Searching for Their Places : Women in the South Across Four Centuries [1 ed.] 9780826262882, 9780826214683

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Searching for Their Places

Southern Women A series of books developed from the Southern Conference on Women’s History sponsored by the Southern Association for Women Historians.

Series Editors BETTY BRANDON MICHELE GILLESPIE NANCY A. HEWITT WILMA KING THEDA PERDUE MARTHA H. SWAIN

Searching for Their Places WOMEN IN THE SOUTH ACROSS FOUR CENTURIES

EDITED BY

THOMAS H. APPLETON JR. AND ANGELA BOSWELL

UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI PRESS

COLUMBIA AND LONDON

Copyright © 2003 by The Curators of the University of Missouri University of Missouri Press, Columbia, Missouri 65201 Printed and bound in the United States of America All rights reserved 5 4 3 2 1 07 06 05 04 03 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Searching for their places : women in the South across four centuries / edited by Thomas H. Appleton Jr. and Angela Boswell. p. cm. — (Southern women) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8262-1468-1 (alk. paper) 1. Women—Southern States—History. I. Appleton, Thomas H., 1950– II. Boswell, Angela, 1965– III. Series. HQ1438 .S63 S42 2003 305.4'0975—dc21 2003002536 ⬁ ™ This paper meets the requirements of the 䡬 American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, Z39.48, 1984.

Text design: Stephanie Foley Jacket design: Jennifer Cropp Typesetting: Bookcomp, Inc. Printing and binding: Thomson-Shore, Inc. Typefaces: ITC Galliard and Goudy Han

For Beverly Jarrett with abiding affection and gratitude

Contents Introduction STEPHANIE COLE 1

Pocahontas Was Not the Only One Indian Women and Their English Liaisons in Seventeenth-Century Virginia VIRGINIA BERNHARD 13

‘‘Nocturnal Adventures in Mulatto Alley’’ Sex in Charleston, South Carolina CYNTHIA M. KENNEDY 37

‘‘Mah Pappy Belong to a Neighbor’’ The Effects of Abroad Marriages on Missouri Slave Families DIANE MUTTI BURKE 57

‘‘With Humbled and Painfully Blited Feelings’’ A Southwest Virginia Woman in “the Great Wourld” of Richmond, 1837–1840 NORMA TAYLOR MITCHELL 79

Active Faith The Participation of Louisiana Women in Antebellum Religious Services JULIA HUSTON NGUYEN 101

A History of Captivity and a History of Freedom Race in a Civil War Household of Single Women LAURA ODENDAHL 122

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Women’s Role in the Transformation of Winnie Davis into the Daughter of the Confederacy CITA COOK 144

Abbie Holmes Christensen and the Politics of Maternalism and Race Beaufort, South Carolina, 1890–1938 MONICA MARIA TETZLAFF 161

Promoting Tradition, Embracing Change The Poppenheim Sisters of Charleston SIDNEY R. BLAND 179

A Murder in the Kentucky Mountains Pine Mountain Settlement School and Community Relations in the 1920s DEBORAH L. BLACKWELL 196

Gender and Sectionalism in New Deal Politics Southern White Women’s Campaign for Labor Reform LANDON R. Y. STORRS 218

Exposing Anger and Discontent Esther Bubley’s Portrait of the Upper South during World War II MELISSA A. MCEUEN 238

‘‘With All Deliberate Speed’’ The Integration of the League of Women Voters of New Orleans, 1953–1963 SHANNON L. FRYSTAK 261

About the Editors and the Contributors 285 Index 287

Searching for Their Places

S T E P H A N IE C O L E

Introduction

I

N 1988, THE SOUTHERN ASSOCIATION FOR WOMEN HISTORIANS

(SAWH) sponsored the first Southern Conference on Women’s History, in an effort to encourage and recognize new work in southern women’s history. In 2000, the organization sponsored its fifth such conference, at the University of Richmond. The essays that follow, chosen as some of the best papers inspired by the Richmond conference, demonstrate that SAWH’s investment in developing the field over the years has proven worthwhile. After facilitating the publication of five essay collections (comprising over fifty essays based on original research), offering countless opportunities for oral presentations at triennial conferences, and promoting networks among scholars at the annual meeting of the Southern Historical Association and on the Internet, the SAWH has certainly furthered research and writing on the lives of southern women, expanding our knowledge about the South and women’s experiences there. That scholarship has also revised our understanding of the nation’s past, as it has proven without a doubt that the national experience looks different when southern women become the focus. Indeed, recent research—including that found in this volume—has helped to reshape not only the field of southern women’s history, but that of American history in general. As the project of supporting work in southern women’s history began, the editors of the first volume, Southern Women: Histories and Identities (1992), saw the potential for gains within regional, more than national, history. Taken as a whole, the essays in that volume would, they believed, “demonstrate the outlines of” a new “narrative history of southern women.” In tracing that new narrative, they noted that at the end of the eighteenth century authority for elite white women declined as the ideal of the “southern lady” emerged to constrain women’s public actions. After emancipation, shifts in the terms of white domination once again reconfigured the public role white women could play and likewise created a place 1

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for the voices and interests of African American women. This story, the editors pointed out, illustrated how attention to gender made simple interpretations about “progress” or “nadirs” impossible. Moreover, from the first volume, the editors identified a theme that each subsequent collection of essays has shared, namely, that the category of “southern women” is not monolithic, and differences between the region’s women by race and class have shaped both their identities and opportunities. As Jacquelyn Dowd Hall concluded in her historiographical overview that opened Southern Women, “women’s experience in the South teaches us . . . the destructive power of ideologies that draw invidious distinctions between women, thus obscuring their relationships and undercutting their alliances.”1 If those first editors focused on the impact of their collection for historians of southern women, their readers and the readership of the four volumes thereafter have come to realize the importance of this scholarship for U.S. history as a whole. Instructors in U.S. history survey courses, for example, rely, perhaps unwittingly, on recent developments in southern women’s history. Lectures on slavery discuss the special role enslaved women played in shaping the slave community. Their accounts of how enslaved women held black families together while testing the limits on acceptable challenges to mistresses’ authority emerge from research often first presented at SAWH conferences. Likewise, courses that include the Civil War have begun to cover the ways in which gender ideologies affected the conduct of the war in the South. Recent work has demonstrated that southern assumptions about white women’s frailty generated problems within slaveholding families and within the Confederate nation. Discussions of the Jim Crow era and the re-creation of white privilege attend now both to the role of gender and the actions of southern white women. Elite women and men used gender ideology to forge an image of white women’s purity that united whites across class lines and justified second-class citizenship for African Americans. African Americans who resisted Jim Crow customs and laws depended upon the reform efforts of women who shored up their position with respectability. Activists from Charlotte Hawkins Brown to Jo Anne Gibson Robinson illustrate the indirect challenge many race activists employed, and they have earned a place in many lectures alongside their more famous colleagues, Ida B. Wells and Rosa Parks. Even this brief overview demonstrates that standard elements of U.S. survey instruction—from slavery to the Civil War, and from Jim 1. Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, “Partial Truths: Writing Southern Women’s History,” in Southern Women: Histories and Identities, ed. Virginia Bernhard et al. (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1992), 28.

Introduction

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Crow to the civil rights movement—reflect recent scholarship in southern women’s history. The essays that follow, moreover, indicate that further shifts in the outlines and details of the way we teach U.S. history may be forthcoming.2 Just as paying attention to southern women’s history has revised our approach to large events in the national narrative, it has also played a part in altering general assumptions about gender and history. Many scholars now consider gender and race together, creating a new category they refer to alternately as either “gendered race” or “racialized gender.” Nancy Hewitt and Elsa Barkley Brown, among others, have shown that gender and race are not identities lived sequentially, but rather are elements of women’s experiences that “compound differences” (to use Hewitt’s image) between men and women in the past.3 If the first serious wave of women’s historians, who were focused on the Northeast, demonstrated the impact of class on gender, then southern women’s historians have extended the message as it pertains to the relationship between gender and race. Along with class, age, sexual orientation, legal status of dependency, and regional location, consideration of gender and race are integral to social history. Lessons about the complexity of personal identity, forged in research on southern women, now structure how historians examine all aspects of the American past. Southern women’s history has also helped to change the way we think about individual agency. That personal decisions have a political impact is a truism from the second wave of feminism of the 1970s. As the meaning of that connection has reshaped historical research, southern women his2. Recent influential scholarship includes Anya Jabour, “Between Mistress and Slave: Elizabeth Wirt’s White Housekeepers, 1808–1825,” and Norma Taylor Mitchell, “Making the Most of Life’s Opportunities: A Slave Woman and Her Family in Abingdon, Virginia,” in Beyond Image and Convention: Explorations in Southern Women’s History, ed. Janet L. Coryell et al. (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1998). Drew Gilpin Faust, Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996); Stephanie McCurry, “ ‘The Soldier’s Wife’: White Women, the State, and the Politics of Protection in the Confederacy,” in Women and the Unstable State in Nineteenth-Century America, ed. Alison Parker and Stephanie Cole (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1999); Grace Elizabeth Hale, Making Whiteness: The Culture of Segregation in the South, 1890–1940 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1998); Cheryl Thurber, “The Development of the Mammy Image and Mythology,” in Histories and Identities; Glenda Gilmore, Gender and Jim Crow: Women and the Politics of White Supremacy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996); Darlene Clark Hine, “Rape and the Inner Lives of Southern Black Women: Thoughts on the Culture of Dissemblance,” in Histories and Identities. 3. Nancy A. Hewitt, “Compounding Differences,” Feminist Studies 18 (summer 1992): 313–26; Elsa Barkley Brown, “ ‘What Has Happened Here’: The Politics of Difference in Women’s History and Feminist Politics,” Feminist Studies 18 (summer 1992): 295–312.

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torians have played a leading role in acknowledging the differences in the way we examine “ordinary” women’s behavior. Actions that may not at first appear to have a bearing in contests for power may well have a politicized meaning. The essays in this volume are particularly astute in assessing the ways in which southern women have claimed power, or “searched for their places,” and thereby illustrate how thoroughly new assumptions about agency have filtered into the best of current scholarship. Each essay suggests how southern women, individually or collectively, sought to empower themselves. Virginia Bernhard’s fascinating look at royal Indian women in the seventeenth-century Chesapeake Bay area provides the first example. These women, Bernhard finds, brokered stronger diplomatic ties between the cultures by using both sexual power and their influential position within Algonquian societies. Pocahontas is only the most well known example, according to Bernhard, as Indian women commonly used both their sexual appeal to the English and their position within werowance (ruling) families to sustain liaisons that alternately staved off deteriorating relations or lured English soldiers into Indian assaults. Although the English recognized and appreciated Indian women’s power and as a policy initially considered promoting marriages between colonizers and Indians in addition to that of Pocahontas and John Rolfe, by the eighteenth century they had abandoned this strategy. With the 1691 ban on intermarriage between Indians and the English, the Virginia Assembly helped to marginalize Indians and women. Prior to this shift, Indian women found a place of influence using opportunities created by their gender and sexuality to barter real power. Sex was often the source of any autonomy or power gained by women of color, according to Cynthia Kennedy’s study of eighteenth- and earlynineteenth-century Charleston. Building upon scholarship that has recognized the extent of negotiations that were a part of slavery, particularly in urban environs, Kennedy highlights the ways in which enslaved women translated intimate ties with white men into freedom, or at least into the partial freedom that money could bring. Noting that the law recognized few rights for African American women, Kennedy finds the use of such terms as concubinage or prostitution problematic, as they imply choices by those who could not exercise free will. Nevertheless, women of color who served as housekeepers for bachelor masters acted in many ways in the capacity of concubines, while those who hired out their time, sometimes even under the instruction of their masters, acted as prostitutes. These complementary roles brought mixed blessings. The necessity of playing these parts underscored African American women’s lack of control over their bodies, while their occasional ability to translate the roles

Introduction

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into more autonomy emphasized how physical appeal could augment their power. For enslaved women in antebellum Missouri, limiting masters’ access to their bodies was an ever-present goal, as Diane Mutti Burke uncovers in her study of the slave family in Missouri. The small size of Missouri slaveholdings meant that abroad marriages—where partners did not live on the same plantations—were common, as was sexual abuse by (and more consensual relations with) masters. Burke notes that references in narratives to white fathers were twice as common in Missouri Works Progress Administration (WPA) archives than in those from the South as a whole. Even slaves who found husbands on neighboring farms or plantations faced having their marriages split by sale or the wandering attention of faraway men. Despite these obstacles, enslaved women sustained marriages over many miles, while building, on occasion, strong families. They depended, not surprisingly, on ties within slave communities that they developed, as well as on the dedication of husbands who often traveled long distances for short visits with wives and children.4 The different sort of pressures that elite women faced in sustaining family relationships becomes the focus of Norma Taylor Mitchell’s essay on Mary Campbell, who overcame class and sectional barriers within Virginia to help launch her husband’s political career as governor of the state. Mitchell believes that Campbell’s own physical and mental weaknesses—her lack of faith in her niece’s marriageability and her inability to meet the demands of Richmond society—limited her success as a matchmaker for her young niece and as a political hostess. Read in conjunction with Burke’s essay, Mitchell’s analysis suggests how important antebellum women’s extended networks could be.5 Unlike her enslaved peers, Campbell was not facing dissolution of her marital ties. She nevertheless could have benefited from a more supportive and interactive circle of friends and family. Such networks served many Missouri slave women well but were not available to Campbell, at least sufficient to her needs. Also missing from Campbell’s life was an “active faith,” a factor that Julia Huston Nguyen’s essay identifies as essential in sustaining Louisiana women. Nguyen finds that women within every category and every faith sought influence within their own religious traditions. Whether enslaved, free, or free African American, whether Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish, 4. In addition to works cited above, see Brenda Stevenson, Life in Black and White: Family and Community in the Slave South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). 5. See also Marli Weiner, Mistresses and Slaves: Plantation Women in South Carolina, 1830–1880 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998); Joan Cashin, A Family Venture: Men and Women on the Southern Frontier (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).

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Louisiana women exercised religious choice, participated in services, critiqued sermons, acted in infant baptisms, and generally refused to remain passive observers. Nguyen’s argument extends analyses of evangelical religion and southern women to liturgical traditions as well, and in regions that were more mixed demographically and economically than the Cotton South.6 Her findings suggest another way that a large sector of southern women perceived power within their lives. Whereas community networks and religion could sustain both black and white women, the ravages of civil war affected their access to power differently.7 Using the women within the Lee household in Winchester, Virginia, as a test case, Laura Odendahl posits that white women initially reacted to incursions on their authority brought by Yankee occupation by reinforcing gender and racial conventions common to their society. As the war dragged on, however, and Yankee tolerance of Confederate women’s resistance wore thin, Laura Lee and Mary Greenhow Lee eventually lost the ability to exert authority over their slaves and within their own communities. Ultimately they had to leave their home while the African American women within their household were able to remain in Winchester with their families as freed women. Prior to the white Lees’ exile, the experience of the Lee women illustrates how the political expression during the Civil War remained gendered. Laura Lee, in particular, manipulated the manners and privileges of an elite woman to express her disdain for the town’s Yankee occupiers. Moreover, enslaved women hesitated before resisting their mistresses’ authority while they assessed the contingencies of war. They continued to wear masks of loyalty until they were certain that Union occupation had eliminated the possibility of reprisals. That possibility returned, of course, in the postwar period, after elite southerners reinstituted many rules that had once shored up the power of women like the Lees. Several of the essays in this volume chart how whites reclaimed their place over racial and economic subordinates in the years after the Civil War, substantiating the central role women played in that process. Together these analyses illustrate how not only class, but also degrees 6. Jean E. Friedman, The Enclosed Garden: Women and Community in the Evangelical South, 1840–1900 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985); Cynthia Lynn Lyerly, Methodism and the Southern Mind, 1770–1810 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). 7. Recent research not cited above includes LeeAnn Whites, The Civil War as a Crisis in Gender: Augusta, Georgia, 1860–1890 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995); Nancy Bercaw, “Politics of the Household during the Transition from Slavery to Freedom in Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, 1861–1876” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1996); Catherine Clinton, Tara Revisited: Women, War, and the Plantation Legend (New York: Abbeville Press, 1995).

Introduction

7

of cosmopolitan experience (and especially identification with “northern” values), shaped the ways in which white women engaged in New South society and politics. While an inviolate image of pristine southern womanhood was a chief element in the victory of white supremacy, that victory was also sustained by the invisibility of poor and black southerners, and the sense on the part of even those dedicated to reform that racial differences were meaningful.8 Cita Cook’s examination of the process by which southerners made Winnie Davis (Jefferson Davis’s youngest daughter) into an icon provides insight into the gendered nature of white supremacy. As white southern women embraced Winnie Davis as “The Daughter of the Confederacy,” Cook finds, they treated her as cherished royalty, above the fray of the normal human condition. Her desire at the age of twenty-six to marry a northern patent lawyer was greeted with dismay by her loyal neo-Confederate subjects, and the engagement was eventually broken, although perhaps more for financial reasons than out of Davis’s submission to the role of virginal icon. From then until her death eight years later, Davis appeared at Confederate reunions and United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) gatherings, rarely uttering a public word and receiving the adulation of thousands who saw her as the perfect southern woman, having excised from memory or notice any evidence that might suggest otherwise. After Davis’s untimely death, fruitless discussions about who might replace her shed light on her appeal. UDC members revered Davis for her unique identity as a perpetual daughter, Cook surmises, and why that should be offers a key to understanding the strategy of elite southern women to shore up their racial and class position. They sought to sustain a public image of “daughterly dependence over mature self reliance,” to “remain (motionless) on top of a gender pedestal” rather than acknowledge how much independence and autonomy their public activities entailed. The image better than the reality of white women’s lives justified white men’s zealous protection; that protection, in turn, necessitated the subjugation of those African American and impoverished southerners who potentially threatened virginal white womanhood. The irony of choosing to appear more helpless than they were, in service of a racial and class position that depended upon a gendered subordination, seems not to have registered with many New South women. But it did present obstacles, particularly for those interested in meeting the call to reform southern society, as Monica Tetzlaff finds in her study 8. In addition to works cited above, see Laura F. Edwards, Gendered Strife and Confusion: The Political Culture of Reconstruction (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997).

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of Abbie Holmes Christensen.9 Educated in Massachusetts, Christensen subscribed to maternalist ideas of women’s positive influence common to the North. Once back in South Carolina, she petitioned for improvements to libraries; prohibition, on behalf of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU); and woman suffrage—all opportunities to empower morally superior women. What Christensen discovered, however, was that when she extended these ideas to African Americans, whom she believed in need of white benevolence and “maternalism,” she encountered people who suspected her motives. To defer complaints, she simply worked behind the scenes, shunning public recognition of her founding role in a school for African American children, and using her grown children’s activities as fronts for her own reform interests. In other words, she was adept at acting helpless in order to secure support for her causes. The Poppenheim sisters, fellow South Carolinian reformers and the subject of Sidney Bland’s essay, shared Christensen’s ability to pass carefully through the thorny bushes of conservative southern society. Yet their goals and strategies were distinctly different. Whereas Christensen struggled to obscure her “outsider” status, Louisa and Mary Poppenheim benefited from the best Charleston credentials, that is, a good family and a close relationship with the church. Even more striking was the virtual absence of explicitly race-related issues in the Poppenheims’ extensive list of reform projects. Their interests ranged from environmental conservation and protective labor legislation to shoring up the blessed memory of the Confederacy and the moral influence of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs. As the Poppenheims held court in their Meeting Street mansion, they clearly recognized the power inherent in cultivating the image of gracious southern womanhood. They acceded to the need to appear as genteel southern ladies and to assert white superiority; in return they claimed influence in local, state, and regional affairs. For New South reformers who lacked the credentials of birth, wealth, and sense of innate racial superiority essential to such a strategy, hold9. See also Marjorie Spruill Wheeler, New Women of the New South: The Leaders of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the Southern States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); Anastatia Sims, The Power of Femininity in the New South: Women’s Organizations and Politics in North Carolina, 1880–1930 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1997); Elizabeth Hayes Turner, Women, Culture, and Community: Religion and Reform in Galveston, 1880–1920 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); Judith N. McArthur, Creating the New Woman: The Rise of Southern Women’s Progressive Culture in Texas, 1893– 1918 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998); Elizabeth York Enstam, “They Called It ‘Motherhood’: Dallas Women and Public Life, 1895–1918,” and Elna Green, “ ‘Ideals of Government, of Home, and of Women’: The Ideology of Southern White Antisuffragism,” in Hidden Histories; Mary Martha Thomas, “The Ideology of the Alabama Woman Suffrage Movement, 1890–1920,” in Histories and Identities.

Introduction

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ing onto community authority was more difficult.10 As Deborah Blackwell demonstrates in “Murder in the Mountains,” the efforts of Ethel DeLong Zande and Katherine Pettit to prosecute the 1920 murder of fellow teacher Lura Parsons placed “essential community good will in jeopardy and potentially hamper[ed] the already difficult task of running a settlement school in rural Kentucky.” As they aided the prosecution of a local veterinarian for the crime, DeLong Zande and Pettit encountered resentment from local elites who distrusted anyone not born there. “Outsiders” inevitably had questionable ideas and values. Whereas transplanted South Carolinian Abbie Christensen harbored an unseemly concern for the opportunities of African American children, DeLong Zande and Pettit developed an antagonism toward the encroachment of modern industries such as coal mining into “their” idyllic mountain communities. The unpopularity of such positions weakened these southern reformers’ efforts. An outsider label, sometimes applied incorrectly, also limited the authority of the women who lobbied for labor reform in the 1930s, the focus of Landon Storrs’s essay “Gender and Sectionalism in New Deal Politics.” Storrs notes that few southern whites spoke out for restrictions on working hours and conditions, as they were silenced both by the powerful textile industry that claimed to have “saved” the South after the war and by longstanding southern resistance to federal regulation. But of those who could resist this rhetoric, most were women. This insight alone makes Storrs’s research valuable, but her analysis of how gender played a part in the debate over New Deal reform measures reflects the benefits of placing southern women at the center of traditional topics in U.S. history. These reformers identified not with radical political thought, but rather with the National Consumers’ League, an organization that championed “ethical consumption,” or promoting better pay and shorter hours, as a path toward increasing the purchasing power of American workers. Women who took this public position often found themselves already “defined outside of . . . their region’s especially restrictive conventions of white female respectability.” Some were not “true southern ladies” because of birth or education (such as those “outsider” Jews or northern-educated women) or because of choices they had made (especially single women who refused to marry or former suffragists who had embraced the idea of a reforming state staffed 10. Southern working-class women had particular problems in maintaining leadership positions. See Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, “O. Delight Smith’s Progressive Era: Labor, Feminism, and Reform in the Urban South,” in Visible Women: New Essays on American Activism, ed. Nancy Hewitt and Suzanne Lebsock (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993); and “Disorderly Women: Gender and Labor Militancy in the Appalachian South,” Journal of American History 73 (1986): 354–82.

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by professional women). With such decidedly “unnatural” women leading the charge to reform, conservative opponents latched onto a predictable defense. The defeat of labor reform not only maintained employers’ control and white supremacy in general, it also prevented such women from challenging the status quo.11 As Storrs points out, some southern women became interested in labor reform out of their own sense that the abysmal position of black workers lowered the standard of living for all workers. Other crusaders against racial injustice in the World War II–era South shared this insight. Esther Bubley, whose photographs are the subject of Melissa McEuen’s essay, subverted her instructions from the Office of War Information (OWI) to show positive aspects of American domestic life and to document heady images of “American spirit” and “unity.” Based upon her stint as a Farm Security Administration photographer prior to her work with the OWI, Bubley had already developed a critical perspective on race relations in the South; her war work further convinced her that a segregated society fostered incivility and marred the southern landscape. During a six-week assignment in the Upper South in 1943, Bubley rode buses; she took photographs and conducted interviews with a dual purpose in mind. As her employer expected, she sought to document Americans’ famous talents for “getting by” despite wartime shortages, but she also acknowledged the misery of life in overcrowded and racially segregated communities. As McEuen notes, Bubley was invested in the political impact her photography could register; she “strove to compile as thorough and pointed a record as she possibly could.” Bubley, of course, worked out of Washington, and thus unlike women with families and homes in the Deep South, she did not have to worry about endangering her reputation within her community. In contrast, the League of Women Voters of New Orleans (LWVNO) struggled to determine how best to deal with the racial lines that divided their potential membership. Shannon Frystak’s close analysis of this process indicates that women in the Crescent City followed paths similar to those of other southern reformers who faced the racial dilemma.12 Initial efforts to integrate 11. Similar examples of 1930s women reformers can be found in Linda Gordon, Pitied but Not Entitled: Single Mothers and the History of Welfare (New York: Free Press, 1994); Susan L. Smith, “Making the Connection: Public Health Policy and Black Women’s Volunteer Work,” in Beyond Image and Convention. 12. Darlene O’Dell, Sites of Southern Memory: The Autobiographies of Katharine Du Pre Lumpkin, Lillian Smith, and Pauli Murray (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2001); Joanna Bowen Gillespie, “Sarah Patton Boyle’s Desegregated Heart,” and Marcia

Introduction

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the LWVNO in the 1940s by Southern Conference for Human Welfare supporter Emily Blanchard were resoundingly defeated. Blanchard lost her membership in the LWVNO because she confronted the league’s conservative president, who believed that crossing racial lines imperiled the respect granted to elite women. Like the liberal reformers highlighted in Storrs’s essay, Blanchard wanted racially blind justice; her opponent, in contrast, resembled the Poppenheim sisters in that she sought progress for whites alone. By 1953, however, new leadership admitted the New Orleans league’s first black members. Unfortunately, integration of any sort became an extreme and radical act in a climate of massive resistance to Brown v. Board of Education, and the Louisiana legislature placed insurmountable obstacles in the league’s way. Unable to work out the logistics of public meetings with both black and white members, and confounded by legislation that banned a prominent constituency, public school teachers, from joining integrated organizations, the LWVNO backtracked. Finally, by 1960, under the leadership of women such as Rosa Keller and Mathilde Dreyfous, who were willing to press against expectations based on their white respectability, the league created a way to assert its members’ vision of what an organization dedicated to fair elections and democratic voting should look like. Frystak’s recounting of the substantial difficulties the LWVNO encountered in pursuing integration reminds us that southern women’s politics were diverse; as some southern women sought “their place,” they intentionally pushed aside other groups of southern women. One of the chief benefits of collections such as this one is the ability to highlight the rich diversity of southern women’s history. In these thirteen essays we find myriad pathways to power that women in the South have followed over the course of four centuries, pursuing sexual liaisons or religious salvation, creating images as paragons or iconoclasts, revering a (revised) nostalgic memory of the grandeur of a world that has disappeared, or challenging others to accept the inevitability of progress and the promise of a better future. Thus, understanding southern women’s experience mandates not only sensitivity to the obvious differences of race, class, age, sexual orientation, legal status, and place of residence. It also requires a willingness to recognize the multiple strategies that emerged out of these differences and the peculiarities of individual viewpoints. Nothing is certain save that G. Synnott, “Alice Norwood Spearman Wright: Civil Rights Apostle to South Carolinians,” in Beyond Image and Convention; Roseanne V. Comacho, “Race, Region, and Gender in a Reassessment of Lillian Smith,” in Histories and Identities.

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southern women have always sought to influence their lives and the lives of their families, communities, section, and nation. This collection and the four that preceded it illuminate the persistent themes of diversity and agency within southern women’s history. But by now they also demonstrate the accomplishments of a field that has come into its own. If the confining ideals of womanhood, and the barriers of class and race, kept southern women in the past “searching for their places,” southern women historians are not so constrained. They have found their place—at the center of the story of the South and of the nation.

V IR G IN IA B E R N H A R D

Pocahontas Was Not the Only One Indian Women and Their English Liaisons in Seventeenth-Century Virginia

F

EW STORIES IN AMERICAN HISTORY ARE AS POWERFUL AND

pervasive as that of Pocahontas. The tale of the young Indian princess and her relationship with John Smith has long fascinated historians, poets, playwrights, novelists, and moviemakers. Images of Pocahontas have varied widely, from the solemn young woman in Elizabethan dress in the Van de Passe engraving of 1616, to the demure, white-clad maiden kneeling at her baptism in John Gadsby Chapman’s 1840 painting, to the curvaceous, scantily clad teenager in the 1995 Walt Disney film. Pocahontas’s role in early American history has grown to such mythic proportions that it has all but obscured another part of that narrative. She was not the only Indian woman to have a liaison with an Englishman; she is merely the most famous. Other Indian women also established contacts with Englishmen in early Virginia, and they, like Pocahontas, helped to shape both the discourses and the experiences of the Elizabethan adventurers who encountered them. In these women’s relationships with the English, the word liaison can be defined in two ways: “An intimate relation or connection. An illicit intimacy between a man and a woman,” or “A communication for establishing and maintaining mutual understanding and cooperation (as between parts of an armed force).” Thus “liaison” has to do with sex and with power. Both definitions are apt in interpreting the relationships between Indian women and Englishmen in seventeenthcentury Virginia.1 The author would like to acknowledge the assistance of Margaret Graeff and Connie Hamlin, students in the undergraduate research program at the University of St. Thomas, in the preparation of this essay. 1. Robert S. Tilton, Pocahontas: The Evolution of an American Narrative (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Gesa Mackenthun, Metaphors of Dispossession: American Beginnings and the Translation of Empire 1492–1637 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997); Rebecca Blevins Faery, Cartographies of Desire: Captivity, Race, and Sex in the Shaping of an American Nation (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999).

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The English who came to Virginia were soon to discover that among the native peoples, gender and power were related in unfamiliar ways. Society in the Chesapeake Bay region, as in many other regions of North America, was matrilineal, and political power was transferred through maternal, rather than paternal, descent. Among the Algonquin peoples of the Chesapeake, a ruler, or werowance, inherited his position from his mother. The werowance’s siblings, not his own children, formed the line of succession. Thus, a werowance’s sister might succeed him as a werowansqua. The English who arrived in Virginia in 1607 would have easily accepted the idea of a woman wielding political power: Queen Elizabeth I, who had died in 1603, had ruled England for forty-five years. But they would not have understood that paternity in Virginia counted for naught. Since the power to rule passed from the mother, it did not matter who the father was. John Smith made note of this in his account of his very first visit to Powhatan, the ruler of most of the Algonquin tribes in the Chesapeake. “Powhatan,” Smith wrote, “hath three brethren, and two sisters, each of his brethren succeeded other. For the Crowne, their heyres inherite not, but the first heyres of the Sisters, and so successively the weomens heires.” An examination of Virginia’s seventeenth-century history suggests that some of these highly placed Indian women formed liaisons, in both meanings of that word, with the Englishmen, using their sexuality and their power to manipulate the newcomers.2 Indian women’s relationships with Englishmen in the seventeenth century, except for Pocahontas’s, have been for the most part invisible. Although recent studies have explored the intricate connections between race, class, and gender in the English colonies in North America, these have focused mainly on the relations between English and Africans, not English and Indians. Until recently, Indian women themselves have been largely invisible. For example, an article entitled “Women in Bacon’s Rebellion” makes no mention of Indian women, except a reference in one The first definition of liaison is from The Oxford English Dictionary (London: Oxford University Press, 1971); the second, from Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 10th ed., (Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1993). 2. See Helen C. Rountree, The Powhatan Indians of Virginia: Their Traditional Culture (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989), 93, 112–13; and Robert Steven Grumet, “Sunksquaws, Shamans, and Tradeswomen: Middle Atlantic Coastal Algonkian Women during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” in Women and Colonization: An Anthropological Perspective, ed. Mona Etienne and Eleanor Leacock (New York: J. F. Bergin, 1980), 43–62. Smith’s observation is in “A True Relation of . . . Virginia . . . ,” in The Complete Works of Captain John Smith, ed. Philip L. Barbour (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1986), 1:59–61. On Powhatan’s lineage see Frederick W. Gleach, Powhatan’s World and Colonial Virginia: A Conflict of Cultures (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997), 140–43.

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footnote, even though an Indian queen and four other Indian women appear in early narratives of that conflict, and two Indian queens were among the principal signers of a treaty in 1677. Another article, “ ‘Men, Women, and Children’ at Jamestown: Population and Gender in Early Virginia, 1607–1610,” deals only with the English population and does not mention Indian women. Yet the English population at this time was less than five hundred, while the Indians in the area numbered thirteen to fifteen thousand. For much of the seventeenth century, in fact, Indian women far outnumbered English women in colonial Virginia.3 For many years the logical explanation for leaving Indian women out of the history of early Virginia was that their actions did not move the narrative forward. The assumption has been that native women were, of course, present, but as females their contribution to the history was merely to fulfill their gender roles as bearers of children and preparers of food. That assumption, however, rests on an Anglocentric view of gender roles and cultural norms. Indian women not only prepared the food; they planted it, harvested it, stored it, and controlled its distribution. In a hunter-gatherer culture, that gave Indian women considerable power. This fact was little noticed by the Englishmen at Jamestown and by the historians who came after them. In the nineteenth century, with its traditional emphasis on military and political, or “drum and trumpet,” history, the word Indian was virtually synonymous with male. Until late in the twentieth century other historians saw little reason to change that perspective, and thus the Indian women in Virginia’s history were lost from view. That history, as the ethnohistorian Helen Rountree observes, had an “almost myopic emphasis on men’s activities: war, politics, and religion.” But Indian women were certainly not invisible to the Englishmen who first encountered them.4 John Smith became acquainted with Pocahontas under somewhat unusual circumstances, but his countrymen in Virginia met other Indian females who served them food, tempted them with offers of sex, and, in 3. Nancy Shoemaker, ed., Negotiators of Change: Historical Perspectives on Native American Women (New York: Routledge, 1995), 1–20; Susan Westbury, “Women in Bacon’s Rebellion,” in Southern Women: Histories and Identities, ed. Virginia Bernhard et al. (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1992), 31 n. 1; and Virginia Bernhard, “ ‘Men, Women, and Children’ at Jamestown: Population and Gender in Early Virginia, 1607–1610,” Journal of Southern History 58 (Nov. 1992): 599–618. See also Thomas Mathew, “The Beginning, Progress and Conclusion of Bacon’s Rebellion, 1675–1676”; and John Berry and Francis Moryson, “A True Narrative of the Late Rebellion in Virginia, by the Royal Commissioners, 1677,” both in Narratives of the Insurrections, 1675–1690, ed. Charles M. Andrews (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1915), 14–41, 105–41. On population estimates see Gleach, Powhatan’s World, 169. 4. Helen C. Rountree, “Powhatan Indian Women: The People Captain John Smith Rarely Saw,” Ethnohistory 45, no. 1 (winter 1998): 10–11. The quotation is on p. 2.

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more than one instance, betrayed and killed them. Gender was one of several cards the Indians—both male and female—played against the English in their efforts to gain power over the newcomers. They played that card in various ways. The Indians’ hospitable practice, for example, of offering women as sex partners to Englishmen who were their overnight guests was a means of asserting cultural dominance, not to mention a way of disorienting the English visitors. Virginia colonist William Strachey discreetly described the Virginia Indians’ treatment of a male guest, whether from experience or hearsay is not apparent: “And at night they bring him to the lodging appointed for him, whither upon their departure they send a young woman fresh painted red with pochone and oyle, to be his bedfellow.” Because Indians believed that sexual intercourse left a man temporarily less powerful (Indian men abstained from it before battle, for example), offering sex to the Englishmen may also have been perceived as a way of weakening them. But Indian women were not merely passive sex objects.5 Let us begin with Pocahontas. The story of her “rescue” of Captain Smith is too well known to warrant retelling here. It took place in the winter of 1607, and its meaning is still a matter of debate among scholars. Smith did not mention it in his True Relation of . . . Virginia, published in 1608. There is no record of the rescue until 1624, when Smith published his General History of Virginia. He did mention it in a letter to Queen Anne in 1616, the text of which he included in his 1624 book, but the original letter has never been found. John Smith first described Pocahontas in 1608 as “a child of tenne yeares old, which not only for feature, countenance, and proportion, much exceedeth any of the rest of his [the Indian king, her father] people, but for wit, and spirit, the only Nonpariel [unique, having no equal] of his Country.” Smith wrote of her with admiration and affection but without any particular consciousness of her gender. His description could just as easily suit a male child. In contrast, William Strachey was acutely aware of her gender. Strachey described Pocahontas as “a well featured but wanton yong girle . . . sometymes resorting to our fort, of the age then of 11, or 12 yeares.” The word wanton in its Elizabethan context meant “undisciplined,” “naughty,” or “unruly,” but it could also mean “lascivious or unchaste.” Strachey noted that Pocahontas would “gett the 5. William Strachey, The Historie of Travell into Virginia Brittania [1612], ed. Louis B. Wright and Virginia Freund (London: Hakluyt Society, 1953). On gender and power see Kathleen Brown, “The Anglo-Algonquian Gender Frontier,” in Negotiators of Change, 26–48; Theda Perdue, “Columbus Meets Pocahontas in the American South,” in Taking Off the White Gloves: Southern Women and Women Historians, ed. Michele Gillespie and Catherine Clinton (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1998), 90.

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boyes forth with her into the marketplace and make them wheel, falling on their hands, turning their heels upwards, whom she would follow and wheel so herself naked as she was all the fort over.” Indian children went naked until puberty; after that, they adopted adult dress: loincloths for males, deerskin aprons for females. The effects of the prepubescent Pocahontas’s nakedness on English boys and men accustomed to layer upon layer of clothing for both sexes can only be imagined.6 When she was not playing games with the boys at Jamestown, Pocahontas played a far more serious role: carrying messages and gifts, she served as the liaison between her father, Powhatan, and the English colonists. Pocahontas’s relationship with the Jamestown colonists had more to do with the power she drew from her father’s position than with her gender. In the spring of 1608, she and “her attendants” brought food to Jamestown “that saved many of their lives, the els [else] for all this had starved with hunger.” On another occasion, Powhatan sent Pocahontas to Jamestown to inquire after some Indians the English had been holding captive and planning to execute. It was Pocahontas “for whose sake only he [Smith] fained to save their lives and graunt them liberty.” Thus Powhatan’s daughter in this liaison played an active, significant role in the developing Jamestown settlement. She may also have established another kind of liaison, the gender-related kind, with John Smith.7 The exact nature of the relationship between Pocahontas and Smith has been a matter of speculation from that day to this. Before Smith left Virginia in the fall of 1609, Pocahontas had reached puberty, changing from a coltish child to a nubile young woman. According to the reports of Smith’s contemporaries in Virginia, Smith “would have made himselfe a king, by marrying Pocahontas, Powhatans daughter. It is true she was the very nomparell of his kingdome, and at most not past 13 or 14 yeares of age. Very oft she came to our fort, with what she could get for Captaine Smith.” If Smith had married this young princess, the union “could no way have intitled him by any right to the kingdome, nor was it ever suspected hee had ever such a thought, ore more regarded her, or any of 6. On the Pocahontas stories see Gleach, Powhatan’s World, 116–21; Mackenthun, Metaphors of Dispossession, 207–20; and Faery, Cartographies, 112–18. Barbour, Complete Works, 2:150–51, 258–62; see also A. J. Leo Lemay, Did Pocahontas Save John Smith? (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992); Helen C. Rountree, Pocahontas’s People: The Powhatan Indians of Virginia through Four Centuries (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990), 38–39. The quotations are in Barbour, Complete Works, 1:93; and Strachey, Historie, 72. Definitions are from the Oxford English Dictionary. On Indian dress see Karen O. Kupperman, Indians and English: Facing Off in Early America (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000), 43–44, 48–54, 66–68. 7. Barbour, Complete Works, 2:152, 1:220.

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them, then in honest reason, and discreation he might.” Nonetheless, “If he would he might have married her.”8 John Smith was twenty-nine years old; Pocahontas was not even half his age. One overlooked clue to the nature of the liaison between Smith and Pocahontas may lie in an event that took place in the fall of 1608. Smith and four other Englishmen went to the village of Werowocomoco (where the famous rescue scene had taken place a year earlier) to invite Powhatan to Jamestown for his coronation. He was not there, but was “30 myles of[f]” and “was presently sent for.”9 That evening, while Smith and the others awaited Powhatan’s return the next day, “Pocahontas and her women” entertained the English visitors with one of the most intriguing Indian ceremonies on record. With the guests and other “men, women, and children” in the village seated around a fire, there was a chorus of a “hydeous noise and shreeking” in the adjacent woods. This alarmed the Englishmen, who seized their weapons in preparation for a sudden attack. But in a moment Pocahontas came to reassure them that no harm was intended. Then the ceremony began: [T]hirtie young women came naked out of the woods, onely covered behind and before with a few greene leaves, their bodies all painted, some of one colour, some of another, but all differing, their leader had a fayre payre of Bucks hornes on her head, and an Otters skinne at her girdle, and another at her arme, a quiver of arrowes at her backe, a bow and arrowes in her hand; the next had in her hand a sword, another a club, another a pot-sticke, all horned alike.10

Thus attired, adorned with paint of various colors usually reserved for men (red was the color for women, but men on occasion wore blue, black, and yellow as well as red) and armed in a mimicry of gender roles, from men’s hunting (the buck’s antlers, otter skins, bows and arrows) and warfare (the sword and club) to women’s cooking (the pot-stick), these young women “cast themselves in a ring about the fire, singing and dauncing.” After the dance, which lasted “neare an houre,” was done, the young women invited Smith to their lodging, where, as he tells it (writing of himself in the third person), “all these Nymphes more tormented him then ever, with crowding, pressing, and hanging about him, most tediously crying, Love you not me? love you not me?” Then there was a feast with more 8. Ibid., 1:274. 9. Ibid., 2:182–83 (Smith’s account of what followed in Powhatan’s absence). 10. Ibid., 1:183. For a discussion of colors, see Rountree, Powhatan Indians, 76–77.

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singing and dancing, and afterward, “with fire brands in stead of Torches they conducted him to his lodging.”11 With this tantalizing conclusion, Smith leaves us to wonder what happened next. Who conducted him to his lodging? Where was Pocahontas? Smith’s earlier use of the phrase “Pocahontas and her women” could mean that Pocahontas was among the dancers. It also implied that she was in charge of the proceedings. The other young women were no doubt some of Powhatan’s many wives. On an earlier visit to Werowocomoco, Smith reported that Powhatan had “at his head and feete a handsome young woman: on each side [of] his house sat twentie of his Concubines, their heads and shoulders painted red, with a great chaine of white beads about each of their neckes.” Smith, the monogamous-minded Englishman, did not perceive these young women as wives. It was probably a group of them who danced in the ceremony arranged by Pocahontas. Smith’s description of the dance leaves a great many questions unanswered. In a recent discussion of this episode, Rebecca Blevins Faery observes that “clearly Smith was confronted with a ritual of some kind, the contextual meaning of which he either failed to understand or was unable or unwilling to transcribe.” Dancing and singing and music were common pastimes among the Indians of the Chesapeake, especially in the evenings when the day’s work was done. Strachey noted the practice of dancing and singing “amorous dittyes.” Such evening festivities could be a prelude to lovemaking. Smith’s account thus invites speculation. Why does he make a point of mentioning that the young women used firebrands (sticks of wood taken from the fire) instead of torches to conduct him to his lodgings? Firebrands would not burn long. Does Smith mean, perhaps, to suggest their haste to make love in the dark? Were the four Englishmen who accompanied Smith also given this special treatment? And the most important question of all: in the absence of Powhatan, did Pocahontas and the other young women stage this unauthorized ceremony for their own amusement?12 If these young women designed their dance to flaunt their sexuality before the Englishmen and to mock masculine prowess in hunting and fighting—the principal activities of Indian males—then this ceremony suggests not only Indian women’s awareness of the importance of gender 11. Barbour, Complete Works, 1:183. 12. Ibid., 2:155; Faery, Cartographies of Desire, 108. On dancing and singing, see Strachey, Historie, 85–86, 112–13. On gender issues see Kathleen Brown, Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Race, and Power in Colonial Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), chap. 2; Grumet, “Sunksquaws,” 49–50; and Rountree, Powhatan Indians, 88–89.

