Families in Crisis in the Old South

Families in Crisis in the Old South PDF Author: Loren Schweninger
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807837504
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
In the antebellum South, divorce was an explosive issue. As one lawmaker put it, divorce was to be viewed as a form of "madness," and as another asserted, divorce reduced communities to the "lowest ebb of degeneracy." How was it that in this climate, the number of divorces rose steadily during the antebellum era? In Families in Crisis in the Old South, Loren Schweninger uses previously unexplored records to argue that the difficulties these divorcing families faced reveal much about the reality of life in a slave-holding society as well as the myriad difficulties confronted by white southern families who chose not to divorce. Basing his argument on almost 800 divorce cases from the southern United States, Schweninger explores the impact of divorce and separation on white families and on the enslaved and provides insights on issues including domestic violence, interracial adultery, alcoholism, insanity, and property relations. He examines how divorce and separation laws changed, how married women's property rights expanded, how definitions of inhuman treatment of wives evolved, and how these divorces challenged conventional mores.

Families in Crisis in the Old South

Families in Crisis in the Old South PDF Author: Loren Schweninger
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807837504
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 255

Get Book Here

Book Description
In the antebellum South, divorce was an explosive issue. As one lawmaker put it, divorce was to be viewed as a form of "madness," and as another asserted, divorce reduced communities to the "lowest ebb of degeneracy." How was it that in this climate, the number of divorces rose steadily during the antebellum era? In Families in Crisis in the Old South, Loren Schweninger uses previously unexplored records to argue that the difficulties these divorcing families faced reveal much about the reality of life in a slave-holding society as well as the myriad difficulties confronted by white southern families who chose not to divorce. Basing his argument on almost 800 divorce cases from the southern United States, Schweninger explores the impact of divorce and separation on white families and on the enslaved and provides insights on issues including domestic violence, interracial adultery, alcoholism, insanity, and property relations. He examines how divorce and separation laws changed, how married women's property rights expanded, how definitions of inhuman treatment of wives evolved, and how these divorces challenged conventional mores.

Families in Crisis in the Old South

Families in Crisis in the Old South PDF Author: Loren Schweninger
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807835692
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Families in Crisis in the Old South: Divorce, Slavery, and the Law

The Failure of Our Fathers

The Failure of Our Fathers PDF Author: Victoria E. Ott
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817321470
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
"Examines the evolving position of non-elite whites in 19th Alabama society--from the state's creation through the end of the Civil War--through the lens of gender and family"--

Sexual Violence and American Slavery

Sexual Violence and American Slavery PDF Author: Shannon Eaves
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469678829
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
It is impossible to separate histories of sexual violence and the enslavement of Black women in the antebellum South. Rape permeated the lives of all who existed in that system: Black and white, male and female, adult and child, enslaved and free. Shannon C. Eaves unflinchingly investigates how both enslaved people and their enslavers experienced the systematic rape and sexual exploitation of bondswomen and came to understand what this culture of sexualized violence meant for themselves and others. Eaves mines a wealth of primary sources including autobiographies, diaries, court records, and more to show that rape and other forms of sexual exploitation entangled slaves and slave owners in battles over power to protect oneself and one's community, power to avenge hurt and humiliation, and power to punish and eliminate future threats. By placing sexual violence at the center of the systems of power and culture, Eaves shows how the South's rape culture was revealed in enslaved people's and their enslavers' interactions with one another and with members of their respective communities.

The Journal of Sarah Haynsworth Gayle, 1827–1835

The Journal of Sarah Haynsworth Gayle, 1827–1835 PDF Author: Sarah Haynsworth Gayle
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817361189
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
The remarkable journal of the young wife of early Alabama governor John Gayle and a primary source of our knowledge about early Alabama and the antebellum American South

Journal of the Civil War Era

Journal of the Civil War Era PDF Author: William A. Blair
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469615983
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
The Journal of the Civil War Era Volume 4, Number 2 June 2014 TABLE OF CONTENTS Tom Watson Brown Book Award John Fabian Witt Civil War Historians and the Laws of War Articles Chandra Manning Working for Citizenship in Civil War Contraband Camps Michael F. Conlin The Dangerous Isms and the Fanatical Ists: Antebellum Conservatives in the South and the North Confront the Modernity Conspiracy Nicholas Guyatt "An Impossible Idea?" The Curious Career of Internal Colonization Review Essay John Craig Hammond Slavery, Sovereignty, and Empires: North American Borderlands and the American Civil War, 1660-1860 Book Reviews Books Received Professional Notes Jill Ogline Titus An Unfinished Struggle: Sesquicentennial Interpretations of Slavery and Emancipation

