Author: Steven Mintz
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439105103
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 603
Book Description
An examination of how the concept of “family” has been transformed over the last three centuries in the U.S., from its function as primary social unit to today’s still-evolving model. Based on a wide reading of letters, diaries and other contemporary documents, Mintz, an historian, and Kellogg, an anthropologist, examine the changing definition of “family” in the United States over the course of the last three centuries, beginning with the modified European model of the earliest settlers. From there they survey the changes in the families of whites (working class, immigrants, and middle class) and blacks (slave and free) since the Colonial years, and identify four deep changes in family structure and ideology: the democratic family, the companionate family, the family of the 1950s, and lastly, the family of the '80s, vulnerable to societal changes but still holding together.
Domestic Revolutions
Author: Steven Mintz
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439105103
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 603
Book Description
An examination of how the concept of “family” has been transformed over the last three centuries in the U.S., from its function as primary social unit to today’s still-evolving model. Based on a wide reading of letters, diaries and other contemporary documents, Mintz, an historian, and Kellogg, an anthropologist, examine the changing definition of “family” in the United States over the course of the last three centuries, beginning with the modified European model of the earliest settlers. From there they survey the changes in the families of whites (working class, immigrants, and middle class) and blacks (slave and free) since the Colonial years, and identify four deep changes in family structure and ideology: the democratic family, the companionate family, the family of the 1950s, and lastly, the family of the '80s, vulnerable to societal changes but still holding together.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439105103
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 603
Book Description
An examination of how the concept of “family” has been transformed over the last three centuries in the U.S., from its function as primary social unit to today’s still-evolving model. Based on a wide reading of letters, diaries and other contemporary documents, Mintz, an historian, and Kellogg, an anthropologist, examine the changing definition of “family” in the United States over the course of the last three centuries, beginning with the modified European model of the earliest settlers. From there they survey the changes in the families of whites (working class, immigrants, and middle class) and blacks (slave and free) since the Colonial years, and identify four deep changes in family structure and ideology: the democratic family, the companionate family, the family of the 1950s, and lastly, the family of the '80s, vulnerable to societal changes but still holding together.
The Domestic Revolution
Author: Eve Tavor Bannet
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN: 9780801864162
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
Alongside the three revolutions we usually identify with the long eighteenth century—the French Revolution, the American Revolution, and the Glorious Revolution of 1688—Enlightenment ideology gave rise to a quieter but no less significant revolution which was largely the fruit of women's imagination and the result of women's work. In The Domestic Revolution, Eve Tavor Bannet explores how eighteenth-century women writers of novels, conduct books, and tracts addressed key social, political, and economic issues, revising public thinking about the family and refashioning women's sexual and domestic conduct. Bannet examines the works of women writers who fell into two distinct camps: "Matriarchs" such as Eliza Haywood, Maria Edgeworth, and Hannah More argued that women had a superiority of sense and virtue over men and needed to take control of the family. "Egalitarians" such as Fanny Burney, Mary Hays, and Mary Wollstonecraft sought to level hierarchies both in the family and in the state, believing that a family should be based on consensual relations between spouses and between parents and children. Bannet shows how Matriarch and Egalitarian writers, in their different ways, sought to raise women from their inferior standing relative to men in the household, in cultural representations, and in prescriptive social norms. Both groups promoted an idealized division of labor between women and men, later to be dubbed the doctrine of "separate spheres." The Domestic Revolution focuses on women's debates with each other and with male ideologues, alternating between discursive and fictional arguments to show how women translated their feminist positions into fictional exemplars. Bannet demonstrates which issues joined and separated different camps of eighteenth-century women, tracing the origins of debates that continue to shape contemporary feminist thought.