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roles, but also a shrewd and subtle humor in the use of them. Their costumes, consisting mainly of “a few green leaves,” were apparently startling even to John Smith, who was by then familiar with Indian women’s habit of wearing nothing but deerskin aprons. The young women’s displaying of their femininity while pretending to be men, hunting and warring in their songs and dances, was all in fun, designed for their own as well as their audience’s amusement. It is difficult, however, to imagine such a performance in the presence of Powhatan, the dignified ruler of all the Chesapeake. But as everyone knew, he was upriver some thirty miles and could not possibly arrive that evening. If Pocahontas had an adolescent crush on John Smith, she may have taken advantage of her father’s absence to contrive a ceremony that would entertain Smith, and perhaps flaunt her budding sexuality before him. Later that winter, Pocahontas risked her life to warn Smith and his men of her father’s planned attack on them. On an icy January night in 1609, when the river “was frozen neare halfe a myle from the shore,” Powhatan, with his wives and children, left Smith and eighteen other Englishmen to be entertained at Werowocomoco, intending to send them a feast and then to have them killed while they ate. But Pocahontas overheard this plot, and “in that darke night came through the irksome woods” to warn Smith and his men. To thank her, Smith tried to give her “Such things as shee delighted in,” but she refused his gifts. “With the teares running downe her cheekes, shee said . . . if Powhatan should know it, she were but dead, and so shee ranne away by her selfe as she came.” Thanks to Pocahontas, Smith was put on his guard, and he and eighteen of Jamestown’s approximately two hundred Englishmen escaped with their lives.13 When Smith, wounded in a gunpowder explosion, left Virginia in the fall of 1609, Pocahontas continued to help the English—and to shape the course of the colony’s history. But English-Indian diplomatic relations deteriorated rapidly, and Powhatan became openly hostile to the settlers at Jamestown. Pocahontas did what she could. When her father betrayed and killed thirty Englishmen, “Pokahontas the Kings daughter saved a boy called Henry Spilman [Spelman] that lived many yeeres after, by her meanes, amongst the Patawomekes.” She sent Spelman to live with a remote people almost fifty miles away, a safe distance from Powhatan’s wrath. Spelman later served the English as an interpreter and died in 1623.14 It is clear that Pocahontas, in the course of early Virginia history, was far more 13. Barbour, Complete Works, 2:198–99, 2:189. 14. Ibid., 2:232 (quotation). On Spelman see 1:xlix. See also Spelman’s “Relation of Virginea” (1613?) in The Travels and Works of Captain John Smith, ed. Edward Arber and A. G. Bradley (New York, 1910), 1:ci–cxiv.

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than the child princess who “rescued” John Smith in 1607. Powhatan’s favorite daughter formed a close liaison of an undetermined nature with one Englishman in particular, but she also wielded power as a liaison between her father and the English colonists in Virginia. In the latter role she served as a diplomatic courier and goodwill ambassador, easing the way for contacts between Indian and European cultures. She also braved the wrath of Powhatan to save the lives of Englishmen, not just once, but several times. Her final liaison, her marriage to the Virginia colonist John Rolfe, would shortly follow. Besides Pocahontas, other Indian women were active participants, not mere spectators, in early encounters with the English in the first years of the Jamestown settlement. In May 1607, when Christopher Newport, John Smith, and an exploring party sailed upriver from Jamestown, the “Queene of Apamatuck kindely entreated” them to visit “her people.” This woman, whose name was Opossunoquonuske, was the sister of Coquonasum, the king, or werowance, of Appomattoc, a town under Powhatan’s dominion. In the matrilineal structure of Chesapeake society, Opossunoquonuske’s kinship ties entitled her to rule in her own right. She was the werowansqua of a village near Appomattoc. She may have met the Englishmen earlier, when they visited a place called Arsetecke [Arrohattoc], about five miles from Appomattoc. The native ruler there, whom the English described as the king, “most kindely entertained” them. The following day, the Englishmen visited the queen of Appomattoc at a place that Gabriel Archer, in his report, called “Kynd Womans Care.” Opossunoquonuske, perhaps having observed or heard of the hospitality meted out by the king of Arrohattoc, may have wanted to establish her own relations with the newcomers. Her queenly bearing impressed the English visitors. As Archer noted, they saw her “comminge in the same fashion of state as Pawhatah [Powhatan] or Arahatec [Arrohattoc], yea rather with more Majesty.” Accompanied by female attendants, she was adorned with “much Copper.” A commanding presence, she allowed “none to stand or sitt neere her.” The queen also impressed the English visitors with her bravery, asking them to demonstrate the firing of a musket. Archer observed that “she shewed not neere the like feare as Arahatec [the king of Arrohattoc] though he be a goodly man.”15 As for the queen’s appearance, Archer saw her as a “fatt, lustie, manly woman,” while Smith described her “a comely yong Salvage.” Since both 15. Barbour, Complete Works, 1:31; Rountree, Powhatan Indians, 117; Barbour, Complete Works, 1:29; Gabriel Archer, A Breif Description of the People, 1607, in The Jamestown Voyages under the First Charter, 1606–1609: Documents Relating to the Founding of Jamestown, ed. Philip L. Barbour (London: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 1:91–92.

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men were present on Newport’s exploring expedition when the queen of Appomattoc first appears in the narratives, it is reasonable to assume that both men were referring to the same woman. Their seemingly opposing descriptions are worth a closer analysis. Archer saw a large woman (“fatt” implies that she was buxom, but in Elizabethan parlance the word was not uncomplimentary). His use of “lustie” might mislead modern readers, but in Archer’s day the word usually meant “joyful, merry, jocund; cheerful, lively.” That Archer also perceived this woman as “manly” does not necessarily refer to her physical characteristics; in Elizabethan usage it most often meant “possessing the virtues proper to a man as distinguished from a woman or child; chiefly, courageous, independent in spirit, frank, upright.” Archer’s description can be read as faintly admiring, for reasons that may have had more to do with Opossunoquonuske’s character and culture than with her gender. One wonders if Archer would have described an Englishwoman in such terms. John Smith’s description of the Indian queen as a “comely yong Salvage” is taken from his impressions of her in a different setting a few months later. While on a visit to Powhatan in February 1608, Smith noted that the Indian ruler, playing host, “commaunded the Queene of Appomattoc” to bring him “water, a Turkie-cocke, and breade to eate.” Smith’s reference to her as “comely” represented her as an agreeable young woman. “Comely” in Elizabethan terms had several meanings, most of them akin to the modern “nice.” But in the presence of Powhatan, the acknowledged ruler of the Chesapeake tribes, the queen of Appomattoc would likely have played a subservient (and gender-prescribed) role.16 One must bear in mind the exotic nature of these Indian women for the Englishmen who sought words to describe both their behavior and their appearance. Archer’s description of Opossunoquonuske mentions that she wore copper ornaments around her neck and a “crownet of copper” on her long black hair, which hung down “to her middle which only part was covered by a deer’s skin, and else all naked.” (Smith, who did not remark upon Pocahontas’s scant attire, did not note Opossunoquonuske’s dress either.) William Strachey described another Indian woman who was not a queen but affected the dress and demeanor of one. She was the favorite wife of a chief called Pipsco, whose village was across the river from Jamestown. She had once been the wife of Opechancanough, Powhatan’s powerful brother, but Pipsco had stolen her from him. When Strachey 16. Gabriel Archer, “Relatyon of the Discovery of Our River,” in Jamestown Voyages, 1:136; Barbour, Complete Works, 1:65. Definitions are from the Oxford English Dictionary. Barbour, Complete Works, 1:65; 2:151.

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visited her, she received him reclining on a pallet out of doors, covering herself with “a faire white dressed deare-skyn or towe [two].” When she rose, a maid brought her a “frontall” [necklace] of white coral, pendants of “great (but imperfect colored and worse drilled)” pearls for her ears, and a chain of long links of copper looped “twice or thrice double about her neck.” Her maid also brought her a “mantel” [cloak] made of “blew feathers, so arteficially and thick sowed together, that it showes like a deepe purple Satten and is very smooth and sleek.”17 Perhaps Pipsco’s wife, like the young women in Pocahontas’s dance, was deliberately displaying her sexuality before the Englishman. William Strachey’s detailed descriptions are his efforts to come to terms with an unfamiliar culture and with a people who displayed their gender with a disconcerting sensuality. One must keep in mind that the English were unaccustomed to confronting males who wore nothing but loincloths and females whose everyday attire was a small apron. English narratives are silent on the sexual practices of the Chesapeake’s native peoples, but Strachey described them as “a people most voluptious.” He remarked upon “what heat both Sexes of them are given over to those Intemperances.”18 Indian women obviously held a special fascination for the Englishmen who first encountered them. Some of these women were powerful rulers or, like Pipsco’s wife, had connections to power. They confronted the newcomers in an unabashed, seminude state, their gender blatantly obvious. Compared to English women, they must have seemed creatures from another world. That is perhaps why the 1614 marriage of Pocahontas to John Rolfe looms so large in the history of early Virginia and in the cultural history of early America. The marriage of Powhatan’s daughter to an English colonist was a liaison in both senses of the word: a love match and a diplomatic alliance. In an effort to exert power over Powhatan, the English at Jamestown kidnapped Pocahontas in 1612. It was apparently then that Rolfe fell in love with her. According to Rolfe’s own words, his “best thoughts” were of Pocahontas, and he had for “a long time bin so intangled, and inthralled in so intricate a laborinth, that I was even awearied to unwinde my selfe thereout.” Nonetheless, the differences between her culture and his gave him pause. Her ignorance of Christianity caused him to describe her as “an unbeleeving creature.” Moreover, she was “one whose education hath bin rude, her manners barbarous, her generation accursed, and so discrepant in all nurtriture” from English ways. Before they were married she converted 17. Rountree, Powhatan Indians, 117–18; Strachey, Historie, 64–65. 18. Strachey, Historie, 112–13.

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to Christianity and was baptized Rebecca. About a year after the marriage she bore a son named Thomas; a year after that, she and Rolfe visited London, where the “Indian princess” (dressed like a proper English lady) was much admired. As the Rolfes and their entourage were about to sail home to Virginia in 1617, Pocahontas/Rebecca fell ill with a respiratory ailment, perhaps pneumonia, and died. She was buried at Gravesend near London. Had Powhatan’s favorite daughter not died an untimely death, perhaps her marriage to an Englishman would have encouraged more such unions, and relations between the Indians and English in Virginia—and the narrative of Virginia’s history—might have taken a different turn.19 From existing evidence it appears that some Englishmen (perhaps even Rolfe) sought relationships, or sexual liaisons, with Indian women when such a connection offered avenues to power. Thus the English in Virginia conflated the two meanings of liaison. A year after the marriage of Pocahontas and John Rolfe, for example, Sir Thomas Dale, then governor of the Virginia colony, tried to arrange his own marriage to another of Powhatan’s daughters. Although Dale had a wife in England, he sent a delegation to ask Powhatan for a daughter’s hand in marriage. Powhatan refused. His answer was a model of polite dissemblance. First, he said that the daughter in question had just been sold for two bushels of roanoke beads to “a great Werowance” three days’ journey away. Powhatan then said that this daughter, who was twelve years old, was so dear to him that “if he should not often behold” her, “he could not possibly live.” Furthermore, he said that one daughter (Pocahontas) was “sufficient” for the English. “I hold it not a brotherly part,” he said, “to desire to bereave me of my two children at once.” Perhaps seeking to placate the governor, Powhatan made an odd promise: upon Pocahontas’s death, he would supply “another” of his daughters. But when Pocahontas died in 1617, Dale was no longer governor. Powhatan did not have to keep his promise—if he had ever intended to do so.20 As the seventeenth century progressed, a few other Englishmen married Indian wives, and most of these marriages seem to have been alliances with women of powerful Indian families. For example, a trader named William Lawson went to live among the Nanticoke Indians, married the daughter of the “King of Nanticoke,” and became known as the “Emperor of the Nanticoke Indians.” In May 1655, Lawson’s English wife, Alice, pe19. John Rolfe to Thomas Dale, undated [ca. 1614], in Ralph Hamor, A True Discourse of the Present Estate of Virginia (orig. pub. 1615; Richmond: Virginia State Library, 1957), 63–66; Barbour, Complete Works, 1:xlv, 2:262. 20. Barbour, Complete Works, 2:248–50.

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titioned for a divorce on the grounds that Lawson had “lived in an Adulterous Life amongst the Indians, the greatest part of the time hee hath bene marryed.” The divorce was granted. In 1650 Giles Brent, a Maryland planter, married a young Indian woman named Mary Kitomaquund, the daughter of a Piscataway chief. The bride was sixteen then, the groom in his mid-forties. The newlyweds moved to Virginia, and in 1654 Brent received a grant of eighteen hundred acres in Virginia in the name of the couple’s first child, Giles Brent Jr. Many years later a 1676 narrative reports that the younger Brent “claimed the title to his mother’s crown and sceptre” and referred to Mary Kitomaquund Brent as the “empress” of the Piscataways. During Bacon’s Rebellion, the half-Indian Giles Brent Jr. led a thousand troops from the Northern Neck to join Nathaniel Bacon’s rebel forces near Jamestown. A few months later, however, as Bacon’s forces continued their indiscriminate killing of Indians, Brent changed his mind and joined Governor William Berkeley’s forces. One wonders if Brent’s consciousness of his mixed-race status and thoughts of his Indian mother influenced his decision.21 Indian women shaped the narrative of early Virginia history not only in their sexual relationships with Englishmen, but by their actions in the growing hostilities between their people and those they came to regard as interlopers. In December 1607, George Cassen, one of the men who had accompanied John Smith on the expedition that led to the “rescue” by Pocahontas, was seized, tortured, and killed after being lured ashore by Indian women. Smith’s narrative records the grisly manner of Cassen’s death: After tying him to a tree, the torturers used “shels and reeds to case the skinne from his head and face; then doe they rip his belly and so burne him with the tree and all. Thus themselves reported they executed George Cassen.” Smith makes no mention of women, but Strachey’s narrative is quite specific: “Thus themselves reported that they executed an Englishman, one George Cawson, whom the women enticed up from the barge unto their houses at a place called Appocant.” Appocant was a town on the Chickahominy River, about forty miles north of Jamestown. Smith describes Appocant as located in “a vast and wilde wildernes.” According to 21. Northampton County deeds, wills, etc., no. 5, 1654–1655 (1636), reel 4, p. 135, Virginia State Library; Helen Rountree and Thomas Davidson, Eastern Shore Indians of Virginia and Maryland (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1997), 68. On Giles Brent see “The Brent Family,” in Genealogies of Virginia Families from the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, comp. W. B. Chilton (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing, 1981), 320–21. Mathew, “Bacon’s Rebellion,” 18 n. 2; Berry and Moryson, “A True Narrative of the Late Rebellion,” 123 n. 2; Wilcomb Washburn, The Governor and the Rebel (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1957), 83.

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Smith, he left his barge on the river there, warning the seven men in it not to go ashore. Cassen obviously disobeyed orders. The record of what happened is frustratingly incomplete. Did the women who “enticed” Cassen invite him to come by himself, or did they ask all of the men to come ashore? Were the women offering food, sex, or both? In any case, these were women who deliberately led at least one Englishman to his death, and a horrible death at that. It may have been the women themselves who tortured and killed him.22 As relations between the Indians and the colonists at Jamestown worsened after John Smith’s departure, Opossunoquonuske, the queen of Appomattoc, used both her gender and her power against the men she now perceived as her enemies. In winter 1610, Opossunoquonuske invited a party of fourteen Englishmen to “feast and make merry” in her village. With feminine guile, she persuaded them to leave their weapons in their boat because, according to William Strachey, “their [the Indian] women would be afrayd ells [else] of their pieces [weapons].” But one must remember that this was the woman who once had asked to see English guns fired and who had watched with interest, not fear. Now she played the gender card with cunning deliberation, divesting the Englishmen of their weapons. She served a feast, probably of venison or turkey, to her unarmed, unsuspecting guests. Then she ordered them killed. The means of the execution is not recorded. Did the queen perhaps arrange for fourteen of her warriors to stand by to kill all fourteen Englishmen at the same moment? Were the visitors tortured first? In Opossunoquonuske’s native culture, inventive torture and artful killing were much admired in making war against one’s enemies. English encroachment on her people’s lands would have been reason enough, in Opossunoquonuske’s mind, to take revenge on any English visitors. In killing them, she would send a clear message to the English of the wrongs they had done and of her own power to wreak vengeance.23 Word of this wholesale slaughter soon reached Jamestown, and Opossunoquonuske paid dearly for what the English regarded as treachery. Although she may have seen her actions as legitimate revenge, the English perceived them as betrayal. In retaliation for the “treacherous massacre,” the English burned Opossunoquonuske’s town and “killed some of her people.” According to Strachey, she herself was wounded by “smale Shott” as she fled into the woods. Indeed, she may have died of her wounds for 22. Barbour, Complete Works, 1:175; Strachey, Historie, 45; Barbour, Complete Works, 1:21, 43; Gleach, Powhatan’s World, 49–51. 23. Strachey, Historie, 63–64; Gleach, Powhatan’s World, 52–53.

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she does not reappear in the records after that. But this Indian woman made her own contribution to the narrative of Virginia’s early history. Smith, however, fails to mention Opossunoquonuske’s role in the deaths of the Englishmen, just as he omitted the Indian women who lured George Cassen to his death. Smith’s version of this episode refers only to the destruction of a village in retaliation for the “injurie done us by them of Apamatuck.”24 It was indeed an injury. The English in 1610 could ill afford to lose fourteen able-bodied men. Moreover, Opossunoquonuske’s act increased English fears of the Indians who surrounded and outnumbered them. As relations between the English and the Indians deteriorated, another Indian woman appears in the records, not as an adversary, but as a victim. For wanton cruelty, the treatment of this woman and her children by Englishmen under the command of George Percy in 1610 is perhaps without equal. His narrative refers to her as a “Quene,” but she was not a queen by birth. She was the wife of the king of Paspahegh, an Indian village about six miles upriver from Jamestown. In a raid against that village, Percy’s men seized “the Quene and her Children.” After a discussion it was agreed to put the children to death “by Throweinge them overboard and shoteinge owtt thir Braynes in the water.”25 Although Percy does not say so, presumably this took place in the mother’s presence. Percy claims that he tried to save her life, but that the governor, Lord De La Warr, ordered him to have her killed. She was taken into the woods by an English officer and two soldiers. That it took three men to handle her suggests that she did not go passively. Once into the woods, the officer “put her to the sworde.” The manner of her execution raises intriguing questions. Why take the trouble to remove her to a remote place? Why not simply shoot her, as they had her children? Did they feel that the wife of a king was entitled to a special death, or did her behavior infuriate the Englishmen? Was she swiftly run through, or was she savagely mutilated? English as well as Indians knew the meaning of vengeance. As the seventeenth century progressed, there were other Indian women who attracted English attention and engagement as powerful leaders. In 1651 Edmund Scarburgh led a force of fifty armed men in an unauthorized raid against the Pocomoke Indians. The purpose of this raid was reportedly “to take or kill the Queen of Pocomoke.” What this woman had done to incur the wrath of Edmund Scarburgh is not clear, but her power is 24. Barbour, Complete Works, 2:242, and 242 n. 3. 25. Percy, “A Trewe Relacyon of the Proceedings . . . in Virginia” (ca. 1624), Tyler’s Quarterly Historical and Genealogical Magazine 3, no. 4 (Apr. 1922): 272–73.

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obvious. On the occasion of this vigilante attack, the English “shott at Indyans, slashed & cut their bowles, took Indyans prissoners, and bound one of them with a chayne,” but they did not capture the queen. As in some other episodes involving Indian women, the narrative is maddeningly incomplete. To make amends for this raid, the queen of Pocomoke was later to be given a “hundred arms’ lengths of roanoke [beads]” by an English trader, William Andrews. Governor Berkeley and Andrews tried but failed to bring Scarburgh and his men to justice. In 1673 Berkeley acknowledged the political power of another Indian woman. His “Order concerning the Eastern Shore Indians” avowed that “Mary the daughter of Tabbity Abby is the lawfull Queene of all the Indians on the Eastern Shore within my Government.” By referring to the transfer of power from mother to daughter, the governor was acknowledging the matrilineal nature of the Chesapeake peoples’ culture. That same year George Fox, the Quaker leader, wrote of seeing “the old Empress” of Accomack when he visited Maryland. In English usage, the words queen or empress, like their masculine equivalents, denoted status and power on either side of the Atlantic. In English eyes these Indian women had about them the trappings of their rank, large households with many attendants, and the power to compel other Indians to obey. By their language and sometimes their deference, the English leaders recognized such women as important individuals.26 One of the most remarkable Indian women rulers was Cockacoeske, described as the “Queen of Pamunky” around the time of Bacon’s Rebellion. She was the leader of the Pamunkey tribe; the Pamunkeys, the Chickahominies, and the Appomattocs were at that time the three most important tribes in Virginia. In 1675 she and other Indian leaders were disturbed by a series of what must have seemed to them to be random raids and killings of Indians by the English. In spring 1676, Nathaniel Bacon and his forces threatened the Pamunkeys, causing them to leave their homes near the juncture of the Mattaponi and Pamunkey Rivers and, according to colonist William Sherwood, to live in makeshift shelters made of fallen trees in the Great Dragon Swamp. The details of what happened are not clear, but it may have been about this time that the queen of the Pamunkey ordered the torture of an English interpreter. Evidently dissatisfied with what he told her, she released him with instructions to tell the governor that “shee 26. Northampton County deeds, wills, 1651–1654, no. 40, quoted in Douglas Deal, Race and Class in Colonial Virginia: Indians, Englishmen, and Africans on the Eastern Shore in the Seventeenth Century (New York: Garland Press, 1993), 27 (first quotation); Rountree and Davidson, Eastern Shore Indians, 68 (second quotation). Accomack County Orders, 1673–1676, no. 44, 1763, vi. See also Grumet, “Sunksquaws,” 50.

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did intend to visett him shortely.” According to Sherwood, Cockacoeske had learned that Governor Berkeley could not protect her people from Bacon and his men.27 On June 4, 1676, the queen of the Pamunkey appeared before the Committee on Indian Affairs at Jamestown. The English had summoned Cockacoeske in hopes that she might aid them against the “Enemy Indians,” the Susquehannocks. Whether or not she had visited the governor earlier according to her announced intent is unknown. Her meeting with the English officials is recorded in some detail in Virginia planter Thomas Mathew’s narrative of Bacon’s Rebellion. A member of the Committee on Indian Affairs, he noted that the queen of the Pamunkey was “descended from Oppechankenough a former Emperor of Virginia,” an indication that the English in Virginia still thought of paternity as the key to power. On that particular afternoon, the queen entered the meeting room “with a Comportment Gracefull to Admiration.” On her right was “an Englishman Interpreter”; on her left was her son, “a Stripling Twenty Years of Age.” On her head was “a Plat of Black and White Wampum peague [peak, a type of bead made from quahog shells of white or dark purple] Three Inches broad in imitation of a Crown.” She “was Cloathed in a Mantle [cloak] of dress’t Deerskins with the hair outwards and the Edge cut round 6 Inches deep which made Strings resembling Twisted frenge from the Shoulders to the feet.” The queen “Walk’d up our Long Room to the Lower end of the Table, Where after a few Intreaties She Sat down.”28 Like Pocahontas’s entertainment for John Smith, Cockacoeske’s encounter with the members of the committee offers a telling glimpse of Indian women’s attitudes and behavior toward Englishmen. It also affords an extraordinary view of Englishmen’s perceptions of, and interactions with, an Indian woman. The queen of the Pamunkey bore herself with royal grace and dignity in the presence of a dozen or so Virginia planters as she walked the length of the room. She stood regally before them and then, perhaps with a trace of reluctance, acceded to their requests to sit down. If Cockacoeske dressed in the traditional garb of her people, her breasts were bare. She would have worn jewelry such as copper and bead and shell earrings, necklaces, and bracelets, but her only other garment besides her cloak would have been an apronlike deerskin around her waist. 27. Mathew, “Bacon’s Rebellion,” 25; Washburn, Governor and Rebel, 19–39; William Sherwood, “Virginia’s Deploured Condition,” Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, 4th ser., 9 (1871), 168. Quotation in Washburn, Governor and Rebel, 42. 28. Martha W. McCartney, “Cockacoeske, Queen of Pamunkey: Diplomat and Suzeraine,” in Powhatan’s Mantle: Indians in the Colonial Southeast, ed. Peter Wood et al. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989), 173–75; Mathew, “Bacon’s Rebellion,” 25–26.

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She probably had tattoos on her arms and legs. She would most likely have painted her face and shoulders red, as was the custom of Indian women on ceremonial occasions.29 After Cockacoeske sat down, the committee chairman asked her “what men she would lend” the English for guides and aides in their planned campaign against “Enemy Indians.” Cockacoeske listened, then asked the interpreter to translate. As the narrator interjected in a telling parenthesis, “tho’ we believed She understood him.” Then the queen referred the questions to her son, “to whom the English tongue was familiar, and who was reputed the Son of an English Colonel.” But Cockacoeske’s son, like his mother, pretended not to understand English. He, in turn, referred all questions to his mother. At last, “after a little Musing,” Cockacoeske deigned to answer—but not in English. She spoke for about a quarter of an hour, “with an earnest passionate Countenance as if Tears were ready to Gush out.” At times “with a high shrill Voice and vehement passion,” the queen of the Pamunkey reminded the English of an event that had taken place twenty years earlier, when her husband, Totopotomoy, the king of the Pamunkey, and nearly a hundred of his men had been asked to help the English against other “Enemy Indians.” In the battle that followed, Totopotomoy and most of his warriors were killed.30 How Cockacoeske assumed her title and the obvious power that went with it is not clear. It is possible that Cockacoeske and Totopotomoy were cousins and that she inherited the title of Pamunkey ruler through her mother at Totopotomoy’s death. She may have remarried, but apparently her second husband had died by the time of Bacon’s Rebellion. Virginia colonist John Gibbon noted around 1660 that he “saw the king of Pamunkey who married the widow of the famous Totopotomoy who also had been king of Pamunkey.”31 In any case, Cockacoeske was now queen of the Pamunkey, and she still mourned Totopotomoy’s death, as well as the deaths of other Pamunkey men. Vehemently and passionately she reminded the English officials that no recompense for these deaths had ever been given to her people. The committee chairman, who apparently did not understand the queen’s native language, did not respond to her accusations. Instead, he “rudely push’d againe” his request for aid, asking how many men she could 29. Rountree, Powhatan Indians, 69–76. 30. Mathew, “Bacon’s Rebellion,” 26–27. See also Rountree, Pocahontas’s People, 93; and William Waller Hening, The Statutes at Large: Being a Collection of All of the Laws of Virginia (Richmond, 1819–1823), 1:422–23. 31. See “John Gibbon’s Manuscript Concerning Virginia,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 74 (Jan. 1966): 11.

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supply. Cockacoeske “Signified her Resentment by a disdainfull aspect, and turning her head half a side, Sate mute.” Again, the chairman’s question, and finally, upon his third try, the queen’s reply, “in a low slighting Voice in her own Language ‘Six.’ ” The chairman pressed her for more. At last Cockacoeske, “sitting a little while Sullen, without uttering a Word between, said ‘Twelve,’ tho’ she then had a hundred and fifty Indian men in her Town.” After that, the queen of the Pamunkey “rose up and gravely Walked away, as not pleased with her Treatment.”32 Given what had happened to her husband and his men, why did the queen agree to supply the English with any men at all? The answer may lie in her liaison with an Englishman. When Thomas Mathew noted that Cockacoeske’s son “was reputed to be the son of an English Colonel,” he was voicing what was probably common knowledge: Cockacoeske’s son, who is referred to in later records as “Captain John West,” was very likely her child by a Virginia planter, Col. John West, the master of West Point, a three-thousand-acre plantation on the Pamunkey Neck. How long the liaison between West and Cockacoeske had been going on, and how long it had been publicly known, is not clear. Thomas Mathew’s account, however, is precise about the young man’s age being twenty. That would put his birth around 1656 or 1657—about a year after the death of Totopotomoy and seven or eight years before John West took an English wife. He and Unity Crashaw were married in or soon after 1664. The couple had four children—a daughter and three sons. Among the West family’s twentieth-century descendants there is a story that Unity lived apart from her husband because of his sexual liaison with the Indian queen. As one of their descendants wrote in 1961, “The affair with the Queen caused Unity much distress and she separated from the Colonel and petitioned for a separate maintenance.” The documentation of the Wests’ separation has not been found, but a memorandum in a York County record of 1685 on a suit against Col. John West mentions “his wife Unity from whom he was then parted and lived assunder.”33 32. Mathew, “Bacon’s Rebellion,” 26–27. 33. Rountree, Pocahontas’s People, 112; Annie Lash Jester and Martha Woodruff Hiden, eds., Adventurers of Purse and Person: Virginia, 1607–1625 (Richmond: Dietz Press, 1956), 658. A deed dated Nov. 4, 1664, and acknowledged in New Kent Court Aug. 28, 1665, from Joseph Crashaw, Unity’s father, to John West for some land, six slaves, and two white bondservants was drawn up “in satisfaction of his daughter’s portion than [as?] the wife of the said West”; memo signed GK, dated Oct. 26, 1956, George Harrison Sanford King Papers, Virginia Historical Society, Richmond (hereinafter King Papers); George King to J. Paul Hudson, Feb. 6, 1961, folder 1; and “Papers Relating to Several Tracts of Land in Virginia Belonging to Edmund Jennings, Esq.: 25 July 1712,” typescript, both in King Papers.

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It is possible that this liaison between an Indian woman and an Englishman caused a marriage to fail, and it may also have caused Cockacoeske’s capitulation to English demands. In her meeting with the Virginia Committee on Indian Affairs, the queen of the Pamunkey appears as a shrewd but tragic figure, an individual caught between two cultures. Although she understood English, she pretended otherwise, giving herself the upper hand in her negotiations with the council. Her grief for her slain husband and his Pamunkey warriors may have been at odds with her feelings for her English lover and their son. Unfortunately, there is no translation of her long, anguished speech before the committee. But in the end, she bent to the English demands, though she gave them only a token of what they asked for. In August 1676, when Nathaniel Bacon and his forces began their indiscriminate warfare against the Indians, the queen of the Pamunkey was again caught between opposing forces. The surviving narratives, some by Virginia colonists and some by English officials, do not always agree on her role. Some reports suggest that the queen was plotting her own retaliation against the English, but the report of the English commissioners who came to investigate Bacon’s Rebellion paint her as a wronged innocent. Much of their account, however, was based on what Cockacoeske herself told them, that is, what she wanted them to believe. According to their report, upon hearing from her scouts that Bacon’s army was approaching, she and her people fled from her village. She left behind “all her goods and Indian corne vessels etc.” In order to “decline all occasion of offending the English whom she ever so much loved and reverenced,” the queen commanded her own Indians “that if they found the English coming upon them that they should neither fire a gun nor draw an arrow upon them.” One wonders how Cockacoeske’s warriors took these orders. But the queen’s wishes were apparently obeyed, and all of the residents of the village fled as the English approached. In the confusion that followed, Bacon and his soldiers managed to capture an old woman, Cockacoeske’s “nurse” or attendant. They ordered her to lead them to Cockacoeske and the others who had fled. Instead, the canny old woman led the Englishmen for two days in the opposite direction. When Bacon at last realized her strategy, he “gave command to his Soldiers to knock her in the head, which they did, and they left her dead on the way.” The rebel army pressed on, eventually finding the Pamunkeys’ encampment, where they killed some and took others prisoner. They also loaded three horses with Cockacoeske’s “goods.” Besides corn, baskets, mats, skins, and beads, these included “Pieces of Lynnen, Broad cloth, and divers sorts of English goods (w’ch the Queene had much value for).” One of the items

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taken from Cockacoeske, as she told the commissioners later, was “her rich match-coat for which she had great value and offered to redeem at any price.” Cloth, especially a coarse woolen cloth called “matchcoat,” probably after an Indian word for a fur cloak, had been a valued trade item among the Indians since the arrival of the English in Virginia. The queen of the Pamunkey not only wanted to curry favor with the English officials, she also wanted her “English goods” returned to her.34 Once again, according to the commissioners’ report, Cockacoeske fled from the rebel forces, this time accompanied only by a little Indian boy. In desperation she decided to return and beg for help from the English, but she came upon a grisly sight in the “wild woods”: the corpse of a Pamunkey woman slain by Bacon and his men. The appearance of the corpse, perhaps mutilated, was so frightening that the queen, “fearing their cruelty by that gastly example,” dared not go near the English. Instead, she and the child hid in the woods for fourteen days, nearly starving, before they were reunited with their people.35 In the end, Cockacoeske, queen of the Pamunkey, not only survived the turmoil of Bacon’s Rebellion, she was later one of the principal negotiators and signers of a treaty with the English that ended decades of warfare for her people. The mark of the queen of the Pamunkey is the first of twelve signatures on the treaty of May 29, 1677. She made a mark or initial that looks like a capital “W.” Her son, identified as “Capt. John West,” signed with a much clearer capital letter “W.” Among the signatories was another woman, identified only as the queen of “Wayonoake [Weyanoke].” In appreciation for their contributions to the treaty-making process, Cockacoeske and the other Indian leaders—the queen of Weyanoke, the king of the Nansemonds, the king of the Nottoways—were to be given gifts of English clothing and crowns. A silver frontlet, or medallion, inscribed to “The Queene of the Pamunkey,” which may once have been attached to a crown, is currently in the possession of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities.36 The English gifts acknowledged the power of the queen of the Pamunkey, who brought into the treaty negotiations “severall scattered nations of Indians.” According to the report of the royal commissioners who 34. See Washburn, Governor and Rebel, 192 n. 10; Berry and Moryson, “True Narrative,” 125; Mathew, “Bacon’s Rebellion,” 25 n. 2. On cloth and trade see Gleach, Powhatan’s World, 172. 35. Mathew, “Bacon’s Rebellion,” 125, 127–28. 36. A photocopy of the treaty is in the West folder 1, King Papers. Cockacoeske’s mark is reproduced in McCartney, “Cockacoeske,” 187. On Cockacoeske’s role see Rountree, Pocahontas’s People, 100–103; and McCartney, “Cockacoeske,” 173–95.

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negotiated the treaty, these groups of Indians were “reduc’d (as she desired) under her subjection, as anciently they had been.” The commissioners obviously recognized Cockacoeske’s power, as did the Indians she governed. For many years after the treaty’s signing, she managed to maintain a cordial relationship with the English, at the same time governing her own people. Her son disappears from the records after 1678. Cockacoeske died in 1686, Col. John West in 1689. Without question, the queen of the Pamunkey had used both her gender and her power to shape the narrative of Virginia’s history.37 Although Indian women were often overlooked by historians, they were familiar figures in the transatlantic culture of the seventeenth century. Their prominence is reflected in a play produced in London a few years after Cockacoeske’s death. It was written by a woman, Aphra Behn, the first woman in England to earn her living by writing. As a native of the Caribbean island of Martinique, she brought with her a knowledge of the transatlantic world that no doubt influenced her choice of subject matter. Behn’s The Widow Ranter or, the History of Bacon in Virginia was written in 1687 or 1688 and first produced in London in 1690. This tragicomedy about Bacon’s Rebellion conflates the identities of two reallife Indian women—Cockacoeske and Pocahontas—in the character of an Indian queen, Semernia, queen of the Pawomungian Indians. In the play, the rebel leader Bacon falls in love with her. One of his opponents accuses him of starting the rebellion “to satisfy his Ambition and his Love, it being no secret that he passionately Admires the Indian Queen, and under the pretext of a War, intends to kill the King her Husband, Establish himself in her heart, and make himself a more formidable Enemy, than the Indians are.”38 The queen herself harbors a secret attraction to Bacon and confesses to her handmaiden: “I adore this General,—take from my Soul a Truth—till now conceal’d—at twelve years Old—at the Pauwomungian Court I saw this Conqueror . . . Glorious and Charming as the Mid-days Sun, I . . . thought him more than Mortal.” Despite her marriage to the Indian king, Cavarnio, she still cherishes the memory of the Englishman. “Twelve teadious Moons I pass’d in silent languishment, Honour endeavouring to 37. John Berry, Herbert Jeffreys, and Francis Moryson, “Particular Accounts How We Yr Majesties Commissioners for the Affairs of Virginia Have Observed and Comply’d with Our Instructions,” 1677, quoted in McCartney, “Cockacoeske,” 179, 186, 190. 38. See David S. Shields, “The Literature of England’s Staple Colonies,” in Teaching the Literatures of Early America, ed. Carla Mulford (New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1999), 134–35; Aaron R. Walden, ed., The Widow Ranter: or the History of Bacon in Virginia (New York: Garland Publishing, 1993), 24.

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destroy my Love, but all in vain.” After Bacon kills the queen’s husband in battle, she and her handmaiden, both disguised as men and accompanied by a dozen other Indians, flee Bacon’s forces. But when the rebel leader and his men surprise them in the woods a fight ensues, and Bacon, not recognizing the queen in her masculine disguise, gives her a mortal wound. As she dies in his arms, Bacon weeps and declares the rebellion ended. He tells his men that “it contains nothing that’s worth my care, since my fair Queen—is Dead—and by my Hand.”39 In the next scene he takes poison and dies. Although Bacon failed to marry his Indian queen, the play’s audiences very likely had heard stories of a real-life multicultural marriage that had taken place long ago and of Pocahontas, who visited London in 1616 as the wife of a Virginia colonist. The early promise of interracial unions begun with the marriage of Pocahontas and John Rolfe never bore fruit in Virginia. As the decades passed, the mixed-race descendants of Pocahontas and John Rolfe, Cockacoeske and John West, and Mary Kitomaquund and Giles Brent were forgotten. The number of Indians dwindled, and the number of Africans grew. In a growing English population, anxieties about interracial sex and social order—and concerns about preserving the colony’s English identity—led to a 1691 Virginia law forbidding all interracial marriages. Racial fears are evident in the statement that the law was designed “for prevention of that abominable mixture and spurious issue which hereafter may encrease in this dominion, as well by negroes, mulattoes, and Indians intermarrying with English.” In contrast, a Maryland law against interracial marriages the following year forbade the marriage of any English woman or man and any “Negro or Slave” but did not specifically mention Indians, slave or free. The Virginia law, much more specific, prescribed banishment for any “English or other white man or woman being free [who] shall intermarry with a negroe, mulatto, or Indian man or woman bond or free.”40 As Kathleen Brown has pointed out, “Sexual relationships between white people and Indians . . . became as subject to censure as those between white people and individuals of African descent.” The reasons for the aversion to English-Indian liaisons, however, remain unclear. If Pocahontas had lived to become the mother of many children, would attitudes toward intermarriage between the Indians and the English in Virginia have been different? Historian Douglas Deal notes that “sexual relations 39. Walden, Widow Ranter, 111, 113. 40. Hening, Statutes, 3:86–87; Alden T. Vaughan and Deborah A. Rosen, eds., Early American Indian Documents: Treaties and Laws, 1607–1789 (Bethesda, Md.: University Publications of America, 1998), 15:300–302; Hening, Statutes, 3:87.

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between Indians and English were not common in the seventeenth century, although some eminent Virginians wished, in retrospect, that they had been.” In 1705 Robert Beverley, in his History and Present State of Virginia, speculated about what might have been between Indians and English in that colony: “Intermarriage had been indeed the Method proposed very often by the Indians in the beginning. . . . And I can’t but think it wou’d have been happy for that Country, had they embraced this Proposal.” William Byrd, in his 1738 History of the Dividing Line, lamented that “The natives could by no means persuade themselves that the English were heartily their friends so long as they disdained to intermarry with them.”41 By the eighteenth century, Indian women in Virginia’s history were marginalized. Liaisons involving either gender or power with Englishmen were no longer possible. As the English population grew and the Indian population dwindled, and as farms and plantations replaced native villages and hunting grounds, the histories of both peoples grew further and further apart. These histories, most of them written by Anglo-American males, consigned American Indian women to a largely invisible status in a narrative peopled by men. But a closer examination of the seventeenth century in Virginia reveals that Pocahontas, Opossunoquonuske, Cockaoeske, and other Indian women were far from invisible and that by their actions they did indeed move the narrative forward.

41. Brown, Good Wives, 198 n. 25; Deal, Race and Class, 41; see also Peter Wallenstein, “Indian Foremothers: Race, Sex, Slavery, and Freedom in Early Virginia,” in The Devil’s Lane: Race and Sex in the Early South, ed. Catherine Clinton and Michele Gillespie (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 57–73; Robert Beverley, The History and Present State of Virginia, ed. Louis B. Wright (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1947), 38; Byrd, History of the Dividing Line, in The Prose Works of William Byrd of Westover, ed. Louis B. Wright (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966), 160–61.

C Y N T H IA M . K E N N E D Y

‘‘Nocturnal Adventures in Mulatto Alley’’ Sex in Charleston, South Carolina

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HITE MEN IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CHARLESTON,

South Carolina, boasted publicly in doggerel verse of their “taste . . . for dark Beauties” and of the blessings of variety in “kiss[ing] black or white.” Variations on this theme persisted into the next century, when intrepid British traveler Harriet Martineau commented on “the very general connection of white gentlemen with their female slaves,” and city patriarchs continued to “laugh over their nocturnal adventures in Mulatto Alley.” Observations like these speak to a fact of life in the slave South: daily sexual mingling or mixing occurred between women of color and white men.1 Slave society—distinguished by its reliance on chattel laborers who vastly outnumbered free, waged workers—celebrated marriage and family in the abstract. Southern patriarchs bragged about the care and attention they provided to their people, including wives, children, and slaves. They touted their paternalistic southern way of life, including the institution of slavery, as far superior to the impersonal, exploitative waged labor of the North. However, one form of racial mixing—the sexual abuse of slave women— belied these claims of paternalism and mocked the institution of slavery that they praised. Indeed, sexual mixing between women of color and white men facilitated goals integral to Charleston society because sex constituted a visceral show of patriarchal power, and sexual protocols helped define who was black and white, slave and free, female and male. In addition to the pattern of sexual abuse, some slave women and free women of color engaged in consensual sex with white men within relationships stimulated by genuine affection, physical attraction, or a powerful drive 1. (Charleston) South Carolina Gazette, Mar. 18, 1732, July 31, 1736; Harriet Martineau, Society in America (New York: Saunders & Otley, 1837), 2:328; John Davis, Travels of Four Years and a Half in the United States of America (1803), quoted in Philip D. Morgan, “Black Life in Eighteenth-Century Charleston,” Perspectives in American History new ser. 1, vol. 1 (1984): 211.

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to gain some advantage in a world that daily disempowered them. The socially prescribed sexual license of slave women, like the sexual restrictions on women of the wealthy, white master class, fundamentally shaped their identity. Many women of color extracted tangible benefits from sexual connections with white men and transformed sexual vulnerability and sexual license into effective tools of accommodation and resistance. The common practice of sexual mingling in the slave South complicates facile definitions of concubinage and prostitution, consensual sex and coerced sex, sexual victimization and empowerment. Sex between white men and black women was coerced; it was consensual; it was a combination of both. Drawing on autobiographies of former slaves, transcriptions of interviews with former slaves, letters and diaries of slave owners, travelers’ accounts, and other contemporary sources, scholars have documented the sexual exploitation of enslaved women and have enriched the literature on slavery in the (North) American South, the Caribbean, and South America.2 But researchers are just beginning to explore the ways in which slave society—where law and customary practice defined certain human beings as chattel—confounds the ideas and acts of concubinage, prostitution, and rape. Traditional definitions do not capture the reality of sexual customs in the slave South. Concubinage is commonly understood to mean the cohabitation of a woman and a man without formal or legal marriage. But at what point did a house slave—whose owner legally enjoyed access to her body as well as her labor and who routinely exploited and raped her—become a concubine? If the key is voluntary cohabitation, what are the measures of acquiescence and coercion? Few women of color in the slave South were so unencumbered by sexual and racial prescriptions as to render truly free their choice to become a concubine. Put another way, when and how did the concubine become (or cease to be) her own sexual agent? Similarly, prostitution is defined as the practice of engaging in sexual intercourse for money. But was a slave a prostitute because she provided sex with the expectation of material rewards for herself or her children? Had not the institution of slavery already prostituted her with its customary sexual protocols? How could a chattel slave—herself 2. Of the many sources on slave women’s exploitation, see Deborah Gray White, Ar’n’t I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South (New York: W. W. Norton, 1985); Nell Irvin Painter, “Of Lily, Linda Brent, and Freud: A Non-Exceptionalist Approach to Race, Class, and Gender in the Slave South,” in Half Sisters of History: Southern Women and the American Past, ed. Catherine Clinton (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1994), 93–109; Hilary McD. Beckles, “Property Rights in Pleasure: The Marketing of Enslaved Women’s Sexuality,” in Caribbean Slavery in the Atlantic World, ed. Verene Shepherd and Hilary McD. Beckles (Princeton, N.J.: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2000), 692–701.