Religion and Slavery

Religion and Slavery PDF Author: James Hugh McNeilly
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Slavery
Languages : en
Pages : 102

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Book Description


Rethinking Rufus

Rethinking Rufus PDF Author: Thomas A. Foster
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820355224
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
Rethinking Rufus is the first book-length study of sexual violence against enslaved men. Scholars have extensively documented the widespread sexual exploitation and abuse suffered by enslaved women, with comparatively little attention paid to the stories of men. However, a careful reading of extant sources reveals that sexual assault of enslaved men also occurred systematically and in a wide variety of forms, including physical assault, sexual coercion, and other intimate violations. To tell the story of men such as Rufus-who was coerced into a sexual union with an enslaved woman, Rose, whose resistance of this union is widely celebrated-historian Thomas A. Foster interrogates a range of sources on slavery: early American newspapers, court records, enslavers' journals, abolitionist literature, the testimony of formerly enslaved people collected in autobiographies and in interviews, and various forms of artistic representation. Foster's sustained examination of how black men were sexually violated by both white men and white women makes an important contribution to our understanding of masculinity, sexuality, the lived experience of enslaved men, and the general power dynamics fostered by the institution of slavery. Rethinking Rufus illuminates how the conditions of slavery gave rise to a variety of forms of sexual assault and exploitation that affected all members of the community.

Bound in Wedlock

Bound in Wedlock PDF Author: Tera W. Hunter
Publisher: Belknap Press
ISBN: 0674237455
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
Winner of the Stone Book Award, Museum of African American History Winner of the Joan Kelly Memorial Prize Winner of the Littleton-Griswold Prize Winner of the Mary Nickliss Prize Winner of the Willie Lee Rose Prize Americans have long viewed marriage between a white man and a white woman as a sacred union. But marriages between African Americans have seldom been treated with the same reverence. This discriminatory legacy traces back to centuries of slavery, when the overwhelming majority of black married couples were bound in servitude as well as wedlock, but it does not end there. Bound in Wedlock is the first comprehensive history of African American marriage in the nineteenth century. Drawing from plantation records, legal documents, and personal family papers, it reveals the many creative ways enslaved couples found to upend white Christian ideas of marriage. “A remarkable book... Hunter has harvested stories of human resilience from the cruelest of soils... An impeccably crafted testament to the African-Americans whose ingenuity, steadfast love and hard-nosed determination protected black family life under the most trying of circumstances.” —Wall Street Journal “In this brilliantly researched book, Hunter examines the experiences of slave marriages as well as the marriages of free blacks.” —Vibe “A groundbreaking history... Illuminates the complex and flexible character of black intimacy and kinship and the precariousness of marriage in the context of racial and economic inequality. It is a brilliant book.” —Saidiya Hartman, author of Lose Your Mother

The Palgrave Handbook of the Southern Gothic

The Palgrave Handbook of the Southern Gothic PDF Author: Susan Castillo Street
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137477741
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 498

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Book Description
This book examines ‘Southern Gothic’ - a term that describes some of the finest works of the American Imagination. But what do ‘Southern’ and ‘Gothic’ mean, and how are they related? Traditionally seen as drawing on the tragedy of slavery and loss, ‘Southern Gothic’ is now a richer, more complex subject. Thirty-five distinguished scholars explore the Southern Gothic, under the categories of Poe and his Legacy; Space and Place; Race; Gender and Sexuality; and Monsters and Voodoo. The essays examine slavery and the laws that supported it, and stories of slaves who rebelled and those who escaped. Also present are the often-neglected issues of the Native American presence in the South, socioeconomic class, the distinctions among the several regions of the South, same-sex relationships, and norms of gendered behaviour. This handbook covers not only iconic figures of Southern literature but also other less well-known writers, and examines gothic imagery in film and in contemporary television programmes such as True Blood and True Detective.