Synopses & Reviews
As African American women left slavery and the plantation economy behind, many entered domestic service in southern cities and towns. Cooking was one of the primary tasks they performed in white employers' homes, profoundly shaping southern foodways and culture. In the face of discrimination, long workdays, and low wages, African American cooks worked to assert measures of control over their own lives. As employment opportunities expanded in the twentieth century, most African American women chose to leave cooking for more lucrative and less oppressive manufacturing, clerical, or professional positions. Through letters, autobiography, and oral history, this book evokes African American women's voices from slavery to the open economy, examining their lives at work and at home.
Review
"Skillfully researched, lucidly written, and thoughtful. . . . This book appears at a crucial moment, presenting a beautifully crafted historical narrative that contextualizes Kathryn Stockett's
The Help. . . . Highly recommended."
-Choice
Review
"A fascinating examination of black women's domestic employment as they transitioned from being slaves to being free laborers."
-The North Carolina Historical Review
Review
"Well written, painstakingly researched, and carefully situated in the scholarly literature about foodways . . . . A rich and much needed addition."
-Florida Historical Quarterly
Review
"The robust descriptions of cooks' day-to-day tasks, their relationships with employers, and personal lives enrich the literature on domestic workers by drawing attention to specializations within the domestic-work labor market."-Register of the Kentucky Historical Society
Review
"[An] excellent new history of African American cooks in the U.S. South . . . . Sharpless's book offers a valuable model for labor historians, as it portrays work and life as inextricably linked but not mutually definitive."
-American Historical Review
Review
"A fresh and engaging read."
-Journal of Southern History
Review
"Thanks to Professor Sharpless for allowing these cooks to make real the travails and triumphs they endured. May her volume continue to break down the stereotypes that plague us to this day."
-Gastronomica
Review
"Sharpless' book is wonderfully detailed, and provides voice for the often overlooked African-American domestic. . . . Highly recommended."
-Labour/Le Travail
Review
"Sharpless offers an in-depth and complete portrait of African American cooks and the nature of their work and lives in this period. The cooks' voices are very compelling, and Sharpless does a good job of letting them largely speak for themselves."
-Oral History Forum
Review
"Using plantation account books, memoirs from servants, Federal Writers' Project narratives, cookbooks, and census records, Sharpless excavates the experiences of the black domestic working class in the South."
-Journal of African American History
Review
"Sharpless labors to fill a pantry with stories from the legion of southerners who experienced a remarkable slice of American history."
-Ohio Valley History
About the Author
Rebecca Sharpless is associate professor of history at Texas Christian University. She is author of Fertile Ground, Narrow Choices: Women on Texas Cotton Farms.