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN: 9780801864162
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
Alongside the three revolutions we usually identify with the long eighteenth century—the French Revolution, the American Revolution, and the Glorious Revolution of 1688—Enlightenment ideology gave rise to a quieter but no less significant revolution which was largely the fruit of women's imagination and the result of women's work. In The Domestic Revolution, Eve Tavor Bannet explores how eighteenth-century women writers of novels, conduct books, and tracts addressed key social, political, and economic issues, revising public thinking about the family and refashioning women's sexual and domestic conduct. Bannet examines the works of women writers who fell into two distinct camps: "Matriarchs" such as Eliza Haywood, Maria Edgeworth, and Hannah More argued that women had a superiority of sense and virtue over men and needed to take control of the family. "Egalitarians" such as Fanny Burney, Mary Hays, and Mary Wollstonecraft sought to level hierarchies both in the family and in the state, believing that a family should be based on consensual relations between spouses and between parents and children. Bannet shows how Matriarch and Egalitarian writers, in their different ways, sought to raise women from their inferior standing relative to men in the household, in cultural representations, and in prescriptive social norms. Both groups promoted an idealized division of labor between women and men, later to be dubbed the doctrine of "separate spheres." The Domestic Revolution focuses on women's debates with each other and with male ideologues, alternating between discursive and fictional arguments to show how women translated their feminist positions into fictional exemplars. Bannet demonstrates which issues joined and separated different camps of eighteenth-century women, tracing the origins of debates that continue to shape contemporary feminist thought.
The Grand Domestic Revolution
Author: Dolores Hayden
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262580557
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 386
Book Description
"This is a book that is full of things I have never seen before, and full of new things to say about things I thought I knew well. It is a book about houses and about culture and about how each affects the other, and it must stand as one of the major works on the history of modern housing." - Paul Goldberger, The New York Times Book Review Long before Betty Friedan wrote about "the problem that had no name" in The Feminine Mystique, a group of American feminists whose leaders included Melusina Fay Peirce, Mary Livermore, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman campaigned against women's isolation in the home and confinement to domestic life as the basic cause of their unequal position in society.The Grand Domestic Revolution reveals the innovative plans and visionary strategies of these persistent women, who developed the theory and practice of what Hayden calls "material feminism" in pursuit of economic independence and social equality. The material feminists' ambitious goals of socialized housework and child care meant revolutionizing the American home and creating community services. They raised fundamental questions about the relationship of men, women, and children in industrial society. Hayden analyzes the utopian and pragmatic sources of the feminists' programs for domestic reorganization and the conflicts over class, race, and gender they encountered. This history of a little-known intellectual tradition challenging patriarchal notions of "women's place" and "women's work" offers a new interpretation of the history of American feminism and a new interpretation of the history of American housing and urban design. Hayden shows how the material feminists' political ideology led them to design physical space to create housewives' cooperatives, kitchenless houses, day-care centers, public kitchens, and community dining halls. In their insistence that women be paid for domestic labor, the material feminists won the support of many suffragists and of novelists such as Edward Bellamy and William Dean Howells, who helped popularize their cause. Ebenezer Howard, Rudolph Schindler, and Lewis Mumford were among the many progressive architects and planners who promoted the reorganization of housing and neighborhoods around the needs of employed women. In reevaluating these early feminist plans for the environmental and economic transformation of American society and in recording the vigorous and many-sided arguments that evolved around the issues they raised, Hayden brings to light basic economic and spacial contradictions which outdated forms of housing and inadequate community services still create for American women and for their families.
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262580557
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 386
Book Description
"This is a book that is full of things I have never seen before, and full of new things to say about things I thought I knew well. It is a book about houses and about culture and about how each affects the other, and it must stand as one of the major works on the history of modern housing." - Paul Goldberger, The New York Times Book Review Long before Betty Friedan wrote about "the problem that had no name" in The Feminine Mystique, a group of American feminists whose leaders included Melusina Fay Peirce, Mary Livermore, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman campaigned against women's isolation in the home and confinement to domestic life as the basic cause of their unequal position in society.The Grand Domestic Revolution reveals the innovative plans and visionary strategies of these persistent women, who developed the theory and practice of what Hayden calls "material feminism" in pursuit of economic independence and social equality. The material feminists' ambitious goals of socialized housework and child care meant revolutionizing the American home and creating community services. They raised fundamental questions about the relationship of men, women, and children in industrial society. Hayden analyzes the utopian and pragmatic sources of the feminists' programs for domestic reorganization and the conflicts over class, race, and gender they encountered. This history of a little-known intellectual tradition challenging patriarchal notions of "women's place" and "women's work" offers a new interpretation of the history of American feminism and a new interpretation of the history of American housing and urban design. Hayden shows how the material feminists' political ideology led them to design physical space to create housewives' cooperatives, kitchenless houses, day-care centers, public kitchens, and community dining halls. In their insistence that women be paid for domestic labor, the material feminists won the support of many suffragists and of novelists such as Edward Bellamy and William Dean Howells, who helped popularize their cause. Ebenezer Howard, Rudolph Schindler, and Lewis Mumford were among the many progressive architects and planners who promoted the reorganization of housing and neighborhoods around the needs of employed women. In reevaluating these early feminist plans for the environmental and economic transformation of American society and in recording the vigorous and many-sided arguments that evolved around the issues they raised, Hayden brings to light basic economic and spacial contradictions which outdated forms of housing and inadequate community services still create for American women and for their families.
