Synopses & Reviews
This volume explores the roles black women played in their communities' social movements and the consequences of elevating women into positions of visibility and leadership. Martha Jones reveals how, throughout the 19th century, the "woman question" was at the core of movements against slavery and for civil rights.
Review
"Jones has brilliantly rehistoricized black feminism and reframed the 'woman question.' "
-- Journal of Southern History
Review
This work is a tour de force.
--Nancy A. Hewitt, Rutgers University
Review
"An excellent introductory study of nineteenth-century African American women and their very public quest for equality."
-- H-Net Reviews
Review
"Provides important background. . . . Highly recommended."
-- Choice
Review
"An important contribution to the growing literature on black women's political activism."
-- Signs
Review
"An excellent contribution to the literature on gender studies, African American studies, and nineteenth-century American history. . . . Jones masterfully articulates how African American women and their allies battled for equal standing. . . . She explains their odyssey and furthers our understanding of the role and contributions of black women both past and present."
-- North Carolina Historical Review
Review
"Jones distinguishes African American women's voices, spaces, and places, focusing on the unique aspects of their multidimensional existence. . . . Provides detailed accounts. . . . Documents how these women shaped and defined the nature of American public culture in the 19th century."
-Journal of African American History
Review
"This important study attests to the continuing vitality of the field of African American women's history."
-- Journal of American History
Synopsis
The place of women's rights in African American public culture has been an enduring question, one that has long engaged activists, commentators, and scholars.
All Bound Up Together explores the roles black women played in their communities' social movements and the consequences of elevating women into positions of visibility and leadership. Martha Jones reveals how, through the nineteenth century, the woman question was at the core of movements against slavery and for civil rights.
Unlike white women activists, who often created their own institutions separate from men, black women, Jones explains, often organized within already existing institutions--churches, political organizations, mutual aid societies, and schools. Covering three generations of black women activists, Jones demonstrates that their approach was not unanimous or monolithic but changed over time and took a variety of forms, from a woman's right to control her body to her right to vote. Through a far-ranging look at politics, church, and social life, Jones demonstrates how women have helped shape the course of black public culture.
About the Author
Martha S. Jones is assistant professor of history and Afroamerican and African studies and visiting assistant professor of law at the University of Michigan.