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property—sell part of that property, and which forms of sexual mixing constituted prostitution? Turning these issues on their heads, the reality of widespread sexual mixing in the slave South, including concubinage, prostitution, and rape, complicates our understanding of the institution of slavery by revealing sex at the center of the ongoing power negotiations within slave societies. Scholars have exposed the centrality of gender (meanings attached to sexual difference) to the processes by which white men of the master class created and perpetuated their supremacy. That is, white men created and perpetuated specific notions of “woman” and “man” to empower themselves.3 But sex was also essential to the acquisition and maintenance of power by white men of the master class. Just as important, many enslaved women and free women of color used sex as a survival mechanism. Thus, examining the nature of sexual relations between women of color and white men reveals the mutual exploitation at the heart of social relations—power relations— in slave society. The partners were unequal, and the negotiations were carried out on shifting, dangerous terrain, but enslaved and free women of color participated in this constant jockeying for a measure of control. Examining the nature of sexual mixing in Charleston, South Carolina, reveals a need to reject conventional definitions of sexual practices such as concubinage and prostitution. Those fixed designations bear little meaning in the slave South, where custom and law conspired to give white men property rights in the sexuality of enslaved women. We must also reframe abusive sexual practice as a means of empowerment. The realities of sexual practice and, in particular, sex between women of color and white men demand reconceptualization of the power relations in slave society. Scholars have already established that slave owners did not wield absolute control over their slaves. They could not hold all the cards all the time. Rather, slaves and slave owners manipulated each other in continuous negotiations of domination and resistance.4 Sex and sexual practices figured prominently in these power negotiations; sex was wielded simultaneously as a tool of dominion and resistance. Slavery transformed sexual practices, and sexual practices transformed slavery. Consensual sex (itself a contested notion) between women of color and white men dated to Charleston’s earliest years as a rough frontier town 3. One example is Kathleen Brown, Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Race, and Power in Colonial Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 181. 4. See Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998); Robert Olwell, Masters, Slaves, and Subjects: The Culture of Power in the South Carolina Low Country, 1740–1790 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998).

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and continued throughout the revolutionary era and antebellum period. Particularly in the closing decades of the eighteenth century and beginning of the next, some of these sexual relationships resulted in freedom for the women and their children. Indeed, before 1820, slave manumissions and assisted self-purchase contributed to the growth of the city’s free population of color. Between 1770 and 1800, the number of Charleston’s free people of color rose from twenty-five to just over one thousand, and between 1790 and 1810 their numbers increased over 151 percent. Significantly, about two of every three slaves who achieved freedom through manumission from 1700 to 1800 were women, and sexual mixing with white owners constituted a principal reason. It is difficult to document precisely which manumissions resulted from sexual connections and trickier still to speculate about what percentages of these sexual relationships were voluntary or coerced. Nevertheless, the point remains that sex proved useful as a survival mechanism.5 In Charleston the distinction between housekeeper and concubine blurred, so when enslaved and free women of color assumed positions as housekeepers, most understood the role to include sex and expected to derive material rewards for the extra service. In the mid-eighteenth century, Sylvia’s mistress died, and her master never remarried. For over twenty-five years, Sylvia continued to serve as housekeeper to this wealthy Charleston merchant. When he died in 1781, Sylvia received her freedom and a substantial yearly income. Likewise, in the closing years of the American Revolution, Rebecca Kelly persuaded her owner to emancipate her in exchange for “housekeeping.” By dint of hard work and savvy negotiations with her owner and a subsequent sexual partner, Rebecca Kelly had won her freedom by 1794. She then applied skills learned in slavery—as a household manager and mattress-maker—and prospered as a free businesswoman. A slave named Jenny received money and freedom for herself and her son 5. On consensual sex see H. Roy Merrens, ed., “A View of Coastal South Carolina in 1778: The Journal of Ebenezer Hazard,” South Carolina Historical Magazine 73 (Oct. 1972): 190; will of Joseph Roper abstracted in Abstracts of Wills of Charleston District South Carolina, 1783–1800, comp. and ed., Caroline T. Moore (Columbia, S.C.: R. L. Bryan, 1974), 417; Vose v. Hannahan, 10 S.C. 465 (South Carolina Court of Appeals and Errors, 1857). On emancipation and prevalence of women, see Thorne v. Fordham, 4 Richardson Eq. 222, 223 (South Carolina Appeals in Equity, 1852); Bowers et al. v. Newman, 2 McMullan 647 (South Carolina Court of Errors and Appeals in Equity, 1842); Robert Olwell, “Becoming Free: Manumission and the Genesis of a Free Black Community in South Carolina, 1740–1790,” in Against the Odds: Free Blacks in the Slave Societies of the Americas, ed. Jane G. Landers (London: Frank Cass & Co., 1996), 5–6. On population increase, see Peter A. Coclanis, The Shadow of a Dream: Economic Life and Death in the South Carolina Low Country, 1670–1920 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 115, table 4-4; Berlin, Many Thousands Gone, 232, 234–36, 239, 319–20, 331–32.

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when her owner died in 1801, and ten years later one Rebecca Thorne and her son were emancipated and continued to live with their former owner, a white man named John S. Thorne. Thereafter, Rebecca bore five of Thorne’s children. When he died, Rebecca and her children inherited a house and four slaves whose labor provided her a steady income. A housekeeper named Celestine bore five children with her white owner, a French immigrant from Saint Domingue, Philip Stanislas Noisette. In 1835 he freed their children in defiance of South Carolina’s 1820 prohibition of slave manumission except by special petition to the state legislature. His declaration of freedom was, therefore, illegal and nonbinding. However, twenty years later their daughter, Margaret, owned sixteen acres of farm land on the edge of the city limits, plus other real estate in Charleston. Although legally enslaved, Margaret Noisette lived as a free person, paid Charleston’s free Negro tax, and was listed in 1850 with six other family members at the “Noisette Farm” on King Street Road.6 Prominent Charleston politicians and businessmen also granted favors to slaves who became their lovers. By the 1790s, a slave named Hagar had become involved in a sexual relationship with Gen. Arnoldus Vanderhorst, who served with Francis Marion in the American Revolution, became Charleston’s second intendent (mayor), a state senator, and, in late 1794, governor of South Carolina. Although Vanderhorst had six children with his (white) wife, Elizabeth Raven, Hagar bore him two (perhaps three) more children: Eliza, Peter, and possibly Sarah. Vanderhorst emancipated Hagar and the three children and provided for their maintenance and education. Aware of the vulnerabilities of free people of color, he made provisions for his second family. In October 1813, two years before he died, Vanderhorst conveyed to two of his white sons land, a house in the 6. On Sylvia see Walter J. Fraser Jr., Charleston! Charleston! The History of a Southern City (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1989), 130. On Rebecca Kelly, see Somers v. Smyth, 2 DeSaussure Eq. 214, 217 (South Carolina Court of Chancery, 1803). On Jenny and Rebecca Thorne, see James William Hagy, This Happy Land: The Jews of Colonial and Antebellum Charleston (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993), 100; Thorne v. Fordham, 4 Richardson Eq. 222, 223; Larry Koger, Black Slaveowners: Free Black Slave Masters in South Carolina, 1790–1860 (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1985), 33. On Celestine, Philip, and Margaret, see Joseph Brevard, comp., An Alphabetical Digest of the Public Statute Law of South Carolina (Charleston: John Hoff, 1814), 2:255; Thomas Cooper and David J. McCord, comps., The Statutes at Large of South Carolina (Columbia: A. S. Johnston, 1836–1841), 6:245, 7:442–43, 459–60, 461, 463, 466, 470; Charleston Courier, Dec. 1, 12, 1821. See also State Free Negro Capitation Tax Books, Charleston, South Carolina, 1811–1860 (microfilm), 1850, South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina (hereinafter SCDAH); Frederick A. Ford, comp., Census of the City of Charleston, South Carolina, for the Year 1861 (Charleston: Evans and Cogswell, 1861), 117.

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city, slaves “together with the . . . issue and increase of the females,” other personal property, including clothing and household items, all “for the use and benefit and lookout of Hagar, a free woman of colour and her two children Eliza and Peter formerly the property [of Arnoldus Vanderhorst] but whom he hath lately manumitted.” In addition, Vanderhorst stipulated that his estate pay for “the maintenance, education, and apprenticing [of Hagar’s] three children, Sarah, Eliza, and Peter” throughout Hagar’s lifetime and that of the children and their “issue.” Also cognizant of the chicanery of executors and guardians, Vanderhorst made some bequests to his white children contingent upon their upholding Hagar’s emancipation and that of her children. In 1819 and 1820, Hagar Richardson paid city taxes on real estate valued at three thousand dollars and on seven slaves whose work provided her income. She died a free woman in late May 1820.7 Other women’s negotiations with former owners yielded mixed results, and their success manifested in shades of gray. Many women foundered as they negotiated the shoals of inequality, often becoming entangled in the nets of their lovers’ (and former owners’) “meddling” white heirs. In 1831 Charleston immigrant John Fable bequeathed most of his property “to [his enslaved] children, whom [he] acknowledge[d].” Although the 1820 statute prevented Fable from emancipating his progeny, he directed that his real property be sold and the invested proceeds be applied to the “support of [his] son, John, and daughter, Elizabeth.” None too pleased with this situation, Fable’s white heirs contested the will. Confounded, the presiding judge ruefully admitted that “there [was] no attempt at emancipation in the will.” Moreover, the court found nothing illegal in Fable’s direction to sell the bulk of his estate and apply the resulting income to the support of two slaves. “Suppose the testator had directed the executor to expend one hundred dollars annually, in support of a favorite old horse, for past service,” the judge mused, “could his distributees or residuary legatees legally object to it? I think not.” As in numerous Carolina inheritance disputes, this case placed the issues of sexual mixing and the distribution of property to mixed-race heirs at center stage and subjected them to public scrutiny. Five judges wriggled uncomfortably, caught 7. Vanderhorst biography and genealogy, Vanderhorst Papers, collection 30/4, South Carolina Historical Society, Charleston (hereinafter SCHS); Hagar Richardson Estate Papers, SCHS, 12/194–276; Walter B. Edgar and N. Louise Bailey, eds., Biographical Dictionary of the South Carolina House of Representatives (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1977), vol. 2, The Commons House of Assembly, 1692–1775; conveyance of property, Oct. 12, 1813, Richardson Estate Papers, SCHS; confirmation of manumission, May 10, 18 [unreadable], Vanderhorst Papers, SCHS; tax receipts, May 25, 1819; May 6, 1820, Richardson Estate Papers, SCHS.

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among three conflicting drives: their inclination to uphold binding legal trusts, their abhorrence of legal precedent that created loopholes in the state’s 1820 emancipation prohibition, and their sensitivity to heightened northern criticism of slavery. The court upheld John Fable’s will and trust.8 Cases like those of Hagar Richardson and the longtime lover (who remained nameless in all court documents) of John Fable were not rare in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Carolina. Many women of color derived for themselves and their children concrete advantages from intimate relationships with white men. The recompense grew oddly, and ironically, out of their innately vulnerable position as women of color in a slave society. They inhabited a world in which their skin color was seen as a marker of sexual promiscuity. Their allegedly heightened sexual drives, in turn, served as indicators of bestiality, according to southern apologists of slavery, who concluded that black women were, in essence, born to be concubines or prostitutes as well as laborers. Consequently, white men granted greater sexual latitude to black women than they did white women, whose sexual activity they tightly constrained and protected. Champions of slavery claimed that white women were so delicate and moral as to be nearly asexual. Antithetical notions of female sexuality—aggressive, tainted black women and passive, pure white women—rationalized the sexual exploitation of slave women. State law upheld the force of these racialized notions of gender in a variety of circumstances. White men were not prosecuted for raping slaves. Only white women could be accused of bearing bastard children because bastardy was assumed to be common among “Negro” women. White women could be denied the benefit of spousal support if they had engaged in promiscuous (adulterous) “Negro” comportment. However, many women of color appropriated these sexual and racial stereotypes. Unlike white women, they were said to be highly sexual creatures who engaged in sex with slave men, free men of African descent, and white men. Countless enslaved and free African American women exploited this ideology when doing so brought material advantage to themselves, their children, or their other family members.9 8. Quoted in Ford Escheator v. Dangerfield, 8, Richardson Eq. 96, 97 (South Carolina Appeals in Equity, 1856). On John Fable and his family, see Fable and Franks v. Brown, 1 Hill 290, 299. 9. Of many additional examples, see Broughton v. Telfer, 3 Richardson Eq. 431 (South Carolina Appeals in Equity, 1851). On white men who acknowledged paternity in their wills, see Farr et al. v. Thompson, Langdon Cheves III Legal Papers, 37 (South Carolina Court of Appeals, 1839); Record of Wills of Charleston County, vol. 40, will book A, 1834–1839, 203, Charleston County Library, Charleston, South Carolina. On the issue of bastardy, see Brevard, Digest, 1:66–68; Cooper and McCord, Statutes at Large, 5:270–

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Despite the fact that women of color resourcefully negotiated extraordinarily exploitative social and sexual relations, many also succumbed to rape or coerced sexual intercourse. A few white southerners acknowledged this reality. “Some among us,” slavery apologist William Gilmore Simms reluctantly conceded, “make their slaves the victims and the instruments, alike, of the most licentious passions.” In 1829 a “broken hearted” Lydia Frierson confessed to her minister that her married owner “compel[ed] her to live in constant adultery with him” and “threaten[ed] her most dreadfully if she resist[ed] him.” John Frierson continued to rape Lydia until he died four years later. Rape manifested a murky but persistent feature of patriarchal control and a screaming repudiation of paternalistic ideology.10 Several factors conspired to create conditions ripe for sexual exploitation of Charleston slave women. The urban household existed as an intimate, walled compound comprising a single residence, a yard, and separate outbuildings. If “exceptionally spacious,” the entire property measured 117 feet wide by 200 feet deep. In short, slave owners and slaves lived in close and intimate proximity, and even slaves who slept over the kitchen or stable were just steps from their owner at all times. Exacerbating the close dimensions of urban living space, many slave owners ruefully admitted the fact that “after school or college” young men of wealthy families “spent many years before marriage in perfect idleness.” This inactivity, combined with a youthful urge to sample the perquisites of their authority, resulted in “licentious intercourse with slaves,” an outcome common enough to spawn “anxiety of [master-class] parents for their sons.” This changed little from the American Revolution to the eve of Civil War. Early in 1847, one of Charleston’s many visitors observed “men of a more than doubtful morality” pressing around “a pretty young mulatto girl” up for public auction across from the city customs house. Made an “object of criminal lust,” this young girl “turn[ed] red with shame and modesty” as the “cynical” bidders surrounded her and posed “indecent questions.” Ultimately she was purchased at “twice her worth by a professional gambler 71; State v. Clark, 2 Brevard 385 (South Carolina Constitutional Court, 1810); State v. Clements, 1 Speers 48 (South Carolina Court of Law, 1842). 10. William Gilmore Simms, “The Morals of Slavery,” in Pro-Slavery Argument, as Maintained by the Most Distinguished Writers of the Southern States (orig. pub. 1852; reprint, New York: Negro Universities Press, 1968), 228. On Lydia Frierson see A. James Fuller, “Chaplain to the Confederacy: A Biography of Basil Manly, 1798–1868” (Ph.D. diss., Miami University, 1995), 74–75. See also runaway ads in (Charleston) Gazette of the State of South Carolina (hereinafter GSSC ), Sept. 1, 1784, Oct. 7, 1790; (Charleston) South Carolina and American General Gazette (hereinafter SCAGG), Nov. 29, 1780; (Charleston) Royal Gazette, Feb. 20–23, 1782.

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who planned to put her in a lottery.” Like their fathers and grandfathers before them, patriarchs-in-training understood that sexual access to slave women accompanied their positions of power and authority.11 Laboring free women of color were defined by sexual beliefs and practices akin to those of slave women, because sexual possibilities and practices demarcated color as well as condition (slave or free). Unconstrained by sexual proscriptions imposed on (white) ladies, Charleston’s laboring free women of color capitalized on the sexual freedom defined by the master class as black behavior. In some instances less vulnerable than their enslaved counterparts, free black and brown women reaped similar material rewards from sexual relationships with white men. In 1778 a visiting road surveyor particularly commented on the elegant dress and polite behavior of Charleston’s “Negro and Mullatto [sic] women,” who invited “many of the first gentlemen” of the city to their balls. “These women . . . [were] generally in keeping,” the surveyor observed. As long as the women enjoyed the favor of Charleston’s “white gentlemen,” they lacked for few material goods.12 While “in keeping,” they provided sex in return for special treatment. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, free women of African descent entered into relationships with white men, some of which endured for decades. When Samuel Simons died in 1824, he bequeathed fourteen hundred dollars plus two slaves to his housekeeper, a free woman of color named Maria Chapman, with whom he had lived for a considerable time. Seven years later another single white man, one Benjamin Davids, left generous bequests to Elsey, a free woman who had provided long and “faithful service” to him.13 11. Dale Rosengarten et al., Between the Tracks: Charleston’s East Side during the Nineteenth Century (Charleston, S.C.: Charleston Museum, 1987), 31, 34, 55; A Toomer Porter, Lead On! Step by Step: Scenes from Clerical, Military, Educational and Plantation Life in the South, 1828–1898 (New York: G. Putnam’s Sons, 1898), 217; visit by the author to the Aiken-Rhett compound, Charleston, South Carolina, June 13, 1997. Quotation in Gabriel Edward Manigault, “Autobiography,” 78, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (hereinafter SHC). See also Margaret Izard Manigault to Gabriel Henry Manigault, Dec. 6, 1808, Louis Manigault to Charles Manigault, Nov. 22, 1852, both in Louis Manigault Papers, Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina (hereinafter Louis Manigault Papers, DU). Quotation in Sir Charles Lyell, A Second Visit to the United States of North America (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1849), 1:271; quotation in Henri Herz, My Travels in America, trans. Henry Bertram Hill (1847; reprint, Ann Arbor, Mich.: Edwards Brothers, 1963), 78. 12. Ebenezer Hazard quoted in Merrens, “A View of Coastal South Carolina,” 190. 13. Hagy, This Happy Land, 100. See also Thomas Hanscome will, Jan. 3, 1832, quoted in Jane H. Pease and William H. Pease, Ladies, Women, and Wenches: Choice and Constraint in Antebellum Charleston and Boston (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990), 107; Koger, Black Slaveowners, 41, 170.

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Not surprisingly, most mixed relationships in Charleston existed without the benefit of legal sanction even when they continued for decades, like that of Margaret Bettingall and Adam Tunno. Scottish immigrant and de jure bachelor Adam Tunno never violated white society’s “public decorum and . . . morals,” yet, from at least the closing decade of the eighteenth century until his death in late 1832, he cohabitated with “a fine looking [brown] person” named Margaret Bettingall. According to some black and brown city residents, Margaret Bettingall not only served as “the head and front of [Tunno’s] household,” but she was also his “wife.” Members of Charleston’s wealthy, white master class preferred to speak publicly of Margaret as Adam Tunno’s housekeeper; in private they whispered that she was his “concubine.” She bore Tunno two children, one of whom died in infancy. The other, Barbara Tunno Barguet, found a niche within Charleston’s brown elite community, a status she attained because her father educated her (and her first son) and because he left her twenty-five hundred dollars as well as slaves and other property, and her mother also left her money and slaves. Margaret Bettingall derived substantial material benefits from her long-term relationship with Tunno, for he left her, her children, and grandchildren nearly six thousand dollars plus slaves and other personal property. Adam Tunno the public bachelor provided well for his family of color. He was with Bettingall for over forty years, and yet he remained a prominent member of Charleston’s mercantile community and active in one of the city’s foremost social and benevolent organizations, the St. Andrew’s Society. He achieved this because he crossed the color line in a socially admissible way—that is, discreetly, behind the walls of his East Bay residence—thus allowing members of the master class either to pretend he and Bettingall were not a couple or, in private, to decry such women who lived “in disgraceful intimacy” with white men. These different interpretations of Bettingall and Tunno’s relationship by the city’s black and white communities reveal concubinage and prostitution—so labeled by wealthy white Charlestonians—as contested notions in slave society, because many people of color clearly viewed the Bettingall/Tunno liaison as a marriage.14 14. Quoted in Thomas N. Holmes testimony, Feb. 3, 1903, submitted to Charleston County Court of Common Pleas, “Case and Exceptions for Appeal, The State of South Carolina in the Supreme Court, Nov. Term 1901,” SCHS 12/107, folders 5, 43, Cheves Papers, SCHS; Theodore E. Mitchell testimony, Feb. 3, 1903, Cheves Papers, 5, 45, SCHS; Rutledge v. Tunno et al., 41 S.E. 308 (South Carolina Supreme Court, 1902); Rutledge v. Tunno et al., 48 S.E. 297 (South Carolina Supreme Court, 1904); Rutledge v. Tunno, 69 S.C. 400 (South Carolina Supreme Court, 1904); “Case and Exceptions for Appeal, The State of South Carolina in the Supreme Court, Nov. Term 1901,” Cheves Papers, 5,

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A related topic and one deserving of further exploration is the likely and logical coupling of the city’s extensive slave-hiring system and the sex trade. Unlike New Orleans, Charleston did not formalize prostitution into a system of plaçage, replete with a class of “fancy women” whose mothers contracted formal arrangements of concubinage between their daughters and white men. Nor did most Charlestonians overtly condone or tolerate sexual liaisons between people of color and white people as one historian has found in upcountry areas of antebellum Virginia and North Carolina. However, evidence points to the use—by both slave owners and slaves—of Charleston’s ubiquitous practice of slave hiring to facilitate the provision of sex for remuneration. At least two scholars investigating Caribbean and South American slavery have uncovered a “domestic sub-culture of prostitution . . . linked symbiotically to the legitimate” urban practice of hiring slaves. In nineteenth-century Rio de Janeiro and Bridgetown, women were hired out as prostitutes in addition to serving as their owners’ concubines and performing domestic tasks within private households. The pecuniary benefits to be derived from this covert sex market “made slave owners keen to keep at least one woman so employed.” The confluence of several elements points to a similar nexus of slave hiring and prostitution in Charleston.15 Slave women composed fully 25 to 29 percent of the total city population and over 50 percent of the city’s slaves; slaves consistently outnumbered white residents from the late eighteenth well into the nineteenth century. Moreover, in a special census of 1848, city enumerators listed nearly 4,700 “black” (slave), “free colored,” and white female workers, fully 38 percent of all city laborers. They were boardinghouse keepers, midwives, shopkeepers, madams, pastry cooks, teachers, house servants, mantua makers, market women, tailors, and more. While these figures SCHS. See also Cynthia Kennedy-Haflett, “ ‘Moral Marriage’: A Mixed-Race Relationship in Nineteenth-Century Charleston, South Carolina,” South Carolina Historical Magazine 97 (July 1996): 206–26; Liston W. Barguet deposition, Dec. 29, 1902, Cheves Papers, 5, 37, SCHS; will of Adam Tunno, June 16, 1831, will book G, 1826–1834, 651, 733; and will of Margaret Bettingall, May 16, 1838, will books I and J, 1839–1845, 32, WPA typescripts, Charleston County Library, Charleston, South Carolina; Charleston Courier, Dec. 28, 1832; Holmes testimony, Cheves Papers, 40, SCHS; Mitchell testimony, Cheves Papers, 37; 45, SCHS; quotation in Farr v. Thompson (South Carolina Court of Appeals, 1839). 15. On upcountry Virginia and North Carolina, see Martha Hodes, White Women, Black Men: Illicit Sex in the Nineteenth-Century South (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997). Quotation in Hilary McD. Beckles, Natural Rebels: A Social History of Enslaved Black Women in Barbados (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1989), 142–44, 146; and Mary C. Karasch, Slave Life in Rio de Janeiro, 1808–1850 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987), 89–90, 185–86.

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underestimate the numbers of Charleston’s female workers, the tally reveals laboring women’s centrality to the city—particularly women of color, who constituted the majority of women workers—and discloses their diverse responsibilities.16 Within this urban work environment, where women figured prominently but where Charleston’s stratified and hierarchical world pressed slave women to the bottom, city life created distinctive work venues and afforded unique opportunities for wide social intercourse as well as comparative autonomy. Bondswomen not only labored in private homes, they also performed multiple tasks within Charleston’s service industry, comprising boardinghouses, taverns, hotels, coffee shops, catering firms, and laundry concerns. The duties of hotel cooks, servers, and maids and those of city washers, ironers, and caterers brought them into contact with thousands of enslaved and free city residents as well as with northern and foreign visitors. Female couriers likewise occupied a prominent place in city vistas. Regardless of restrictions on mobility in the form of city ordinances, patrols, and owner surveillance, slave women proved resourceful at escaping the prying eyes and incessant, demanding voices of masters and mistresses; they delivered messages for owners, went off to market, or peddled goods on city streets and wharves.17 Potential lucre as well as relative autonomy drew “swarms” of enslaved and free women of African descent into the markets and down to the Battery, a popular promenade overlooking Charleston Harbor.18 From their booths and makeshift tables, they sold crafts, sweets, and drinks. Huckstering women heaped seemingly impossible quantities of fruits and vegetables upon their turbaned heads and hawked their wares to black, brown, and 16. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Aggregate Returns for the United States Census for 1820 (Washington, D.C.: Gales & Seaton, 1821); U.S. Bureau of the Census, Fifth Census; or Enumeration of the Inhabitants of the United States, 1830 (Washington, D.C.: Duff Green, 1832); U.S. Bureau of the Census, Compendium of the Enumeration of the Inhabitants and Statistics of the United States . . . Sixth Census (Washington, D.C.: Thomas Allen, 1841); U.S. Bureau of the Census, The Seventh Census of the United States: 1850 . . . (Washington, D.C.: Robert Armstrong, 1853); U.S. Bureau of Census, Population of the United States Census in 1860 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1864). J. L. Dawson and H. W. DeSaussure, Census of the City of Charleston, South Carolina, for the Year 1848 . . . (Charleston, S.C.: J. B. Nixon, 1849), 29 (hereinafter Census of 1848). 17. Census of 1848; Harriet Martineau, Retrospect of Western Travel (orig. pub. 1838; New York: Haskell House Publishers, 1969), 2:227, 239–40; Fredrika Bremer, The Homes of the New World: Impressions of America (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1856), 2:499. 18. Quotation in Alexander Mackay, The Western World: or Travels in the United States in 1846–1847, excerpted in South Carolina: The Grand Tour, 1780–1865, ed. Thomas D. Clark (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1973), 239; Fredrika Bremer, Charleston One Hundred Years Ago, Being Extracts from the Letters of Fredrika Bremer during Her Visit to Charleston in 1850 (orig. pub. 1856; Charleston, S.C.: St. Albans Press, 1951), 7.

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white city residents of all ages. Slave and free market women, fruiterers, and hucksters functioned as axes of social intercourse and economic transactions. Whether selling or buying, market women and peddlers absorbed news from travelers and exchanged information with slaves and free locals of all colors and economic positions. They transacted business with the city’s free people of African descent, Irish and German immigrants, slaves from nearby farms and plantations, and even runaways who sought the anonymity of a heterogeneous urban environment. Indeed, women monopolized the weekly “slaves’ fair.” Charleston’s public markets emerged in the 1730s; soon thereafter, enslaved and free market women and peddlers began to dominate them. White residents unwittingly testified to the economic centrality of market women when, in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, they complained about the “excessive number of Negro Wenches [who bought] and [sold] about the streets, corners and markets.” While mingling and bartering (applying “great quickness in reckoning and making change [with] rarely an error in the result”), slave women reaped profits for themselves and their owners. Through prior negotiations with mistresses and masters—and the force of customary practice—market women and street peddlers pocketed any weekly profit over six dollars. Thus, slave women not only outnumbered their male counterparts, as well as white women and men, but the diversity and profusion of their tasks positioned them at the heart of the city economy, where they exhibited striking autonomy.19 Slave women also constituted an essential component in the pervasive, customary, yet contested practice of slave hiring, a system that operated as both a lucrative scheme for slave owners to supplement their incomes and a practical strategy to meet seasonal-variant labor demands.20 The city came alive during its winter social season, and business owners as well as private householders advertised their need for temporary help. Charleston slave owners obligingly filled these demands—at a profit. 19. First quotation in “Presentments of the Grand Jury of Charlestown District,” reprinted in SCAGG, Dec. 3, 1779; second quotation in “Sketches of South Carolina,” Knickerbocker 21 (May 1843): 446–48; 22 (July 1843): 1–6, reprinted in Grand Tour, 239. On complaints from white residents, see Cooper and McCord, Statutes at Large, 9:692, 696; City Council v. Goldsmith, 2 Speers 428 (S. C. Court of Law, 1844). On wage negotiations and customs, see “The Petition of Sundry Widows of Charles Town,” General Assembly Petitions, 1783, Aug. 5, 1783, SCDAH; Martineau, Retrospect, 1:214; Daniel Huger Elliot Smith, A Charlestonian’s Recollections, 1846–1913 (Charleston, S.C.: Walker, Evans, & Cogswell Company, 1950), 65. 20. Theresa A. Singleton, “The Slave Tag: An Artifact of Urban Slavery,” South Carolina Antiquities 16 (1984): 45, 51; Michael P. Johnson and James L. Roark, Black Masters: A Free Family of Color in the Old South (New York: W. W. Norton, 1984), 174–77.

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In South Carolina slave hiring dated from at least the first decade of the eighteenth century, and complaints from white residents, as well as restraints on hiring, began almost immediately. Legislative acts of 1712, 1722, 1822, and 1849 alternately prohibited and regulated self-hire (a variation on this labor practice), but they failed to stop it; enforcement of the laws was costly and difficult, and many slave owners encouraged their slaves to hire themselves out in the city. Some white people feared the measure of autonomy slaves achieved in working and, sometimes, living away from their owners’ compounds. White people of the laboring classes objected to the large presence of slave women in city markets. Grievances and regulations continued through the 1850s, and repeated city ordinances passed to regulate—not abolish—the hiring system reveal that it persisted as a vital yet troubled part of the city’s economy and the lives of its residents.21 “The practice of letting [slaves] out to hire [was] very prevalent in Charleston,” one visitor observed at midcentury, “many people making comfortable incomes in this way out of the labour of their slaves.” From September 1844 to August 1848, an average of two to three people per month paid for hiring advertisements. They were either attempting to lease their own slaves to other city residents or to hire the services of slaves owned by fellow Charlestonians. Municipal ordinances requiring slave owners to purchase a tag or badge for each slave they hired out served two purposes: first and foremost, the laws regulated (or at least were intended to regulate) the amount of hiring and attempted to ensure close supervision of every slave; second, the fees for badges enriched city coffers. In 1849 the city issued over four thousand badges to owners, a figure that underrepresents yet provides a rough idea of the extent of slave hiring. In that same year and the following one, city residents paid nearly $14,000 and $26,000, respectively, to the city treasurer for slave badges, and the hired slaves labored in virtually all Charleston venues.22 21. Charleston Ordinance, Oct. 28, 1806, A Digest of the Ordinances of the City Council of Charleston, from the Year 1783 to October 1844 (Charleston, S.C.: Walker and Burke, 1844), 170–71; “Report of the South Carolina Committee on Colored People,” Dec. 7, 1858, SCDAH; Dale Rosengarten et al., Between the Tracks: Charleston’s East Side during the Nineteenth Century (Charleston, S.C.: Charleston Museum, 1987), 67–72. 22. Quoted in Mackay, The Western World, excerpted in Grand Tour, 239. See also GSSC, Jan. 15, 1784; Charles Manigault to Louis Manigault, Jan. 17, 1860, in Life and Labor on Argyle Island: Letters and Documents of a Savannah River Rice Plantation, 1833–1867, ed. James M. Clifton (Savannah, Ga.: Beehive Press, 1978), 291; Charleston Courier advertisements, 34–604, “Cash Received” ledger, SCHS; “Statement of Receipts and Expenditures by the City Council of Charleston, 1849–1850,” 95, 102, 107, 157, SCHS; Rosengarten, Between the Tracks, 70; Singleton, “Slave Tag,” 41–65.

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Women constituted a visible presence on all sides of the hiring agreements. The persistent labor convention afforded slave women opportunities to reappropriate their own time, their freedom of mobility, and the fruits of their labors. In the 1790s, “a negro wench slave” obtained permission from her master to “work out in town,” that is, to negotiate her own hiring arrangements and to work wherever she chose as long as she remitted monthly wages to her owner, a Mr. Beaty. By her industry, this slave woman “acquired a considerable sum of money, over and above what she had stipulated to pay [Mr. Beaty] for her monthly wages.” An ensuing state supreme court dispute over her profit established an important legal precedent in granting to slaves property rights in earnings exceeding the amount required by their owners.23 Many women as well as men pocketed money earned through leasing arrangements transacted by the mistress or master or by hiring themselves out to city residents and business owners. On occasion slave women eluded owners who expected their monthly percentage of earnings, as when slave owner Anna Yates grumbled, “Sally will pay nothing.” Some hired-out bondswomen, like the Yates family’s Emma and Sally, refused to remit wages and disappeared for weeks at a time. Another Charleston slave named Lesette planned an even longer absence. She had run away from her owner and supported herself in the city by hiring her services. Lesette would have pursued one of two common strategies: passing as a free woman of color or pretending to be one of the thousands of slaves whose owners had arranged for them to work in Charleston. It is clear that slave hiring cracked the door to autonomy and economic opportunity, and slave women (like men) flung it wide by capitalizing on these openings.24 While most of this industrious activity by slave women comprised legitimate enterprises, some slave women turned to full- or part-time prostitution as a pragmatic economic choice, and the city’s hiring system facilitated their decision. Both customary practice and the relative autonomy achieved as a hired slave expedited prostitution. On a weekly or monthly basis, slaves performed varied tasks, earned wages, and delivered the required amounts to mistresses and masters. Therefore, whenever a slave chose to provide sexual services for pay, the entirety of that income became clear profit for that woman. Despite Charleston’s nightly patrol, 23. Guardian of Sally Negro v. Beaty, 1 Bay 260 (South Carolina Supreme Court, 1792). 24. Anna Yates to Elizabeth Ann Yates, July 17, 1822, Yates Papers, folder 2, SCHS. See also, Miller v. Reigne, 2 Hill 592 (South Carolina Appeals at Law, 1835); Gist v. Toohey, 2 Richardson 424, 425 (South Carolina Court of Appeals, 1846). On Lesette see GSSC, Dec. 16, 1784.

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resourceful slaves could stay out past curfew, rendezvous with paying customers, and sneak back into their owners’ homes. One mistress complained that “if locked out at ten o’clock,” her slave woman “jump[ed] the fence and force[d] a window open to get into the house.” Another owner lamented that his “pretty lusty . . . young . . . yellowish wench,” named Silvia, was “so well known in and about Charleston that she need[ed] no further description.” And a slave runaway named Nanny could be seen “every night in town.” The infamous “Negro dance[s]” of Revolution-era Charleston continued at least throughout the final decades of the eighteenth century and yielded benefits to the slave women and free women of color as well as to the men who participated.25 Additional evidence points to the ways in which slave women became simultaneously sexual victims and their own sexual agents, sometimes trading sexual favors for protection from abusive owners. Near mid-nineteenth century one “young quadroon” who worked in a Charleston boardinghouse flirted with the secretary and valet of a visiting French pianist. Quite the ladies’ man, this valet swore to the slave that “there [was] no sacrifice [he] would refuse . . . to merit [her] affection and esteem.” The woman inquired, “you will buy me . . . and when I am free you will take me with you to Europe?” The valet, Monsieur François, vowed to do this “without any haggling” over her purchase price because he found his “pretty colored girl . . . ravishingly charming and spirited.” In jubilant response, the young woman declared François “more than a lover [and] an angel descended from heaven.” This woman’s attempt to trade sex for freedom failed; the rogue departed with his employer for New Orleans and left his “dearest pretty girl” in Charleston with her owner. Her situation reveals not merely slave women’s vulnerability to exploitation, but also their determination to make choices about their sexual activity, inclusive of trading sex for promised freedom or other gain. When working to buy real or de facto freedom for themselves, spouses, or children, other women likely resorted to occasional prostitution. Most slave women in Charleston routinely ran errands for owners or performed other tasks that daily took them into the city streets. They found periodic opportunities to exchange sex for money. 25. See Charleston Royal Gazette, Dec. 21, 1780; Carolina Gazette, Apr. 16, 1801, Mar. 24, 1810, June 12, 1816; Charleston Courier, Nov. 19, 1821, Dec. 3, 1824; State Gazette of South Carolina, Feb. 20, 1786; South Carolina State Gazette, July 21, 1798; Adam Hodgson, Remarks during a Journey through North America . . . a Series of Letters (orig. pub. 1823; Westport, Conn.: Negro Universities Press, 1970), 142–43. Quotation in Charleston City Gazette, July 24, 1800; Silvia’s owner quoted in South Carolina Gazette and General Advertiser, June 7, 1783 (hereinafter SCGGA); Nanny’s owner quoted in Morgan, “Black Life,” 215, and on “Negro dance[s],” see p. 211.

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Urban slave women had motive and occasion to sell sex for profit even if they could not achieve immediate or complete emancipation.26 Much of the lively sex trade flourishing in Charleston was grounded in exploitation and premised on the ability to realize a “superordinate level of accumulation” from a slave woman’s labor, prostitution, and reproduction. That is, a slave owner could reap triple returns from enslaved women who completed necessary household tasks, performed sexual acts for money, and bore children into bondage. As in most busy urban ports, brothels lined certain streets and alleys: Beresford (later Fulton), Archdale, Chalmers, Friend, and Clifford or “Mulatto Alley.” Slave-owning proprietors of those establishments, like Mrs. Grace Peixotto, were known to offer women “of all shades and importations.” Many profited handsomely from the fact that white men in South Carolina refused to outlaw prostitution. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a woman could not “be indicted for being a bawd generally” because “the bare solicitation of chastity [was] not indictable.” If nearby residents complained of constant noise and fights at a bawdy house, the proprietor could be charged merely with creating a “common nuisance.” In 1852 business flourished sufficiently to allow the prosperous Mrs. Peixotto to enlarge “the Big Brick” at Eleven Beresford Street in Charleston’s ward four. She recessed her house two feet from the street and requested of the city council that they pave the area with flagstones since she had dedicated that space “to the citizens of Charleston.” In 1860 Grace still owned her Beresford property, then valued at fifteen thousand dollars, plus seven slaves.27 Charleston residents did not confine their sex trade to the conspicuous bawdy houses. Less-obvious businesses fronted for Charleston’s sex industry as well, and evidence points to a pairing of covert enterprise with respectable city concerns. In the 1830s, a grocer named Dietrick Olandt gained notoriety when citizens protested to the mayor that his store was “an improper and disorderly house.” Subsequent investigations 26. Quotation in Herz, My Travels in America, 72–74. On “market wenches,” see SCGGA, Apr. 1, 1784; Caroline Howard Gilman, Recollections of a Southern Matron (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1850), 135. 27. Beckles, Natural Rebels, 142–44, 146; J. J. Pringle Smith and William A. Courtenay, “Sketch of the History of Charleston,” in Year Book, City of Charleston, 1880 (Charleston, S.C.: Walker, Evans, and Cogswell, 1880), 304–5; John G. Leland, “Early Taverns in Charleston,” in Preservation Progress (newsletter of the Preservation Society of Charleston) 16, no. 3 (May 1971); Charleston Mercury, Sept. 16, 21, 1837, June 20, 1839. On “bawds” and bawdy houses, quotation in B. C. Pressley, The Law of Magistrates and Constables in the State of South Carolina . . . (Charleston, S.C.: Walker & Burke, 1848), 77–78; Cooper and McCord, Statutes at Large, 6:236. Smith and Courtenay, “Sketch of the History of Charleston,” 304–5; Leland, “Early Taverns”; List of the Taxpayers of Charleston, 1860 (Charleston, S.C.: Evans & Cogswell, 1860), 218.

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revealed that Olandt worked “several females . . . [in] the upper portion of his house.” A white man, Cornel June, operated one of Charleston’s myriad boardinghouses, a legitimate option for travelers and other visitors, particularly during the busy winter season. However, June’s establishment catered to the waterfront trade, and he prostituted slaves and free women of all colors out of his boardinghouse on Bedon’s Alley. It would have been an easy matter, and profitable, for other male or female boardinghouse keepers and tavern owners to reserve one room in an otherwise respectable house for special services and to keep one slave woman employed in this manner. Slave owners and potential slave hirers often settled their contracts personally and made arrangements by word of mouth, so sex could be sold in the same way with city residents paying little heed. Charleston’s omnipresent slave-hiring system abetted not only slave women who opted for extra money by providing sexual services, but also slave owners who longed to increase their bottom lines by sexually exploiting their slaves.28 It is unlikely that men like Dietrick Olandt and Cornel June had cornered this particular aspect of the sex market. From 1782 through 1802, city directories listed an annual average of twenty-five women engaged in the accommodations trades. In 1783, for example, municipal officials granted to women thirty-three permits (fully 36 percent of the ninetythree issued) required by law for the operation of “Taverns, punch houses, & [other retailers] of spirituous Liquors.” Charleston’s primarily white proprietresses also owned and operated boardinghouses, hotels, and coffee houses. By 1848 their numbers had increased to forty-two. While most of these tradeswomen ran wholly legitimate concerns, some probably possessed both the drive (greed) and opportunity (a ready clientele) to enhance their profits by hiring out women sex workers to sailors, travelers, and local men.29 It is further likely that a nexus of sex and the city’s extensive practice of hiring slaves for various tasks constituted a standard element of the city economy. Charleston slave owners and hirers were bent on wringing every dollar from their enslaved laborers, and if occasional cruel treatment 28. City directory of 1835–1836; Charleston Mercury, Sept. 16, 21, 1837, June 20, 1839; Charleston Mercury, June 20, 1839. On Cornel June, see Boston Morning Post, Nov. 7, 1835; city directory of 1835, reprinted in James W. Hagy, Directories for the City of Charleston, South Carolina, for the Years 1830–1831, 1835–1836, 1836, 1837–1838, and 1840–1841 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing, 1997), 47. For examples, see Paul Cross Papers, folder 12, Jan. 24, 1789, SCL; receipt, Apr. 1, 1815, P/9095, SCL; receipt book, 1829–1889, Mary Aldret Papers, SCHS; John Berkley Grimball diary, Oct. 10, 1832, Apr. 7, Aug. 14, 1833, May 7, 1834, SHC. 29. SCGGA, May 27, 1783; James W. Hagy, People and Professions of Charleston, South Carolina, 1782–1802 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing, 1992); Census of 1848, 29–35.