The Domestic Revolution: How the Introduction of Coal into Victorian Homes Changed Everything
Author: Ruth Goodman
Publisher: Liveright Publishing
ISBN: 1631497642
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352
Book Description
“Our domestic Sherlock brims with excitement” (Roger Lowenstein, Wall Street Journal) in this erudite romp through the smoke-stained, coal-fired houses of Victorian England. “The queen of living history” (Lucy Worsley) dazzles anglophiles and history lovers alike with this immersive account of how English women sparked a worldwide revolution—from their own kitchens. Wielding the same wit and passion as seen in How to Be a Victorian, Ruth Goodman shows that the hot coal stove provided so much more than morning tea. As Goodman traces the amazing shift from wood to coal in mid-sixteenth century England, a pattern of innovation emerges as the women stoking these fires also stoked new global industries: from better soap to clean smudges to new ingredients for cooking. Laced with irresistibly charming anecdotes of Goodman’s own experience managing a coal-fired household, The Domestic Revolution shines a hot light on the power of domestic necessity.
Publisher: Liveright Publishing
ISBN: 1631497642
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352
Book Description
“Our domestic Sherlock brims with excitement” (Roger Lowenstein, Wall Street Journal) in this erudite romp through the smoke-stained, coal-fired houses of Victorian England. “The queen of living history” (Lucy Worsley) dazzles anglophiles and history lovers alike with this immersive account of how English women sparked a worldwide revolution—from their own kitchens. Wielding the same wit and passion as seen in How to Be a Victorian, Ruth Goodman shows that the hot coal stove provided so much more than morning tea. As Goodman traces the amazing shift from wood to coal in mid-sixteenth century England, a pattern of innovation emerges as the women stoking these fires also stoked new global industries: from better soap to clean smudges to new ingredients for cooking. Laced with irresistibly charming anecdotes of Goodman’s own experience managing a coal-fired household, The Domestic Revolution shines a hot light on the power of domestic necessity.
The Search for Domestic Bliss
Author: Ian Dowbiggin
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 070061947X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 262
Book Description
Why are Americans so bad at marriage? It's certainly not for lack of trying. By the early 21st century Americans were spending billions on marriage and family counseling, seeking advice and guidance from some 50,000 experts. And yet, the divorce rate suggests that all of this therapeutic intervention isn't making couples happier or marriages more durable. Quite the contrary, Ian Dowbiggin tells us in this thought-provoking book: the "caring industry" is part of the problem. Under the influence of therapeutic reformers, marital and familial dynamics in this country have shifted from mores and commitment to love and companionship. This movement toward a "me marriage," as the New York Times has termed it, with its attendant soaring expectations and acute dissatisfactions, is rooted as much in the twists and turns of 20th-century history as it is in the realities in the hearts and minds of modern Americans, Dowbiggin argues; and his book reveals how effectively those changes have been encouraged and orchestrated by a small but resourceful group of social reformers with ties to eugenics, birth control, population control, and sex education. In The Search for Domestic Bliss, Dowbiggin delves into the stories of the usual suspects in the founding of the therapeutic gospel, exposing little known aspects of their influence and misunderstood features of their work. Here we learn, for instance, that Betty Friedan did not after all discover "the problem that knows no name"--the widespread unhappiness of women in mid-century America; and that, like Friedan, one of the pioneers of marriage counseling was an open admirer of Stalin's Russia. The book also explores the long overlooked impact of sex researchers Alfred Kinsey and Masters and Johnson on the development of marriage and family counseling; and considers the under-appreciated contributions to the marriage counseling movement of social reformer and activist Emily Mudd. Through these and other reform-minded Americans, Dowbiggin traces the concerted and deliberate way in which the old order of looking to family and community for guidance gave way to seeking guidance from marriage and family counseling professionals. Such a transformation, as this book makes clear, has been a key part of a major revolution in the way Americans think about their inner selves and their relations with friends, family, and community members--a revolution in which once deeply private concerns have been redefined as grave matters of public mental health.
