Synopses & Reviews
Volume 1 of
Mississippi Women enriched our understanding of womenand#8217;s roles in the stateand#8217;s history through profiles of notable, though often neglected, individuals. Volume 2 explores the historical forces that have shaped womenand#8217;s lives in Mississippi. Covering an expanse of time from early European settlement through the course of the twentieth century, the essays in the second volume acknowledge the stateand#8217;s diverse cultural and physical landscapes as they discuss how issues of race, gender, and class affected womenand#8217;s lives in various private and public spheres.
Essays on the stateand#8217;s early history focus on such topics as Choctaw and Chickasaw womenand#8217;s influence on Native American society and tribal councils, daily life for free black women in slaveholding Natchez, and the efforts of white Protestant women to establish churches on the frontier. Several essays cast new light on legal concerns, including two on the pivotal Married Womenand#8217;s Property Act of 1839, while other essays examine the impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on womenand#8217;s lives.
The boundaries of race and gender in Jim Crow Mississippi are explored through an essay on the women of the mixed-race Knight family, notably the educator, nurse, and missionary Anna Knight. Womenand#8217;s experiences with rural electrification, consumerism, civil rights activism, social and service clubs, and feminism are among the other twentieth-century topics addressed in the essays. Volume 2 concludes with an essay on storytelling and remembrance that centers on the family of Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist (and Mississippi native) William Raspberry.
Review
andquot;Mississippi Women: Their Histories, Their Livesandmdash;Volume 2 includes vibrant chapters from a number of prominent scholars in the field of southern history as well as from those who are just bringing their work to light. With this second book, a smart complement to the first volume, the authors analyze the forces of history in the lives of Mississippi women while demonstrating women's agency in a sophisticated and analytical manner. From Choctaw and Chickasaw tribal history to the International Women's Year Conferences of 1977, Mississippi offers a fascinating window into the world of southern women.andquot;andmdash;Elizabeth Hayes Turner, author of Women and Gender in the New South, 1865andndash;1945
Review
andquot;The essays in this volume confound our assumptions about Mississippi women and broaden our understanding of southern womanhood in general. The authors capture the breadth and diversity of womenandrsquo;s experiences in the state from eighteenth-century Chickasaw and Choctaw women to nineteenth- and twentieth-century black and white womenandmdash;all restricted by or challenging social, economic, and political constraints. This is an outstanding study of womenandrsquo;s history as southern history.andquot;andmdash;Beverly Greene Bond, editor of Tennessee Women: Their Lives and Times
Review
andquot;I can't wait to assign the second volume of Mississippi Women to my classes. This book provides historical scholarship that can at once illuminate stories and novels by writers like Eudora Welty and Toni Morrison and offer new insight into literary texts by their male counterparts. The book's essays paint a portrait of Mississippi womenandmdash;Native American, black, and whiteandmdash;which is relevant far beyond state lines or the boundaries of academic disciplines.andquot;andmdash;Suzanne Marrs, author of Eudora Welty: A Biography
Review
andquot;This volume is for all of us. Beautiful and powerful writing makes these essays accessible to those of us outside the scholarly world of historians and the academy. As a former civil rights lawyer, law professor, and Womenandrsquo;s Rights Program Officer at Ford responsible for its grant-making globally and in the United States, I cannot say enough about how important this volume is.andquot;andmdash;Barbara Y. Phillips, Former Ford Foundation Program Officer for Womenandrsquo;s Rights and Gender Equity
Review
andquot;The well-written and accessible essays in this volume add depth and rich texture to our understanding of the lives of women in Mississippi.andquot;--
Journal of Southern HistoryAbout the Author
Elizabeth Anne Payne is a professor of history at the University of Mississippi. Martha H. Swain is Cornaro Professor of History Emerita at Texas Womanand#8217;s University. Marjorie Julian Spruill is a professor of history at the University of South Carolina. Brenda M. Eagles, coauthor of The Blues: A Bibliographical Guide, was for many years bibliographical editor of the Journal of Mississippi History.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
elizabeth anne payne xi
Part One: The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
elizabeth anne payne 1
Choctaw and Chickasaw Women, 1690andndash;1834
james taylor carson 7
Stepping Lively in Place
The Free Black Women of Antebellum Natchez
joyce l. broussard 23
The Good Sisters
White Protestant Women and Institution Building in Antebellum Mississippi
randy j. sparks 39
Naked before the Law
Married Women and the Servant Ideal in Antebellum Natchez
joyce l. broussard 57
Cautious, Conservative, and Raced
Th e Maternal Presumption in Mississippi Child Custody Law, 1830andndash;1920
kevin d. mccarthy 77
Yankees in the Yard
Mississippi Women during the Vicksburg Campaign
michael b. ballard 97
Th e Gendered Construction of Free Labor in the Civil War Delta
nancy bercaw 113
Hearth and Home
Constructing Domesticity in Mississippi, 1830andndash;1920
susan ditto 128
Part Two: Th e Twentieth Century
elizabeth anne payne and martha h. swain 149
Mississippiandrsquo;s United Daughters of the Confederacy
Benevolence, Beauvoir, and the Transmission of Confederate Culture, 1897andndash;1919
karen l. cox 155
Negotiating Boundaries of Race and Gender in Jim Crow Mississippi
Th e Women of the Knight Family
victoria e. bynum 174
andldquo;Down in Tupelo Everybody Seems to Be Feeling Grandandrdquo;
Early Home Electrifi cation Promotion in Northeast Mississippi
sara e. morris 192
Gladys Presley, Dorothy Dickins, and the Limits of Female Agrarianism
in Twentieth- Century Mississippi
ted ownby 211
andldquo;Th e Lady Folk Is a Doerandrdquo;
Women and the Civil Rights Movement in Claiborne County, Mississippi
emilye crosby 234
Discovering Whatandrsquo;s Already Th ere
Mississippi Women and Civil Rights Movements
j. todd moye 249
In the Mainstream
Mississippi White Womenandrsquo;s Clubs in the Quest for Womenandrsquo;s Rights in the
Twentieth Century
martha h. swain 269
Th e Mississippi andldquo;Takeoverandrdquo;
Feminists, Antifeminists, and the International Womenandrsquo;s Year Conference of 1977
marjorie julian spruill 287
Th e Unknown Grandmother, African American Memory, and Lives of Service
in Northern Mississippi
elizabeth anne payne, hattye raspberry- hall,
michael de l. landon, and jennifer nardone 313
Selected Bibliography
brenda m. eagles 333
Contributors 345
Index 349