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of slaves excited little interest or inquiry, it seems likely there was similar indifference to the practice of discreetly hiring slave women out for sex.30 Within this context of routine exploitation, offering sexual services for pay probably complemented Charleston’s pervasive slave-hiring system. It also provided an alternative to the city’s more notorious bawdy houses and afforded yet another means for slave owners to maximize the return on their investments in human property. On the other side of the ledger, slaves proved equally resolute in exploiting hiring situations to their best advantage. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the city’s heavy maritime activity and its status as a habitual stop for domestic and foreign visitors touring the United States assured a constant sex market. Enslaved women and slave owners alike doubtless tapped into this steady customer base of pirates, soldiers, sailors, visitors, and city residents. Urban propinquity fostered daily, multilayered mingling, including sexual relations, between people of African and European descent. The forms of sexual mixing and their precipitating motives varied immensely because social relations among people of different color in Charleston ranged from genuine affection to smoldering animosity. Few would dispute that sexual abuse of slave women occurred. Certainly sexual mixing occurred, in part, because many southern white men understood forced sex as a “ritualistic re-enactment of the daily pattern of social dominance” upon which their world and their personal power rested.31 Sexual exploitation of slave women extended naturally from the overweening power of the master, that front line of control over slaves. Mixing also ensued, however, because there was money to be made from sex, people available for exploitation, and an established, legitimate slavehiring system that expedited the sex trade in Charleston. Slave women were sexually violated by their owners, and some were likely forced by greedy owners into selling sex. Notwithstanding this reality, some women of color exploited their exploiters. They wielded sex as a tool of survival; they ameliorated their condition by providing sex in return for some material advantage. That behavior did not transform them into prostitutes or concubines. Rather, many women of African descent resisted enslavement or accommodated to their oppression in slave society by acting as their own sexual agents. Examining the variety of sexual mingling in the slave South—analyzing that blurry line between housekeeper and concubine 30. On “brutal” and “barbarous” treatment, see George P. Rawick, ed., The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, ser. 1, vol. 2, South Carolina, Part Two (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing, 1972), 233–36. 31. Winthrop D. Jordan, The White Man’s Burden: Historical Origins of Racism in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974), 72.

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and investigating the interface between the sex market and slavery—reveals a need to rethink traditional definitions of sexual practices. In addition, analysis of sex in slave societies demonstrates that both sex and gender functioned not only to maintain power, but also to contest power, and this fact complicates portraits of the social and economic institution of slavery on which the Old South was built.

D IA N E M U T T I B U R K E

‘‘Mah Pappy Belong to a Neighbor’’ The Effects of Abroad Marriages on Missouri Slave Families

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O R M E R M I S S O U R I S L AV E M A R Y B E L L R E M E M B E R E D T H AT

life during slavery had been extremely difficult for her parents, who were owned by different slaveholders. Mary’s father, Spottswoods Rice, visited his wife and six children “but two nights a week”—on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Often when her father came to them, bloody from beatings he had received on his master’s farm, her mother could only tend to his wounds, wash his clothes, and send him back again to his abusive master. Once her father ran away after a particularly bad beating and hid near his family’s cabin while he watched for a chance to escape to freedom. In spite of the possibility of more beatings and the emotional toll that separation had taken on the marriage and the children, Mary’s mother begged him to remain near his family. Rice returned to his master but secured his freedom through enlistment in the Union army six months later. The Rice family was reunited after the war and moved to St. Louis, where both parents labored while the children attended school.1 Mary Bell’s abroad slave family does not resemble those slave families described by most historians of southern slavery. Over the past thirty years, scholars have focused on the experiences of plantation slaves living in the large slaveholding regions of the South. They have pointed to the slave family, the slave-quarter community, and slave religion as the three main factors that helped to mitigate the harshest aspects of slavery. Nuclear family units, with husbands, wives, and children all living together in their owners’ plantation slave quarters, were described as the predominant family structure. Slaves tenaciously maintained family ties in the face of the many abuses of slavery. Although historians have acknowledged the existence of abroad marriages, the importance of these unions has been

1. Mary Bell interview, in The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, ed. George P. Rawick (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1972), 11:25–31.

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de-emphasized, overshadowed by concentration on the resident marriages of most plantation slaves.2 Little research has been done on the issue of abroad marriages, even though over twenty years ago Paul Escott first estimated that in the South as a whole 27.5 percent of slave marriages were abroad unions. Recently a few historians have acknowledged this significant percentage of abroad marriages and have pointed to the need to study these families in a more critical light. Abroad marriages were especially prevalent in regions where owners had few slaves, and so slaves were forced to find spouses on other slaveholdings; however, these unions have been identified in all regions of the South and on all sizes of slaveholdings. A recent study claims that even in South Carolina 33.5 percent of the state’s slave households were cross-plantation. Many plantation slaves apparently chose abroad matches rather than marriages to slaves on the same holdings, suggesting that slaves were not purely motivated by demographics. A number of historians have concluded that slaves’ rules of exogamy, making it taboo to marry blood kin such as first cousins, drastically reduced the number of suitable, nonrelated, potential spouses even on plantations. In addition, male slaves practiced limited self-determination by choosing their marriage partners and enjoyed the expansion of their social worlds and the breaks in their routine provided by traveling to visit their spouses. Slave men also may have chosen women who lived elsewhere so as not to witness the possible abuse of their wives and children at the hands of their owners.3 Abroad marriages, like that of Mary Bell’s parents, were by far the norm in Missouri. Analysis of census data from five Missouri counties reveals that in the last decades of the antebellum era, the male-female ratio—both of the entire slave population and of adult slaves—was virtually even in these slaveholding communities (table 1). The remarkable gender equity found in Chariton, Clay, Cooper, Marion, and Ste. Genevieve Counties promoted the creation of slave families, although less often in the form of traditional two-parent families residing together. Instead, in Missouri a 2. See Herbert Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750–1925 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1976), 135–38; and Eugene Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York: Pantheon Books, 1974), 472–75. 3. See Paul D. Escott, Slavery Remembered: A Record of Twentieth-Century Slave Narratives (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979), 51–53; Emily West, “Surviving Separate: Cross-Plantation Marriages and the Slave Trade in Antebellum South Carolina,” Journal of Family History 24 (Apr. 1999): 212–31; Emily West, “Debate on the Strength of Slave Families,” Journal of American Studies 33 (1999): 221–41; Brenda E. Stevenson, Life in Black and White: Family and Community in the Slave South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 230–31; Gutman, Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 131, 135–38; and Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll, 475.

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full 57 percent of marriages were between slave couples living on different slaveholdings. This number is based on a quantitative analysis of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) slave narratives from Missouri and Civil War pension claims filed by the dependents of Missouri’s formerslave soldiers. Most of those interviewed by the WPA in the 1930s had been children during slavery and could only provide information about their parents’ marriages. On the other hand, while orphans, siblings, and parents of soldiers filed a number of claims, most pensioners were the soldiers’ widows. These pension claims reveal the marital status of a large number of slave couples. The two types of evidence provide slightly different pictures of slave marriages in Missouri, but both establish that an overwhelming number of slave couples had abroad unions. The number of cross-plantation marriages found in Missouri is significantly greater than that found elsewhere in the South (table 2).4 The unique demographics and history of slavery in Missouri meant that most of the state’s slaves had little choice but to forge abroad unions. Plantation slavery never developed in Missouri, in part because the state’s shorter growing season was not suitable for large-scale cotton production and in part because Missouri’s geographic position on the northwestern border of the slave South made slavery appear vulnerable. The state was virtually surrounded by free states, and two of the nation’s greatest rivers, the Mississippi and Missouri, provided a number of slaves with escape routes. 4. Chariton, Clay, Cooper, Marion, and Ste. Genevieve Counties were all located in the slaveholding regions of Missouri along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. Statistics skewed slightly toward more women because of large numbers of female slaves in Hannibal and Palmyra (both in Marion County). Slaves sixteen and older were counted as adults. All percentages are rounded up. See table 1. Slave Schedule, Chariton County, Clay County, Cooper County, Marion County, and Ste. Genevieve County, Missouri, 1850 and 1860, U.S. Census. The percentage of abroad marriages in Missouri likely was closer to 63 (the pension claims) than to 45 percent (WPA narratives). Prospective pensioners offered information about the viability of their marriages during slavery, often including whether the unions were abroad. On the other hand, the one-parent rate from WPA narratives is likely more accurate. Pension claims do not show as high a rate of one-parent families because of the bias inherent to the evidence. The making of a claim meant that the claimant’s relationship with the soldier had lasted until enlistment. Statistical data includes only interviews and claims that specifically indicated the marital status of the slave couple. Percentages in table 2 do not add up to 100 percent because some marriages fell into multiple categories, and all percentages are rounded up. See interviews of Missouri slaves in American Slave, primarily vol. 11 and suppl., ser. 1, vol. 2. See also Benecke Family Papers, Western Historical Manuscript Collection (hereinafter WHMC), University of Missouri–Columbia; and Civil War Pension Claims, Sixty-fifth Regiment of the United States Colored Troops (hereinafter USCT 65; company is designated by letter), National Archives (hereinafter NA), Washington, D.C.

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By the 1850s, some slaveholders feared that the precarious location of Missouri, coupled with the threat of outside abolitionist and free-soil agitators, would entice their slaves to flee. Therefore, large slaveholders never migrated to Missouri in great numbers. Most slaveholding migrants to Missouri were small holders who came from the backcountry areas of the Upper South rather than the region’s plantation districts. By the 1830s, Missouri had emerged as a magnet for southern slaveholding families of limited means, who were attracted by a climate in which they could replicate the patterns of diversified agriculture found in their original homes. Overall, slaves accounted for less than 10 percent of Missouri’s population in 1860, yet there were large communities of slaveholders in many of the counties bordering the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, where slaves often exceeded 25 percent of the population.5 Although slavery was firmly entrenched in the state as an economic, political, and social system, the profile of Missouri’s slaveholding households 5. See Russel L. Gerlach, Settlement Patterns in Missouri: A Study of Population Origins with a Wall Map (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1986), 15; R. Douglas Hurt, Agriculture and Slavery in Missouri’s Little Dixie (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1992), 219–22; and Sam Bowers Hilliard, Atlas of Antebellum Agriculture (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984), 37–38.

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often better reflected that of the family farm than of the plantation. Instead of concentrating on a single cash crop, most Missourians produced a wide variety of products for household and market use, such as grains, livestock, tobacco, and hemp. The modest size of these farms meant that few required large numbers of laborers. Each day the farm family toiled together with its small slave workforce to maintain both agricultural and domestic operations. Slaves performed the most arduous tasks, and because there were few overseers most slaveholders directly supervised and assisted this labor.6 The working and living conditions found on Missouri’s small farms profoundly shaped the experiences of slaves. The intimacy of farm life fostered a personal relationship between slaves and owners and allowed them extraordinary power to influence the quality of one another’s lives. Although close relations provided many slaves with unique opportunities to improve their lives both through personal bonds forged with their owners and increased possibilities to resist their enslavement, the intimacy found on small slaveholdings also exposed slaves to the worst forms of slaveholder abuse. The relations between owners and slaves were usually the key to the quality of Missouri slaves’ lives, but systemic factors also played a role. Due to the small size of most Missouri slaveholdings, many slaves were denied daily access to crucial support systems, and slave families frequently were separated through slave hiring, migration, estate divisions, and sales. A few historians have suggested that in small-slaveholding regions like Missouri, slaves suffered devastating isolation and faced their enslavement alone with little assistance from family or community.7 The composition of the average slave household in Missouri differed greatly from those that historians have documented in the South’s plantation slave quarters. In Missouri the average slaveholding consisted of just one or two adults and a few children. A statistical analysis of Chariton, Clay, Cooper, Marion, and Ste. Genevieve Counties during the late antebellum years reveals that only 11 percent of slaveholders owned over ten slaves, and a mere 1.7 percent of slaveholders were planters owning over twenty slaves. In these counties, the average slaveholding had five slaves.8 The nuclear family unit with a father, mother, and children owned by the same 6. See Stafford Poole and Douglas J. Slawson, Church and Slave in Perry County, Missouri, 1818–1865 (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1986); Harrison A. Trexler, Slavery in Missouri, 1804–1865 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1914). 7. See Melton McLaurin, Celia, A Slave (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1991); Poole and Slawson, Church and Slave; and Trexler, Slavery in Missouri. 8. In the five counties in both 1850 and 1860, the average number of slaves per holding was 4.9. In 1860, there was an increase in slaveholders, but the average slaveholding and the percentage of larger slaveholders remained the same. With a few exceptions, larger

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slaveholder was not the norm on Missouri’s farms. Instead, the average Missouri slave family consisted of a slave mother and her children on one farm with a husband/father on another farm. Abroad marriages altered the way in which most Missouri slave men, women, and children experienced slavery from that documented for a majority of plantation slaves. The limited presence of abroad slave men in their families’ daily lives had profound implications for Missouri’s slave women and children. Abroad men and women were unable to provide one another with the same level of emotional, physical, and economic support afforded resident spouses. While daily contact with spouses might have been more satisfying, resident marriages were not an option for most of Missouri’s slaves. Despite the limitations of these relations, Missouri slaves adapted and fashioned strong family, kinship, and community ties within the state’s small-slaveholding districts. Many abroad marriages proved remarkably stable, surviving for many years during slavery and often continuing after emancipation. Missouri slaves embraced their abroad families as an important aspect of their lives over which they exercised some control and as a source of personal happiness. As in other parts of the South, the formation of slave families greatly depended upon the will of Missouri’s slaveholders. The white community acknowledged the legitimacy, if not the legality, of a slave marriage only after the slave man and woman involved gained the consent of both owners. Many slaves, nonetheless, celebrated their unions with wedding ceremonies and parties. Since a majority of Missouri couples were unable to live together as husbands and wives in a traditional sense, slaves likely believed it was even more important to legitimize and sanctify their abroad marriages in the eyes of their own community through rituals and festivities. While slave preachers, white county officials, or masters married some slaves, other couples, like Hattie Mathews’s grandparents, merely jumped the broomstick. Peter Corn described the way in which many slaves were married: “When de master first married us he would say in de ceremony something like dis. ‘Now, by God, if you ain’t treatin’ her right, by God, I’ll take you up and whip you.’ The girl’s mistress would chastise her de same way. I would choose who I wanted to marry but I had to talk to my master about it. Den him and de owner of de girl I wanted get together and talk it over.” Some slaveholders provided their slaves with traditional weddings. For example, William Silvy recalled his slave woman Harriet’s marriage to slaveholders owned, at the most, twenty to thirty slaves. Slave Schedules, Chariton County, Clay County, Cooper County, Marion County, and Ste. Genevieve County, Missouri, 1850 and 1860, United States Census. See Hurt, Agriculture and Slavery, 219–22.

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Asbury Warden on his Howard County farm in April 1851: “there was quiet [sic] a gathering and supper on this occasion so much so that it was considered by all as a regular formal marriage.” Many slaves remembered weddings as important community events, which were usually attended by slaves from neighboring farms, as well as by members of the slaveholding families. Richard Kimmons told of the many “all-night dances” and suppers he attended when Lawrence County slaves were married.9 Most Missouri slaveholders gladly sanctioned abroad marriage because they recognized that, at the very least, their economic interests depended on it. Slaveholders undoubtedly would have preferred slaves to marry on their own farms, but most did not own enough slaves to provide suitable, nonrelated potential spouses. On the most basic level, owners of slave women accepted abroad marriages out of necessity if they hoped to increase their holdings through the birth of slave children. On the other hand, Missouri slaveholders lost valuable work time while slave men visited their families and suffered the risks associated with allowing the men increased mobility. But owners of slave men also accepted abroad marriages even though they suffered most of the inconveniences and did not reap the benefits of the slave family’s reproduction. Some slaveholders may have believed that slave men who forged ties to women and children would be more content in their enslavement and less likely to flee. In addition, many owners of abroad men owned slave women who were involved in abroad marriages as well. They expected their slaveholding neighbors to extend visitation privileges to the husbands of these women. In the final analysis, slaveholders permitted the marriages knowing that the fate of the entire Missouri slave system depended on cross-farm marriages and the mobility of abroad slave husbands. Therefore, owners of both male and female slaves recognized these unconventional marriages as legitimate and helped sanction them by providing their slaves with weddings and allowing slave men and women frequent visitation privileges. Custom dictated that slave men could regularly visit their wives, but couples relied on their owners to recognize these rights. Slave men were usually given passes to see their families once on the weekend and occasionally once during the week. Depending on the distance they had to travel, the men usually arrived for visits on Saturday evening and often left before sunrise on Monday morning. Cape Girardeau slave Mollie Renfro Sides reported of her parents, “ ‘Massa’ English wouldn’t sell us, an’ ‘Massa’ 9. The pension claims and WPA narratives are filled with references to slave weddings. Hattie Mathews interview, in American Slave, 11:249–52; Peter Corn interview, in American Slave, 11:85–93; Asbury Warden, Benecke Family Papers, files 2653–4, WHMC; Richard Kimmons interview, in American Slave, suppl. 2, 4:2193–98.

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Renfro woun’ sell mah daddy, so dey jes’ let mah daddy come tuh see us on Satudays.” Occasionally, the right to visit a spouse was made part of a sale or hiring agreement. When slaveholder Sallie Gaines purchased Asbury Warden from her brother she agreed that she would provide Warden with “certain time to go and see his wife and family,” and, she said, “I kept my promise and not only permitted him to see his said wife Harriet, but I also furnished him a horse to ride when he went to see his said wife.” Charles Elliot was allowed to ride his owner’s horse the eight miles to visit his wife, Ellen. Spouses usually lived within a few miles of each other, although some men journeyed much greater distances to spend a few short hours with their families. The length of the trip often determined how frequently husbands were allowed to visit. George Priest lived only a mile from his wife, Anna, and saw her nearly every night, while abroad husbands at greater distances traveled much less often; they sometimes could not make even the traditional weekly visits. Evidence in the pension claims points to fairly regular interaction between abroad husbands and wives; at the very least, many saw one another often enough to produce large families.10 The visits aside, for most of each week a majority of Missouri slave households were headed by women. Slave women and children lacked the regular presence and support of husbands and fathers. Southern slave men in general, even those with resident wives, constantly struggled to protect and support their families in light of the power that slaveholders held over their lives. Abroad slave men found it especially challenging to contribute to their families’ well-being. They could provide their wives and children with only limited economic assistance, physical protection, and emotional support. The impact of the men’s absence on the daily lives of women and children is difficult to gauge, but the historical record offers some suggestions. Recent scholarship has pointed to the importance of slaves’ economic contributions to the creation and protection of stable slave families. Slaves improved their economic circumstances by working hard for their own families during the little free time given them by their owners. Many slaveholders in Missouri, as in other parts of the South, provided their slaves with small plots of land on which to grow crops and allowed them to work for neighbors during their leisure time. Slave families often supplemented their meager diets with vegetables grown in their gardens. In addition, some slaves generated small amounts of capital through the cultivation 10. It was common for former slaves to list large numbers of children in claims. For quotations, see Mollie Renfro Sides interview, in American Slave, 11:310; Asbury Warden, Benecke Family Papers, files 2653–54, WHMC; Charles Elliot pension claim, USCT 65C, NA; and Jacob Priest pension claim, USCT 65J, NA.

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of cash crops such as tobacco. For example, Lincoln County slave John Carter worked nights, holidays, and Saturdays, earning up to $250 a year by cultivating his own tobacco crop and by making rails and cutting wood for neighboring farmers. Another slave, Squire Burns, explained, “We folks used to get paid for the work that we done after night on Sunday or during the Hollidays Christmas and New Years.” In addition to cultivating gardens, industrious slaves, if their owners permitted, supplemented their families’ diets and likely improved their general health by hunting and fishing and by purchasing items such as coffee and sugar. Slaves also bought livestock, simple household goods, and material for clothing and bedding with their earnings from extra work. Although owners purchased some of these articles on behalf of slaves, it was not uncommon for slaves to deal directly with local merchants. Not all purchases were for the good of the family, however. Chariton County Circuit Court records indicate that white men were frequently prosecuted for selling liquor to slaves.11 The material quality of life enjoyed by slave women and children was directly influenced by the contributions made by husbands and fathers. It was clearly easier for resident husbands to labor for their families. Abroad slave men were not at their families’ cabins long enough to be of much assistance with such basic household chores as chopping firewood. In addition, most were unable to supplement their families’ diets or tend cash crops in the same manner as resident husbands and fathers. They did not have as many free hours in which to earn money through hiring out their own labor. Much of their free time and energy were consumed in travel to visit their families. Slave women often were forced to make up for what their abroad husbands could not furnish, struggling to improve the quality of life for their children in what were often reduced economic circumstances. For example, Eliza Overton’s mother stole a hog from her master and butchered it in order to provide her family with a decent meal. Some historians have suggested that abroad wives found it liberating to do so much on their own. Missouri’s slave narratives give little indication as to how abroad slave women felt about their added responsibilities. While they may have taken pride in their ability to cope with their circumstances, there is no indication that abroad slave women preferred the situation to having husbands at home.12 11. Larry Hudson, To Have and to Hold: Slave Work and Family Life in Antebellum South Carolina (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997). For citations, see John Carter pension claim, USCT 65A, NA; and Alfred Smith pension claim, USCT 65C, NA. See also Chariton County Circuit Court records, vol. B. 12. See Marie Jenkins Schwartz, Born in Bondage: Growing Up Enslaved in the Antebellum South (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000), 50–53; and Deborah Gray White, Ar’n’t I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South (New York: W. W. Norton, 1985), 153–55. For citation, see Eliza Overton interview, in American Slave, 11:266–68.

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The many negative effects of abroad marriages on the material circumstances of slave families were somewhat tempered by the presence of other slave men on their home farms. In fact, a full 47 percent of slaveholdings in 1850 and 50 percent of slaveholdings in 1860 had in residence both male and female adults, yet only one-quarter of slave couples were part of resident marriages. It can be concluded, therefore, that a great number of abroad and single women lived on slaveholdings with adult slave men who were not their husbands but to whom they were often related. Abroad wives often lived with fathers, brothers, and sons. While it was common for young adult sons to contribute to the support of their aging parents, younger slave women also were assisted and protected by male relatives and possibly even nonrelated males who may have been engaged in abroad unions as well. In the face of limited assistance from husbands, consanguinal ties were especially important to abroad women. It is even likely that female relatives assisted abroad men with daily tasks such as cooking meals and caring for cabins on their home farms. There is also evidence that many abroad slave women did not live by themselves in their own cabins. In 1860 an average of five to six slaves lived in a cabin together—two or three of whom were adults sixteen years or older. Abroad slave women and their children often shared cabins. Maria Bayne reported that she saw David Price weekly when he came to visit his wife, with whom she shared a slave cabin. Other abroad slave men and women continued to live in the same cabin as their parents. In fact, 13 percent of slaveholdings in 1850 and 16 percent of slaveholdings in 1860 were intergenerational in nature; many of these comprised parents living with their adult children. Clarinda Smith’s mother and siblings testified that they lived together with Clarinda in a two-room cabin and often saw her sleeping in bed with her abroad husband, Alfred Smith. In the absence of daily support from their husbands, many abroad slave women likely welcomed help from other slave men living with them on their home farms; however, the assistance rendered from male relatives and friends could not entirely substitute for the important daily role of a resident husband and father (table 3).13 13. The manuscript slave censuses for Chariton, Clay, Cooper, Marion, and Ste. Genevieve Counties were used to determine the demographic makeup of Missouri’s slaveholdings. If a holding consisted of only adult female slaves sixteen and older, with or without children, I classified it as female headed. The same follows for male-headed holdings. A holding that consisted of adult male and female slaves was classified as a male-and-female holding; one with only children fifteen years and younger, I classified as a children-only household. A household was listed as intergenerational if it appeared that there were adult household members from two generations. Obviously, a slaveholding could fall into both intergenerational and one of the three adult categories at the same time. In addition, all percentages are rounded to the nearest number, which accounts for the totals not always

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The lack of resident husbands on some Missouri farms exacerbated another problem faced by many slave women. The close living and working conditions often led to the sexual abuse of slave women by male members of the slaveholding household. Twice as many Missouri slaves claimed white fathers as did slaves in the South as a whole. Twelve percent of Missouri slaves appearing in WPA records claimed that their fathers were members of their owners’ white families, and many others spoke of parents and grandparents who were the result of such unions. The intimate conditions in which slaveholding men and slave women lived and worked was the primary reason for this increased sexual exploitation, but the absence of slave husbands may have been a contributing factor. Although most slave men felt powerless to protect their wives, the physical presence of slave husbands might have served as a deterrent for some slaveholding men. The story of an unmarried Missouri slave woman, told by historian Melton McLaurin in his book Celia, A Slave, vividly portrays the devastating consequences of the isolation faced by some slaves on Missouri’s small slaveholdings. Celia was forced into a long-term sexual relationship with her master. McLaurin believes that she received no protection and little support from other slaves on her master’s farm or from the neighborhood slave community. Celia eventually murdered her master when she could no longer tolerate his repeated sexual abuse.14

adding up to 100 percent. Slave Schedules, Chariton County, Clay County, and Cooper County, Missouri, 1850 and 1860, United States Census. See Dallis Price, Benecke Family Papers, file 2608, WHMC; Berry Twyman pension claim, USCT 65C, NA; Alfred Smith pension claim, USCT 65C, NA; Mat Beasley pension claim, USCT 65F, NA; Jefferson Reeves pension claim, USCT 65H, NA; and James W. Hensley pension claim, USCT 65B, NA. 14. See Escott, Slavery Remembered, 46–47. Statistics taken from the 102 WPA narratives of former Missouri slaves: Missouri narratives primarily in American Slave, vol. 11 and suppl., ser. 1, vol. 2. In addition, in 1850, 14 percent of slaves in the five counties were listed as mulatto; by 1860 that number had risen to 18 percent. Slave Schedules, Chariton County, Clay County, Cooper County, Marion County, and Ste. Genevieve County, Missouri, 1850 and 1860, United States Census. See also McLaurin, Celia, A Slave.

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The emotional lives of abroad slave family members were especially compromised by the limited presence of husbands and fathers. When interviewed by the WPA many years after slavery had ended, the memories of most former Missouri slaves focused on mothers. Many merely reported that their fathers lived on other slaveholdings. The brief nature of fathers’ visits may have made it difficult for some slave children to become emotionally attached to their fathers. Tishey Taylor explained, “Mah mammy’s name was ‘Katie,’ Katie Cherry, an ma father wus William Walturf, er somethin’ like ’at, never did know good ’cause he never stayed wif us in our cabin no how and we never knowed him much.” Mary Armstrong’s father lived on a different farm, and she was never close to him: “Then I hear my papa is sold some place I don’t know where. ’Course I didn’t much know him so well, jes’ what mama had tol’ me, so that didn’t worry me so much.” Most WPA slaves recalled that their mothers tended to their physical and emotional needs on a daily basis, and many also remembered their mothers as harsh disciplinarians. Slave mothers had to both discipline their children and teach them slave survival strategies because fathers were not around to assist with these tasks. Former slave Lewis Mundy claimed that his mother whipped him more than did his master and mistress. And Tishey Taylor’s mother schooled her children in ways to resist their owners. She habitually hid in her cabin and feigned sleep so that she could spend the evenings with her children.15 Abroad slave women also were susceptible to heartbreaking deception by their frequently absent spouses. It was not uncommon for abroad slave men to be involved with, even married to, two slave women simultaneously. Slave men occasionally abandoned their wives for other women, but often they continued to visit both women. Infidelity occurred in plantation slave communities as well, but the circumstances of abroad marriages made this kind of activity more likely in Missouri. The sporadic visiting habits of some abroad spouses easily concealed these relationships. For example, former slave owner Clay Taylor was not surprised to discover that his slave Henry Pratt had two families, claiming that he knew a number of such cases. A slave man’s decision to marry a second wife was not usually a result of the circumstances of slavery but was purely one of personal choice. A friend of Henry Berry explained that Henry was seeing another woman, Nisa Kurd, at the same time that he was married to Martha Johnson, stating that “the truth is all we slaves sweethearted a little.” Former slaveholder William Cheatham suggested that dual unions were the result of the lack 15. Tishey Taylor interview, in American Slave, 11:342–47; Mary Armstrong interview, in American Slave, suppl. 2, 2:70; Lewis Mundy interview, in American Slave, 11:258–60.

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of legal slave marriages, observing, “The way the slaves married at that time was that they simply went to living together and stayed together as long as they wished and then took some other partner.” Clearly, this was the case for some Missouri slave men and women.16 Civil War pension files are filled with examples of two wives claiming to be the sole legitimate heir to a deceased soldier’s pension. For example, Asbury and Harriet Warden maintained an abroad marriage and were the parents of five children before he enlisted in the federal army. After his death, both Harriet Warden and a woman named Emma Warden filed pension claims as the widow of Asbury Warden. Emma claimed that Sandy Bruce, a slave minister and the brother of former United States Senator Blanche K. Bruce and autobiographer Henry C. Bruce, married the couple on the farm of Emma Warden’s master in September 1862. The couple had a baby boy soon after. Asbury Warden had asked his owner, Sallie Gaines, if she would consent to his marriage with Emma, a slave living on a farm near hers. His mistress explained, “I refused to give him permit to marry said Emma Borum as his wife Harriet had been living with him as husband and wife for such a long time and had always treated him nicely, and had a good character, that I considered it wrong for him to abandon her then.” The evidence indicates that Asbury then arranged the second marriage without his mistress’s consent. However, Sallie Gaines pointed out to the pension board that even if a wedding took place, the marriage was not legitimate without her consent as owner. There is no indication in the pension evidence that first wives accepted second wives as part of a polygamous marriage arrangement; most first wives claimed that they either were unaware of the second wives altogether or that they knew their husbands were seeing other women but claimed they never married them. Conversely, second wives seem to have often been aware of their men’s previous relationships and expected the men to sever their ties to their first families. Of course, it was in the financial interest of pension claimants to deny participation in polygamous marriages; however, jealousies and hostilities existed years after slavery had ended. Each claimant clearly chose to regard herself as the sole wife. For example, the pension board discovered that former slave Henry Pratt had maintained two families at the same time. Millie Pratt testified that “Henry and I had considerable trouble” about his occasional visits to his first wife and family but claimed that she was powerless to stop him. It appears that second marriages often occurred when slave men established relationships with women who lived closer than did their abroad 16. While it is also possible that abroad slave women engaged in infidelity, I have found no cases in the Missouri evidence. Henry Pratt pension claim, USCT 65A, NA; Henry Berry pension claim, USCT 65F, NA; David Cheatham pension claim, USCT 65F, NA.

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wives. Caleb Jones married Eliza in 1856, and the couple had three children. Around 1861, Caleb also married a woman named Susan, who had been hired to work for his master. Martha Banks reportedly separated from her abroad husband, Reuben, after he engaged in an intimate relationship with a slave woman who lived on a farm adjoining that of his owner.17 Systemic factors compromised the integrity of slave families in other ways as well. Small-scale slavery left many slave families more vulnerable to separation through slave hiring, migration, estate divisions, and sales than were their plantation counterparts. Missouri’s pervasive system of hiring out slaves divided slave families and often exposed slaves to gross exploitation and abuse. Hiring was vital to both the labor market and the economy of the state. Since few slaves were needed to operate most Missouri farms, it was common for slaveholders to hire out excess hands in order to generate extra income. Owners like Walter Raleigh Lenoir maintained a steady stream of capital through hiring out those slaves not needed on their farms. In addition, slaves were commonly hired out while estates were in probate and as a source of income for widows and orphans. Slaves were contracted to nonslaveholders and slaveholders alike to work as domestics, farmhands, and occasionally as artisans. With the exception of slave men hired to work on riverboats, most Missouri slaves were hired locally. Nonetheless, slave hiring significantly increased the number of abroad marriages in Missouri. Even when slave men and women were owned by the same master, there was no guarantee that they would be together on a daily basis. Many slave couples were separated through the routine hiring out of slaves, and slave children as young as seven were hired to serve as nurses to white children. Former slave Sarah Graves commented on this aspect of Missouri slavery when she noted that “[m]y mama was sold only once, but she was hired out many times. . . . Allotments made a lot of grief for the slaves.” Most hiring contracts dictated that the employer provide clothing and medical care for hired slaves, but slaves were vulnerable to neglect and even cruelty because those who hired them had less economic incentive to protect their health than did their owners.18 17. There is no evidence that some Missouri slave men’s choice of two wives stemmed from a rejection of the two-parent nuclear family as the ideal family form. See Stevenson, Life in Black and White, 233–34. Asbury Warden pension claim, Benecke Family Papers, files 2653–54, WHMC; Henry Pratt pension claim, USCT 65A, NA; Caleb Jones, Benecke Family Papers, file 2507, WHMC; Reuben Banks pension claim, USCT 65K, NA. 18. Lewis E. Atherton, “Life, Labor, and Society in Boone County, Missouri, 1834–52, as Revealed in the Correspondence of an Immigrant Slave-Owning Family from North Carolina, Part One,” Missouri Historical Review 38 (Apr. 1944): 277–304; and Lewis E. Atherton, “Life, Labor, and Society in Boone County, Missouri, 1834–52, as Revealed in the Correspondence of an Immigrant Slave-Owning Family from North Carolina, Part

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Small-scale slavery also put Missouri slave families at risk for permanent separation through estate division, sale, and migration. Abroad slave marriages often were vulnerable to severance because couples were dependent on the life circumstances and temperaments of two different owners. For example, countless Missouri slave families were divided after the deaths of their owners; the settling of small estates often resulted in the dispersal of a few slaves among many heirs, and if equitable divisions could not be made, slaves were sold. At the most, a kind slaveholder requested in his or her will that slaves be kept within the white family or occasionally that married couples or mothers and small children be allowed to remain together, but these requests often were not honored. Slaves also frequently were given to slaveholders’ children, especially as wedding gifts.19 Slaves might be sold for a variety of other reasons, including slaves’ disobedience, owners’ economic reversals, or purely for profit. Missouri slaveholders owned so few slaves that if any slave was sold it often broke up a family. A few owners honored the marriages of their abroad slaves, but most were unwilling or financially unable to purchase a slave in order to unite a family. Some slave couples were permanently separated when one member was sold or moved. If the distance could not be traveled in a few hours, the separation was “tantamount to a divorce” and was usually recognized as such by both the slaveholding and the slave communities. Although it is not clear what actually transpired, it appears that the marriage of John Ewing’s parents was dissolved when his father was sold. However, records indicate that in 1860 Ewing’s father died in the same county in which his family still lived. His father possibly was sold just far enough away that it became impractical to visit his wife and family. Sales that moved slaves longer distances were certain to destroy marriages. Henry Smith explained that he did not voluntarily separate from his first wife, Martha, “[T]he white people divorced us—sold her off.” Although many contemporaries claimed that public opinion was against slave traders, the historical evidence points to active trade down the Mississippi River. Traders wishing to purchase slaves frequently ran advertisements in county newspapers, and many former slaves recalled sales of slaves to traders.20 Two,” Missouri Historical Review 38 (July 1944): 408–29. See Mary Bell interview, in American Slave, 11:25–31; Sarah Graves interview, in American Slave, 11:126–38. 19. See Feb. 16, 1843, Smiley Family Papers, WHMC; Hiram Sloan Slaves, in American Slave, suppl., ser. 1, 2:236–39; Slave Emancipation and Fugitive Legal Papers, WHMC; Slaves and Slavery Collection, 1772–1950, n.d., MHS; Emma Knight interview and Charlie Richardson interview, both in American Slave, 11:218–21, 290–99. 20. John Ewing, Benecke Family Papers, file 2507, WHMC; and Henry Smith pension claim, USCT 65H, NA; William Wells Brown, The Narrative of William Wells Brown

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Missouri slaves were also separated by the migration of their owners. Many slaves had left loved ones behind when they first were brought to Missouri. Sarah Waggoner and her mother never saw her father again after her master migrated from Kentucky. One slave woman forced by her master to remarry chose a man she knew to be infertile in order to punish her master and preserve the memory of her Virginia husband, whom she had left behind when her owner migrated west. Jane Washington explained how she was separated from her abroad husband when her master moved from Kentucky: “Masser wouldn’t sell him and masser wouldn’t sell me is what parted us.” She remarried nine years after she arrived in Missouri. On the other hand, not as many slave couples were separated by migration once they lived in Missouri. As a western state largely settled during the antebellum years, there was little out-migration of slaveholders from Missouri, with the exception of movement to Texas in the years before and during the Civil War. Levi Wilson remarried after his master moved him to Texas. When he visited his first wife after emancipation, she told him to remain with his new wife and children since they had no children of their own.21 When selling slaves, dividing estates, or migrating, some owners were receptive to keeping abroad slave family members in close proximity to one another. A Saline County slave woman pleaded with Mary Leonard Everett to buy her so that she would not be separated from her husband when her master moved to Arkansas. Susan and Ersey, the slaves of absentee master Beverley Tucker, begged their owner to sell them rather than allow their transfer to Texas. They explained that “to be separated from our husbands forever in this world would make us unhappy for life.” When Callaway County slave Martha Wisely’s master died she was taken across the state to the home of her new owner in Pettis County. Martha was eventually hired out in Callaway County so that she could live near her husband, William. Other slaveholders purchased the spouses of their slaves in order to unite families or at the very least move them closer to their loved ones. Jonathan Ramsay hoped to honor the request of a slave to be sold to an owner near where his wife lived. William Carr Lane sold his slave Melinda because “she was anxious to go up and live near her husband.” The owners

(Boston: Antislavery Office, 1847), 39–62; Chinn Collection, MHS; George Bollinger interview, Harriet Casey interview, and Mark Discus interview, all in American Slave, 11:36– 43, 11:73, and suppl., ser. 1, 2:171–77. 21. Sarah Waggoner interview, Sarah Graves interview, both in American Slave, 11:355– 64, 11:126–38; Lewis Washington pension claim, USCT 65C, NA; Camster Green interview, in American Slave, 11:139–43.

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of both Frank Cochran and Frank Duncan bought the men’s wives soon after their marriages.22 In many ways, abroad marriages possessed a unique flexibility that protected many slave families from separation. Marriages often were little disturbed by estate divisions or sales if slaves were transferred to local slaveholders, as was most often the case in Missouri. Slave couples merely continued their visits. Melinda Discus claimed that her parents’ abroad marriage survived a series of sales and estate divisions. Remarkably, the couple ended by living together on the same farm because the widow of her father’s master married the owner of her mother and siblings. Abroad marriages were so common in Missouri that slaves accepted the arrangements as normative. A former neighbor explained that despite the sale of Mary Brown and her first child, Mary and her husband, Jesse, “continued to live together as husband and wife as much as slaves belonging to different masters could.” Local sales rarely destroyed slave marriages. The distance traveled to visit loved ones may have become more formidable, but most slave men believed it worth the effort to spend a little time with their families.23 Most abroad families did not have the luxury of daily contact, but many created long-lasting relationships regardless of the difficulties. Sources including the WPA narratives and the pension claims reveal the existence of strong bonds of marriage and family during slavery. The pension claims are filled with hundreds of examples of slave couples who maintained longterm relationships that were only broken by the death of the soldier. Of course, the success of widows’ and orphans’ pension cases was dependent on claims of strong relationships with the soldiers, but this positive portrayal frequently was corroborated by affidavits from friends, family members, and former owners. In fact, many slave marriages persisted long after slavery had ended. 22. Mary Leonard Everett to Jeanette Leonard, Dec. 20, 1852, Abiel Leonard Papers, WHMC; John W. Blassingame, ed., Slave Testimony: Two Centuries of Letters, Speeches, Interviews, and Autobiographies (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977), 13– 14; William Wisley pension claim, USCT 65E, NA; Jonathan Ramsay to Abiel Leonard, Jan. 12, 1836, Abiel Leonard Papers, WHMC; Sarah Lane Glasgow to Anne E. Lane, Feb. 4, 1852, Lane Collection, MHS; Frank Cochran pension claim, USCT 65F, NA; Frank Duncan pension claim, USCT 65F, NA. 23. The WPA narratives and the pension claims point to the prevalence of local sales. The gender parity found in the county slave schedules also suggests that there was not an epidemic of selling slaves, especially young men, to the Deep South. For statistics, see table 1. For citations, see Melinda Discus interview, in American Slave, suppl., ser. 1, 2:160–70; and Jesse Brown pension claim, USCT 65H, NA. See also James W. McGettigan Jr., “Slave Sales, Estate Divisions, and the Slave Family in Boone County, Missouri, 1820–1865” (master’s thesis, University of Missouri, 1976).

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In the 1890s, for example, former Missouri slaves Isaac and Mary Fowler filed a pension claim as the aging parents of Henry S. Fowler. Henry, their second child, had died at the age of eighteen in March 1864 at the Union’s Benton Barracks in St. Louis. In an effort to prove their relationship to their son, the Fowlers enlisted the testimony of a bevy of relatives, friends, and former owners. The pension board was presented with the story of a deeply devoted couple who, in nearly fifty years of marriage, had seen the birth of fourteen children, watched most of them die, survived both slavery and the turmoil of the Civil War, and made a life together following emancipation. Their extraordinary partnership started with both their owners consenting to their marriage in 1844. For the first twenty years of their married life, the two lived on separate farms, and Isaac was only allowed to visit his family on Saturdays and occasionally once more during the week. By all accounts, the community of whites and slaves recognized the marriage and the children from it as legitimate even though Isaac and Mary did not live together. And although Isaac could not spend much actual time with his children, when he was with them he was reported to have been extremely attentive.24 The Fowlers were by no means unique. As in other parts of the South, slaves in Missouri showed an amazing ability to adapt to their circumstances. Given the alternative of isolation, most slave men, women, and children accepted the limitations of abroad families and relished the time they spent with one another. Although these relationships were challenging to maintain, vital emotional ties existed between many men and women and between children and their fathers regardless of the physical distance separating them. Many slave husbands and wives determinedly worked around difficult arrangements for long periods of time. The WPA interviews confirm that, even in the face of high mortality and the deprivations of slavery, Missouri’s abroad slave marriages were remarkably stable. Sale, death, or flight severed only 24 percent of abroad marriages.25 Pension claims also point to the longevity of many Missouri slave marriages. There were few fifty-year-long slave marriages, like that of the Fowlers, found in the pension records because most of the young and middleaged soldier husbands died during the war. There were, however, a great number of marriages that lasted ten or twenty years and produced many children: 57 percent of those pensioners who recorded their wedding dates had been married ten years or more; 32 percent had been married fifteen years or longer, and 14 percent had been married twenty years or 24. Henry S. Fowler/Scott (alias) pension claim, USCT 65E, NA. 25. Rawick, American Slave, primarily vol. 11 and suppl., ser. 1, vol. 2.

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longer. Following the war, Missouri’s former slaves were required by law to legitimize their marriages through legal ceremonies and registration. Hundreds of slaves were remarried under the 1865 statute. The marriage records provide no dates for the original marriages, but they do list the children born to these couples. Many of the couples reported numerous children, indicating that their marriages had been lengthy. For example, of the 269 slave marriages registered in 1865 and 1866 in Boone and Chariton Counties, 54 percent had lasted close to ten years, and 20 percent had lasted approximately fifteen years or longer. Not only had these marriages survived slavery, but the couples had chosen to remain married after emancipation. Although there is no way to confirm the living arrangements of these couples, it can be assumed that abroad marriages occurred in equal rates to those in the WPA narratives and pension claims. Therefore, over one-half of these unions were likely abroad marriages (table 4).26 Many abroad slave husbands and wives showed considerable affection for one another. Members of Jane Washington’s former slaveholding family testified to how well her husband, Lewis, treated her and how devoted he was to his family. Lewis never missed a weekly visit to his wife and three children. Emanuel and Elizabeth Gatewood married in August 1846 and had nine children in the following years. A family friend remembered, “He was one of the best men that ever lived and he lived happy only when with his wife and children.” While in the army, Emanuel wrote a loving letter to his “Dear Wife,” asking her “to take care of yourself and the children for my sake.” He claimed that he frequently awoke in the middle of the 26. Statistics of the lengths of slave marriages were taken from the pension claims and from Boone and Chariton County marriage records. The pensioners recorded the dates of their weddings so it is possible to ascertain the actual number of years they were married. On the other hand, using the county marriage records for statistical analysis requires making some assumptions. There are no wedding dates in these records, but the length of marriages can be calculated based on the number of years it would have taken to produce a certain number of children. For example, a couple with four to six children was married approximately ten to fourteen years, taking into account both nursing patterns and high rates of slave childhood mortality. Using the number of children to calculate lengths of marriages most certainly underestimates the number of years that some couples were married since many slave couples likely had lost one or more children. The other weakness inherent to both types of evidence is that all of the marriages survived slavery and lasted until the Civil War. With the exception of the evidence from the WPA narratives, there is little way to gauge the number of marriages cut short by the deprivations of slavery. Carolyn Bartels, Boone County Colored Marriages, 1865–1882 (Shawnee Mission, Kans.: Carolyn M. Bartels, 1980s); Chariton County Marriage Record Book, vols. A and 1-A. Civil War Pension Claims, USCT 65, NA. Annette Curtis provides a transcript of the 1865 marriage statute. Annette W. Curtis, Jackson County, Missouri Marriage Records of Citizens of African Descent, 1865–1881 (Independence, Missouri: order from J.C. Eakin, c. 1992). One of many examples of long-term slave marriages found in the pension claims is Isaac Allen pension claim, USCT 65K, NA.