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 070061947X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 262
Book Description
Why are Americans so bad at marriage? It's certainly not for lack of trying. By the early 21st century Americans were spending billions on marriage and family counseling, seeking advice and guidance from some 50,000 experts. And yet, the divorce rate suggests that all of this therapeutic intervention isn't making couples happier or marriages more durable. Quite the contrary, Ian Dowbiggin tells us in this thought-provoking book: the "caring industry" is part of the problem. Under the influence of therapeutic reformers, marital and familial dynamics in this country have shifted from mores and commitment to love and companionship. This movement toward a "me marriage," as the New York Times has termed it, with its attendant soaring expectations and acute dissatisfactions, is rooted as much in the twists and turns of 20th-century history as it is in the realities in the hearts and minds of modern Americans, Dowbiggin argues; and his book reveals how effectively those changes have been encouraged and orchestrated by a small but resourceful group of social reformers with ties to eugenics, birth control, population control, and sex education. In The Search for Domestic Bliss, Dowbiggin delves into the stories of the usual suspects in the founding of the therapeutic gospel, exposing little known aspects of their influence and misunderstood features of their work. Here we learn, for instance, that Betty Friedan did not after all discover "the problem that knows no name"--the widespread unhappiness of women in mid-century America; and that, like Friedan, one of the pioneers of marriage counseling was an open admirer of Stalin's Russia. The book also explores the long overlooked impact of sex researchers Alfred Kinsey and Masters and Johnson on the development of marriage and family counseling; and considers the under-appreciated contributions to the marriage counseling movement of social reformer and activist Emily Mudd. Through these and other reform-minded Americans, Dowbiggin traces the concerted and deliberate way in which the old order of looking to family and community for guidance gave way to seeking guidance from marriage and family counseling professionals. Such a transformation, as this book makes clear, has been a key part of a major revolution in the way Americans think about their inner selves and their relations with friends, family, and community members--a revolution in which once deeply private concerns have been redefined as grave matters of public mental health.
Family and Society in American History
Author: Joseph M. Hawes
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252068737
Category : Domestic relations
Languages : en
Pages : 360
Book Description
The internal dynamics of families have altered dramatically as the family has gradually shifted from a unit of economic production to a collection of individuals in pursuit of different goals. Taking examples from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries, this eclectic reader illuminates changes in the American family and presents some of the methods and approaches used to study families. Linking family patterns with changing social circumstances, Family and Society in American History considers husband-wife and parent-child relationships in light of language usage, gender roles, legal structures, and other contexts. For example, new legal attitudes toward divorce emerged as marriage came to be seen as a site for individual satisfaction. Marital fertility declined as American society modernized and pregnancy and childbirth came to be seen as medical rather than family issues. Schools and other institutions of the state absorbed functions formerly performed by the family, and women's economic contributions to the family disappeared from view as the social values of the early republic divided the male (work) from the female (home) sphere. In the twentieth century, a new domestic role for men--Mr. Do-It-Yourself--developed in the wake of suburbanization. In addition to identifying trends within the dominant culture, contributors consider the experiences of ethnic and immigrant families, reassessing generational conflict in Italian Harlem, comparing the attitudes of male and female Mexican migrant workers in Kansas, and showing how Chinese immigrant women targeted for rescue by Presbyterian mission workers took advantage of the gap between Chinese and American culture to increase their leverage in family and marital relationships. A diverse compendium of family life, Family and Society in American History provides an intriguing commentary on the permeability of social structures and interpersonal behavior.
