In this second Virginia History Blog in a series of four on Civil Rights and Modern Virginia — political, gender, local and cultural – we look at gender history, beginning with “The Reconstruction of White Southern Womenhood” addressing three generations in the mid to late 19th century and “Women Shaping the South”, a view of political agency by women over the 19th and 20th century.
Family and entrepreneurship is highlighted in “Archie and Amilie” during the Gilded Age, “Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs” among African American women in the first half of the 20th century, and “Shared Histories” between a mother and daughter 1929-1966. “Sexuality, Politics and Social Control” considers efforts to channel sexual practices from 1920 to 1945.
Current releases related to Virginia history in other eras from Spring 2018 journals can be found in previous Virginia History Blogs at Colonial Virginia – Spring 2018, Revolutionary Virginia – Spring 2018, and Civil War Virginia – Spring 2018, and New South and Modern Virginia – Spring 2018.
Reconstruction of White Southern Womanhood
Jane Turner Censer wrote The Reconstruction of White Southern Womanhood, 1865-1895 in 2003. It is available from the LSU Press, on Kindle and online new and used. A TVH top 300 pick for Virginia history.
Censer focuses primarily on Virginia and North Carolina across three generations of women. The thoughts and behavior can be distinguished among those born before 1820, between 1820 and 1849, and after 1850. The changes adopted in the third generation demonstrate the effects of post Civil War life among educated white women.
They asserted more independence in social activities and courting rituals. With the equalization of sibling inheritance, teaching provided many with the means to remain single or unmarried widowed. Their distaste for African American domestics led to a more hands on work ethic assisted with new cook stoves, sewing machines and washing machines. The most striking development was access to public life through the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, Ladies Memorial Associations concerned with reburial of Confederate dead, and the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
To buy “Reconstruction of White Southern Womanhood” at Amazon, click here.
Women Shaping the South
Angela Boswell and Judith N. McArthur edited Women Shaping the South: Creating and Confronting Change in 2006. It is available from the University of Missouri Press and online new and used.
This book of essays spans the 19th and 20th centuries, describing the political agency of women in southern localities. The first four address white southern women of the first half of the 19th century. The last six describe white and black women in their expanding roles confronting racial issues. Women lived in world that was more than black and white, it included inter-racial activism, cooperation and coexistence.
Women’s domestic roles expanded into family and business managerial duties, and made public advocacy for benevolent causes in the 19th century. In the 20th, women assumed political reform leadership. They opposed lynching, shaped Jim Crow regimes, expanded women’s right to vote, developed grassroots Popular Front politics of the South and were instrumental in the civil rights movement.
To buy “Women Shaping the South” at Amazon, click here.
Archie and Amelie
Donna M. Lucey wrote Archie and Amelie: Love and Madness in the Gilded Age in 2006. It is available from Broadway Books, on Kindle and online new and used.
This book narrates the troubled “success and celebrity” of a “golden couple”, made up of a rich, well-educated scion of the New York Astor family known for his business daring and benevolent charity, and a beautiful talented writer, the daughter of the politically connected Rives family of Virginia gentry, goddaughter of Robert E. Lee. The unhappy couple was burdened by complex interfamily interactions, and moved from Virginia to New York to various European locales.
Amelie’s was a celebrity, gaining national attention in popular magazines with poems and stories, including one scandalously erotic poem transparently portraying her husband Archie as the protagonist. Archie struggled to make his own independent mark in the world.
Lucey provides an elaborate portrait of a set of wealthy Americans during the Gilded Age, including background in ancestry and social circle networks. In a story of extravagance and romance, sibling rivalry and vindictiveness, promiscuity and divorce, mental illness and violence, the individuals survived, with Archie regaining control of his fortune after family committed him in an insane asylum, and Amelie married Russian prince Pierre Troubetzkoy.
To buy “Archie and Amelie” at Amazon, click here.
Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs
Psyche A. Williams-Forson wrote Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, and Power in 2006. It is available from the University of North Carolina Press, on Kindle and online new and used.
Williams-Forson connects African Americans through history with the cooking and consumption of chickens. Chicken was a part of the underground slave economy, it was sold at railroad stations and sold to blacks during the Great Migration north, and it remains a key ingredient in the success of “soul food” restaurants.
Williams-Forson discusses cultural depictions of African American chicken consumptions, from advertising campaigns, to the “greasy bag” that enabled blacks to eat on the road to bypass segregated roadside diners, to stereotyped “Traveling the Chicken Bone Express” of railroad lines.
To buy “Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs” at Amazon, click here.
Shared Histories
Angela Porter edited Shared Histories: Transatlantic Letters between Virginia Dickinson Reynolds and Her Daughter, Virginia Potter, 1929-1966 in 2006. It is available from the University of Georgia Press, on Kindle and online new and used.
The author is their daughter and granddaughter. The correspondence of her forebears is a recounting of personal lives against the local, national and international events during World War II in both England and the United States.
Virginia Reynolds was the daughter of a Richmond family. Her daughter Virginia Potter married a British officer of the Grenadier Guards, then lived in England after her marriage in 1935. Their social life of the rich and titled included members of the British Royal family, but Virginia Potter struggled with the challenges of a socialite facing burdens of an officer’s wife in wartime. In contrast her mother Virginia Reynolds in Virginia was a community volunteer and civic activist. Her letters include insight into issues of the day as well as social activity. She was an officer of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities who moved among the famous and titled in her own sphere, as well as contributing to the Poetry Society of Virginia and the Woman’s Club in Richmond.
To buy “Shared Histories” at Amazon, click here. https://amzn.to/2KTYpYZ
Sexuality, Politics and Social Control in Virginia
Pippa Holloway wrote Sexuality, Politics, and Social Control in Virginia, 1920-1945 in 2006. It is available from the University of North Carolina Press, on Kindle and online new and used. A TVH top 300 pick for Virginia history.
Amidst changes in public sexual behavior, the Virginia Assembly sought to regulate public forms of deviant behavior with public consequences. Unlike proposals for state interference in the personal lives of elites, those to regulate African Americans and lower class whites succeeded.
Measures included film censorship, birth control availability, control of venereal disease, eugenic sterilization and restrictions on interracial marriage. With World War II, both Richmond and Norfolk saw an influx of newcomers, but they managed the challenges differently. Richmond’s efforts to maintain public decency were generally applauded, while Norfolk gained a national reputation for a failure to control vice.
To buy “Sexuality, Politics and Social Control in Virginia” at Amazon, click here.
Additional history related to Virginia during this time period can be found at the Table of Contents of TheVirginiaHistorian website on the page for Gilded Age, New South and 20th Century. Titles are organized by topics, political and economic Virginia, social history, gender, religious, African American, and Wars in Virginia 1750-1824.
General surveys of Virginia History can be found at Virginia History Surveys. Other Virginia history divided by topics and time periods can be found at the webpage Books and Reviews.
Note: Insights for these reviews include those available from articles in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, the William and Mary Quarterly, the Journal of the Civil War Era, the Journal of Southern History and the Journal of American History.