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night and thought about his family. When Emanuel left to join the army he asked his wife’s master and mistress to care for his family until he returned. Emanuel Gatewood died in the war.27 In addition to strong bonds of marriage and family, Missouri slaves also were able to fashion interfarm slave communities and kin networks within the state’s small-slaveholding districts. Slaves knew other slaves within their neighborhoods well, frequently meeting at churches, corn huskings, and frolics. The pension files are filled with affidavits from slaves testifying that they were present at the weddings of their friends and relatives. Most of these witnesses lived as “near neighbors” to one or both of those marrying. Testimony from the pension claims and the slave narratives reveals the ways in which Missouri slaves associated with one another. Many slaves spoke of dances and suppers, which were often held in conjunction with wedding ceremonies. Other slaves attended corn huskings and quilting parties. Tishey Taylor explained that her master allowed his slaves to attend these social events as long as they returned before their curfew. Henry C. Bruce remembered that patrollers occasionally harassed the partygoers at the many dances he attended in Chariton County. Those slaves with passes from their owners were usually left unmolested. Slaves also recalled meeting neighboring slaves at churches and camp meetings. Male slaves frequently visited with slaves on other farms while running errands for their owners. Pleasant Smith could date the birth of Thomas Vaughn’s son because he remembered stopping at another neighbor’s farm to relay the news of the baby’s birth. Smith had been sent to Vaughn’s master for ice and was whipped when he returned home because the ice had melted while he socialized. Slave children regularly played with children from neighboring farms. Slave men also socialized with fellow slaves on their way to visit their abroad wives. Both Charles Elliott and Scott Merriweather stopped to chat with slave friends as they traveled to stay with their 27. Lewis Washington pension claim, 65C, NA. Emanuel Gatewood pension claim, 65F, NA. See also Henry Fleetwood, Benecke Family Papers, file 2514, WHMC.

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families each weekend. The pervasive practices of hiring and exchanging slaves with slaveholding neighbors and relatives during peak agricultural periods also provided slaves with increased opportunities to meet others in the community. Susan Scott actually met her future husband and married him while she was temporarily working on his master’s farm.28 Many Missouri slaves maintained strong relationships with their extended families even though they did not live together. Some slaves were allowed to visit kin who lived on nearby farms. Wesley frequently asked permission of his master, Abiel Leonard, to visit his mother. And little Fil Hancock visited his aunt a half-mile down the road to show off his new red boots. Since extended slave families were often distributed among slaveholding family members through gifting and estate divisions, accompanying and assisting slaveholders on visits to their relatives allowed slaves to renew ties with their kin. Silas Morehead claimed that he saw his extended kin every two or three weeks despite the fifteen miles separating them. His family members belonged to relatives of his owner, and the slaves were constantly sent back and forth between the owners’ households on errands. Slaves’ extended kin frequently were present at weddings, funerals, and births during slavery times. Missouri’s interfarm slave communities did not provide the daily support found in the slave quarters of plantations, but Missouri slaves did not seem to view their relationships as lacking. The friendships and extended family ties forged across farm boundaries were extremely important to slaves. The community functioned differently than that of a plantation quarter, yet slaves were able to lend a degree of support to one another just the same. Even the limited time slaves spent engaged with the greater slave community and extended kin networks helped to ameliorate many of the negative effects of slavery.29 A few Missouri slaves, like Ed Hickam and McLaurin’s Celia, were unable to participate in the neighborhood slave community because their owners isolated them on their small farms. But most Missouri slaveholders allowed their slaves at least some socializing, consciously choosing to promote their involvement in the greater slave community by allowing 28. Ephraim Craig, Benecke Family Papers, file 2492, WHMC; Tishey Taylor interview, in American Slave, 11:342–47; Henry C. Bruce, The New Man: Twenty-Nine Years a Slave, Twenty-Nine Years A Free Man: Recollections of H.C. Bruce (York, Penn.: A. G. Brown, 1880), 97–98; Thomas Vaughn, Benecke Family Papers, file 2646, WHMC; John Jackson pension claim, USCT 65J, NA; Matt Carroll pension claim, USCT 65E, NA; Charles Elliot pension claim, USCT 65C, NA; Alfred Smith pension claim, USCT 65C, NA; Caleb Jones, Benecke Family Papers, file 3825, WHMC. 29. Mary Leonard to Martha Leonard, Oct. 18, 1846, and Jeanette Leonard to Abiel Leonard, Oct. 17, 1847, Abiel Leonard Papers, WHMC; Fil Hancock interview, in American Slave, 11:147–61; William Wisley/Riley (alias) pension claim, USCT 65E, NA.

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them to attend and host social functions. Some owners encouraged this social interaction merely to placate their slaves. Others, like William Wells Brown’s mistress, believed that slaves with family ties were more compliant and less of a flight risk. On a more basic level, the conditions of small-scale slavery in Missouri demanded owner-sanctioned social interaction among slaves. Socializing was the natural result of the liberal slave mobility and extensive hiring found in farming regions. But most important, abroad marriages could not have existed without interfarm slave communities. Slaves needed opportunities to meet and court their future spouses. The natural increase of the slave population was dependent on the creation of slave families; therefore, most of Missouri’s small slaveholders could not afford to let their slaves live in social isolation.30 Like Clara McNeely Harrell, whose “pappy . . . belong [sic] to a neighbor,” a majority of Missouri slave women and children faced their enslavement without the daily support of a husband and father. For most hours in the week, slave mothers were forced to meet the emotional, physical, and economic needs of their children without the assistance of their husbands. Often visiting during the dark of night, slave men spent little time with their families. It is no wonder then that some slave children had few memories of their fathers and gave little weight to their importance in the households. Despite the many limitations, abroad slave marriages were extremely important to Missouri’s slave population. The fact that the men and women chose one another was crucial to their sense of self and gave them some measure of control over their lives. Slaves demonstrated their adaptability as they worked diligently to create and maintain family, kinship, and community ties despite the many challenges facing them. Although physical distance limited the role of these relationships in slaves’ everyday lives, Missouri slaves tenaciously fashioned institutions that enabled them to survive their enslavement, minimize their feelings of isolation, and create some happiness in their lives.31

30. See McLaurin, Celia, A Slave; and Kimberly Schreck, “Her Will against Theirs: Eda Hickam and the Ambiguity of Freedom in Postbellum, Missouri,” in Beyond Image and Convention: Explorations in Southern Women’s History, ed. Janet L. Coryell et al. (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1998); Brown, The Narrative of William Wells Brown, 38. See also George Bollinger interview, Betty Abernathy interview, both in American Slave, 11:36–43, 5–7. 31. Clara McNeely Harrell interview, in American Slave, 11:169.

N O R M A TAY L O R M IT C H E L L

‘‘With Humbled and Painfully Blited Feelings’’ A Southwest Virginia Woman in “the Great Wourld” of Richmond, 1837–1840

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T NINE O’CLOCK ON THE EVENING OF FEBRUARY 19, 1839,

Mary Hamilton Campbell, from Abingdon, Virginia, was about to have her finest hour in politics. She stood in the hall of the executive mansion in Richmond ready to host a splendid party for almost six hundred of Virginia’s elite. Fifty-six years old, five feet, two inches tall, and “plump as a partridge,” she had thinning gray hair, several false teeth, and arthritis, which made shaking hands painful. She wore “the same silver satin which she had often worn before,” brightened by “a beautiful new white turban with long white feather & an elegant new blond cape.” Beside her were her husband, Governor David Campbell, fifty-nine years old, six feet tall, slender, and handsome, and their beloved niece, Virginia Campbell, a “belle in spite of myself,” age twenty-one, who wore an “elegant pale blue silk,” a gift from her aunt for the occasion.1 A long life journey had brought Mary Campbell to this hour in what she called “the great wourld.” In this world she struggled for the three years of her husband’s governorship to measure up to the unrelenting and competitive demands of social life in Virginia’s executive mansion, which were greater than those she had known in Abingdon. She often succeeded, sometimes outstandingly, as on the evening of February 19, 1839. The The author wishes to thank the following for their assistance in the preparation of this article: Brent Tarter, Thomas E. Buckley, Elizabeth Dunn, William Erwin, Agnes E. Gish, Cecelia Gallagher, Joseph Mitchell, Anne M. Whisnant, David E. Whisnant, the late Mattie Russell, and the late Robert H. Woody. 1. This essay is based on a thorough reading of the voluminous Campbell Papers. Space limitations dictate that only the most salient documents may be cited here. Except where otherwise noted, all manuscripts cited are in the Campbell Family Papers, Special Collections, Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. The following abbreviations are used in the notes: DC=Governor David Campbell, MHC=Mary H. Campbell, VC (after 1849, VCS)=Virginia Campbell, and WBC=William B. Campbell. David Campbell=DC’s brother-in-law, who lived in Tennessee. See VC, “Persons who have called on Governor Campbell & family & who are to be invited to a party, on the 19th Feb. 1839,” miscellany, 1829–1846, box 43; to Margaret H. Campbell, Feb. 27, 1839.

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record of her participation in political life as the governor’s wife shows that she did in Richmond what Catherine Allgor has described political wives such as Dolley Madison and Louisa Catherine Adams initiating in Washington, D.C., that is, moving intentionally through entertaining and other rituals of social life into “the unofficial space, peopled by unofficial and official actors,” which “remains a mystery in most political history.” Like that of Madison and Adams, Mary Campbell’s entertaining provided a “political space . . . that afforded access to men in power, and, like European court events, allowed for the participation of women and other family members.”2 But Mary Campbell’s experience in Richmond did not end happily. Despite her best efforts and those of both the white and black members of her household, she could not stay afloat in the crosscurrents created by her poor mental and physical health, by long-standing class and sectional tensions within the state of Virginia, and by intergenerational conflict within her immediate family. In the last few months of her husband’s gubernatorial tenure, she suffered a serious breakdown that bore significant consequences for her own life and probably for the lives of her husband and their niece. Ultimately, Mary Campbell’s story illustrates how difficult it was for a near-elite woman of her age and geographic and cultural background to overcome the distance between elite and near-elite culture in antebellum Virginia society. At the same time, it reveals that her problems hindered her husband’s and her niece’s more successful bridging of that distance. Although Mary Campbell lived most of her life in the aristocratic southwest Virginia town of Abingdon, she was not a native of the town or of Washington County. She had been born on the western frontier, in 1783, at Strawberry Plains in what would later become the eastern part of Tennessee. When she was two years old, her family moved into a blockhouse that her father had built for protection from hostile Indians. Known as Campbell’s Station, it served as an important stopping place and fort for settlers and traders moving west and south through dangerous east Tennessee. Since both of her parents were members of the large Campbell family prominent in the early history of Virginia and Tennessee, she grew up amid a host of relatives. She became skilled in the tasks of housewifery, such as spinning, but received little formal education. Her teenage years were devoted not only to household tasks but to nursing her dying mother. In 1800, while she mourned her mother’s death from breast cancer, her 2. MHC, Feb. 1, 1841; DC to VC, Jan. 29, 1841; Catherine Allgor, Parlor Politics: In Which the Ladies of Washington Build a City and a Government (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000), 73, 178.

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mother’s tall, charming, twenty-year-old nephew from Abingdon, David Campbell, stopped at Campbell’s Station on his way to study law with a Campbell uncle and to practice in Tennessee.3 David’s plans soon changed. Petite seventeen-year-old Maria, as she was then called, and her first cousin were married on May 15, 1800, at Campbell’s Station and left for Washington County, Virginia, to make their home with his part of the family. Since David was his parents’ oldest child, and he and Mary had no children, they participated in the rearing and education of his six siblings, especially his four brothers. David never became a lawyer; instead he worked for almost twenty-five years as his father’s deputy in the Washington County Court Clerk’s office, where his and Mary’s lives—as well as their finances—were closely bound to his parents’. Although her father-in-law was her late mother’s brother, Mary never developed much affection for most members of her husband’s branch of the Campbell family. Plagued by feelings of inferiority, rejection, and loneliness, she pined for her Tennessee relatives during almost all of her life in Abingdon. Her Washington County relatives probably found her hard to get along with, and she often found them uncaring. Tension between Mary Campbell and these relatives would become a recurring theme of her life.4 Six years after their marriage, when Mary was twenty-three, David wrote to the nation’s best-known physician, Benjamin Rush, in Philadelphia, saying she had not enjoyed good health since their marriage. He described her as often being “much depressed in spirits” and having “several attacks of sickness,” especially during her menstrual periods. While Rush’s extensive prescription of bleedings, purgatives, laudanum, baths, herbal teas, medicines, wines, diet, and exercise may have relieved her monthly symptoms to some extent, she continued to suffer and to complain of ill health.5 3. DC to Benjamin Rush, Dec. 7, 1806, “Sketch of His Life for Lyman C. Draper,” July 6, 1852, private journal, June 5, 1847, May 15, 1850, June 5, 1857, to J. G. M. Ramsey, Jan. 19, 1853; correspondence between Mary Purnell Cowan and MHC, 1815–1819. 4. DC, private journal, June 5, 1847, May 15, 1850, June 5, 1857, to VC, June 5, 1841, to MHC, Aug. 12, 1834, to Justices of Washington County, VA, Mar. 27, 1837, to Lyman C. Draper, Apr. 2, Dec. 16, 1840, “Sketch of His Life for Lyman C. Draper,” July 6, 1852; Edward Campbell to DC, June 26, 1801; James Campbell to DC, May 18, 1811, July 31, 1812; John Campbell to DC, May 6, Sept. 7, 22, 1806, May 2, 1807, May 22, 1809, May 20, 1814; “Campbell Family Genealogical Chart”; MHC to DC, Sept. 26, 1812, Feb. 25, 1813, to Ann Roane, Jan. 1, 1819; DC to John Campbell, Nov. 3, 1812, to MHC, Jan. 1, 1823, May 24, 1829, to WBC, Apr. 22, 1850, to VCS, June 16, 1851; Margaret H. Campbell to WBC, Mar. 24, 1859, to VCS, Apr. 27, July 7, 1859; WBC to Frances Campbell, May 27, 1859. 5. DC to Benjamin Rush, Dec. 7, 1806; Benjamin Rush to DC, Feb. 7, 1807; MHC to Anne Roane, Jan. 4, 1808, to DC, Aug. 9, 1812.

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Despite their difficulties, Mary and David shared an affectionate, probably passionate, marriage, marked by a high degree of mutuality and even equality. He was habitually solicitous about her health, her opinions, and her wishes, and she shared his growing interest in politics and his increasing involvement in public affairs. During the War of 1812, while he was serving as an officer with the United States Army on the Canadian front, she traveled to New York to visit him. After the war, she worked hard for several years, helping to stock and manage their general store on Main Street next door to their home. During his term in the Virginia Senate from 1820 to 1824, she spent two legislative sessions with him, receiving her first introduction to “the great wourld” of Richmond society.6 By the mid-1820s Mary and David had entered a prosperous middle age in Abingdon. Although the town had only 1,500 residents and was 350 miles west of Richmond, it had long flourished because of its beautiful location in a rich agricultural area near extremely profitable salt mines. It had also benefited from its situation on a major thoroughfare for settlers and traders going west. In addition to his courthouse work and their mercantile business, David turned a profit on land he bought and sold in Washington County. He and his younger brother, John, had become members of a southwestern Virginia political alliance with powerful eastern Virginians like Thomas Ritchie. In 1824, shortly before his father’s death, David was elected the new clerk of the county court by the Washington County justices, at last making him and Mary, now in their forties, financially independent of his parents.7 Although they were not numbered among the extremely wealthy people of Washington County such as the Whites, the Smiths, and the Prestons, Mary and David Campbell had clearly achieved ample means, which made it possible in 1827 for them to move about one mile south from their house on Main Street to their newly constructed brick mansion on a hill they named Montcalm. There, for ten years before he was elected governor, they lived in high style, with many books and periodicals in their library, 6. MHC to DC, Aug. 9, 1812, Mar. 3, 1819, June 11, 1820, Dec. 23, 1821, Dec. 31, 1822; DC to MHC, Oct. 21, 27, 1818, Jan. 3, Feb. 9, 14, 1823, May 15, 24, 1825, to Arthur Campbell, Nov. 1820, to John Campbell, Jan. 22, 1821, to Frances Campbell, July 3, 1836; Arthur Campbell to DC, Jan. 1821; John Campbell to DC, Oct. 27, 1823, May 19, 1824, to Arthur Campbell, Nov. 29, 1823; Elmira A. Henry to MHC, June 2, 1825; correspondence between DC and MHC during the War of 1812. 7. The Washington County Deed Books in the courthouse at Abingdon and on microfilm in the Library of Virginia at Richmond record many land transactions by DC. In 1835, the Washington County Land Book listed him as owning 35,479 ½ acres. DC to MHC, Jan. 29, 1823; John Campbell’s correspondence with DC and other members of their family, Arthur Campbell Collection, Filson Club Historical Society, Louisville, Kentucky, and CFP, 1809–1817.

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a piano, a John Wesley Jarvis portrait of David in their drawing room, and between twelve and twenty well-trained and compliant slaves living in the cellar and carrying on household tasks under Mary’s competent and relentless direction.8 As they achieved financial security, Mary and David compensated for Mary’s longing for her family in Tennessee and for not having children of their own by bringing members of the Tennessee Campbell connection to Abingdon to live with them.9 After David’s term in the Virginia Senate ended in 1824, he and Mary began to invest their money, time, and attention in the lives of two sons and three daughters of her impoverished brother and sister-in-law, whom they brought to Montcalm from Tennessee. Keenly aware of their own lack of formal education, Mary and David Campbell wanted all of these young relatives, girls as well as boys, to have the best education possible. Virginia, who was twelve years old when she first arrived in 1830, remained the longest, a total of about thirteen years, and became closest to her aunt and uncle. Of the three nieces who came to Montcalm, she was the most receptive to the academic and social advantages that Abingdon offered. By the time David Campbell was elected governor in 1837, Virginia had received a fine education in Abingdon from private tutors, the Abingdon Female School, extensive reading, and daily discussions with her uncle and aunt and many other relatives and friends. She had also enjoyed an active social life along with her sisters and many other young women and young men. On his fifty-seventh birthday, August 7, 1835, her uncle wrote Virginia that he loved her so much he wanted to adopt her legally, although he never did because both of her parents were living. However, in Richmond, he would often refer to her as his daughter rather than as his niece.10 8. Washington County Land Book, 1828; VC to Lavinia Campbell, Nov. 25, 1832, to WBC, Sept. 3, 1835, to Catharine Campbell, Mar. 2, July 22, 1843; DC to James Campbell, Jan. 16, Oct. 22, 1826, to MHC, Jan. 16, 29, 1823, May 20, June 13, 1825, May 29, June 6, 1825, to Mary H. R. Campbell, July 8, 1835; Ledger of Leonidas Baugh, 1819–29, 164, box 3, Baugh Family MSS, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.; John Campbell to DC, June 27, 1833. 9. Archibald Roane to DC, Apr. 29, 1809; Margaret C. Roane to MHC, Oct. 30, 1817; MHC to David Campbell, Feb. 10, 1818; DC private journal, July 7, 1843, to MHC, June 5, 1837, to VC, Nov. 22, 1840; VC to Catharine Campbell, July 22, 1843, to Frances Campbell, Apr. 25, 1844. 10. VC to Catharine Campbell, Jan. 1, 1832, May 17, 1835, Mar. 23, July 20, Sept. 11, 1836, to David Campbell, Jan. 8, 1832, to WBC, Sept. 8, 1835, to Frances Campbell, Feb. 14, 1836, to DC, May 6, 1837; DC to WBC, Apr. 1, 29, 1832, Aug. 17, 1833, Dec. 21, 1834, to David Campbell, Dec. 3, 1832, May 25, 1835, to VC, June 30, July 27, Oct. 30, 1833, to William C. Rives, May 26, Oct. 16, 1838, Nov. 20, 1839, Rives Papers, Library of Congress.

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During the first decade of the family’s life at Montcalm, Mary Campbell proved that despite her educational deficiencies she could measure up to the challenges of elegant entertaining, even high-stakes political entertaining. Three times, in 1832, 1834, and 1836, she and David hosted the Campbell family’s most important political ally, President Andrew Jackson, at Montcalm.11 In 1837, when the Virginia legislature elected David Campbell as governor for a three-year term, he and Mary were overjoyed. At last, he seemed to have the opportunity he had long desired for significant public service beyond the confines of the Washington County Court. Mary Campbell heartily supported his plan to use his new position primarily to advance the causes of public education and internal improvements. Clearly, she planned to serve a useful political role by entertaining at the executive mansion, thereby helping him “soften the asperities of party” and realize his progressive vision for the state. From David’s brothers in Washington, D.C., the Campbells had learned about the political influence that the gracious and skilled Dolley Madison had long exercised in the nation’s capital, and Mary may have taken Madison as the model for her own role in Richmond. Although arthritis and age would have made three roundtrips from Abingdon to Richmond in their carriage and gig especially difficult, Mary gamely seized the opportunity to travel again to “lower Virginia” and beyond, which the governorship would require. The expense of living in the executive mansion on the scale expected of Virginia governors and of moving several members of their household 350 miles from their home apparently gave the Campbells no hesitation. For assistance with the daunting responsibility of paying social calls and entertaining in Richmond, Mary planned to rely not only on nineteen-year-old Virginia but also on five of their most competent and most handsome slaves from Montcalm: Richard, Michael, David, Eliza, and Lucy (with her baby born at Richmond in 1839).12 During his first few months as governor, when he was in the capital without his family and living in what was then called “the Government House,” David Campbell wrote detailed letters home, preparing Mary and Virginia 11. VC to Catharine Campbell, Aug. 5, 1836, John Campbell to DC, July 19, 1832, July 7, 1834; DC to WBC, Aug. 6, 1832, to VC, July 27, Oct. 7, 1834, July 22, 1836; VC’s letters of 1832–1837, for nonpolitical entertaining of the Campbells at Montcalm. 12. Nannie Shelton McClary, Excerpts from the Diary of Mrs. Virginia Campbell Shelton Written during Her Girlhood, 1835–37 (n.p., 1921), 29–30; DC to Joint Committee of the General Assembly of Virginia, Feb. 3, 1837, to WBC, Feb. 21, Oct. 3, 20, 1837, to MHC, Mar. 26, 29, Apr. 2, 1837, to Frances Campbell, Aug. [no day], 1846; Arthur Campbell to DC, Oct. 17, 1836; James C. Campbell to DC, Feb. 4, 8, 1837; Richmond Enquirer, Dec. 2, 15, 1836; VC to Frances Campbell, July 1, 1838.

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for life in Richmond. He described Richmond social life, reassuring Mary that parties there were generally given in the same style as hers in Abingdon. But he reported there were some important exceptions, such as the serving of more wines in Richmond and the practice of women’s often being entirely excluded from dinners or absenting themselves soon after dinner, leaving the men to sip wine and talk at length. “It is most unsocial and irrational,” he declared. “Ladies ought to mix with gentlemen in company and take a part in all conversations. About this tho. I know you agree with me.” When Mary and Virginia came to the government house, he promised, “I intend, as far as we are concerned to break through” this fashion. To help them ready themselves for conversations, he gave them a subscription to the Southern Literary Messenger, a variety magazine with articles, stories, poems, and reviews, which was published in Richmond and was rapidly gaining a national reputation. They read it and the Richmond Enquirer avidly.13 At the same time he was sending home these words of encouragement, he and Mary recognized the sectional and class issues he faced as the first governor elected from distant southwest Virginia and one of the few Virginia governors who had never attended college. Refuting those who had disparaged his qualifications for governor by saying he followed the “laudable occupation of a Clerk,” one supporter declared in the Richmond Enquirer, “I deny that the great Democratic party have any right to discriminate between the professions of the several candidates before them.” In his own letter to the Virginia General Assembly accepting his election, Campbell acknowledged that he would not think of undertaking such a responsible office except for his confidence that “one with common endowments and limited attainments might render themselves useful public servants by great application and industry.” Before he left Abingdon for Richmond, he wrote Virginia’s brother William B. Campbell that “I am strong in upper Virginia—and I believe will soon be so with the people of the lower country, but there never was in any country a more arrogant aristocracy than the educated class of old Virginians.” He continued: “They think the world does not produce their equals—and they are in truth as light and airy and as unsubstantial as their blood horses.”14 Having become personally acquainted with many members of the political aristocracy of Virginia through his service in the War of 1812 and in 13. DC to MHC, Apr. 12, 13, 20, 21, 22, 24, May 5, 7, 1837; VC to DC, May 6, 1837, to David Campbell, May 24, 1837; Neil T. Storch, “Southern Literary Messenger,” Encyclopedia of Southern History, ed. David C. Roller and Robert W. Twyman (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979), 1150. 14. Richmond Enquirer, Jan. 7, 19, 1837; DC to WBC, Feb. 21, 1837.

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the state senate, his family’s alliance with Thomas Ritchie, and his brother John’s long office-holding in Richmond and in Washington, he knew whereof he spoke. Meeting some of these men again in Richmond, he felt apprehensive and unsure of himself, and he shared these feelings with his wife. “There is no country in the world . . . where there is such an aping of aristocracy as in the United States,” he wrote. “Being some time retired, I can see it more plainly than those who are constantly in its atmosphere. The struggle against Genl Jackson has been as much owing to their dislike of his plain republican manners, as of his measures.”15 David and Mary’s situation in Richmond society was to be complicated by the presence of one of the Abingdon families who was far richer than they. The outgoing Whig governor, Wyndham Robertson, was married to Mary, the daughter of the wealthy Smiths of Abingdon, who owned lucrative saltworks in Washington County. In addition to being very rich, she was “beautiful” and “cultured,” and he, a native of Richmond, was a graduate of the College of William and Mary and a lawyer who had traveled extensively in Europe.16 Robertson had not been elected governor; he had succeeded to the office by virtue of his position on the Virginia Council of State when the previously elected governor resigned in March 1836. He and his twenty-oneyear-old wife, “the heiress,” were living in the executive mansion when David Campbell arrived in Richmond. Despite their gracious hospitality to the new governor, the Robertsons’ presence was a reminder of the contrast between the Campbells and the richest people of Abingdon, something about which Mary and David had long been sensitive.17 The 1812 executive mansion, which the couple had first visited in the 1820s during his Virginia Senate term, seemed to the new governor like a “castle,” encircled by large aspen and linden trees and handsomely situated on a grassy square with the capitol from which one had the “finest view in Richmond” of the James River and surrounding county. With four “splendid” rooms on the first floor and five on the second, furnished with expensive mahogany furniture and decorated by beautiful mirrors, damask curtains, chandeliers, and astral lamps, the house was a showplace. In the 15. Mar. 24, 26, 29, 1837. 16. VC to Catharine Campbell, Sept. 5, 1835, to David Campbell in DC’s letter, July 19, 1837, to David H. R. Campbell, Jan. 1, 1838; DC to MHC, Mar. 24, 26, 29, 1837; Jacob Lynch to DC, May 10, 1839; Thomas Perkins Abernethy, “Wyndham Robertson,” Dictionary of American Biography, ed. Dumas Malone (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1935), 16:30–31; Gay Robertson Blackford, “Reminiscences Concerning the Robertson and Blackford Families of ‘The Meadows’ Washington County, VA, ca. 1820–1870,” typescript at the Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, Va. 17. DC to MHC, Mar. 29, 1837.

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dining room were sets of beautiful china, decanters, and silver. With a legislative appropriation of twenty-five hundred dollars for new furnishings, including “a first rate new piano” for Virginia to play, and a new legislative commitment to pay their fuel bills, David was confident that Mary would think the mansion “a most delightful residence.” The Montcalm slaves would live in the house’s separate kitchen, which he had whitewashed and furnished with beds.18 From their first winter of 1837–1838 in the executive mansion, it was clear that though David Campbell had been elected governor as a plain Jacksonian Democrat from southwestern Virginia, he, his wife, and their niece were determined to rise to the social standards of Richmond’s and Virginia’s elite. The three Campbells immediately began entertaining on a scale befitting their new positions, hosting all 164 legislators and their wives at teas and receptions and giving small dinner parties, often “for men only.” Several prominent women who had known Mary during her two winters in Richmond in the 1820s renewed their acquaintance. She and Virginia received numerous visitors at the mansion and themselves made many social calls, often leaving their cards in the then-current fashion. They attended church services, concerts, and parties. On occasion, Mary and Virginia went to the capitol to observe the proceedings. Despite her age and the pain and fatigue she suffered from arthritis, Mary’s efforts at gracing the position of governor’s wife were prodigious during her husband’s first regular legislative session in 1838.19 Following two months of recuperation from her labors, Mary, David, and Virginia became the recipients of elegant entertainment by political leaders and their wives in Norfolk, Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Charlottesville, Staunton, and White Sulphur Springs. They were guests of President Martin Van Buren at the White House and of Dolley Madison at her Washington home, and they received a visit from Henry Clay. Back in Richmond for the legislative session of 1838–1839, Mary and Virginia were the only women at a splendid midday dinner the Campbells hosted for William Cabell Rives and other important Virginia 18. Thomas Lawson, “Inventory of Furnishings in the Virginia Governor’s House,” Apr. 4, 1837; DC to MHC, Mar. 26, Apr. 2, 20, 21, June 25, 1837, to William H. Richardson, July 24, 1837, in Virginia Executive Papers, Miscellaneous Letters and Papers, Library of Virginia, Richmond, Va.; VC to DC, Apr. 5, 1837; Frances Campbell to Margaret H. Campbell, June 2, 1838. 19. VC to Mary H. R. Campbell, Nov. 20, 1837, to Catharine Campbell, Dec. 17, 1837, to David H. R. Campbell, Jan. 1, 1838, to WBC, Jan. 18, Mar. 17, 1838, to Frances Campbell, Mar. 23, 1838, to Margaret H. Campbell, Mar. 30, 1838; acceptances of P. Taylor and others to DC, Mar. 6, 12–13, 1838; Frances Campbell to Margaret H. Campbell, June 2, 1838.

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political leaders, including judges and members of the council of state. Thus, by the time Mary, David, and Virginia stood awaiting their six hundred guests on the evening of February 19, 1839, they and their slaves had had a great deal of interaction with the political and social elite beyond Abingdon. Mary Campbell seemed to be measuring up to her new challenges. As Virginia described the evening of February 19 for her sister in Tennessee, the party was truly grand. For the week preceding, the five slaves from Montcalm, one of them in the late stages of pregnancy, and others lent or hired from Richmond masters worked from morning to night making preparations. Several prominent white women also helped. Everyone who had made a social call on the Campbells was invited to the party. Soon the whole executive mansion was “thronged with this moving multitude,” who were served wines, champagne, or lemonade. Because there was no band and no dancing, “everyone could walk about freely” and enjoy conversation. When supper was announced at eleven, the guests were escorted into the dining room, where tables were laden with “turkey, oysters, salads, pickles, biscuits, wafers, jellies, macaronis, blancmange, custards, cakes, ice cream, candies, fruits, lemonade, champagne, Madeira, and sherry.” On the center table was an “elegant pyramid” of French candies, four and one-half feet tall, topped by a gilt eagle holding an olive branch in its beak, and an American flag. The eating, drinking, and visiting went on long after midnight, and the Campbells did not get to bed until three in the morning.20 Grand as this party was, it was not merely a social occasion but a critical political event staged at the most tumultuous moment of David Campbell’s already-tumultuous gubernatorial term. When he was elected, he and his family had expected his governorship to be free of crisis and to afford him an opportunity to focus the legislature’s attention on the need for internal improvements, public education, and other progressive changes. Yet the presidency of Martin Van Buren and the economic depression of 1837 had precipitated a banking crisis and a political party realignment in Virginia that quickly dominated his tenure. These issues became concentrated in the efforts of a coalition of Whigs and rebellious Democrats, called Conservatives. With the aid of the national Whig Party and the Richmond Whig, the coalition pushed the Virginia legislature in early 1839 to 20. DC to William C. Rives, May 26 [incorrectly dated 1839], June 4, 1838, Rives Papers, Library of Congress; private journal, June 8, 22, July 16, 1838, to Aaron Clark, June 25, 1838, to Benjamin Mosby Smith, Sept. 4, 1838; Frances Campbell to Margaret H. Campbell, June 2, 1838; VC to Frances Campbell, July 1, Dec. 20, 1838, to Margaret H. Campbell, Feb. 27, 1839, “Persons . . . invited to a party, on the 19th February 1839”; Robert Verdier Snodgrass to Sarah A. Snodgrass, Feb. 23, 1839, Ann Hinshaw Gardiner Papers, Duke University.

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reelect to the U.S. Senate a Democrat, William Cabell Rives, a protégé of James Madison’s. Becoming a Conservative Democrat, Governor Campbell also became one of Rives’s strongest supporters.21 It was the Campbells’ hope and intention on the night of the grand party to influence legislators to reelect Rives. Although they did not achieve this goal, Rives’s candidacy did succeed in preventing anyone else, Whig or regular Democrat, from being elected. After twenty-eight ballots in which no one received a majority, the legislature postponed the election, and the emerging Conservative Democrat–Whig coalition survived.22 Mary Campbell could take satisfaction that she had played her role well in her husband’s greatest political drama. The grand party of February 1839 also gave Mary and David opportunity in another drama unfolding in his governorship, that of displaying to Richmond society the intellectual and social graces of their marriageable niece so that she would find a worthy Virginia husband and make her home in the commonwealth as the mistress of Montcalm. To this end, about half of the guests invited to the party were single people, and of this group about a third were men.23 But on this challenge of her niece’s social life in Richmond, Mary Campbell foundered, hurting her relationship with Virginia, her own reputation, and probably her husband’s political career and Virginia’s marital chances. From the Campbells’ first winter in the capital city, Virginia had been very much at ease in “the great wourld.” Her self-confidence never wavered, and she made friends easily among Richmond’s young elite, female and male. Her closest friend was Claudia Crozet, a daughter of the distinguished French engineer Claudius Crozet, with whom she conversed in French. The two women often shopped together. In 1839, Claudia invited Virginia to be a bridesmaid in her wedding. Although no one likely called Virginia a beauty—a photograph made of her in the late 1840s shows her face to have been plain—she was tall, slender, well dressed, intelligent, articulate, and fun-loving. Ironically, the academic and social experiences that her aunt and uncle had provided in Abingdon prepared her so well for social life in Richmond that she put her aunt, who craved attention and flattery, in the shadows.24 21. David Campbell’s political career as governor is extensively discussed and documented in Norma Taylor Mitchell, “The Political Career of Governor David Campbell of Virginia” (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1967), chaps. 4, 5, and 6. 22. Ibid., 209–10. 23. VC, “Persons . . . invited to a party on 19th February 1839,” to Margaret H. Campbell, Aug. 2, 1839. 24. VC to Mary H. R. Campbell, Nov. 20, 1837, to Margaret H. Campbell, Mar. 30, 1838, Feb. 10, Aug. 2, 1839, to Frances Campbell, Dec. 30, 1838, Nov. 23, 1839, diary,

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Virginia was not the only woman who probably made Mary Campbell feel inferior. Most of the elite Virginia women with whom she interacted as the governor’s wife were better educated and more sophisticated than she and unwittingly exacerbated her pained feelings. Most of them, even Mary Smith Robertson from Abingdon, probably did not speak with the same accent she did. Among these women no one was more daunting than the beautiful Judith Page Walker Rives, the wife of Governor Campbell’s most important political ally. An heiress born in Albemarle County, Judith Rives had grown up in Richmond with all the advantages her loving, well-to-do family could give her. Almost twenty years younger than Mary Campbell, she had a great deal that Mary did not have. Her husband, a lawyer, had already been a Virginia legislator, a U.S. congressman and senator, and a prominent aspirant for the Democratic vice presidential nomination in 1836. While he had served as American minister to France from 1829 to 1832, the couple had traveled widely in aristocratic circles in Europe, where she became celebrated for her intelligence, beauty, and charm. They also had five children and an enviable family life at their estate, Castle Hill, near Charlottesville. When the Riveses hosted the three Campbells at Castle Hill several times during Campbell’s governorship, Mary likely felt outclassed by both her hostess and her niece. Although she was the mistress of beautiful Montcalm in Abingdon, the stress she experienced as she tried to transcend the sectional, class, and generational divides in Richmond took a heavy toll on her.25 Her stress found expression in her relationship with Virginia. Although on many occasions in Richmond vivacious Virginia was an invaluable aid to her aunt, Mary soon began to find fault with Virginia’s behavior, which at times seemed to her reckless. Having never lived the life of a southern belle in a big city, and having married young within her own family circle, Mary Campbell did not appreciate the different experience that her eligible niece was having. Virginia’s social life in Richmond became a striking example of what historian Christie Anne Farnham describes as “a distinct period Dec. 11, 12, 1838, Oct. 25, 27, Dec. 31, 1839; copy of daguerreotype in Margaret Campbell Pilcher, Historical Sketches of the Campbell, Pilcher, and Kindred Families (Nashville: Marshall and Bruce, 1911), following p. 40; “Claude Crozet,” Concise Dictionary of American Biography, second edition, ed. Joseph G. E. Hopkins (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1977), 215. 25. Judith Rives, Tales and Souvenirs of a Residence in Europe (Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1842); Autobiography of Judith Page Rives, typescript, Virginia Historical Society; Obituary of Judith Page Rives, 1882, Rives Papers, Library of Congress; Raymond C. Dingledine, “The Political Career of William Cabell Rives” (Ph.D. diss., University of Virginia, 1947), 106–7; John H. Moore, “Judith Rives of Castle Hill,” Virginia Cavalcade 13 (spring 1964): 30–35.

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in a [upper class southern] young woman’s life, lasting perhaps several years between the time when she ‘finished’ school and the occasion of her marriage.” For a southern girl who was “prohibited by society from initiating courtships,” it was “empowering.”26 Although Mary Campbell failed to understand Virginia’s life as a belle, she and her husband knew the effect that negative gossip had exercised in the life of Margaret (Peggy) O’Neill Eaton in Washington and worried that such gossip about their niece might hurt the family’s reputation for respectability as well as her own. In addition, the Campbells undoubtedly felt special concern for Virginia’s welfare in the absence of her parents in distant Tennessee. Thus, from time to time, Mary and David complained about the late hours Virginia and her friends sometimes kept and about what they judged to be the overly long visits that some young men made to her. As early as January 3, 1838, Governor Campbell sought to convince his niece of the wisdom of his and his wife’s views. He wrote Virginia explaining that “city girls” were more bold in their social relationships than “country girls,” which he assumed she was. He warned her about “city-girl” practices and urged her to be a lady who acted with “propriety and discretion.”27 Virginia, who was proud of her transformation from “a little girl to a fashionable lady,” was not submissive to her aunt and uncle’s reproofs. In April 1839, when David tried to discuss with her their disagreements over her relations with young men, their conversation, as he wrote, “was interrupted in a way which I did not desire, and before I had an opportunity of making some remarks to you which this conversation very naturally suggested.” Instead of being the compliant girl she had been in Abingdon, Virginia now seemed to him “restive under control.” So great was his concern that he wrote her another long, formal letter declaring that “you have formed opinions, . . . on the subject of social intercourse between the two sexes of young persons, somewhat different from mine.” He urged her to take his advice on such subjects rather than that of the young women with whom she was associating in the city. “They may be wrong too,” he warned. Further, he assured her that he offered his views “with the affection of the most devoted of fathers.”28 26. Christie Anne Farnham, The Education of the Southern Belle: Higher Education and Student Socialization in the Antebellum South (New York: New York University, 1994), 4, 174–75. 27. DC to MHC, May 24, 27, June 3, 1829, to VC, Jan. 3, 1838; Allgor, Parlor Politics, 73–74, 216–18. 28. VC to Margaret Campbell, Aug. 2. 1939, to Mary H. R. Campbell, May 2, 1839, to Catharine Campbell, June 30, 1839, diary, Oct. 15, 31, Dec. 7, 1839; DC to VC, May 1, 1839.

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When the governor followed this letter to Virginia with one to her family in Tennessee, she was mortified. Writing her mother, she protested, “I acted neither the intentional coquet nor the self interested, for I dreamed of nothing but a little social intercourse & attributed the frequent & very long visits to the tedium of a boarding house.”29 Virginia was doubly hurt by her aunt and uncle’s suspicions because she felt she walked the straight and narrow way in Richmond’s social life. Three years before coming to Richmond, and much to her uncle’s discomfort, she had experienced a Methodist conversion while on a visit home to Tennessee. Virginia had come to Richmond determined to maintain her established disciplines of prayer, Bible reading, and journaling and her serious study of history, literature, and music. She was convinced she could be a social success without dancing, playing cards, or attending the theater, all of which were contrary to her evangelical standards, and apparently she was. In following her convictions, she found strong support from the Reverend Richard Channing Moore, Episcopal bishop and rector of Monumental Episcopal Church. When Governor Campbell attended a performance of the play Celeste, Virginia echoed the bishop’s sentiments that it was a place “where gentlemen should not be seen.” At the Campbells’ grand party of February 1839, in keeping with Virginia’s request, there was no band or dancing.30 In the capital of thirty thousand people, Virginia’s religious concerns broadened into appreciation of other religious traditions, including Roman Catholicism and Judaism. She rejoiced that she had outgrown the time when “I believed something radically wrong in all religion not governed by my peculiar tenets.” Her religious devotion also led her to reflect about the conditions of the prisoners whom she saw at the Virginia State Penitentiary; of workers, including children, she observed in cotton, iron, and paper mills; and of the deaf, dumb, and blind children she saw exhibited before the legislature. She was sensitive to the fact that while she was living in wealth, many people in Richmond were in great need during a time of economic depression. When her aunt and uncle criticized her behavior, she remarked that while they accused her of being a coquette, 29. VC to Mary H. R. Campbell, May 2, 1839, to Catharine Campbell, June 30, 1839; Mary H. R. Campbell to Frances Campbell, June 8, 1839. 30. DC to VC, July 27, 1834, May 19, 1835, to Catharine Campbell, Mar. 1, 1838; VC, Account of Her Religious Experiences, Aug. 23, 1834, to Catharine Campbell, Dec. 30, 1834, May 17, 1835, Dec. 17, 1837, June 30, Oct. 15, 1839, Jan. 1, 1840, to Frances Campbell, July 1, Dec. 30, 1838, Nov. 23, 1839, Feb. 21, 1840 [in French], diary, Dec. 6, 11, 14, 15, 1838, Oct. 15, 27, Nov. 4, Dec. 2, 6, 7, 28, 1839; Margaret H. Campbell to VC, Mar. 17, 1839; Farnham, Education of the Southern Belle, 174, 180; Richmond Enquirer, Mar. 22, Sept. 14, 1838.