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252068737
Category : Domestic relations
Languages : en
Pages : 360
Book Description
The internal dynamics of families have altered dramatically as the family has gradually shifted from a unit of economic production to a collection of individuals in pursuit of different goals. Taking examples from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries, this eclectic reader illuminates changes in the American family and presents some of the methods and approaches used to study families. Linking family patterns with changing social circumstances, Family and Society in American History considers husband-wife and parent-child relationships in light of language usage, gender roles, legal structures, and other contexts. For example, new legal attitudes toward divorce emerged as marriage came to be seen as a site for individual satisfaction. Marital fertility declined as American society modernized and pregnancy and childbirth came to be seen as medical rather than family issues. Schools and other institutions of the state absorbed functions formerly performed by the family, and women's economic contributions to the family disappeared from view as the social values of the early republic divided the male (work) from the female (home) sphere. In the twentieth century, a new domestic role for men--Mr. Do-It-Yourself--developed in the wake of suburbanization. In addition to identifying trends within the dominant culture, contributors consider the experiences of ethnic and immigrant families, reassessing generational conflict in Italian Harlem, comparing the attitudes of male and female Mexican migrant workers in Kansas, and showing how Chinese immigrant women targeted for rescue by Presbyterian mission workers took advantage of the gap between Chinese and American culture to increase their leverage in family and marital relationships. A diverse compendium of family life, Family and Society in American History provides an intriguing commentary on the permeability of social structures and interpersonal behavior.
Communism and Revolution
Author: Cyril E. Black
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400874726
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 478
Book Description
In a period marked by growing fluidity between the West and the Communist nations, the role of revolution as an instrument of political and social change takes on an intense, possibly dangerous importance. Owing to the unacceptable risks of international war, revolutions in the less developed countries are increasingly taking the place of war as the main arena of great-power conflict. Thus, the attitudes and policies of the Communist countries toward revolution are of vital concern. In this book, thirteen specialists on Communist affairs consider how the Communists have used revolutions in the past, what they have deduced from their experience, and what prospects they hold for revolution in light of their ideological commitments. Originally published in 1964. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400874726
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 478
Book Description
In a period marked by growing fluidity between the West and the Communist nations, the role of revolution as an instrument of political and social change takes on an intense, possibly dangerous importance. Owing to the unacceptable risks of international war, revolutions in the less developed countries are increasingly taking the place of war as the main arena of great-power conflict. Thus, the attitudes and policies of the Communist countries toward revolution are of vital concern. In this book, thirteen specialists on Communist affairs consider how the Communists have used revolutions in the past, what they have deduced from their experience, and what prospects they hold for revolution in light of their ideological commitments. Originally published in 1964. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Huck’s Raft
Author: Steven Mintz
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674736478
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 472
Book Description
Like Huck’s raft, the experience of American childhood has been both adventurous and terrifying. For more than three centuries, adults have agonized over raising children while children have followed their own paths to development and expression. Now, Steven Mintz gives us the first comprehensive history of American childhood encompassing both the child’s and the adult’s tumultuous early years of life. Underscoring diversity through time and across regions, Mintz traces the transformation of children from the sinful creatures perceived by Puritans to the productive workers of nineteenth-century farms and factories, from the cosseted cherubs of the Victorian era to the confident consumers of our own. He explores their role in revolutionary upheaval, westward expansion, industrial growth, wartime mobilization, and the modern welfare state. Revealing the harsh realities of children’s lives through history—the rigors of physical labor, the fear of chronic ailments, the heartbreak of premature death—he also acknowledges the freedom children once possessed to discover their world as well as themselves. Whether at work or play, at home or school, the transition from childhood to adulthood has required generations of Americans to tackle tremendously difficult challenges. Today, adults impose ever-increasing demands on the young for self-discipline, cognitive development, and academic achievement, even as the influence of the mass media and consumer culture has grown. With a nod to the past, Mintz revisits an alternative to the goal-driven realities of contemporary childhood. An odyssey of psychological self-discovery and growth, this book suggests a vision of childhood that embraces risk and freedom—like the daring adventure on Huck’s raft.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674736478
