern belle offers the first serious look at the lives of white women and their harsh and restricted place in the slave society before the Civil War. Drawing on the diaries, letters, and memoirs of hundreds of planter wives and daughters, Clinton sets before us in vivid detail the daily life of the plantation mistress and her ambiguous intermediary position in the hierarchy between slave and master. ""The Plantation Mistress challenges and reinterprets a host of issues related to the Old South. The result is a book that forces us to rethink some of our basic assumptions about two peculiar institutions -- the slave plantation and the nineteenth-century family. It approaches a familiar subject from a new angle, and as a result, permanently alters our understanding of the Old South and women's place in it."

Full Product Details

Author:   Catherine Clinton
Publisher:   Random House USA Inc
Imprint:   Random House USA Inc
Dimensions:   Width: 13.10cm , Height: 2.10cm , Length: 20.30cm
Weight:   0.306kg
ISBN:  

9780394722535


ISBN 10:   0394722531
Pages:   352
Publication Date:   12 February 1984
Recommended Age:   From 2 to 12
Audience:   Children/juvenile ,  Children's (6-12)
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

Table of Contents

Preface: Hidden Lives, xi Chapter I: Women in the Land of Cotton, 3 Chapter II: Slave of Slaves, 16 Chapter III: Circle of Kin, 36 Chapter IV: The Day to Fix my Fate, 59 Chapter V: The Moral Bind, 87 Chapter VI: The Fallen Woman, 110 Chapter VII: Equally Their Due, 123 Chapter VIII: Precious and Precarious in Body and Soul, 139 Chapter IX: Every Woman Was an Island, 164 Chapter X: The Curse of Slavery, 180 Chapter XI: The Sexual Dynamics of Slavery, 199 Chapter XII: Foucault Meets Mandingo, 223 Appendix A, 232 Appendix B, 239 Abbreviations of Archives Referred to in Notes and Bibliography, 243 Notes, 245 Bibliography, 295 Index, 324

Reviews

The Plantation Mistress challenges and reinterprets a host of issues related to the Old South. The result is a book that forces us to rethink some of our basic assumptions about two peculiar institutions -- the slave plantation and the nineteenth-century family. It approaches a familiar subject from a new angle, and as a result, permanently alters our understanding of the Old South and women's place in it. <br>Eric Foner, History Book Club Review <br> Clinton has assembled many interesting quotations from old letters and diaries to support her belief that women in the antebellum South were generally overworked, often unhealthy, and little freer than their slaves. <br>Atlantic Monthly <br> One can be grateful that the recent emphasis on the study of women's history has encouraged this much-needed work. <br>Christian Science Monitor


The Plantation Mistress challenges and reinterprets a host of issues related to the Old South. The result is a book that forces us to rethink some of our basic assumptions about two peculiar institutions -- the slave plantation and the nineteenth-century family. It approaches a familiar subject from a new angle, and as a result, permanently alters our understanding of the Old South and women's place in it. <br><br>Eric Foner, History Book Club Review<br><br> Clinton has assembled many interesting quotations from old letters and diaries to support her belief that women in the antebellum South were generally overworked, often unhealthy, and little freer than their slaves. <br><br>Atlantic Monthly<br><br> One can be grateful that the recent emphasis on the study of women's history has encouraged this much-needed work. <br><br>Christian Science Monitor


Author Information

CATHERINE CLINTON was born in Seattle and grew up in Kansas City. She is the Denman Professor of American History at the University of Texas San Antonio and is an International Research Professor at Queen's University Belfast. She has served on several faculties in her more than thirty years of teaching, including the University of Benghazi, Harvard University, and the Citadel (the Military College of South Carolina). She is the author and editor of over two dozen volumes, including The Plantation Mistress, Harriet Tubman:The Road to Freedom, Mrs. Lincoln: A Life, and edits her own series for Oxford University Press: Viewpoints on American Culture. She has served as a consultant on several film projects, including Steven Spielberg's Lincoln (2012). An elected member of the Society of American Historians, she remains a lifetime member of both the Lincoln Forum and the Southern Association for Women Historians. She is serving as the president of the Southern Historical Association (2015-2016).

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