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some young men in Richmond said she was too serious and had joined the church too young. She found it hard to understand the worry over her social behavior.31 In the midst of their evolving familial conflict, Mary and Virginia regularly attended services at Monumental Episcopal Church, where Bishop Moore held his congregation spellbound with his evangelical preaching and from which he carried on a remarkable pastoral ministry. Almost immediately after the Campbells’ arrival in Richmond, he began calling at the executive mansion, where Mary Campbell especially received his sympathetic attention. A medical doctor as well as a priest, Moore visited in her room when she was suffering from what the family called “inflammatory fever.” Meanwhile, Governor Campbell, who back in Abingdon had often criticized Presbyterian preachers’ theological dogmatism and Methodist preachers’ emotional effect on women, received the Episcopal bishop’s attentions to his family graciously. Thus, it was natural that Bishop Moore was one of the guests at the Campbells’ February 1839 party. Later that year, on December 29, Mary Campbell, who had been baptized but never confirmed in the Presbyterian Church, was one of fourteen women (mostly younger than she) confirmed by Bishop Moore. Virginia was at her side on this momentous occasion.32 A week before the confirmation, Governor Campbell had written his brother James in Nashville that “my wifes body and mind are both feeble and require repose.” Two weeks after the confirmation, and at the beginning of the new legislative session in early 1840, family life in the executive mansion fell apart. On the evening of January 7, the governor invited eight young, unmarried legislators to the house for a social evening, and Virginia prepared to gather “some girls to entertain them.” But Mary would agree to her niece’s inviting only three friends who, Virginia was sure, would not be able to come on that evening. In the argument that followed, Virginia’s “entreaties, taunts and almost tears” did no good. When the young men arrived, Virginia, with her aunt seated in the room, rose to the occasion and did her best to entertain all eight with lively conversation. But she felt humiliated, knowing the men had expected an evening with several women, 31. VC to Catharine Campbell, Dec. 17, 1837, to Margaret H. Campbell, Mar. 30, 1838, Aug. 2, 1839, to Mary H. R. Campbell, Nov. 20, 1837, to David H. R. Campbell, Jan. 1, 1838, to WBC, Jan. 18, 1838, to Harriet [Burr], May 7, 1839. 32. VC to David H. R. Campbell, Jan. 1, 1838, to Margaret H. Campbell, Mar. 30, 1838, Feb. 10, 1839, to Catharine Campbell, Dec. 20, 1838, Jan. 1, 1840, diary, Dec. 8, 15, 1838, Oct. 24, Dec. 13, 29, 1839, “List of Callers at Executive Mansion,” Oct., Nov., 1839, Jan. 1840; Susan H. Godson, “Bishop Richard Channing Moore and the Renewal of the Antebellum Episcopal Church of Virginia,” Virginia Cavalcade 32 (spring 1983): 184–91; DC to Margaret H. Campbell, May 19, 1835, to MHC, May 7, 1837.

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not just with herself and her aunt. Now twenty-two years old, five years older than her aunt had been when she married, Virginia rebelled against Mary’s domination and castigated her after the guests were gone.33 For the next three months Mary Campbell withdrew into her room, rarely communicating with her niece and taking her meals alone. Virginia wrote that whenever she went into her aunt’s room, Mary’s condition seemed to become worse. Accustomed to being humored by her husband and obeyed by her slaves, she was unhinged by Virginia’s rebellious spirit and words. Micajah Clark, reputed to be Richmond’s finest medical doctor, gave her one dose of calomel pills and a “copious bleeding” and told the governor that she was not seriously ill. But her husband said she was like “a child” and “ so fretful that no one can do anything for her except a servant & myself and it is with difficulty I can do any thing for her.”34 To William Cabell Rives, his influential political ally on whom his hopes for future political office most depended, David Campbell naively confided the serious effect Mary’s illness was having on the performance of his gubernatorial responsibilities. Despite the presence of Virginia and five attentive Montcalm slaves in the executive mansion, he was obliged “to be myself, pretty much her nurse” and “almost constantly in the room with her.” So demanding was she that in late January 1840, when the Virginia legislature was once again in a tumultuous senatorial balloting in which Rives once more missed winning, this time by one vote, before the election was called off, Governor Campbell was “confined so closely” that he could not even get to the capitol and “could hear but little of what was going on.” On one occasion during Mary’s illness he missed a dinner in honor of Henry Clay. It became clear to Rives and probably to other leaders that Campbell could not or would not resist his wife’s demands in order to attend to politics. Thus, although Mary’s prodigious efforts as a hostess had earlier enhanced her husband’s political leadership, his inability to ignore or limit her incessant demands on him during her breakdown probably made him seem weak to other politicians like Rives, whose wife was an impeccable political helpmeet.35 During the previous summer of 1839, Governor Campbell and his family had made an official visit to the Western Insane Asylum of Virginia 33. Dec. 2, 1839; VC, diary, Jan. 7, 9, 13, 28, 1840; WBC to VC, Jan. 6, 1840; David Campbell to VC, Jan. 6, 1840. 34. VC to Margaret H. Campbell, Mar. 30, 1838, to WBC, Jan. 30, Feb. 13, 22, Mar. 24, 1840, to [Ellen White], Feb. 29, 1840, diary, Mar. 19, 1840; DC to WBC, Jan. 30, Feb. 9, 13, Mar. 24, 1840; WBC to DC, Feb. 1, 1840. 35. DC to William C. Rives, Jan. 29, Feb. 15, 1840, Rives Papers, Library of Congress; VC to WBC, Feb. 23. 1840, to [Ellen W. White], Feb. 28, 1840.

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in Staunton, where he talked extensively with Superintendent Francis T. Stribling, who urged him to give publicity in his next legislative message to the asylum’s fine record of cures. Especially, Stribling advised Campbell to emphasize the importance of bringing people to the facility for treatment immediately after the onset of their “malady.” But when his wife was in serious emotional and mental crisis in the executive mansion, there is no evidence that he considered taking her to Staunton, which he may have deemed appropriate only for lower-class people. Instead, the Campbells received the best help from Bishop Moore. As he had done during Mary’s illness in the spring of 1838, the compassionate and genial priest called at the governor’s house, probably visiting Mary in her room. Doubtless in gratitude for the bishop’s timely aid, David and Mary Campbell would later help him and his successors begin the process of opening an Episcopal church in Abingdon.36 On February 22, 1840, Mary’s birthday, the visit of another genial man brought her downstairs for the first time since the January tempest. Senator Henry Clay, the nation’s foremost Whig politician and always a charmer of women, spent most of a day greeting people in the drawing room and seeking support for William Henry Harrison in the upcoming presidential election. Mary and Virginia were right there with him the whole time, once again rising to the demands of crucial political entertaining.37 Still, in early March when Rives came to Richmond, attended church “with the Governor and Miss Virginia,” and observed Mary Campbell on a carriage ride he took with her, he wrote his wife that “she is still an invalid.” Although Rives apparently did not write more specifically about Mary’s problems, he probably concluded, as he had earlier about the wife of William Crawford, that she lacked important qualities needed by the wife of a high government official. When the new Whig governor, Thomas Walker Gilmer, was inaugurated on March 31, 1840, Mary was not up to moving from the official residence, and the new governor kindly delayed moving in until she was able to travel. Unwilling to leave the executive mansion under the cloud of her aunt’s illness, Virginia took the initiative to give a gala evening party there on Gilmer’s inauguration day. Mary came downstairs for the occasion and “was not fatigued or made sick by the excitement.” Reflecting on the gracious farewells that Richmond society gave her family, Virginia wrote, “I do feel very sorry to leave the good 36. Oct. 14, 1839; Christian I. Moore to MHC, Jan. 24, 1842; DC to Catharine Campbell, Nov. 6, 1842, to WBC, Feb. 10, 1858; VC, diary, July 1–19, 1839, “List of callers at the Executive Mansion,” Jan. 1840, to DC, Dec. 12, 1841, to Frances Campbell, Nov. 18, 1842, Apr. 25, 1844, to Margaret H. Campbell, June 29, Nov. 2, 1843, Dec. 9, 1847. 37. VC, diary, Feb. 22, 1840, to WBC, Feb. 22, 23, 1840.

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people here.” She was delighted when Governor Gilmer invited her to spend the next winter with his family in Richmond.38 On April 30, 1840, the Campbell household began their final trek from Richmond to Abingdon in carriage and gig. They were on the road nineteen days. It was the worst trip they had made in the three gubernatorial years. The roads were very bad, especially once they were past Salem. Virginia and Mary did not get along well. Once, when Virginia got out of the carriage to admire the spring flowers blooming on the side of the road, she walked too slowly and detained her aunt’s carriage “to my great disadvantage.” She then got into the gig to ride with her uncle, but “I felt lonesome & remained silent all the way,” she recorded.39 Virginia’s Tennessee family, as well as Governor Campbell, recognized that life with Mary had become very difficult in the last year at Richmond. Before the three Campbells left the city, Virginia’s older brother William, now a congressman, wrote her that it was time to decide if she wanted to leave her aunt and uncle permanently. If she decided to leave, she would have no further claim on her aunt and uncle’s wealth; she could find happiness and “a glorious independence” in poverty just as her older sisters had.40 Soon after returning to Montcalm, Virginia went home to Tennessee. In the following year, her father died, and Governor and Mrs. Campbell purchased a new farm, house, and furnishings for her needy family. When Virginia returned to Montcalm in 1842, her mother wrote her son, “You know very well the obligations we are under to those friends—your Uncle was sick and your Aunt had an ulcer on her leg of some ten or twelve months standing and someone had to go to take care of them the lot fell on Virginia.” Virginia stayed at Montcalm several more years. She and her uncle remained close; she was still his beloved adopted daughter. The relationship between Virginia and her aunt, however, was often stormy.41 38. William C. Rives to Judith Rives, Dec. 17, 1823, Rives Papers, Library of Congress, quoted in Allgor, Parlor Politics, 172, to Judith Rives, Mar. 8, 1840, Rives Papers, Library of Congress; WBC to Margaret H. Campbell, Mar. 13, 1840; VC, diary, Apr. 30-May 18, 1839, Jan. 1-Aug. 2, 1840. 39. VC, diary, Jan. 1-Aug. 2, 1840. 40. Apr. 12, 1840. 41. VC to MHC, Mar. 11, July 16, 1841, Oct. 23, 1845, to DC, June 18, 1841, to MHC & DC, Sept. 7, 1848, to Catharine Campbell, July 18, 1842, Mar. 2, 1843, Nov. 12, Dec. 7, 1844, Oct. 9, 1849, to WBC & Frances Campbell, Aug. 13, 1848, to Margaret H. Campbell, June 29, 1843, Dec. 9, 1847; DC to VC, Aug. 24, 1840, July 4, 1849, to WBC, Nov. 20, 1841, Aug. 25, Nov. 24, 1847, Apr. 4, 1849, to Catharine Campbell, Nov. 6, 1842; Catharine Campbell to WBC, May 27, 1842, Aug. 29, 1847; Frances Campbell to Mary Owen, May 31, 1842.

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Although it has proved impossible to learn from contemporary writings the extent to which Mary Campbell’s breakdown in Richmond and her continued difficulties in Abingdon were known and viewed critically, it seems likely that they were discussed in both places. It also seems likely that the reputation Mary probably gained as a demanding, temperamental, unstable matriarch played a role in Virginia’s not making a marriage in Richmond or in Abingdon. During the 1840s many eligible men—single, widowed, ministers, Washington County cousins—courted Virginia at Montcalm and in Abingdon. Her favored relationship to her wealthy aunt and uncle was undoubtedly clear to all, making her seemingly very eligible. Yet, apparently she never received a serious proposal of marriage at Abingdon, and she began to conclude that she would remain single like her older sister Margaret. When she learned in 1845 that a wealthy young widower from Knoxville who had visited her at Montcalm was now married to a beautiful young woman in her teens, she said she was forced “to the humiliating conclusion that I have not the power to please people of refined taste.”42 She blamed herself unfairly. When she returned home to Tennessee in the late 1840s, away from her aunt and uncle, living in the much poorer conditions of her birth family, she seemed to have no difficulty pleasing people “of refined taste” and received several marriage proposals. Finally, Virginia followed her own inclinations, frustrating the Campbells’ plans that she would become the mistress of Montcalm. In 1849, at the age of thirty-two, she married William Shelton, a Baptist minister at Clarksville, Tennessee, who was trained in classical languages. When Mary and David Campbell tried to persuade him to study medicine, Virginia steadfastly supported his professional choice. After their marriage, he became professor of languages at Union University in Murfreesboro and an editor. In the 1850s he became president of the Baptist Female College in Brownsville and then, following the Civil War, of West Tennessee College in Jackson. With him, Virginia had abundant opportunity to use the learning and polish acquired in Abingdon and Richmond, but as the mother of their six children she devoted little time to her increasingly ill and lonely aunt and uncle.43 42. VC to Catharine Campbell, July 18, Nov. 26, 1842, July 22, 1843, July 18, Nov. 12, Dec. 7, 1844, May 15, July 17, 1845, to Margaret H. Campbell, Apr. 19, June 29, Nov. 2, 24, 1843, Mar. 12, 1844, May 1, 1845, in DC’s letter, Jan. 9, 1848; to Frances Campbell, Oct. 6, 1842, Oct. 27, 1843, Apr. 25, 1844, July 17, 1845, to WBC, Aug. 15, 1847; DC to Margaret Campbell, Dec. 27, 1844, Oct. 30, Dec. 27, 1845. 43. VC to MHC & DC, June 18, 19, 1847, Dec. 12, 1848, Nov. 4, 26, Dec. 12, 1848, Jan. 25, May 4, Aug. 8, 1849, May 15, Nov. 3, Dec. 3, 1850, Jan. 8, Mar. 15, with William

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Although it is impossible to know with certainty from contemporary sources the influence of Mary’s breakdown in Richmond on David Campbell’s chances for another political office after the governorship, it seems likely that it had a discouraging effect. After Rives failed to be reelected to the Senate in February 1839, David’s family members and friends urged him to seek the position. On December 2, 1839, before Mary’s serious breakdown, David wrote his brother James that he had “no doubt” that he could be elected to the Senate seat instead of Rives, but he had two reasons for not seeking that election: “I cannot consent to permit Rives to be thurst [sic] aside” and “My wifes body and mind are both feeble and require repose.” His inability even to get to the capitol during the senatorial election of January 1840 because of Mary’s demands no doubt further convinced him and Rives that he did not have sufficient freedom to undertake another state or national office.44 Back in Abingdon after his governorship, he became a nationalist Whig, campaigning actively in the presidential elections of 1840 and 1844 and supporting the Whig program of internal improvements, a national bank, and sectional compromise on the slavery issue. Again able to play her role as the supportive political wife, Mary participated in the campaigns of 1840 and 1844 and collected donations as a vice president of the Virginia Association of Ladies for Erecting a Statue to Henry Clay. Her activities on behalf of the Whigs dovetail with historian Elizabeth R. Varon’s description of the evolving political role of elite antebellum Virginia women. At least once, Mary even tried to reignite her husband’s political career. In a characteristic short note inserted in someone else’s letter, she implored her nephew William to “write to John Richeson [Richardson] our friend to put the ball in motion for making Governor Campbell United Stats senetor and not to sese rolling the ball untill he succeds the next lageslature will elect him with proper mannagement we Have assertained, . . . be veary prudent and circumspect in everything the great men consulted.” But it was too late. After Rives was successfully reelected to the Senate in 1841, he seldom wrote the former governor, who had been his faithful ally, and gave him no political aid in gaining another office or in helping his relatives obtain Shelton, Apr. 28, 1852, to MHC, July 23, 1847, Feb. 6, Mar. 19, Apr. 21, 1850, to DC in David H. R. Campbell’s letter, Aug. 20, 1849, no day, 1849, Dec. 7, 1851, to William Shelton, Apr. 16, 1859; DC to WBC, Sept. 14, 16, 1847, May 25, Oct. 20, 1849, Dec. 16, 1855, Sept. 1, 3, 1858; DC to VC, Oct. 16, 29, 1848; William Shelton to MHC, Apr. 6, 1850, to WBC, Jan. 29, 1866. 44. John Campbell to DC, July 12, 1839; John W. C. Watson to DC, Dec. 30, 1839; WBC to DC, Jan. 2, 1840; David Campbell to VC, Jan. 6, 1840; John Mercer Patton to DC, May 31, 1840.

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offices. As David bitterly wrote his nephew William, it was futile to look for true friends among “aspirants for office.” Meanwhile, Mary grieved about having no correspondents in Richmond. Although she and her husband traveled to Tennessee several times in the 1840s and 1850s, they never again went to eastern Virginia.45 In the decade after David Campbell’s term as governor, Mary periodically evidenced the emotional and mental problems precipitated in Richmond. By the 1850s, her problems had evolved into a settled mental illness, often making life a nightmare for her household, free and slave, and leading her husband to acknowledge that “my wife’s mind has retrograded for many years.” Finally, her raging turned the Abingdon mansion into a “ruin” before David died there on March 19, 1859, and she died there on October 6 of the same year.46 While the Richmond gubernatorial years produced important positive outcomes for other members of her household—political recognition and opportunity far beyond his original expectations for David and psychological independence of her surrogate parents for Virginia—they marked a tragic turning point in Mary’s life journey. Undoubtedly, she reflected from time to time on what had gone wrong for her in Virginia’s executive mansion. In 1841, about a year after her husband’s governorship ended, when she was in better health and Virginia was in Tennessee, she wrote the following lines on a scrap of paper inserted in one of her husband’s letters, giving Virginia her interpretation of her problems: The want of education is the only sorce of misirey and unhappiness I have to cumbat with. I have moved through the great wourld with humbled and painfully blited feelings, for fear I could not acquiting myself in the established rules of the present order of society. O the 45. Mitchell, “The Political Career,” chap. 8; Elizabeth R. Varon, We Mean to Be Counted: White Women and Politics in Antebellum Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 75–94; DC to VC, Aug. 24, Sept. 18, Oct. 14, Nov. 22, Dec. 14, 28, 1840, Jan. 4, May 19, 1841, to WBC, Jan. 11, Feb. 12, Mar. 6, Aug. 9, 1841, to William C. Rives, Aug. 17, 1843, 29, Aug. 7, 30, 1841, to Margaret H. Campbell, Dec. 27, 1844; VC to Catharine Campbell, Jan. 9, 1843, Oct. 19, 1844; MHC, Broadside, Feb. 1845, as vice president for Washington County, Virginia, Association for Erecting a Statue to Henry Clay, to WBC, Dec. [?], 1840; William H. Macfarland to DC, Oct. 8, 1845; WBC to DC, Feb. 27, July 8, July 30, 1841, Apr. 17, 1842; William C. Rives to DC, May 3, 1841, July 24, 1843; John B. Richardson to David Campbell, Oct. 26, 1841. 46. DC to VC, June 14, 16, July 7, 1851, to WBC, Apr. 25, 1854, Jan. 26, 1859; Margaret H. Campbell to WBC, Jan. 9, May 17, 1854, Mar. 22, 1859, to VCS, Feb. 25, Apr. 27, 1859, to Catharine Campbell, Mar. 8, 1859; James K. Gibson to WBC, Mar. 19, Oct. 6, 8, 1859; John Campbell to VCS, Oct. 10, 1859.

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heart rending and distressing feelings that have passed over me. I hope no one that is beloved by me will ever have to suffer from want of an education.47

In fact, Mary Campbell’s problems in “the great wourld” were more complex than simply a lack of formal education. Her long-standing physical and mental ill health and her age converged with sectional, class, and familial issues to overwhelm her in the unrelenting, competitive social life of a governor’s wife. Although she made valiant efforts to make her way in “the great wourld,” her journey from the blockhouse at Campbell’s Station in east Tennessee to the executive mansion in Richmond carried her too far in a society dominated by the elite of both eastern and western Virginia. Her story reveals both the possibilities and the limitations that a near-elite wife of a southern politician encountered when she tried to become a leader in elite society. Her story also suggests that her limitations impeded the efforts of her husband and niece to make the most of their possibilities in elite Virginia society.

47. DC to VC, Jan. 29, 1841.

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Active Faith The Participation of Louisiana Women in Antebellum Religious Services

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antebellum religion. They formed organizations such as Sunday schools, missionary societies, and benevolent societies and made up a large portion of most church memberships. Mention of church services, however, often conjures up the picture of an active male preacher and a passive audience composed largely of the weaker sex. Jean Friedman reinforced the impression of female passivity in The Enclosed Garden as she sought to uncover why independent female networks and a women’s reform movement failed to develop in antebellum southern churches as they did in the northern churches. Yet, women did perform a number of active roles in religious devotions. As Donald Mathews demonstrated in Religion in the Old South, the spread of evangelicalism in the South had a liberating effect on women and their religious lives. While confirming his finding for Louisiana’s evangelical population, women in liturgical denominations participated in ways similar to their evangelical sisters. Whatever their denomination, female worshipers consciously chose to take part in religious activities, and feminine participation was not limited to listening passively to a sermon. Women could and did undertake a number of functions that brought them both spiritual satisfaction and involvement in shaping their own religious lives.1 Louisiana is a fruitful ground for the study of antebellum religion; within the state one could find large populations of both Catholics and Protestants, an unusual occurrence in the South before the Civil War. Most Catholics were concentrated in New Orleans and the southern parishes of the state, but significant Catholic communities existed at places like Alexandria and Natchitoches in northern parishes. At the same time, all of the major liturgical and evangelical Christian denominations were present, along 1. Jean R. Friedman, The Enclosed Garden: Women and Community in the Evangelical South, 1830–1900 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985); Donald G. Mathews, Religion in the Old South (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979).

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with Jewish congregations. While the largest concentrations of Protestants settled in northern Louisiana, they could be found all over the state in the decades after 1803. Indeed, by 1861, New Orleans had almost twice as many Protestant churches as Catholic. Although individual Jewish families could be found in many towns, the small Jewish population of the state was generally confined to New Orleans, which featured three synagogues by the end of the antebellum period.2 Female members made up the bulk of nineteenth-century congregations in Louisiana, as in other parts of the United States, a fact noted by observers as well as in surviving church records. On a trip to New Orleans in 1819, Benjamin H. Latrobe noticed that at St. Louis Cathedral “the congregation consisted of at least four-fifths women.” Frederick Law Olmsted, visiting nearly four decades later, also remarked on the large number of female participants during services at the cathedral. At that city’s First Presbyterian Church, 112 women and 44 men became members in the late antebellum period. In Baton Rouge, the Gazette’s editor mentioned the large number of women who attended St. Joseph’s Church and suggested that they served as the foundation of the institution. Women’s visible presence, however, was just the beginning of feminine participation in religious activities.3 Both evangelical and liturgical denominations offered their own opportunities for women to express themselves. In evangelical churches, the emphasis on individual salvation brought women into public view as they shared their experiences. Many churches, like Mount Nebo Baptist in St. Tammany Parish and Hephzibah Baptist in East Feliciana Parish, required prospective members to undergo conversion and testify to that event before the entire congregation. Many women shared their religious experiences at these and other churches during the antebellum period. In Covington, Kittie and Mary Fate, two girls in their teens, both “joined the church and professed religion.” When Ann Raney Thomas joined a new Methodist church near her home, she felt an obligation “to set the first example of not being ashamed of my Savior, but to confess him before men.”4 2. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Social Statistics for Louisiana, 1850, 1860. 3. J. H. B. Latrobe, ed., The Journals of Latrobe: Being the Notes and Sketches of an Architect, Naturalist and Traveler in the United States from 1797 to 1820 (New York: D. Appleton, 1905), 192–93; Frederick Law Olmsted, The Cotton Kingdom: A Traveller’s Observations on Cotton and Slavery in the American Slave States, ed. Arthur M. Schlesinger (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953), 228; First Presbyterian Church Record Book, Special Collections Library, Tulane University (hereinafter TU); Baton Rouge Daily Gazette and Comet, Aug. 16, 1860. 4. Hephzibah Church Books, Aug. 12, Nov. 11, 1827, Aug. 25, Sept. 13, 1828, Jan. 3, 1829, July 7, 1832, May 11, 1833, Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collection,

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Black women found that some of the methods of participation available to white women were also open to them. In evangelical denominations, black women, even slaves, testified to their conversion just like other members of the congregation. At Hephzibah Baptist Church in East Feliciana Parish, Sely and Jane, two female slaves, spoke of their experiences and were received into the fellowship in July 1814. In later years, other slaves, including women named Cherry, Dicy, Harriet, Pamela, June, Floria, Jemima, Soocky, and Betty, also related their conversion and became members. Other evangelical churches, including Minden Baptist and Fellowship Baptist, also required female slaves to come before the group to share their experiences when joining. In this way, antebellum women of both races were becoming active participants in evangelical churches and determining the course of their religious lives.5 In a different way, the congregational participation in the prayers and creeds of liturgical services allowed women—as part of the larger church body—to feel a strong sense of community and involvement. Especially in Roman Catholic and Episcopal churches, worship followed a set pattern, and all members joined in call and response with the priests, prayers, and recitation of creeds. In 1839, on a visit to Natchitoches, Episcopal bishop Leonidas Polk found “the responses were fully sustained throughout the entire service” by all members of the congregation. Maria Inskeep discovered that involvement in the Episcopal liturgy gave her a feeling of kinship, not only with the other members of her own church, but also with her sister, whom she knew was reciting the same prayers and creeds in another state each Sunday. According to Inskeep, “I feel sure that our souls are united in our devotions.” Such connections heightened women’s sense of belonging as they helped sustain the service and claimed full participation in it through their responses.6 For black women in Louisiana, the same opportunities for involvement in liturgical services presented themselves. Many free black women were Catholic, and observers often considered them among the most devoted churchgoers. During Benjamin Latrobe’s visit to St. Louis Cathedral in Louisiana State University (hereinafter LLMVC); Mount Nebo Baptist Church minutes, June 30, 1821, Nov. 30, 1832, LLMVC; Let. Fate to Emily Ellis, Oct. 13, 1858, E. John and Thomas C. W. Ellis and Family Papers, LLMVC; Ann Raney Thomas Memoirs, Ann Raney Thomas Papers, TU. 5. Hephzibah Church Books, July 14, 1814, Aug. 12, 1827, June 6, 1830, Apr. 7, July 29, Nov. 10, 1832, LLMVC; Minden Baptist Church Records, Historical Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention (hereinafter HCSBC), microfilm; Fellowship Baptist Church Records, HCSBC, microfilm. 6. Leonidas Polk to Board of Missions, May 17, 1839, Leonidas Polk Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina (hereinafter SHC); Maria Inskeep to Fanny Hampton, Apr. 22, 1837, Fanny Leverich Eshleman Craig Collection, TU.

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New Orleans, he estimated that African American women made up at least half of the congregation. St. Augustine’s Church in the lower part of the city also had a substantial number of female black parishioners, both free and slave. The nature of the Catholic service gave black women a real sense of participation. Like white members of the congregation, African American women helped sustain the service with their responses. Latrobe observed many black women—both slaves and free—participating in a mass at St. Louis Cathedral, for example. The Sisters of the Holy Family were a group of free black nuns in New Orleans who encouraged other members of their community to take part in the liturgy and singing at St. Augustine’s Church, where many free people of color worshiped. They believed that such participation fostered a feeling of community and belonging among parishioners.7 For black women of all denominations, however, active involvement in devotional services also brought a confrontation with the racial prejudice prevalent in antebellum society. Many evangelical churches, for example, had special galleries constructed for African American members. In other cases, slaves had to remain outdoors and listen to sermons through open windows. The New Orleans Catholic churches were not traditionally separated by race, and observers like Frederick Law Olmsted reported that black and white worshipers sat next to one another at the cathedral. All was not equal, however. By the 1840s, Catholic churches began separating the races. St. Augustine’s did not segregate free worshipers, but the church had seats set aside in the aisle for slaves. In Natchitoches, black worshipers had to wait until all whites had taken communion before they could receive the sacrament. African Americans, and especially slaves, learned from these customs that religious bodies in Louisiana upheld society’s marginalization of them. Despite these episodes of discrimination, black women were active participants in both evangelical and liturgical denominations.8 In addition to their role as congregants, female church members could serve as musicians and singers during religious services. Many evangelical 7. Latrobe, ed., Journals, 192–93. For discussion of the Sisters of the Holy Family, see M. Boniface Adams, “The Gift of Religious Leadership: Henriette Delille and the Foundation of the Holy Family Sisters,” in Cross, Crozier, and Crucible: A Volume Celebrating the Bicentennial of a Catholic Diocese in Louisiana, ed. Glenn R. Conrad (New Orleans: Archdiocese of New Orleans and Center for Louisiana Studies, 1993), 368. 8. Hephzibah Church Books, Aug. 20, 1825; William Mathews narrative, in The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, ed. George P. Rawick (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1979), suppl., ser. 2, 7:2613; Olmsted, The Cotton Kingdom, 228. See Adams, “The Gift of Religious Leadership,” 368; Gary B. Mills, “Piety and Prejudice: A Colored Catholic Community in the Antebellum South,” in Catholics in the Old South: Essays on Church and Culture, ed., Randall M. Miller and Jon L. Wakelyn (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1983), 174.

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churches did not have separate choirs, and their congregations joined in singing hymns, which heightened the sense of involvement among male and female participants alike. Some liturgical institutions, however, featured choirs and soloists to perform holy music for the congregation. In 1840, Theodore Clapp discontinued the use of professional musicians at his house of worship and invited all members of the congregation to join the choir. Eliza Ripley recalled that two sisters sang duets and solos along with the choir at Clapp’s church in the ensuing years. At Calvary Episcopal Church in New Orleans, Rose Wilkinson was the organist, and she also sang solos, a common practice in Episcopal churches across the state. At the convent of the Sacred Heart in Grand Coteau, the nuns and their female pupils made up the choir. Felix Poche attended several services there, and he described the “very melodious voices” as part of a religious scene that was “impressive and solemn.” Serving as a musician was a way for a woman to publicly serve God during the service.9 While participating in devotional activities, some female church attendees reacted audibly to sentiments expressed during the sermon, especially in evangelical denominations that encouraged more emotional displays of religious feeling. In 1844, Madaline Edwards was a member of Theodore Clapp’s church in New Orleans. When he gave a sermon on the duties of men in May of that year, Edwards felt so overcome by Clapp’s words and their relevance to her own situation as the mistress of a married man that she began to cry. Edwards was not alone in her strong reaction to the words of a minister. At services in Monroe, Caroline Poole commented that “now and then you might hear a groan of approbation run around the assembly.” When they felt touched by the ideas presented in a sermon, many women did not hesitate to show their feelings openly and in public.10 Black women also voiced their opinions during the service, especially if the minister was African American. While traveling in the South in the 1850s, Frederick Law Olmsted slipped into a Protestant church in New Orleans. Seated in the gallery with three other white people, Olmsted observed that the ministers and the remainder of the congregation were 9. New Orleans Crescent City, Oct. 27, 1840; Eliza Ripley, Social Life in Old New Orleans: Being Recollections of My Girlhood (New York: D. Appleton, 1912), 121; Kate Mason Rowland and Mrs. Morris L. Croxall, eds., The Journal of Julia LeGrand: New Orleans 1862–1863 (Richmond: Everett Waddey, 1911), 125; Emily Caroline Douglas Autobiography, Emily Caroline Douglas Papers, LLMVC; Clinton Feliciana Democrat, Mar. 22, 1856; Felix Pierre Poche Diaries, July 31, 1864, TU. 10. Madaline Edwards, “Man,” in Madaline: Love and Survival in Antebellum New Orleans, ed. Dell Upton (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996), 96; James A. Padgett, ed., “A Yankee School Teacher in Louisiana, 1835–1837: The Diary of Caroline B. Poole,” Louisiana Historical Quarterly 20 (July 1937): 12.

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black. As the preacher delivered his sermon, both male and female members of the audience began to utter expressions such as “That’s it, that’s it!” and “Oh, yes!” At the climax of the sermon, an elderly woman began dancing and clapping. The minister tried to continue, but as her religious enthusiasm spread to others, he conceded, and the entire congregation broke out into song. Like the free woman of color Olmsted witnessed, female slaves were often active, rather than passive, participants. They vociferously indicated their approval when the preacher expressed a satisfactory sentiment and did not hold back when they felt moved by the spirit. Elizabeth Ross Hite recalled that she and other slaves on Trinity plantation preferred their own devotions to those organized by the master because “you could not shout and pray like you wanted to. Dats what I call religion, prayin’ and be free to shout.” She also noted, “dere was more religious women dan men.” Similarly, Orelia Franks remembered participating in the emotional shouting and singing that took place during plantation worship near Opelousas. In these cases, both minister and congregation were black, and women like Hite, Franks, and the unnamed New Orleans woman felt free to unleash their emotions in front of someone who shared their race and condition. Many, including Hite, felt more constrained if the minister was white. Some slave women, however, did not let the minister’s race deter them from expressing themselves during worship. Sarah Wilson reported that while attending a racially mixed church on the Louisiana frontier, she and other members—black and white—would “git happy an’ shout” during the sermon. These activities most often took place during evangelical services, which had a less-structured format and were more open to outbursts from worshipers.11 After the service ended, women from all denominations were often honest critics of what had transpired. On many occasions, they approved of the preaching and rituals they witnessed. Madaline Edwards, a regular attendant at Theodore Clapp’s church in New Orleans, often recorded her impressions of the services. In October 1844 she remarked that he delivered “a glorious sermon.” Early the following year, Edwards pronounced Clapp’s discourse “excellent”; she “could find nothing in todays to cavil at.” Similarly, in a January 1859 diary entry, Mary Folger noted “a most excellent sermon” from her church’s regular minister. Eliza Anne Robert11. Olmsted, The Cotton Kingdom, 242–44; Elizabeth Ross Hite narrative, in Mother Wit: The Ex-slave Narratives of the Louisiana Writers’ Project, ed. Ronnie L. Clayton (New York: Lang, 1990), 104; Orelia Alexie Franks narrative, in American Slave, ser. 2, 4:1424; Sarah Wilson narrative, in American Slave, ser. 2, 10:4217. See also Ann Patton Malone, Sweet Chariot: Slave Family and Household Structure in Nineteenth-Century Louisiana (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 246–47.

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son went even further, calling one preacher “the best I ever heard” and declaring, “no one could listen to him without feeling that they will try to be good.”12 At other times, however, the women found much to criticize, either at their own places of worship or those they had visited. A member of a New Orleans synagogue, Clara Solomon, often critiqued the services she attended there. On one occasion, she recorded that the rabbi’s “discourse possessed no interesting points, and seemed to fail of its intended object. I am not at all pleased with him.” Nannie Roberts also lamented that her minister “preached a very dull sermon.” Visits to other churches often brought a mixture of praise and criticism. Although Sarah Wright enjoyed the sermon she heard at an Episcopal church, she found the orderly service boring. On the other hand, Anna Butler described to her sister Sarah a service featuring “long extemporaneous and rambling prayers and sermon,” which made her yearn for the structure of the Episcopal liturgy. The women of the Butler family admirably illustrated the ways in which female Louisianians made their opinions known. In 1843, Sarah Butler attended devotions with a cousin. Two ministers preached, and Butler came back unimpressed with their efforts. In a letter to Anna, she complained, “I never saw any one try so hard to cry and succeed as badly as they both did in my life.” During a trip to visit relatives several years later, their sister-inlaw Sarah Ker Butler observed, “I have been to church several times, but heard only 2 sermons that pleased me.” For her part, Eliza Rives reported that the sermon she heard while visiting her mother “was not as good as it might have been, upon so interesting a subject.” These women all created standards by which they judged ministers and services of both their own churches and those they visited.13 African American women also expressed judgments of ministers and services to their friends and family. While visiting New Orleans, Benjamin Latrobe overheard a group of free people of color discussing the mass they 12. Upton, Madaline, 185, 254; Mary Folger diary, Jan. 23, 1859, Mary and Eunice Folger Papers, TU; Eliza Anne Robertson diary, Apr. 20, 1856, Eliza Anne Robertson Papers, SHC; Records of Ante-bellum Southern Plantations from the American Revolution through the Civil War, ser. J., pt. 5, ed. Kenneth M. Stampp (Frederick, Md.: University Publications of America, 1987). 13. Elliott Ashkenazi, ed., The Civil War Diary of Clara Solomon: Growing Up in New Orleans, 1861–1862 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1995), 300; Nannie Roberts to Josephine Smith, Apr. 17, 1855, Abishai W. Roberts Papers, LLMVC; Sarah Wright to Augustus Wright, Aug. 14, 1857, Wright-Boyd Family Papers, LLMVC; Anna Butler to Sarah Butler, Mar. 12, 1854, Sarah Butler to Anna Butler, Oct. 25, 1843; Anna and Sarah Butler correspondence, LLMVC; Sarah Ker Butler to Mary Ker, May, 1850, Ker Family Papers, SHC; Eliza Rives to Thomas Benjamin Davidson, Nov. 27, 1860, Thomas Benjamin Davidson Papers, SHC.

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had just attended. While one man praised the new priest and his ability to recite the liturgy, a woman in the party disagreed. She preferred one of the other priests, whose voice she compared to a bell. Clara Brim, who grew up on a plantation near Opelousas, recalled that the man who conducted church meetings for William Lyons’s slaves “was a good preacher.” Similarly, Alice Cole approved of most of the preachers who gave sermons to her and other slaves on Jim Henson’s place in Monroe. Although both Brim and Cole stated these judgments several decades after the end of slavery, it is likely that they would have made similar statements to other slaves shortly after hearing the sermons. In all of these cases the pastors were white, but black women apparently felt few qualms about voicing their opinions either at the time or in retrospect.14 Even though most critiques circulated privately among friends and family, word could get around about a certain minister or church. By the time Kate Adams had a chance to hear the new preacher in her area, her acquaintances were already comparing him favorably with his predecessor. According to Elise Ellis, when residents heard that a Mr. Wall was giving a sermon at the Episcopal church in Terrebonne Parish, “few persons will enter until it is ended” because the news of his poor speaking abilities had spread around the parish. One of Mary Jane Robertson’s friends acknowledged that while her family did go to church for the benediction, they did not attend Father Larneudie’s sermon at a nearby Catholic church because Robertson had already warned her about his dismal performance in Plaquemine. Clearly, women played a significant role in alerting community members to the merits and shortcomings of a particular church or minister, and this activity took place in both liturgical and evangelical denominations.15 Reaction to a religious service could go beyond expressing opinions during and after devotions, however. By refusing to be present at certain times, some Louisiana women made their dissatisfaction clear. During the summer of 1844, Madaline Edwards arrived at Theodore Clapp’s church only to find him absent. Upon learning that a substitute would read a printed sermon, Edwards stated, “I can not endure,” and she got up to return home. Edwards believed that she had more productive things to do with her time than listen to a poorly delivered discourse. Eliza Anne Robert14. Latrobe, ed., Journals, 222; Clara Brim narrative, in American Slave, ser. 2, 2:430; Alice Cole narrative, in American Slave, ser. 2, 3:751. 15. Kate Adams to Orlando Adams, Mar. 2, 1856, Israel Adams and Family Papers, LLMVC; Elise Ellis to Anna Butler, Jan. 5, 1847, Anna and Sarah Butler correspondence, LLMVC; “218” to Mary Jane Robertson, Apr., 1862, Mary Jane Robertson Papers, LLMVC.

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son, too, absented herself from church attendance when “I heard that Mr. Jenkins was going to preach.” She could not stand his sermons, and “I could do better by staying at home.” Nancy Willard, who lived in rural Bossier Parish in northern Louisiana, found all of the nearby churches unsatisfactory and declared, “I hardly ever go to Preaching and when I do I hear so little that I care to hear that it is hardly worth the trouble.” Echoing other Louisiana women, Willard asserted, “it does me more good to stay at home and read my Bible.” Although all of these women valued their religious experiences and looked forward to the opportunity to attend worship with other members of the community, they believed that their own private devotions benefited them more than a mediocre service. In this way, they analyzed the opportunities available to them, made a conscious choice to reject services they deemed unsatisfying, and took the initiative to guide their own religious development when necessary.16 Just as they could decide whether to attend services, female Louisianians could also choose which church to patronize. As historian Catherine Clinton has written, choice of denomination was one of the few areas of action available to antebellum women. Reared an Episcopalian, Ann Raney Thomas converted to Methodism during her residence on the Louisiana frontier. Thomas even persuaded her husband, a lifelong Baptist, to join the Methodists a few months before his death. Some women found family members less accommodating. Kate Sully became a Catholic while at school and after her return home continued to practice that religion despite serious opposition from her family. According to Sully, “they don’t like it a bit about my being one, but I reckon they will have to become accustom [sic] to it, for go to confession and communion I will if I have to fight the Old Scratch himself.” At the end of the antebellum period, Priscilla Munnikhuysen Bond reported to her mother that the local Episcopal minister was trying to convert her, but “I fear I am too far gone a Methodist for that.” Yet in the same letter, Bond noted that she was considering a change to a Presbyterian congregation. Recently married and living with her husband’s family, Bond was eager to fit in.17 Clearly, not all women felt completely free to choose their own denomination. Subtle pressures to conform affected some, while others had to 16. Upton, Madaline, 117–18; Eliza Anne Robertson diary, Apr. 15, 1855, Eliza Anne Robertson Papers, SHC; Records of Ante-bellum Southern Plantations, ser. J., pt. 5; Nancy Willard to Micajah Wilkinson, May 15, 1862, Micajah Wilkinson Papers, LLMVC. 17. Catherine Clinton, The Other Civil War: American Women in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Hill and Wang, 1999), 43; Ann Raney Thomas Memoirs, Thomas Papers, TU; Kate Sully to Mary Jane Robertson, June 28, 1861, Mary Jane Robertson Papers, LLMVC; Priscilla Munnikhuysen Bond to her mother, Feb. 27, 1861, Priscilla Munnikhuysen Bond Papers, LLMVC.

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deal with more overt opposition. Sully faced the active disapproval of her family members, who tried to keep her from attending Catholic services. In a similar situation, Henrietta Barton’s staunchly Methodist friends and family sought to dissuade her from joining a different church. When Mary Hopkins left Salem Baptist Church to join a Methodist group, the Baptists sent a male member to “labor with her” and try to bring her back into the fold. The congregation at Salem used similar tactics on Mary Francis when she also became a Methodist. Despite opposition and pressure, Sully, Barton, and Hopkins persevered, as did many other women, to determine their own religious affiliations.18 A few women even made efforts to shape their local churches to meet their requirements. At Amiable Baptist Church in Rapides Parish, a group of worshipers lodged a complaint against their preacher. One of the main reasons for their discontent was that “he desires to put down women” by keeping them from holding prayer meetings of their own. For this action and for preaching what they considered to be unsound doctrines, they got the man dismissed. In Grosse Tete, a group of ladies led by a Mrs. Dickinson went even further when they became dissatisfied with their minister. They stayed away from services for a while but missed the practice of regular worship. Dickinson soon learned that a young preacher living in a nearby town was available. Enlisting the financial support of several prominent members of the congregation, she and another parishioner hired the young man, promising to pay his salary themselves if the other church members did not agree. This action caused a rift that resulted in two separate churches but also secured a pastor satisfactory to Dickinson and the other disaffected women. Although Dickinson certainly was an exceptional case, she illustrates the determination of many women to claim their place in institutional religion.19 While white women exercised authority in choosing their denominational affiliation, some black women found this power curtailed. Some slaveholders, for example, forbade any kind of religious activity among their servants. As Mary Reynolds later recalled, “we never heard of no church” on her master’s Trinity plantation. Other slaveholders insisted that their slaves go to white churches, where they worshiped under close 18. Kate Sully to Mary Jane Robertson, June 28, 1861, Mary Jane Robertson Papers, LLMVC; J. A. Dearborn to John Gano, Nov. 28, 1837, Dearborn Letter, LLMVC; Salem Baptist Church Records, HCSBC, microfilm. For discussion of pressure on women to conform to their husbands’ religion, see Christine Leigh Heyrman, Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997), 201–2. 19. Amiable Baptist Church Records, HCSBC, microfilm; John Slack to Hall Slack, July 11, 1854, Slack Family Papers, SHC; Records of Ante-bellum Southern Plantations, ser. J., pt. 5.

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supervision. At other times, slaveholders would hire a minister to preach on his or her plantation. In many other cases, a planter or member of his family conducted services for slaves. None of these situations permitted slaves—whether male or female—any choice in the matter.20 Despite limitations, however, many slaves, including women, often went to extraordinary lengths to control their religious lives. Ella Washington recalled that her owner did not allow slaves to have their own meetings, but “we sneaks off and have pot prayin’.” Mary Reynolds and other slaves on her plantation did the same. Reynolds remembered services in the cabins on her own plantation during which slaves would “pray with our heads down low and sing low.” Despite the danger of detection, she and her family also slipped off to a neighboring place for prayer meetings. Both male and female slaves recognized and accepted the risks of independent religious activity.21 Restrictions also existed for the free black population of Louisiana. Although they had no masters to dictate a certain religious affiliation, state and local governments sometimes acted to limit choices. In 1848, the first African Methodist Episcopal church opened in New Orleans. It quickly drew a congregation of over fifteen hundred people and became a significant institution in the free black community. But ten years after its establishment the city of New Orleans outlawed independent black religious groups and shut down the church in the midst of several efforts by state and local governments to curtail the freedoms of the free black population. Devout women and men were not to be deterred, however. Evidence exists that members of the African Methodist Episcopal church continued to meet clandestinely.22 In addition to regular weekly devotions, certain special occasions, such as baptisms, also served to increase the presence of women in religious services. While baptisms for infants and children, especially in Episcopal and Catholic churches, often took place in private homes, at times the 20. Mary Reynolds narrative, in American Slave, ser. 2, 8:3289; Cecil George narrative, in Mother Wit, 84; Polly Shine narrative, in American Slave, ser. 2, 9:3517; William Mathews narrative, in American Slave, ser. 2, 7:2613–14; Catherine Cornelius narrative, in Mother Wit, 46; Malone, Sweet Chariot, 245; Franklin Hudson Diaries, Sept. 24, 1855, SHC; Records of Ante-bellum Southern Plantations, ser. J., pt. 5; Bayside Plantation Record Book, May 5, 1860, SHC; Leithan Spinks narrative, in American Slave, ser. 2, 9:3724–25; Solomon Northup, Twelve Years a Slave, ed. Sue Eakin and Joe Logsdon (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979), 69. 21. Ella Washington narrative, in American Slave, 5:132; Mary Reynolds narrative, in American Slave, ser. 2, 8:3290. See also Malone, Sweet Chariot, 249–50. 22. See Robert C. Reinders, End of an Era: New Orleans, 1850–1860 (New Orleans: Pelican Publishing, 1964), 123.