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 472
Book Description
Like Huck’s raft, the experience of American childhood has been both adventurous and terrifying. For more than three centuries, adults have agonized over raising children while children have followed their own paths to development and expression. Now, Steven Mintz gives us the first comprehensive history of American childhood encompassing both the child’s and the adult’s tumultuous early years of life. Underscoring diversity through time and across regions, Mintz traces the transformation of children from the sinful creatures perceived by Puritans to the productive workers of nineteenth-century farms and factories, from the cosseted cherubs of the Victorian era to the confident consumers of our own. He explores their role in revolutionary upheaval, westward expansion, industrial growth, wartime mobilization, and the modern welfare state. Revealing the harsh realities of children’s lives through history—the rigors of physical labor, the fear of chronic ailments, the heartbreak of premature death—he also acknowledges the freedom children once possessed to discover their world as well as themselves. Whether at work or play, at home or school, the transition from childhood to adulthood has required generations of Americans to tackle tremendously difficult challenges. Today, adults impose ever-increasing demands on the young for self-discipline, cognitive development, and academic achievement, even as the influence of the mass media and consumer culture has grown. With a nod to the past, Mintz revisits an alternative to the goal-driven realities of contemporary childhood. An odyssey of psychological self-discovery and growth, this book suggests a vision of childhood that embraces risk and freedom—like the daring adventure on Huck’s raft.
Polarized Families, Polarized Parties
Author: Gwendoline M. Alphonso
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812250338
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
Polarized Families, Polarized Parties demonstrates that differing regional ideals of family have shaped party policy and ideological positions throughout the twentieth century.
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812250338
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Book Description
Polarized Families, Polarized Parties demonstrates that differing regional ideals of family have shaped party policy and ideological positions throughout the twentieth century.
Domestic Allegories of Political Desire
Author: Claudia Tate
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019536080X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 313
Book Description
Why did African-American women novelists use idealized stories of bourgeois courtship and marriage to mount arguments on social reform during the last decade of the nineteenth century, during a time when resurgent racism conditioned the lives of all black Americans? Such stories now seem like apolitical fantasies to contemporary readers. This is the question at the center of Tate's examination of the novels of Pauline Hopkins, Emma Kelley, Amelia Johnson, Katherine Tillman, and Frances Harper. Domestic Allegories of Political Desire is more than a literary study; it is also a social and intellectual history--a cultural critique of a period that historian Rayford W. Logan called "the Dark Ages of recent American history." Against a rich contextual framework, extending from abolitionist protest to the Black Aesthetic, Tate argues that the idealized marriage plot in these novels does not merely depict the heroine's happiness and economic prosperity. More importantly, that plot encodes a resonant cultural narrative--a domestic allegory--about the political ambitions of an emancipated people. Once this domestic allegory of political desire is unmasked in these novels, it can be seen as a significant discourse of the post-Reconstruction era for representing African-Americans' collective dreams about freedom and for reconstructing those contested dreams into consummations of civil liberty.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019536080X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 313
Book Description
Why did African-American women novelists use idealized stories of bourgeois courtship and marriage to mount arguments on social reform during the last decade of the nineteenth century, during a time when resurgent racism conditioned the lives of all black Americans? Such stories now seem like apolitical fantasies to contemporary readers. This is the question at the center of Tate's examination of the novels of Pauline Hopkins, Emma Kelley, Amelia Johnson, Katherine Tillman, and Frances Harper. Domestic Allegories of Political Desire is more than a literary study; it is also a social and intellectual history--a cultural critique of a period that historian Rayford W. Logan called "the Dark Ages of recent American history." Against a rich contextual framework, extending from abolitionist protest to the Black Aesthetic, Tate argues that the idealized marriage plot in these novels does not merely depict the heroine's happiness and economic prosperity. More importantly, that plot encodes a resonant cultural narrative--a domestic allegory--about the political ambitions of an emancipated people. Once this domestic allegory of political desire is unmasked in these novels, it can be seen as a significant discourse of the post-Reconstruction era for representing African-Americans' collective dreams about freedom and for reconstructing those contested dreams into consummations of civil liberty.