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ceremony brought women to visible participation in a special service. For example, many Catholic and Episcopal churches included baptism as part of the Sunday service. In such cases, women who served as sponsors stood before the entire congregation with the priest and other godparents and pledged publicly to oversee the child’s spiritual development. Sisters Ria Marshall and Mary Furman, for example, both stood with their uncle when reciting the baptismal vows for Furman’s young daughter. Baptisms in liturgical denominations carried women forward into the view of the congregation as they promised to take an active role in the religious lives of their godchildren.23 In evangelical denominations, many of which eschewed infant baptism, conversion and testimony were followed by a public baptism in which the new member was surrounded by other members of the congregation. Women came forward, in the presence of the entire body, to undergo the rite and be received into the family of believers. At Hephzibah Church, female converts were all “baptized and received into full fellowship,” a ceremony that placed them at the center of the congregation’s attention. Restricting baptism to those who had reached the age of reason and accountability meant that the sacrament was a conscious choice on the part of these women, who were taking the first step in a life of active faith, based on their own needs and desires.24 Many African American women received baptism in black congregations. Adeline White, for example, remembered that “Preacher Robert,” one of her master’s slaves, baptized her and other members of their church at a special place on the plantation. Josh Jackson, a slave belonging to Eli Sanders, also served as minister on Sanders’s plantation, “and when anyone joined the church he would Baptise them in the creek.” In these cases, women came before fellow slaves or free people of color, reinforcing a religious fellowship united by bonds of race and condition. Others joined interracial churches. Dianah Watson, for example, was baptized in the Mississippi River near Baton Rouge by a white pastor. Kate Curry also recalled that white and black members of her church near Shreveport were baptized in the river together, although the minister baptized whites before slaves, thus allowing the rite of baptism to underscore Louisiana society’s accepted racial norms. At Hephzibah Baptist Church, membership was open to “any person professing faith” by means of baptism. Several area slaves received that sacrament from the church’s white preacher. On 23. Mary Furman to Mattie Marshall, May 14, 1859, Marshall-Furman Family Papers, LLMVC. 24. Hephzibah Church Books, May 15, 1824, Aug. 11, Nov. 11, 1827, Aug. 25, 1828, Sept. 8, 1832, May 1837, LLMVC.

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several occasions, he immersed large interracial groups, such as the one that included the enslaved women Minty and Nicy.25 In racially mixed congregations, white participants sometimes discounted the baptismal experiences of black women. According to Alice Cole, a white minister near Monroe often baptized converts of both races after camp meetings. On one occasion, however, an elderly slave woman became overcome by emotion and nearly drowned. Afterward, the preacher “never would try baptizing slave women anymore.” He apparently found her reaction to a powerful religious moment so distasteful that he denied the experience to other enslaved women out of a desire to avoid future episodes of emotionalism. In Franklin, the local newspaper poked fun at a gathering to baptize “two Ladies and a negro woman.” The author called the baptism of the black woman “ludicrous” and reported that several who witnessed the event “laughed outright.” Both the author and the other whites present saw the baptism as entertainment rather than as a solemn and life-altering occasion. In both cases, whites indicated that the religious experiences of black women were neither as valid nor as deserving of respect as those of their own race. Despite the possibility of discrimination, however, black women continued to come forward to profess their faith and claim a place in the church.26 Women’s participation and visible presence in religious activities, of course, was limited by gender expectations. A few women gave sermons in antebellum churches, but female ministers were rare. Apparently, no native Louisianian worked as a preacher, although women from other places did. In January 1846, Luther Tower attended a New Orleans Methodist church where Rachel Barker, a visiting northern Quaker, delivered a sermon to a full house. Unfortunately, he did not record his own reaction or that of other audience members to Barker’s performance. Most citizens in Louisiana churches and in other areas regarded the women who gave sermons as curiosities or objects of ridicule rather than legitimate ministers of God. Notices of appearances by female preachers around the nation elicited comment in Louisiana papers, and the tone was generally mocking. For example, the Vernon Southern Times ’s mention of an appearance by the Reverend Antoinette Brown Blackwell in a Boston church made much of the fact that her chosen text included the phrase, “when I became a man.” 25. Adeline White narrative, in American Slave, ser. 2, 10:4027; Bud Dixon narrative, ibid., 4:1203; Dianah Watson narrative, ibid., 10:3995; Kate Curry narrative, ibid., 4:1015; Hephzibah Church Books, May 1837, Sept. 22, 1837; Nov. 6, 1858, LLMVC. See also Malone, Sweet Chariot, 243. 26. Alice Cole narrative, in American Slave, ser. 2, 3:751–52; Franklin Planter’s Banner and Louisiana Agriculturalist, July 9, 1846.

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The editor’s derision stemmed from what he felt was the incongruity of a woman speaking those words, and it was meant to reinforce the belief that only men should preach.27 Black women faced the same prejudices. Those masters who organized or tolerated Christian religious services for slaves on their plantations were not likely to encourage women to preach or assume other leadership roles. Although women worked in the fields alongside men, antebellum gender conventions prevailed in other areas of life, including in church. Many of the African religious traditions from which slaves drew also limited the roles that women could fill. According to historian Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, although many African traditions included room for women’s service, they were also generally patriarchal and restricted the forms that such activities could take. Many scholars of African traditional religion also agree that men predominated in leadership roles such as that of priests. Male heads of families or clans often served as intermediaries between the deity and their relatives, and trained priests were also more likely to be men than women. In most cases, therefore, the combination of patriarchal African tradition combined with the gender roles of the American South to keep black women out of the pulpit. Certainly, most plantation preachers who served in the churches that slaves developed for themselves were men. Elizabeth Ross Hite recalled, for example, that the slaves Mingo and Jacob Nelson preached on Trinity plantation, in addition to the free black man her master hired to serve as minister. Men like Josh Jackson, “Preacher Robert,” and “Brother Aaron” took leadership positions in slave churches, but few women did the same.28 Some slave women, however, did have certain special roles within Christianity, including founder, prayer leader, and teacher. On Mary Stirling’s plantation in the Florida parishes, a slave woman called “Aunt Betty,” along with “Father Manuel,” founded “an independent church” in the quarters where she helped lead the singing and prayers. Near Carencro, 27. Luther Field Tower diary, Jan. 25, 1846, LLMVC; Vernon Southern Times, May 20, 1859. See also Catherine A. Brekus, Strangers and Pilgrims: Female Preaching in America, 1740–1845 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 228. 28. See Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, “The Politics of ‘Silence’: Dual-Sex Political Systems and Women’s Traditions of Conflict in African American Religion,” in African American Christianity: Essays in History, ed. Paul E. Johnson (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 86; E. M. Uka, “The Concept of God in African Traditional Religion,” in Readings in African Traditional Religion: Structure, Meaning, Relevance, Future, ed. E. M. Uka (Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang, 1991), 48; Elizabeth Ross Hite narrative, in Mother Wit, 103–5; Adeline White narrative, in American Slave, ser. 2, 10:4026–27; Catherine Cornelius narrative, in Mother Wit, 45; Bud Dixon narrative, in American Slave, ser. 2, 4:1203. See also David Charles Dennard, “Religion in the Quarters: A Study of Slave Preachers in the Antebellum South, 1800–1860” (Ph.D. diss., Northwestern University, 1983).

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Agatha Babino recalled that her aunt served as a religious teacher in the Catholic tradition on Ogis Guidry’s place. Guidry did not allow the Catholic priest to catechize his slaves, but Babino’s aunt taught children their prayers, passing on elements of worship to them despite the opposition of her master.29 The practice of voodoo in southern Louisiana also offered women of color—both slave and free—significant opportunities for activism and power. As historian H. E. Sterkx notes, the loose organizational structure of voodoo gave women the necessary room to become leaders. Brought to Louisiana in the late eighteenth century by refugees from St. Domingue, voodoo incorporated both West African and Roman Catholic beliefs and rituals. Ceremonies centered on dancing to call zombi, the snake spirit, and a wide variety of other saints or gods. During the nineteenth century, several women led voodoo practices in New Orleans, where slaves and free people of color would meet on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain at night to practice their religion. Marie Laveau, called “the head of the Voudou women” by one New Orleans newspaper, was the most famous leader of Louisiana voodoo during the antebellum period. Certainly, much has been written about Laveau, both true and untrue. Everyone claimed to remember her or to have attended her ceremonies. While she was not the all-powerful force depicted in many accounts, she was an extremely influential woman.30 Born at the end of the eighteenth century and trained by a slave from St. Domingue, Laveau occupied the pinnacle of the New Orleans voodoo community. She dominated the religion and, according to some observers, fundamentally altered the rituals. Laveau added worship of the Virgin Mary to the liturgy of voodoo and opened the ceremonies to limited outside view, allowing many people to witness them for the first time. She also brought a commercial aspect to voodoo, selling charms and spells to a wide clientele, both black and white. Marie Laveau was not the only woman to take a leading role in voodoo rituals; others, like Betsy Toledano and a free woman of color named Keen, led ceremonies in their homes throughout 29. Mary Stirling to Mary Louisa Stirling, July 10, 1843, Thomas Butler and Family Papers, LLMVC; Agatha Babino narrative, in American Slave, ser. 2, 2:140. See also Gilkes, “The Politics of ‘Silence,’ ” 90; Friedman, The Enclosed Garden, 73–76. 30. H. E. Sterkx, The Free Negro in Ante-Bellum Louisiana (Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1972), 265; New Orleans Daily Picayune, July 3, 1850. Examinations of Laveau and voodoo include Henry C. Castellanos, New Orleans as It Was: Episodes of Louisiana Life, ed. George F. Reinecke (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978), 90–101; Barbara Rosendale Duggal, “Marie Laveau: The Voodoo Queen Repossessed,” in Creole: The History and Legacy of Louisiana’s Free People of Color, ed. Sybil Kein (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000), 163–64.

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the New Orleans area. Voodoo also had many powerful male priests during the nineteenth century, but one cannot discount the extraordinary place that women held in the religion.31 Voodoo was not the only religious tradition in antebellum Louisiana that offered female members room for independent action. Roman Catholic religious orders also gave women a slightly broadened role within the restrictions of Catholicism. The structure of the Catholic liturgy left little room for independent action by laypeople, male or female, but membership in a religious order brought women together to serve God outside the formal mass. Although under the spiritual direction of a priest who officiated at masses for them and directed the internal affairs of the congregation, religious women performed many ceremonies themselves. The Ursuline sisters in New Orleans, for example, conducted matins and vespers in their chapel each day. They also chanted the Solemn Office on feast days. In Cocoville, the Daughters of the Cross offered the Catholic community weekly vespers services that many residents preferred to the regular Sunday mass. Although these were not sacramental masses, they were important devotional services both for the nuns themselves and for members of the communities in which they worked.32 While performing ceremonies in the service of God, some of these groups of women even asserted their religious beliefs and authority against their director. In his dealings with the Sisters of Mount Carmel, for example, Father Antoine Megret of Lafayette found religious women “usually difficult to direct” because they resisted his efforts to redirect the focus of their ministry. Although none could celebrate mass or make bold spiritual moves without the approval of their directors, the significance of these groups should not be understated. By 1861, nine congregations were scattered across Louisiana. Most concentrated on educating the state’s young girls, and at their schools these nuns served as examples of one way in which women could act as their own religious agents.33 31. Castellanos, New Orleans as It Was, 97–98; New Orleans Bee, July 21, 1851. See also Duggal, “Marie Laveau,” 165–68, 175–76; Gilkes, “The Politics of ‘Silence,’ ” 86. 32. Mary Hyacinth Le Conniat to Yves Marie Le Conniat, Aug. 25, 1856, in They Came to Louisiana: Letters of a Catholic Mission, 1854–1882, ed. Dorothea Olga McCants (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1970), 44. See also Joan Marie Aycock, “The Ursuline School in New Orleans, 1727–1771,” in Cross, Crozier, and Crucible, 216. 33. Antoine Magret, quoted in Frances Jerome Woods, “Congregations of Religious Women in the Old South,” in Catholics in the Old South, 111–12, see also pp. 100–102, 109–10; Margaret Susan Thompson, “Women, Feminism, and the New Religious History: Catholic Sisters as a Case Study,” in Belief and Behavior: Essays in the New Religious History, ed. Philip R. Vandermeer and Robert P. Swierenga (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1991), 136–37.

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One such group of nuns was the Sisters of the Holy Family. During the antebellum period, a group of free women of color, under the leadership of Henriette Delille, founded the order to fill a void they felt in the Catholic Church. Although they faced discrimination from both the church hierarchy and the general population, the women persevered, and the church officially recognized their order in 1842. The Sisters of the Holy Family served the New Orleans black community—both slave and free—and answered needs that other branches of the Catholic Church could not meet. Because the American church had no black priests during the antebellum period, African American Catholics had no access to clergy particularly sensitive to their situations. By the 1850s, however, this condition had been mitigated somewhat. In addition to their stated purpose of educating black children and caring for the sick, the Sisters of the Holy Family showed African Americans, especially women, that the Catholic Church did have a place for them. They catechized both children and adults and taught them the rituals and sacraments of the Catholic faith. Although they could not officiate at mass, the women could and did minister to the needy among their own race by bringing them into full participation in the church as well as through nursing and education.34 While some women were participating in voodoo rituals or joining Catholic orders, the isolation of most of rural Louisiana gave others more power to act in religious matters. For the entire antebellum period, the northern and western portions of the state remained sparsely settled, with few churches or established congregations. In rural southwestern Louisiana, Ann Raney Thomas lamented the lack of churches near her, and she arranged for an itinerant preacher, who happened to pass by on his way to another engagement, to hold services at her home. Even when a place of worship was present, it often lacked vital support, and women stepped up to fill the gaps. Upon arrival at Cocoville in 1856 to begin missionary work, Mary Hyacinth Le Conniat of the Daughters of the Cross found religious resources strained. Although she eventually planned to instruct a boy to take over the duty, she reported to her parents that, for the present, “I answer the Masses.”35 Traveling ministers and missionary nuns rarely entered many parts of Louisiana, however, and many women found themselves conducting ser34. For discussion of the Sisters of the Holy Family, see Adams, “The Gift of Religious Leadership,” 360–74; Cyprian Davis, The History of Black Catholics in the United States (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 1990), 105–7; Woods, “Congregations of Religious Women,” 115–16, 122. 35. Census, Social Statistics, 1850 and 1860; Ann Raney Thomas Memoirs, Thomas Papers, TU; Mary Hyacinth Le Conniat to her parents, Mar. 24, 1856, in They Came to Louisiana, 38–39.

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vices on their own. From daily family prayers to Sunday services read from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, isolated women created religion where none existed. Mattie Marshall, for example, read the Episcopal service to her father and siblings each Sunday in northern Louisiana. In the southern part of the state, Jane Chinn engaged her children in “scripture reading, hymn singing, and evening prayers” each night. The Ker family employed a preacher as the children’s tutor, and he generally led services on Sundays. On occasion, the tutor was unavailable, and Mary Ker led worship that included “a sermon two hours long.” One woman, living with her brother in desolate Velasco, bemoaned the family’s inability to attend regular services. She tried to fill the void with “prayers and family worship,” but the experience was not the same. As this example shows, women did their best to supply the rudiments of religion in isolated areas, but they sorely missed organized church attendance and the ability to worship with other believers.36 Despite such opportunities to direct their own worship and that of their families under certain circumstances, most denominations placed strict limits upon the public speech of female members lest it evolve into the male preserve of preaching. However, participation in camp meetings offered opportunities for active religious involvement that normal church services did not. As in church congregations, women made up a large percentage of the audience at evangelical revivals and camp meetings. Kate Adams, for example, went to several revivals while living in Tensas Parish. Nippy Hamilton went to her first meeting in 1858, taking her slave Lucinda with her, and Eliza Rives made a special trip to her mother’s home in order to attend a Presbyterian revival. Altar calls also brought many females forward during camp meetings. During three days in September 1845, sixteen people were converted at a revival at Line Creek Church. Of those, at least six were women. In New Orleans, Lafayette, Andrew, and E. Steele Chapels held a revival meeting in February 1851 that resulted in thirty-three admissions to the Methodist church during that period, including nineteen women. All but one of the six converts at the 1856 revival of Van Buren Methodist Church were women, and a meeting in Greenwood during the same year produced conversions from an equal number of male and female attendees. Women were not only attending camp meetings, they were also choosing to embrace Christianity and publicly announcing their faith and religious enthusiasm to others present at the revival.37 36. Maria Southgate Hawes Autobiography, SHC; Jane McCausland Chinn Reminiscence, LLMVC; Mary Susan Ker journal, Apr. 7, 1850, John Ker and Family Papers, LLMVC; A. H. W. P. to Fredrica Pearson, Oct. 1834, A. H. W. P. Letter, HNOC. 37. Kate Adams to Orlando Adams, July 21, 1856, Adams Papers, LLMVC; Nippy Hamilton to her sister, Sept. 29, 1858, William S. Hamilton Papers, LLMVC; Eliza Rives

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At many meetings, women took prominent roles in leading prayers and in exhorting the faithful to repent and come forward. At a Methodist meeting, Luther Tower reported men and women kneeling together as converts while another group prayed and sang around them. On other occasions, women shared their religious experiences and called on audience members to repent their sins. According to Polly Shine, during summer camp meetings near her master’s Shreveport plantation, both male and female slaves spoke publicly about their conversions to large audiences. Revival enthusiasm allowed women to step outside the usual restrictions that society placed upon them.38 While most revivals occurred among evangelicals, the Catholic and Episcopal churches sponsored revivalist programs as well. For example, Episcopal Bishop Leonidas Polk spent a week in Baton Rouge during May 1858. In that time, he and several other ministers preached every day, and “there were a good many persons confirmed,” both male and female. Similar events took place in various locations around Louisiana during the late antebellum period. The Catholic Church also pushed revivalism during the mid-nineteenth century. The revivals, called retreats or missions, primarily targeted Catholics and generally did not seek to convert people from other faiths. During the Lenten season of 1854, a citywide mission occurred in New Orleans. Thousands of Catholics of both sexes flocked to the churches, inspired in part by the incredible yellow fever epidemic that had killed over nine thousand of the city’s residents the previous year. In rural areas, Catholic revivals were naturally smaller, and female religious orders often organized them. Mother Mary Hyacinth and other members of her convent, the Daughters of the Cross, participated in several retreats in Avoyelles Parish. On one occasion, fifteen adolescent girls and twenty adults gathered. They participated in masses, singing, and a procession with a statue of the Virgin Mary. The local priest gave several sermons each day, and at the end of the retreat, many women—both young and old—made their first communion. One year later, 115 local residents took to Thomas Davidson, Sept. 25, 1859, Thomas Benjamin Davidson Papers, SHC; “List of Converts,” Sept. 1845, McKinney Papers, LLMVC; Lafayette, Andrew Chapel, and E. Steele Chapel Charge Records, TU; Kate Adams to Orlando Adams, July 21, 1856, Adams Papers, LLMVC; Sarah Wright to Augustus Wright, May 31, 1856, Wright-Boyd Papers, LLMVC. See also Friedman, The Enclosed Garden, 4. 38. Luther Field Tower diary, Nov. 4, 1846, LLMVC; Polly Shine narrative, in American Slave, ser. 2, 9:3517. For comment on the opportunities for women at camp meetings, see Brekus, Strangers and Pilgrims, 37–39, 127–29, 141–42; Carl J. Schneider and Dorothy Schneider, In Their Own Right: The History of American Clergywomen (New York: Crossroads, 1997), 38–40; Dickson D. Bruce Jr., And They All Sang Hallelujah: Plain-Folk Camp-Meeting Religion, 1800–1845 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1974), 86–87.

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communion following a retreat for the sisters, their female pupils, and community members, and a large number of those were also confirmed. For Catholic and Episcopal women, confirmation was the point at which they—like their evangelical sisters—took a conscious and public step in the progression of their religious faith.39 Despite their spiritual importance to those who took part, many people believed that revivals of any denomination were not a proper setting for women. In 1840, John Harrison learned that his fiancée, Elizabeth Baer, planned to attend a camp meeting. He expressed his disapproval in strong terms, stating “surely the ravings of insane men and women . . . cannot be proper subjects of curiosity to a lady.” Harrison considered the unbridled outpouring of religious emotion at camp meetings to be dangerous because “when this whirlpool of the passions is once set in motion near you, nothing can save you from being swept into its vortex,” something he hoped Baer would avoid by remaining at home. Some antebellum commentators even believed that revivals caused madness in susceptible women. Many others like Caroline Merrick, the wife of a prominent New Orleans judge, on the other hand, concentrated on the possibility for salvation and saw camp meetings as both positive and necessary.40 Limitations on the active participation of women in religious services did exist in antebellum Louisiana, but at camp meetings women could test these boundaries. Often held in the open air, away from home and the established church, camp meetings took place on the fringes of society, and women could therefore step outside their prescribed roles. The very nature of a revival, designed to stir up religious feelings that normally stayed under the surface, contributed to a sense of specialness. While the majority of attendees listened, sang, and prayed, some took more visible roles as they exhorted others to repent or shared their conversion experiences with the audience. Anything was possible when moved by the spirit. 39. David Magill to Charles Weeks, May 31, 1858, Weeks Papers, LLMVC; Richard Butler to Mary Stirling Butler, Apr. 6, 1860, Thomas Butler and Family Papers, LLMVC; Mary Hyacinth Le Conniat to Yves-Marie Le Conniat, Aug. 25, 1856; Mary Hyacinth Le Conniat to her parents, Aug. 19, 1857, in They Came to Louisiana, 45. Jay P. Dolan, Catholic Revivalism: The American Experience, 1830–1900 (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1978), 9–11, 41–42, 76–78, 104–5, 108, 139–43, 168–71; Mackie J. V. Blanton and Gayle K. Nolan, “Creole Lenten Devotions: Nineteenth-Century Practices and Their Implications,” in Cross, Crozier, and Crucible, 530. 40. John Harrison to Elizabeth Baer, Aug. 29, 1840, Harrison-Hoffman Papers, TU; Caroline Merrick to unknown, Sept. 18, 1855, Caroline Merrick Letters, LLMVC. See also Cynthia Lynn Lyerly, “Enthusiasm, Possession, and Madness: Gender and Opposition to Methodism in the South, 1770–1810,” in Beyond Image and Convention: Explorations in Southern Women’s History, ed. Janet L. Coryell et al. (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1998), 53–73.

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Louisiana women used a vast array of methods to claim participation in religious services and to further the development of their faith. Although considerable differences could exist between Catholics and Protestants or even between members of the same church, women often acted as their own religious agents. They participated in the liturgies, professed their faith, shared testimonies of conversion, and received the sacrament of baptism. They also sang and played music during services and conducted devotions on their own when no minister was available. Merely by listening to a sermon and expressing an opinion of it to a friend or in a diary, female Louisianians recognized that they enjoyed an important place in the life of the church and that they had the power to decide how they would take part. All of these activities required conscious choices on the part of female worshipers.

LAURA ODENDAHL

A History of Captivity and a History of Freedom Race in a Civil War Household of Single Women

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HEN THE UNION ARMY THREATENED TO INVADE HER

hometown of Winchester, Virginia, Laura Lee knew that history was in the making. On March 11, 1862, Lee, a white, unmarried Southerner of thirty-nine years, began a journal that she would maintain for the duration of the war. She titled it “A History of Our Captivity.”1 Captivity was a strong word, but it expressed her sentiments about what was happening to the women in her household. And while Laura Lee described feelings of captivity, her enslaved servant women experienced exactly the opposite: as the war thundered on, the servants obtained greater freedom. Nonetheless, slaves and mistresses alike needed one another in order to maintain a safe existence within an independent household. Both sets of women initially followed prewar strategies and patterns of behavior, but over time it became apparent that their views on race and labor were at odds and that their relationship had grown antagonistic. By the end of the war, all the single women of the Lee household, black and white, faced an uncertain future with limited options. The freedom to determine their own fate was new to the African American servants. The mistresses could not choose their fate; the future they desired, a return to their antebellum lives as a family of single women, was no longer possible. The fortunes of war affected the lives of mistresses and slaves in comparable, albeit conflicting ways. All members of the household experienced deprivations, but the servants gained more control over their lives, while the mistresses felt constrained by their decreased options. Yet, the war did not determine their fates completely. Despite five nearby battles, four Union occupations, and four Confederate occupations, as well as frequent troop movements, the extent of “freedom” for African Americans and 1. Laura Lee, “A History of Our Captivity” (diary of Laura Lee, Winchester, Va., 1862– 1865), Manuscript Division, Earl Gregg Swem Library, College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, Va.

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“captivity” for white Southerners was negotiated in large part by individual actions. The uncertain and malleable categories of race and freedom meant that the power struggle that took place within the Lee household reflected the larger conflict fought on the battlefield and determined the meaning of freedom in actual everyday terms. No firsthand accounts by the servants remain, but journals written by Laura Lee and her widowed sister-in-law, Mary Greenhow Lee, provided partial descriptions of their servants’ actions. Of course, the mistresses wrote from their own perspectives and paid little attention to the servants’ points of view. Other primary sources revealed more about the Lees than the servants, but secondary sources on African American history filled in some of the gaps. While pieced together, the histories of Sarah, Emily, Betty, and Matilda tell of the empowerment and of the struggles that African American women experienced in transition from slavery to freedom. Laura Lee’s perception of captivity during the Civil War was in contrast to the antebellum freedom to which she had been accustomed as a white, unmarried woman. In 1862, at age thirty-nine, she lived with another unmarried sister, Antoinette Lee, age forty-one, and her widowed sister-in-law, Mary Greenhow Lee, age forty-three. The three sisters provided for two nieces and two nephews, ranging in age from seventeen to twenty-three. The nephews had joined the Confederate army before the Lees began keeping diaries, but they returned home when on leave or when passing through town. Five slaves, who were close in age with the nieces and nephews, except for one forty-seven-year-old slave woman, belonged to the household. There had been no male head of the household since 1856, when Hugh Holmes Lee, husband to Mary Greenhow Lee and brother to Laura Lee, passed away.2 Historians discovered that white single women, such as the unmarried Laura and Antoinette Lee and the widowed Mary Greenhow Lee, increased in number in southern towns and cities by the mid-nineteenth century. For instance, the adult white female population of Charleston, South 2. The nieces and nephews were Louisa Carter Burwell (1837–1883), P. Lewis Burwell Jr. (1840–1909), Laura Lee Burwell (1842–1887), Robert Saunders Burwell (1844– 1870?). Bureau of the Census, Eighth Census of the United States, Virginia, Schedule 1: Free Inhabitants in Winchester (Washington, D.C., 1860), 121; Florence Tyler Carlton, A Genealogy of the Known Descendents of Robert Carter of Corotoman (Richmond: Whitlet & Shepperson, 1982), 133–34; Bureau of the Census, Eighth Census of the United States, Virginia, Schedule 2: Slave Inhabitants in Winchester (Washington, D.C., 1860); Mary Greenhow Lee Collection (microfilm), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. A good biography of Mary Greenhow Lee, especially for the antebellum years, is Shelia R. Phipps, “I Feel Quite Independent Now: The Life of Mary Greenhow Lee” (Ph.D. diss., College of William & Mary, 1998).

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Carolina, was a third unwed and a fifth widowed in 1848. In contrast, the national average of unmarried women for life was only 8 percent by the 1850s. Urban pockets of white single women in the South continued to outpace the national average during the second half of the nineteenth century. Suzanne Lebsock’s study of Petersburg, Virginia, revealed, “By 1860, more than a third of the white women living in Petersburg were either widowed or had never married at all.” Yet, the national average of unmarried, adult women increased to only 11 percent by 1870.3 Single women in the South headed more households than previously believed. From the 1860 census of Petersburg, Virginia, Lebsock found that, “37.1 percent of white women aged twenty-one or above either headed households or were listed directly beneath persons to whom they could not have been married.” Victoria Bynum’s study of three counties in North Carolina tallied female-headed households at 11 to 17 percent of all households in 1860.4 The statistics suggest that white single women were a visible presence in southern towns, but with the exception of Lebsock’s work, historical scholarship leaves them in obscurity. For instance, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese analyzed relationships between mistresses and slaves in antebellum plantation households without considering the variable of marital status. The rural locales and the mistresses’ husbands led Fox-Genovese to focus on black and white women’s shared oppressions under the master of the household. The Lee women of Winchester, however, reigned over their own household. As town-dwellers, they experienced no isolation from female peers, and as single women, the Lees enjoyed greater independence from men than married plantation mistresses did. As a result, the Lee women’s prewar relationships with their female servants had little to do with shared oppressions. During the war, however, safety became a primary concern for all the women in the household, and they cooperated to maintain a safe coexistence even while the power dynamics shifted between the sets of women.5 3. Charleston statistics from Michael O’Brien, An Evening When Alone: Four Journals of Single Women in the South, 1827–67 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993), 1– 2; national statistics from Lee Chambers-Schiller, Liberty, A Better Husband: Single Women in America: The Generations of 1780–1840 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), 3; Suzanne Lebsock, The Free Women of Petersburg: Status and Culture in a Southern Town, 1784–1860 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1984), 116. 4. Lebsock, Free Women of Petersburg, 286; Victoria E. Bynum, Unruly Women: The Politics of Social and Sexual Control in the Old South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 61. 5. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988). Drew Gilpin Faust

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Although the single status of the Lee sisters was familiar to antebellum southern societies, their economic independence was notable. They had previously been under the economic and social protection of Laura and Antoinette Lee’s father and then their brother. The deaths of the Lee men provided inheritances that made financial independence possible for the Lee women. When Laura Lee’s father passed away in 1833, he left a trust fund to support his ten children until the sons were raised and educated, and the daughters married. All four sons completed their educations and pursued various professions, but only four of the six daughters married. Since Laura and Antoinette Lee never married, they benefited from the trust fund. They continued to live with their mother, Elizabeth Lee, and brother, Hugh Holmes Lee, until the two died—their mother in 1853, and their brother in 1856. Hugh Holmes Lee died intestate, and the court appointed his widow, Mary Greenhow Lee, administrator of his estate. The two unmarried sisters and the widowed sister-in-law continued to reside together and pooled their resources for mutual support. Collectively, they owned real estate worth $2,790 and personal property assessed at about $13,000.6 In 1860, the Lee women faced lawsuits that threatened their inheritances. Under Virginia’s common law, married women possessed few property rights until 1877, but widows and unmarried women held the same property rights as men. The Lees exercised these rights when their brother-in-law Chaplain Hedges filed two lawsuits against them on behalf of his wife Mary R. Hedges, a sister to Laura and Antoinette Lee. In the first suit, the Hedges wanted a portion of Mary Greenhow Lee’s inheritance that had originally belonged to her father-in-law’s estate, specifically, her house. Other relatives waived their rights to her inheritance, but the Hedges persuaded the court to force the sale of Mary Greenhow Lee’s home. Undeterred by the spectacle of a public auction, Mary Greenhow Lee bought back her house with a small down payment and did not pay the gave a brief synopsis of the Lee women’s trials with their servants, but there was much more to consider. Faust, Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 76. 6. Will of Daniel Lee, Will Book, v.18, Apr. 1833, Frederick County Courthouse, Winchester, Va., 53–54. Personal Property taxes assessed the combined estate of Laura and Antoinette Lee at $10,767 in 1860, including the value of one slave. The estate had two slaves in 1861, and three in 1862. Mary Greenhow Lee’s personal property was assessed at $993 in 1861 and $1,793 in 1862, and included two slaves. Personal Property Tax Lists, 1860–1862, Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia. However, the Bureau of the Census, Eighth Census of the United States, Virginia, Schedule 1: Free Inhabitants in Winchester (Washington, D.C. 1860), lists the personal estates of Laura and Antoinette at $6,319, with joint ownership of three slaves. Mary Greenhow Lee held $6,760 in personal property, $2,790 in real estate, and three slaves.

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remainder until she sold the house twelve years later. The Hedges received nothing from the second lawsuit filed against Laura and Antoinette Lee. Because Mary Hedges had married in 1833, the same year her father died, she was ineligible to receive money from the trust fund. Undaunted by the terms of the will, Chaplain Hedges tried to persuade the court to distribute the trust fund to all heirs. The court ruled in favor of the unmarried Lee sisters. The trust fund remained intact, and it continued to support Laura and Antoinette Lee.7 Because their diaries made few references to prewar events, how Laura Lee and Mary Greenhow Lee felt about their legal battles remains unknown. It stands to reason that after the lawsuits the Lee sisters understood their legal rights as single women as well as their economic vulnerability. They also learned that relatives, male and female, might not act charitably toward them. By 1860, the Lee women had defeated legal challenges to their economic independence, but their greatest battles were yet to begin. Two years later, the Civil War reached Winchester, and the Lee women faced an enemy that threatened their entire way of life. One can imagine that the Lees drew upon their experiences at the courthouse to defend their property against Yankee threats and abuses. The inheritances the Lee sisters fought so hard to protect included slaves, who either provided labor within the household or produced income through being hired out. The diaries gave first names for the slaves but not their ages; the U.S. Census from 1860 listed ages for slaves but not their names. For the Lee household, the census enumerated three female slaves of forty-five, twenty-five, and twenty-three years, as well as two male slaves of twenty-one years, and another male slave of eighteen years. Sarah and Emily were the forty-five-year-old and the twenty-three-year-old slave women, but slaves named Hugh and Evans could both have been twentyone years old, or one of them could have been eighteen. The identities of the third slave woman and the third slave man listed in the 1860 census are unknown. Perhaps the census counted slaves who were residing with the Lees but not owned by them, in which case, Betty may have been the twenty-five-year-old slave woman. Betty worked in the Lee household at the outbreak of war, but she was on loan from the Lees’ brother-in-law P. C. L. Burwell. Four of Burwell’s children lived with the Lees, and he probably intended for Betty to relieve the burdens his two daughters and 7. Lebsock, Free Women of Petersburg, 23, 262 n. 2; Winchester City Deed Book 13, Oct. 1856, Oct. 1861, Sept. 1872, Winchester City Courthouse, Winchester, Va., 275–77, 283, 344; Frederick County Order Book, Circuit Court in Chancery, June, Nov. 1860, Frederick County Courthouse, Winchester, Va., 173, 199–200.

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two sons placed upon the household. A third manservant named William worked for the Lees from July 1862 to February 1865, but he belonged to another white family in 1860.8 On paper, slaves were property, but in reality, they were human beings who required dignity no matter how small the measure. Slaveholders often simplified the complex relationships by describing their slaves as members of the family. Mary Greenhow Lee followed this tradition somewhat, while Laura Lee did not.9 Both diarists, however, referred to their servants as their property but never used the term slave. When the war came to Winchester, the Lees’ house became a house divided, and the fiction of one family, black and white, deteriorated. Just as the war reached Winchester, the Lee women’s views on family and slavery faced its first challenge from the birth of a child. The servant Emily had kept her pregnancy a secret from the white women in the household for reasons unknown. She repeatedly denied being with child, and when she finally gave birth, the Lees were not present. Slave women depended on one another during pregnancy and delivery, and sometimes they conspired to hide a pregnancy or even an abortion. Emily delivered a healthy baby boy, most likely with assistance from her peers. After being informed of the baby’s arrival by the cook, Sarah, Mary Greenhow Lee described the event as “an unfortunate occurrence for the poor girl, as well as ourselves, but what cannot be cured must be endured, in the best way possible, under the circumstances.” With their town swarming with Northern troops, the Lees did not assume the newborn was their property. Baby James William or “Jim Will” was a burden, but the mistresses could not deny a child the necessities of food, clothing, and shelter. Mary Greenhow Lee even caught Laura Lee “enjoying making baby clothes.” Nonetheless, the Lee women felt ambivalent, at best, about the birth of the child and its meaning for their family and for slavery in general.10 8. Bureau of the Census, Eighth Census of the United States, Virginia, Schedule 2: Slave Inhabitants (Washington, D.C., 1860); Bureau of the Census, Ninth Census of the United States, Virginia (Washington, D.C., 1870); Laura Lee, Nov. 8, 1862, 81. 9. Fox-Genovese, Within the Plantation Household, 32, 100; Mary Greenhow Lee (Mrs. Hugh Holmes Lee), diary, 1862–1865, Mrs. Hugh Lee Collection, Winchester-Frederick Historical Society, Handley Library, Winchester, Va., Apr. 4, 1862, 53 and Sept. 1, 1864, 675. 10. Deborah Gray White, Ar’n’t I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South (New York: W. W. Norton, 1985), 124–25; Mary Greenhow Lee, Mar. 21, 1862, 23; Mary Greenhow Lee, Mar. 26, 1863, 338, and May 23, 1863, 386; Laura Lee, Aug. 18, 1863, 135–36; Bureau of the Census, Ninth Census of the United States, Virginia (Washington, D.C., 1870); Mary Greenhow Lee, Mar. 21, 1862, 23.

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The outcome of the First Battle of Kernstown, March 23, 1862, was a Northern victory; three miles away in Winchester, the Lee household responded to the subsequent Union occupation according to antebellum gender proscriptions. The men joined armies while the women maintained households. Just as the Lees’ nephews left home to fight for the Confederacy, the male servants also claimed their manhood and independence by running away with the Union army. Hugh had been hired out to work, and the Lees were not at all surprised that he left. Many Southerners doubted the loyalty of slaves hired out, because they experienced a degree of freedom away from their owners. When house servant Evans vanished, however, Laura Lee felt shocked, and Mary Lee remained depressed over his departure for weeks.11 All the women in the Lee household stayed put. The sisters and their nieces had little choice: they could either remain at home to protect their property or leave town as refugees in search of a safer location. The Lee sisters considered leaving, but their nieces influenced their decision to remain. As Laura Lee explained, “We could not have left the girls, and we could not have taken them.” The servant women also had limited options, and they pursued a more cautious strategy than the men had. Sarah, Emily, and Betty no doubt recognized the disadvantages of being female as well as black. They could work for another white family or become camp followers of the Union army, but they decided to remain with the Lees instead. They may have preferred working for the Lee women and their nieces because sexual harassment was less likely in the Lee household than in army camps or in homes with white men present. The servants’ desire to keep their own families together weighed heavily in their decision to remain in Winchester. Betty had children, a sister (Matilda), who would later work for the Lees, and a mother (Sally), a former slave of the Lees. Sarah and Emily were very close, perhaps mother and daughter, or aunt and niece. They had extended family in the area, including Sarah’s nephew Peter, who served the Union army. By staying, the servants experienced a degree of stability and facilitated the cementing of family ties. In addition, the servants received food, clothing, and a place to live; Sarah, the cook, even got her own room. The servant women made a calculated decision to remain for all these reasons and for others yet unknown.12 11. For distrust of hired out slaves see Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York: Vintage Books, 1972), 392–94, and Leon F. Litwack, Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery (New York: Random House, 1979), 29; Laura Lee, Mar. 13, 1862, 5, and Mar. 22, 1862, 9–10; Mary Greenhow Lee, Mar. 17, 1862, 30; and Apr. 4, 1862, 53. 12. Laura Lee, Mar. 13, 1862, 6; “Will of Daniel Lee and Inventory and Appraisement of the Estate of Daniel Lee,” Will Book 18, Frederick County Courthouse, Winchester, Va., 53, 383; Laura Lee, Apr. 14, 1862, 22; May 27, 1862, 37; Feb. 25, 1863, 101.

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Historian LeeAnn Whites proposed reinterpreting slave loyalty as an active position rather than a passive stance. Whites suggested that what slave owners perceived as loyalty, slaves considered as the honoring of a trust that reaffirmed their own self-respect and sense of humanity.13 This may have been the case for the Lees’ servants initially, but as time went on, their loyalty came into question. They began to resist the power structure within the household and experimented with the pliable nature of freedom during this turbulent time. Meanwhile, the Lee women felt anxious and insecure about their “captivity” under Union rule. After an initial period of cautiousness, however, they behaved defiantly toward the occupiers. Their rebellious activities included sending military information through an informal and illicit Southern mail network. They also hoarded Union supplies in their home to distribute to the Confederate army when it returned. Many Southern women acted similarly, but the Lees’ outspoken speech and behavior brought them the attention of friends and foes alike. Just two months into the first Union occupation of Winchester, Mary Greenhow Lee wrote, “We are very much amused at the position we hold here; we are regarded as the leader[s] of the Secession party & every one comes to us for information.”14 Although proud of her reputation as outspoken and knowledgeable, Lee described the talk of leadership as merely amusing. In contrast to the bold behavior exhibited by the Lees and other Southern women, the men of Winchester adopted conciliatory attitudes. This was not lost on Mary Greenhow Lee, who criticized Southern men’s lack of courage and even declared, “This is surely the day of woman’s power; the men are afraid to do, or say anything, and leave all to us.”15 It may have been easier for the Lee women to behave outrageously toward the Yankees than it was for Southern men. The Union army was more inclined to punish men for treasonous behavior and routinely required oaths of allegiance from Winchester’s male population. Southern women expected to be treated as ladies by the Union army and demanded that respect when it was not forthcoming. Later in the war, Mary Greenhow Lee explained her position: “we were all rebels but that we expected as citizens to be treated according to the usages of civilized warfare & as women, we demanded the courtesy that every lady has the right to expect from every gentleman.” Although Lee insisted treatment befitting a lady, she often refused to acknowledge Union officers as gentlemen. For instance, when a Union officer attempted to be chivalrous by 13. LeeAnn Whites, The Civil War as a Crisis in Gender: Augusta, Georgia, 1860–1890 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995), 5–7. 14. Mary Greenhow Lee, May 15, 1862, 100. 15. Mary Greenhow Lee, Apr. 1, 1862, 47.

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placing a plank down for her to cross a muddy street, Mary Greenhow Lee ignored him and crossed at another spot. She discovered social snubbing to be a very effective weapon to demoralize the Yankees. Historian Drew Gilpin Faust found Mary Greenhow Lee’s manipulation of gender conventions to be typical of Southern women.16 Although many Southern women went without male protection during the war, the Lees may have exhibited behavior more defiant than that of other women. As single, independent women before the war, they knew their legal rights, and they demanded respect and courtesy as ladies. This strategy protected the Lees for most of the war, but there were limits, as they would discover. The servant women may have received their first impressions of the war and its politics from the Lee women, but they had other sources of information as well. Throughout the South, slaves participated in an oral communication network that used code words for sensitive topics. The servants at the Lee house probably employed similar tactics. The Lees never indicated that they overheard their servants’ conversations, but they wrote down news told to them by their servants.17 After the first month of occupation by the Union army in 1862, the behavior of the servant women began to reflect Northern views of their status. Betty was the first to rebel against the Lees’ authority. She may have felt less intimidated or less obligated than either Sarah or Emily, because she was not a slave of the Lees, merely on loan from their brother-in-law. Laura Lee described Betty’s conduct: “Even Betty has been infected with uppishness, and on Saturday got insulted at being sent out of the room to get a clean apron, and put on her bonnet and walked off to her Mother’s, saying she supposed she was not wanted here any more. We sent for her to come back, which after some delay she concluded to do.”18 Betty now possessed enough leverage to demand respect from her mistresses. She exercised her new power by walking off, while Sarah and Emily demonstrated theirs in a more subtle way. A week after Betty walked out, Laura Lee wrote: “Sarah told Netsy this morning that the servants are all told that they are perfectly free now, and that by the 1st of September there will not be a slave in the whole country. Sarah and Emily are very respectful & well behaved still. There is no telling how long it will last. Some people’s servants are very insolent.” Even though Sarah and 16. Mary Greenhow Lee, Jan. 3, 1863, 290; Dec. 16, 1864, 740; Faust, Mothers of Invention, 197–201. 17. Litwack, Been in the Storm So Long, 23; Mary Greenhow Lee, Apr. 11, 1862, 61; June 12, 1862, 141. 18. Laura Lee, Apr. 14, 1862, 22.

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Emily behaved respectfully, they let the Lee women know that they were aware of their new freedom as proclaimed by the Yankees. Mary Lee acknowledged their freedom in her diary: “The freedom of the servants is one of the most irritating circumstances; our own are almost abject in their humility, still I have no confidence in them, & I would not be surprised at any moment at their refusing to work, or at their going off altogether.” Although Lee felt pleased with the servants’ good behavior, she no longer equated it with loyalty. The memory of Evans also served as a painful reminder that past loyalty meant little when personal freedom was at stake. Upon hearing rumors that Evans was in town and laid up in bed, Mary Greenhow Lee wrote, “I know he has often wished he was at home, where he was as carefully nursed as any other member of the family.” Evans felt differently; he never visited after leaving the “family.”19 When the Confederate army won the First Battle of Winchester on May 25, 1862, freedom for African Americans was in jeopardy. The Confederates captured and returned runaway slaves to their owners and held free blacks as prisoners of war. Many speculated that the Rebels would sell free blacks into slavery.20 Rumors soon spread that all blacks, free or slave, would feel the murderous rage of the Confederate soldiers. Panic ensued when the Union army retreated, and African Americans perished in their attempt to escape the advancing Confederates. Mary Greenhow Lee blamed the Yankees for the deaths. Although biased, her account provided a grim picture: the Yankees told them, that “Mr.” Jackson would kill them all, men, women & children & they believed their dear friends, & flew out of town when they found Jackson was near; I will not venture on the number who were killed; children were picked up dead on the road, over-run by the retreating army; it is said 250 were drowned in attempting to cross the Shenandoah; the free servants have been afraid to come back . . . women were going about crying looking for their husbands & children; & children were picked up on the road having lost their friends. Some of the slaves have returned voluntarily; some, were picked up by our cavalry & returned to their owners & there are a number in the jail in Charlestown & Martinsburgh; they are not allowed to cross the river.21 19. Laura Lee, Apr. 21, 1862, 24. Netsy is the nickname for Antoinette Lee, Laura Lee’s unmarried sister. Mary Greenhow Lee, Apr. 22, 1862, 75; Apr. 4, 1862, 53. 20. Laura Lee, May 27, 1862, 42; and Mary Greenhow Lee, Apr. 21, 1862, 74. 21. Mary Greenhow Lee, June 4, 1862, 129–30.

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This vivid example illustrated the extent to which former slaves desired their freedom and feared reprisals from the advancing Confederates. In spite of the dangers that African Americans faced, military forces could not restore slavery in Winchester. The Confederate army withdrew six days later to get into position for another battle, and the Union army reoccupied the town after a lapse of four days. This second occupation lasted from June until September 1862, and in the Lee household, the servants worked less and less. Mary Greenhow Lee complained, “I am sure [Betty] will go; Sarah is sick in her room, nearly all the time, & Emily devotes most of her time to her baby, but we scuffle on from day to day, the best way we can.” While the servants may have been attempting to reduce their workload, they still felt obliged to make excuses. Sarah was ill and Emily was minding her baby. As slaves, men and women generally followed different forms of resistance: men tended to run away but then return; women typically feigned illness in order to gain a respite from work. Sarah and Emily simply continued more brazenly the methods of resistance they had learned under slavery.22 The work slowdown by the servants influenced the Lees’ decision to hire William. James Murray Mason, a friend of the Lees and a former senator, who had drafted the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, had owned William before the war. The Union army freed William in March 1862, after imprisoning him for ten days and then pressing him into service to repair the bridge in Harpers Ferry. William returned to Winchester a week later with letters for the Lees from the Masons. William wanted to stay in town but was not sure the Yankees would allow it. The nieces spoke with William and reported to Mary Greenhow Lee, “He had quite a lordly & independent air, as if he was staying with the Yankees for a little while in return for his freedom.” William visited Sarah on at least one other occasion. He fled when the Rebels took over Winchester in May and then returned with the Yankees ten days later. By July, William worked for the Lees. The diarists gave little indication of what services William provided for them or what he received in return. When William contracted typhoid fever the following month, the Lees nursed him back to health. William’s presence in the household appeared to encourage insubordination, and the mistresses could do little about it. Mary Greenhow Lee observed the following changes in the servants’ behavior: “I have an idea some of our servants will go off tonight, as they have, for the first time, been neglectful & William was rude to me this evening. It is strange how little I care for the loss of property, though I dread our house servants going & having to do their work.” Lee 22. Mary Greenhow Lee, June 25, 1862, 155; White, Ar’n’t I a Woman? 79.

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still viewed servants as property, but she knew that she could not enforce her claim. Instead, she lamented the labors that the white women of the household would have to perform if the remaining servants left.23 The erosion of the Lee women’s authority continued through the summer of 1862. For the first time, Emily walked off the job. Laura Lee portrayed herself as the victor in the confrontation, but Emily may have felt more powerful than ever: We had a very annoying affair this morning with Emily. She took off at some imaginary grievance, and took up her baby and walked off, saying that as she could not give us satisfaction, she would go somewhere else. I followed her, and told her to go back home and behave herself, and not act in such a silly way. She came back very readily, and went on with her work. But, I should not be surprised at any moment, to find she has gone off in earnest.24

By simply walking away, Emily demonstrated that she possessed bargaining power to negotiate the terms of her labor. The Lee women enjoyed a respite from the Northern presence during fall 1862 when the Confederate army began moving north to launch invasions. The Rebels occupied Winchester and brought their wounded. During Confederate occupations, the Lee women ran cooking rooms and distributed clothing, boots, and other goods that they had hoarded. They also nursed patients and hosted parties for officers. An exhausted Laura Lee described a day’s activities: “I have had a most fatiguing day. The Hospital in the morning, the Factory in the afternoon, and company at night.” In addition to listing her activities, Laura Lee took pains to record instances of runaways returning to Winchester: “Many of the runaway servants have returned to their homes. Some voluntarily, others brought in by the [Rebel] soldiers.” Such references reassured Lee that a victorious South would restore the antebellum social order.25 After an autumn under Confederate rule, Winchester was again occupied by the Union army in time for Christmas and for the official presentation of the Emancipation Proclamation. In January 1863, the army posted the Emancipation Proclamation all over town. This proved somewhat anticlimactic for Winchester’s servants, because they had already experienced 23. Mary Greenhow Lee, Mar. 17, 1862, 18; Apr. 11, 1862, 61, June 4, 1862, 129– 30; Mar. 23, 1862, 29; Laura Lee, Aug. 2, 1862, 61; Mary Greenhow Lee, July 26, 1862, 186. 24. Laura Lee, Aug. 27, 1862, 67. 25. Laura Lee, Sept. 12, 1862, 74; Sept. 5, 1862, 73.

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varying degrees of freedom. Sarah, Emily, Betty, and William showed no immediate response to the proclamation and remained with the Lees. The following month, Matilda, Betty’s sister, began to work in the Lee household. As historian Leon F. Litwack pointed out, the Emancipation Proclamation provided no real guidelines for freed persons other than “to labor faithfully for reasonable wages” and “to abstain from all violence, unless in self-defense.” Aware that the Union army might not remain in town, the servants knew that Yankee proclamations meant less than their own actions in asserting their freedom.26 Even though the servants did not respond to the Emancipation Proclamation at this time, it affected the white residents of Winchester. After a month of witnessing servants leaving the town in droves, Laura Lee wrote: “I feel perfectly speechless sometimes [and] indignation in listening to accounts of the humiliations and insults which are heaped upon us. None who have not been under the practical working of the emancipation act, have had a full experience of this war.” Mary Greenhow Lee had similar feelings, but in an uncharacteristic diary entry, she also revealed a guilty conscience: “I feel like a reprieved criminal each morning, when I see ours come in my room; not that I have reason to suspect them, but I doubt all.” The Emancipation Proclamation succeeded in demoralizing the white population of Winchester.27 By June 1863, the Lees expressed frustration with their failed attempts to control the servants. With Sarah, Emily, and Betty sick with typhoid fever, the Lees performed all of the housework, and Mary Greenhow Lee even ironed the baby’s clothes, a task she deemed “unusual.” Lee equated money with the ability to control servants, and until the Lees obtained more of it, they would lack power: “Sarah is still confined to her room; Betty creeping about & of little use & we have to help Emily in everything, to get through . . . I should have more money to hire extra hands and our control over them would be more complete. But I must not complain of our servants, as they are models of obedience & propriety, compared with any others in town.” With enough money to hire other servants, the Lees could compel the current servants to work harder or even let them go. Instead, the cash-poor mistresses were lucky to have any help at all.28 Days later, the Second Battle of Winchester threatened the town, and the Lees tried in vain to keep the servants at home. For this looming battle, the servant women no longer took a wait-and-see attitude toward the fighting. 26. Laura Lee, Feb. 25, 1863, 101; Litwack, Been in the Storm So Long, 227. 27. Laura Lee, Feb. 9, 1863, 98–99; Mary Greenhow Lee, Jan. 20, 1863, 300. 28. Mary Greenhow Lee, May 23, 1863, 386; June 9, 1863, 399.

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They searched for safety away from the Lee household. Though Laura Lee could not prevent the servants from leaving, she managed to lock up their clothing. As Lee described it: “The servants were in a great panic when they heard the firing and insisted on going into the country for safety. Emily took the baby and went off to consult her friends, and Betty packed up all her clothes to carry to her Mother’s, to start from there. I relieved her from them and locked them up, as I was determined not to lose them too, if I could help it.”29 Laura Lee believed that the clothes belonged to the mistresses, and she denied Betty’s claim to personal property. Betty had no recourse; the Yankees were under attack. This desperate act by Laura Lee demonstrated that the mistresses still wielded some power. The servants rejoined the Lee household after the battle, and for one year, neither army occupied Winchester. Instead, the armies announced their presence and then moved on. The Union army passed through town sixty-two times, and the Confederate army entered Winchester twelve times during the year. The fortunes of the town changed daily, and so did the relationships between the black and white women of the household.30 The Lee women displayed contradictory emotions for the remainder of the war. Some days they wrote that they had no confidence whatsoever in the servants’ fidelity and expected them to leave at any time. Other days they recorded the servants’ professions of loyalty to the South without doubt or sarcasm. The servants probably understood their mistresses’ emotions and pacified the Lees by conforming outwardly to the behavior expected of them. Betty, the most defiant of the three servant women, deceived the Lees repeatedly by announcing, “Our men are in!” when the Confederate army passed through.31 The diarists recorded Betty’s declarations without skepticism, and the very act of writing them down must have reassured the Lee women. Although the servants professed loyalty to the South, and the Lees willingly believed them, the illusion faltered whenever the servants’ actions contradicted their statements. Emily and Sarah were no longer subtle. They threatened not only to leave the household, but also, from the Lees’ perspective, to betray the South by running off with the Union army. On one occasion, Emily even asked some soldiers on the street to take her and her baby with them, but she returned to the Lees instead. Laura Lee described the incident as follows: 29. Laura Lee, June 13, 1863, 120. 30. Laura Lee’s diary provided the tallies for troop movements. 31. Laura Lee, Dec. 31, 1863, 147; Mary Greenhow Lee, Aug. 7, 1863, 454; for other declarations of Southern loyalty see Feb. 10, 1864, 555; Feb. 21, 1865, 787.

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We had quite a scare about our servants. Emily got into a passion and said she would get the Yankees to take her away with them. She went down the street to where they were, to ask them. Sarah was very much distressed, but said that if Emily and ‘Jim Will’ went, she must go too. However Emily cooled off, and came back home, and no one took the least notice of her blaze. She is in a very gracious humour today, but I have not the least doubt that she intends to go sooner or later.32

Although she admitted to the “scare” brought about by Emily, Laura Lee claimed to have restored order. The “blaze” gave further proof to Lee that Emily would leave eventually. On one occasion, the Lees had good reason to suspect the fidelity of the servants, but they did not accuse them of any wrongdoing. In February 1864, a Union officer searched the house for a Rebel flag based on information that one was concealed under the floorboards near a window. Mary Greenhow Lee misdirected the officer conducting the search, and he found nothing. Although it was likely that one of the servants had informed the Yankees, the diarists did not dwell on this. Mary Greenhow Lee merely stated, “it is evident that some one who knows of this place had given information.”33 She avoided speculating on the servants’ culpability. Perhaps she was more comfortable interpreting the servants’ resistance as a private matter than admitting the servants would betray their mistresses to the dreaded Yankees. Such a betrayal would be political as well as personal. In spring 1864, Winchester saw African American soldiers for the first time, and this event precipitated a further shift of power within the household. When a regiment of African American infantry marched into town, led by white officers on horseback, the Lee women felt frightened. Mary Greenhow Lee reacted with “inexpressible horror” and nearly fainted.34 Nearby on Market Square the regiment cooked dinner, and, after a few hours, marched six miles out of town and pitched camp. The next day, Laura Lee wrote disparaging and insulting opinions of the men: We were fated yesterday to have a sight which we have for some time been dreading, that of negro soldiers. . . . Feeling as we must, it was a most revolting spectacle, but divested of that idea it was perfectly grotesque, and equal to any caricature such a set of real black niggers, regular Cufffers [you] ever saw, such rambling, shambling, tumbling for marching, such grinning and grimacing. [There] is nothing which 32. Laura Lee, Aug. 18, 1863, 135–36. 33. Mary Greenhow Lee, Feb. 8, 1864, 554. 34. Mary Greenhow Lee, Apr. 4, 1864, 575–76.

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so clearly exhibits, to me, the [weak]ness and folly of the Yankee government, as the [idea] of expecting such creatures to fight. There were white officers riding down each side of the column, and they looked as if they were driving a flock of black sheep.35

Laura Lee made no mention of the servants’ reactions, but she wrote that black men in town hid when word spread that the regiment would return to conscript them.36 Since the presence of African American troops struck such emotional chords with the Lees, the servants probably masked their feelings from their mistresses. Although the servants guarded their reactions, the appearance of African American men dressed in uniform and armed with guns may have empowered the servant women. Betty left with the Yankees in August 1864, and no more was heard from her. Emily did not leave, but she married and, thus, became less dependent on the Lees. When Emily gave birth to a baby boy in March 1862, there had been no mention of marriage. Even if she had wanted to marry the baby’s father, she could not have until she secured her freedom. Two years later, Mary Greenhow Lee wrote, “A wedding in the family tonight, Emily was married to ‘George Washington.’ ”37 Although Lee considered Emily a member of the family, Emily now established her own family as well. She gave birth to a second baby two months later. For the duration of the war, the Lees found it difficult to locate Emily Washington when they needed her. George Washington had worked sporadically for the Lees for at least three months before his marriage to Emily. The presence of African American troops changed the power dynamic not only within the household, but also outside of it, especially on the streets. As historian Rhys Isaac demonstrated, public streets serve as a stage upon which individuals play roles, and their interactions represented dramas of social significance.38 When Mary Greenhow Lee went out in public, she expected confirmation of her status as a white lady. Instead, she discovered that her role as a Confederate could negate the class and race privileges she had enjoyed heretofore. This was particularly difficult for her to accept when the insults came from African American soldiers or staff servants. Mary Greenhow Lee recalled one particularly vexing incident: 35. Laura Lee, Apr. 4, 1864, 156–57. Brackets added. 36. Laura Lee, Apr. 4, 1864, 156. 37. Mary Greenhow Lee, Sept. 1, 1864, 675. 38. Rhys Isaac, The Transformation of Virginia, 1740–1790 (Chapel Hill: Institute of Early American History and Culture and University of North Carolina Press, 1982), 5, 324, 337, 350–56.

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Main St. was full of Yankees & some horses obstructed the pavement so that I could not pass. I saw two Yankee negroes near & ordered them to move them, but they did not stir at my bidding. As I approached, the horses, startled I suppose by my authoritative tone, moved off & I remarked in a soliloquy ‘the horses have better manners than the Yankees.’ Whereupon one of these negroes remarked ‘You are nothing but a God damn rebel woman.” I was so indignant that I flew up the street at rail road speed, scorning the Yankees by my looks so completely that they gave way right and left before me.39

The soldiers not only disobeyed Lee, they showed disrespect. Perhaps this incident, more than any other, presented Mary Greenhow Lee with a vivid picture of the extent to which whites had lost authority over blacks. By January 1865, the Lee household had divided into two, one black and one white. The kitchen may have always been the servants’ domain, but now it was impervious to the mistresses’ authority. For instance, the Lees had always resisted attempts by Union officers to stay in their home. Yet, African American Yankees lodged in the kitchen, and the Lees were powerless to prevent it. Mary Greenhow Lee explained the situation: We are the only persons in town who have so many servants in our kitchen & it presents such an attraction to the crowds of negroes here, waiting on the Officers, that it is always filled with them. Sheridan’s staff, messing next door, is a serious annoyance on that account. His “black guards” literally live here. One of them I make cut wood & do various jobs for me because he pretends to be Southern “to be only waiting here for his master to come & recapture him.”40

Lee felt the presence of African American staff in her kitchen to be an annoyance, but she could do little about it. She ordered around the one visitor who claimed to be “Southern,” even though she recognized that he was only pretending. As the kitchen turned into a meeting place for African Americans, the Lees tried to make the most of it. Mary Greenhow Lee tried to illustrate the benefits that the mistresses derived from the arrangement: “We amuse ourselves very much at having so many services rendered for us by Sheridan’s ‘black guards’ as we call the staff servants who are so constantly with our servants. At first I never spoke to them, but now that they cut the wood, take messages & even scour for Emily, I give them an occasional ‘thank you.’ ”41 39. Mary Greenhow Lee, Dec. 12, 1864, 737. 40. Mary Greenhow Lee, Jan. 7, 1865, 758. 41. Mary Greenhow Lee, Jan. 21, 1865, 769.

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The Lees attempted to exert their influence by not permitting runaways to stay in the kitchen. The servants’ guests subverted this requirement easily by claiming the Yankees captured them. One guest who made this assertion was Peter, Sarah’s nephew, and Mary Greenhow Lee described his Union captain as “Peter’s master pro tem.” When Peter became ill, a Yankee surgeon came through the back gate and into the kitchen. Lee met the surgeon in Peter’s room and promised to have Peter properly attended, but the Union soldiers took him to the hospital instead.42 Although she tried to remain mistress of the house, it became evident that the servants controlled the kitchen and looked to the Yankees for assistance. Just as the Lee women took pride in their reputation as hostesses whenever the Confederate army was in town, the servants enjoyed entertaining the African American soldiers and staff. On one occasion Mary Lee wrote, “Then late tonight we had another treat; Matilda, our house maid, a reigning belle with these Staff negroes, had a tea-party & brought us in cakes & candy etc.”43 The irony of servants’ leftovers being considered treats by the mistresses must have been apparent to all. By late February 1865, this house of single women, divided along the color line, could no longer stand. With Gen. Philip Henry Sheridan’s staff intimate with the servants and even living in the kitchen, the defiant activities of the Lee sisters and their nieces toward the Union army could not go unnoticed. Emily’s husband, George Washington, reported to Mary Greenhow Lee that Gen. William Hemsley Emory had asked him questions about the Lee family. She trusted Washington implicitly, because he was “the most genuine rebel negro I know.”44 Less than two weeks later, George Washington offered his services to the Union army. Other Southern ladies in Winchester sent letters illegally and smuggled contraband, but General Sheridan targeted the Lees, their nieces, and Virginia and Elizabeth Sherrard, two unmarried sisters, ages thirty and twenty, respectively. “Jennie” and “Lizzie” Sherrard were friends of the Lees’ nieces, Louisa and Laura Burwell. Jennie and Lizzie resided with their parents, Anne M. and Joseph H. Sherrard, on the second level of the Farmers Bank, where their father served as cashier. Union forces seized the bank during each occupation, and the family lived amongst Yankees. Jennie and Lizzie taunted the soldiers, apparently more so than their siblings did, and these actions provoked Sheridan to banish them. The Sherrards 42. Mary Greenhow Lee, Feb. 17, 1865, 785 43. Mary Greenhow Lee, Feb. 18, 1865, 785. 44. Mary Greenhow Lee, Feb. 15, 1865, 784.

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received orders similar to the Lees’, and the sets of women traveled together as refugees for several weeks.45 General Sheridan did not accuse the women of any crime, which he could have done, but instead charged them with giving “constant annoyance, either from a wish for notoriety, or a want of reflection, or from not being true to themselves.” The words he chose were curious. In essence, he claimed that the women were not being true to their sex. They certainly did not conform to his expectation of demure and submissive ladies. Why they did not behave properly perplexed Sheridan. Did they desire notoriety or lack moral reflection? Sheridan may have concluded that because they were single women with no husbands to guide or discipline them, he would have to punish them for the good of the public order. The Lee women felt, instead, that their social snubbing of Union officers had provoked the banishment. With the execution of Sheridan’s order, the Lee women lost the security of their home and even each other.46 Forced to leave with only a few days’ notice, the Lees tried to plan for the unforeseeable future. They deposited portable belongings in the bank and among friends; they did not know if they would lose ownership of their house and furniture. General Sheridan may have felt a twinge of guilt for banishing single women. He forbade anyone to touch their house and later permitted a Yankee woman and Union colonel to move in and protect it.47 Even during their banishment from Winchester, the Lee women assigned considerable significance to their relationships with the servants. When Laura Lee described her family’s departure, she did not write much about their troubles. Instead, she emphasized their concern for the servants, and the servants’ reactions: “The servants were in the greatest distress. We promised to arrange that they should remain in the kitchen, and left them some provisions [so] that they could easily support themselves. We were all excited enough to have a very cheerful parting, and the Yankees saw no tears except from our servants, and other coloured friends.”48 From the remnants of their fractured relationships with the servants, the Lee women saw what they wanted to see: a social order where mis45. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Seventh Census of the United States, Virginia, Schedule 1: Free Inhabitants in Winchester (Washington, D.C., 1850); Bureau of the Census, Ninth Census of the United States, Virginia (Washington, D.C., 1870); Garland R. Quarles, Some Worthy Lives: Mini-Biographies, Winchester and Frederick County (Winchester, Va.: Winchester-Frederick County Historical Society, 1988), 208–9. 46. Laura Lee, Feb. 28, 1865, 220. Lee Chambers-Schiller suggested this interpretation of Sheridan’s motivations from an earlier draft. Laura Lee, Feb. 28, 1865, 220–21; Mary Greenhow Lee, Mar. 21, 1865, 804; and May 31, 1865, 830–31. 47. Laura Lee, Feb. 28, 1865, 223. 48. Laura Lee, Feb. 28, 1865, 220–21.

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tresses provided for their servants and received their love and gratitude in return. The Lees needed reassurance of the servants’ fidelity, not only for personal reasons, but also for political ones. As the Yankees watched, and the servants cried, the Lees, Burwells, and Sherrards maintained a defiant public stance. They showed no sign of fear, lamentation, or supplication. These Southern women left “captivity” without submitting completely to the Yankee masters. The banishment of the Lees and their nieces from Winchester in February 1865 marked the end of their lifestyle as a household of single, independent women. They now felt more vulnerable and insecure than before. Unable to remain a family unit without a home, each woman followed a different path. Of course, there were limited options for white women to support themselves. Antoinette Lee, Laura Lee’s unmarried sister, had been visiting relatives in Clarksburg, Virginia, during the banishment and simply remained with them. After a few months as a refugee, Laura Lee joined her sister in Clarksburg. The nieces returned to Winchester and lived with their father. The elder niece married a year later. The younger niece accepted a teaching position in 1865, and after three years, she married too. Mary Greenhow Lee, the widow, was in financial straits. Most of her money was gone, and the little left was devalued. Beginning in June 1865, friends in Winchester rented out her house and sent her the payments. She spent two additional months as a refugee moving from town to town, staying with relatives and friends.49 Eventually, Mary Greenhow Lee decided to move to Baltimore and open a boardinghouse. She expected Laura and Antoinette Lee to join her. Indeed, Laura Lee supported the idea and eventually moved to Baltimore, but Antoinette Lee did not, and she never lived with Mary and Laura again. Mary Greenhow Lee initially rented the Hamilton Terrace, but she considered it to be in a bad neighborhood. She already looked forward to moving out before she had moved in. By 1867, Lee had moved to 188 St. Paul. Laura Lee joined her sometime before 1870.50 The boardinghouse was their only reliable source of income. Laura Lee’s trust fund had lost value during the war, and afterward it suffered further in the hands of a special commissioner who mismanaged it. At his death, a considerable portion of the fund was unrecoverable, and in 1887 Laura 49. Mary Greenhow Lee, July 14, 1865, 845; Aug. 17, 1865, 856; Oct. 14, 1865, 880; May 20, 1865, 826; June 2, 1865, 831; June 18, 1865, 837; Aug. 18, 1865–Oct. 16, 1865, 858–81; Carlton, Genealogy, 133–34. 50. Mary Greenhow Lee, Oct. 4, 1865, 874–75; Oct. 6, 1865–Nov. 17, 1865, 876–91; Ninth Census of the United States, Maryland, Baltimore City (Washington, D.C., 1870); John T. Woods, Wood’s Baltimore City Directory (Baltimore: J. T. Woods, 1867), 311.

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Lee pleaded in court for the meager proceeds. Mary Greenhow Lee sold her Winchester house in 1872, but she had owed so much on it that she received little from the sale. Their circumstances improved somewhat because the Lees ran a successful business, and by the 1880s Mary Greenhow Lee became the proprietor of the Hotel Shirley. The sisters-in-law resided in Baltimore until Laura Lee’s death in 1902, at age seventy-nine. Mary Greenhow Lee moved in with her niece’s son and daughter at 1110 Park Avenue until she passed away in 1907, at age eighty-eight.51 The servants’ fortunes remain less known. George Washington, husband to Emily and previously regarded by the Lees as “the truest negro rebel,” hired himself to Gen. James William Forsyth immediately after the Lees’ banishment. The servant William likewise followed the path of the Union army. When discovered by the Lees in Staunton, Virginia, William claimed to have escaped from capture. Mary Greenhow Lee asked Sarah to join her in Baltimore to cook for the boardinghouse. Sarah declined, saying she wished to remain close to her family in Winchester.52 Indeed, Sarah and Emily Washington became completely independent from the Lees and demonstrated their freedom by staying put and uniting their families. After the Civil War, former slave women wished to remedy the cruel breakup of their families by reuniting loved ones. When possible, freedwomen avoided further exploitation by working exclusively in their own homes. They were wives and mothers foremost, and only if necessity dictated would they labor for whites again. Five years after the war, Emily Washington kept house in Winchester and took care of four children while her husband, George, worked as a dining room servant. Their three-yearold daughter, Sarah F., was likely named in honor of the woman who was either Emily’s mother or her surrogate mother. Meanwhile, Sarah, the Lees’ former cook, took the last name Clear and resided with Emily and George Washington. Why Sarah chose the last name Clear remains a mystery. Perhaps it belonged to a man she loved, or to her father, or even to an owner preceding the Lees. If the latter was true, Sarah Clear made herself more easily identifiable to relatives displaced by slavery. Only after 51. Chancery Causes Index, Frederick County, Virginia, Nov. 1887, Frederick County Courthouse, Winchester, Va.; Winchester City Deed Book 13, Winchester City Courthouse, Winchester, Va., 275–77, 283; John T. Woods, Wood’s Baltimore City Directory (Baltimore: J. T. Woods, 1881); Laura Lee’s “Certificate of Death,” June 24, 1902, Office of Registrar of Vital Statistics, Health Department, Baltimore, Md., Maryland State Archives, Annapolis, Md.; R. L. Polk & Co.’s Baltimore City Directory (Baltimore: R. L. Polk, 1905); Mary Greenhow Lee’s “Certificate of Death,” May 26, 1907, Vital Records, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Baltimore, Md., Maryland State Archives, Annapolis, Md. 52. Laura Lee, Feb. 28, 1865, 223, Feb. 28, 1865, 228; Mary Greenhow Lee, Oct. 25, 1865, 885.

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the war did the law recognize Sarah’s last name, but she may have had the name Clear her entire life. According to historian Herbert G. Gutman, most ex-slaves had possessed surnames under slavery, and these were rarely the names of their final owners. Slave surnames survived for generations, despite sales to multiple owners. Perhaps the most surprising name in the Washington household was the one Emily and George gave to their youngest daughter: Laura L. If the middle initial stood for Lee, then this represented quite a tribute to Laura Lee and to the benevolence of the Washingtons toward their former mistress.53 The “History of Our Captivity” by Laura Lee and the Civil War diary of Mary Greenhow Lee revealed a history unintended by the writers: the history of freedom for the African American servants in their household. The Union army first declared freedom for Winchester’s slaves and “captivity” for white Southerners in March 1862. Yankee declarations of freedom, including the Emancipation Proclamation, meant less in practical terms than negotiations between individuals on the local level. At the outset of the war, the single women of the Lee household, black and white, followed gender proscriptions and remained together for mutual support. As the war continued, they could not ignore that their perspectives on race and labor were at cross-purposes. A tug-of-war ensued, with the servants gaining more power, especially after African American troops entered Winchester. During the war’s final months, this household of single women, black and white, dissolved under the order of a Union general. While the servant women remained in Winchester and reunited their families, the Lee women went their separate ways, no longer able to remain an independent family unit, and instead became more dependent on earning incomes.

53. Jacqueline Jones, Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work, and the Family from Slavery to the Present (New York: Random House, 1985), 58; Herbert G. Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750–1925 (New York: Vintage Books, 1976), 167–68, 230–31; Bureau of the Census, Ninth Census of the United States, Virginia (Washington, D.C., 1870).

C ITA C O O K

Women’s Role in the Transformation of Winnie Davis into the Daughter of the Confederacy

I

N SEPTEMBER 1898, SUPPORTERS OF THE LOST CAUSE MOVE-

ment honored thirty-four-year-old Varina Anne Davis with what may have been the largest funeral held for an American female in the nineteenth century. Members of an East Texas chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy spoke for most mourners when they asserted that “the South” had suffered “the loss of one of the highest types of exalted womanhood, one who in her personal character added fresh luster to the name of woman.” Davis, usually called “Winnie,” received such acclaim not for her actions or any special abilities but simply because she was a daughter of Jefferson Davis. Her admirers had anointed her “the Daughter of the Confederacy” in 1886, making her a symbol for all they believed about their defeated nation. When she died twelve years later, they were free to remember her through a haze of sentimentality.1 Women who honored Winnie Davis without focusing on the actual events of her life helped create an icon of white femininity.2 In so doing, they turned their society’s focus away from any actions she or they might have taken that revealed their ability to be independent of the protective The author gratefully acknowledges the many forms of assistance she has received from the staff at the Jefferson Davis Papers at Rice University in Houston, Texas, and at the Eleanor S. Brockenborough Library at The Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia (hereinafter MC) as well as the insightful comments by William Blair, Peter Onuf, Tom Appleton, Angela Boswell, Nancy Hewitt, and Wilma King. 1. For discussion of the Lost Cause movement, see especially Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, “ ‘You Must Remember This’: Autobiography as Social Critique,” Journal of American History 85 (Sept. 1998): 439–65; Gaines M. Foster, Ghosts of the Confederacy: Defeat, The Lost Cause, and the Emergence of the New South, 1865 to 1913 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987); and Charles Reagan Wilson, Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause, 1865–1920 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1980); United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), Corsicana, Texas, Resolution Sept. 23, 1898, Jefferson Davis Family Papers, MC. 2. An “icon” is defined as “an object given uncritical devotion.” Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, 1991.

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arms of white southern men. Much about the lives of southern females, in general, and of Winnie Davis, in particular, resembled those of northern females, including the “new women” who were calling on their “sisters” to accept more public responsibilities. Those who had been adults during the Confederacy could have celebrated the sacrifices they had made and the creativity they had displayed to survive both the war and the economic challenges of the ensuing decades. They could have suggested that the organizations they were establishing, the educational accomplishments of younger New South females, and the hard work done by many southern women to help support their families might have called for a reconsideration of the qualities of ideal femininity. In the context of the class and racial tensions of the late-nineteenth-century South, however, many southern white women preferred to celebrate the ways in which the purity of white women inspired white men to protect them from perceived (if not always real) dangers. Winnie Davis was born in the Confederate White House in Richmond, Virginia, on June 27, 1864. Although later biographical sketches tended to exaggerate Winnie’s importance to loyal Confederates in her early years, her mother, Varina Howell Davis, did sometimes encourage the child and her father’s admirers to interact as if she were a child of royalty. At a tea party Varina held for the children in the fort where Jefferson Davis was imprisoned for two years, her daughter, not yet three, “danced and entertained them to the best of her ability.” During at least one visit in Mississippi, Varina allowed a crowd to pass Winnie from person to person. Various people, including children in Sunday school classes, sent her dolls and other gifts. Winnie learned very early how to please others and perhaps to expect special attention from them.3 Although Davis would eventually be honored as the model of southern womanhood, she spent most of her first seventeen years outside the South, including five years in a Protestant girls’ school in Germany. There she became accomplished in German, French, art, music, and the proper ways to honor European royalty. According to the Lost Cause script of her life, 3. For more biographical information on Winnie Davis, see Cita Cook, “The Challenges of Daughterhood for Winnie Davis,” in Mississippi Women: Portraits of Achievement, ed. Elizabeth A. Payne, Marjorie Julian Spruill, Martha H. Swain (Athens: University of Georgia Press, forthcoming); Tommie Phillips LaCavera, Varina Anne “Winnie” Davis: “The Daughter of the Confederacy” (Athens, Ga.: Southern Trace Publishers, 1994); and Foster, Ghosts of the Confederacy, 97–98, 136–37; Varina Davis to Mary Stamps, Feb. 17, 1867, Jefferson Davis Papers, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama (hereinafter UA); Jeanette Blount, “The Littlest Rebel and Recollections of the Days That Were,” undated clipping from an unnamed newspaper or magazine, Jefferson Davis Papers, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson, Mississippi (hereinafter MDAH); Varina Davis to Maggie Davis, Feb. 15, 1867, Jefferson Davis Papers, UA.

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when she returned to her parents’ home on the Mississippi coast in late 1881, she dedicated herself totally to pleasing her father in the mode of many fictional young heroines. She did, indeed, develop a close relationship with him during the last seven years of his life, but she also traveled often to New Orleans, New York, and Europe. In 1886, when Davis was almost twenty-two years old, she accompanied her father to Alabama and Georgia for a series of ceremonies celebrating the Confederate past. At West Point, Georgia, when her father was too ill to appear, Gen. John B. Gordon introduced her to a crowd of veterans as “THE Daughter of the Confederacy.” The men responded with such enthusiasm that he—and then reporters—began calling her that at every opportunity. For the rest of her life, Winnie Davis, in her iconic persona, would be one of the most popular honorees at meetings of Lost Cause devotees. She learned to keep silent and smile regally as both men and women projected onto her their most cherished dreams and values. Although she seemed to be appearing as a private person, she was more accurately demonstrating her ability to transmogrify into “the Daughter of the Confederacy,” a self that was not and did not have to be herself in the fullest sense. When not in public, she preferred the intellectual and social excitement to be found in the Northeast. The Lost Cause public would not have been so moved by a daughter of Jefferson Davis had they not been ready to accept him as an idealized symbol. People who had questioned the judgment of the president of the Confederacy in the midst of a bloody war had begun to consider him a Confederate George Washington once he was sent to prison. When Robert E. Lee, another idealized hero, died in 1870, Davis remained the primary candidate for adulation among living Confederate leaders. Soon after his death in 1889, Alice Amason published a poem for Winnie Davis, declaring about their mutual patriarch, We loved him as father—a tutor of Light; The bold princely leader of chivalry! The world’s promulgator of “Truth and Right.” The white souled Prophet of Liberty!

She forgave Winnie for having been in Europe when her father died and pledged that “no matter how far from us, you may roam, / You live in our heart’s best vernal Bower!” Women who had lost fathers, especially in the war, could agree with Dora Duty Jones when she wrote in a similar

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vein, “O daughter of Sorrows! For thee my tear— / An orphan’s tear shall flow.”4 Only a few months after Davis made her public debut, a conflict arose between her personal desires and the expectations of some of her admirers. While visiting family friends in Syracuse, New York, she fell in love with Alfred Wilkinson, a young patent lawyer whose grandfather, Samuel May, had been a well-known abolitionist. When Jefferson and Varina Davis learned about the couple’s desire to marry, they protested fervently but then agreed to a secret betrothal. The engagement was formally announced in 1890, less than a year after the death of Jefferson Davis. Some Confederate veterans opposed the match so vehemently that they sent her fiancé threatening letters, but we have less information about the reaction of Lost Cause females. At least one woman assured Davis that “the ardent wish of every mother in the South” was that her “wedded life” be made up of “happy days, loving smiles, and faithful prayers.” Perhaps women’s ability to identify with her because of their shared gender made it easier for them than for her surrogate fathers to encourage her to put personal happiness ahead of her public duty.5 Varina Davis suggested in a letter that soon after the engagement was announced, she had begun to suspect that her daughter’s fiancé had not been totally truthful with them, especially concerning his financial situation. His inadequate response when she confronted him led to the engagement’s being called off. There is no evidence to indicate whether Winnie had agreed that he would not make a good husband or if she, as a dutiful daughter, had reluctantly followed her mother’s advice. Lost Cause fervor had certainly put a strain on the relationship, but the couple probably would have married had they had more money and more mutual trust. Nevertheless, many of Winnie’s admirers have chosen ever since to believe that she sacrificed her one chance to have her own family out of loyalty to both her natural and her symbolic fathers. A biographical essay published in 1994, for example, asserts that Winnie “could never bring herself to a marriage that she knew her father, in his heart, could never have felt 4. Miss Alice Aduston Amason, “ ‘Daughter of the Confederacy’ Miss Winnie Davis,” clipping from Jackson Clarion-Ledger, ca. 1889, Jefferson Davis Family Papers, MC; Dora Duty Jones, “Sonnet: To Winnie Davis,” May 30, 1893, Jay Broadus Hubbell Papers, Manuscript Department, Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina (hereinafter DU). 5. For more information on the romance between Winnie Davis and Alfred Wilkinson, see Anita Monsees, “How the Daughter of the Confederacy Almost Became a Daughter of New York,” Heritage 7, no. 3 (Jan./Feb. 1991); Mrs. H. L. J. Hoover and Daughter (Virgie) to Miss Winnie Davis, May 20, 1890, Jefferson Davis Family Papers, MC.

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right about.” A card alongside some of her possessions on display into the 1990s in the Confederate White House in Richmond stated, “When she expressed her desire to marry a Northerner, the public outcry was so great that the marriage was called off.”6 After Winnie’s death, Mary Craig Kimbrough, the daughter of a close friend of Varina Davis’s (and, later, the wife of Upton Sinclair), investigated the history of the romance. She suggested in a biography of Davis that Winnie had died from a broken heart because of her submission to the desires of the Confederate veterans. When a number of people asked Kimbrough not to cast the veterans in a bad light, she decided not to publish the biography.7 In doing this, she agreed to be a proper southern lady by avoiding any actions that might belie the pretensions of white southerners that theirs was always a harmonious, honorable society. If a broken heart did plague Winnie Davis for the remaining eight years of her life, it did not turn her into a recluse. While living with her mother in New York City and nearby resort towns, she published books and articles and enjoyed a relatively active social life. She does not seem to have engaged in any charitable work, but she did organize a club for women with publications. Her primary hope near the end of her life was to earn enough money from her writing to buy a house at Bar Harbor, Maine. Occasionally, however, she accepted her responsibility as the key representative of fallen Confederate royalty and went south to appear at a Lost Cause event. Each time she did so, crowds of men and women cheered her, and orators and reporters trumpeted her special qualities.8 While men were the primary directors of these commemorative festivals, elite women feminized the events in various ways. When on display in their finest clothes, the women counterbalanced the impact of a more masculine military culture in which poor veterans sometimes shared the spotlight with their officers. There were two major categories of white females honored at these functions: teenage “sponsors” of local units of the United Confederate Veterans and adult “ladies” serving as hostesses for genteel teas and receptions. Both “sponsors” and “ladies” came exclusively from the upper-middle and upper classes of their home communities and re6. Varina Davis to [Major William H. Morgan], Oct. 5, 1890, Jefferson Davis Papers, Library of Congress (hereinafter LC); LaCavera, Varina Anne “Winnie” Davis, 27. This exhibit and others on the Davis family were removed when the Confederate White House was remodeled. 7. Mary Craig Sinclair, Southern Belle (Phoenix, Ariz.: Sinclair Press, 1962), 54–61. 8. New York Times, Sept. 20, 1898; Winnie Davis to Marquis de Ruvigny, Mar. 21, 1893, Jefferson Davis Family Papers, MC.

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ceived more public recognition from veterans and their supporters whenever they seemed connected to Winnie Davis. On some occasions, they all appeared together; in Houston in 1895, “charmingly gowned women and children, with a sprinkling of distinguished men,” ignored rain to ride in a “flower parade” made up of about fifteen decorated carriages. Smiling from the first carriage were Mrs. William Marsh Rice, a wealthy leader of elite society in both Houston and New York, and, of course, the Daughter of the Confederacy.9 Just as Winnie Davis was feted at reunions not as a private individual but as a living symbol of the veterans’ female ideal, the virginal sponsors, always dressed in white, appeared not as themselves but as local stand-ins for the official Daughter of the Confederacy. Unlike Davis, who was immediately recognizable, they had to spell out their symbolic role through the printed sashes they wore across their chests and the tableaux they staged. Their presence added a hint of sexual titillation to the reunions in a manner similar to that provided by “beauty pictures” of them, which editors of the Confederate Veteran scattered throughout its issues; sometimes pictures ran on the same page as a narration of the details of a battle. At the reunion in Houston, the sponsors were the highlight of the second night, when they received “shouts and applause” for their tableaux representing the more glorious images of Confederate history.10 “A number of Houston ladies” similarly experienced some of the acclaim that had become so familiar to Davis when they accompanied her to the stage of the new Winnie Davis Auditorium. The veterans and other men in the audience granted “a perfect ovation” to the women, who were introduced as “Our Daughters” even though most of them probably could have been more properly identified as mothers and grandmothers. After the official meeting ended that evening, “the ladies” gave “Miss Winnie” a reception on the stage. They were all so determined to speak with her that she eventually had to chastise them to follow the rules of proper etiquette, telling them, “I am here to see you all, and shake hands with every one of you. It is the greatest joy of my life to do so, but I cannot do it unless you follow the rules, and preserve order and decorum. . . . Now, won’t you do that.” This interaction, probably familiar to her, indicates the extent 9. William Bledsoe Philpott, The Souvenir Album and History of the United Confederate Veterans’ Reunion (Houston: Sponso Souvenir Company, 1895), 28, 30. For information on Mrs. William Marsh (Julia Elizabeth Baldwin) Rice, see Marguerite Johnson, Houston: The Unknown City, 1836–1946 (College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 1991), 52, 65–66, 77, 99; Andrew Forest Muir, William Marsh Rice and His Institute, ed. Sylvia Stallings Morris (Houston: William Marsh Rice University, 1972), 40–59, 66–76. 10. Philpott, Souvenir Album, 19.

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to which even mature women had begun to feel transfixed whenever they had a chance to be near this living symbol. It also shows how well Davis was able to perform the role of gracious royalty.11 The older “ladies” were so entranced by Davis, in part, because she was willing to be a guest of honor at the private parties for which they were hostesses. The souvenir album for the Houston reunion praised not only her grace when allowing the veterans to gaze upon her but also the “remarkable talent for entertaining” that she displayed at a buffet luncheon. Unlike the more public ceremonies at which thousands of poor men had a chance to greet their beloved “daughter,” invitations to the parties went only to people who were normally welcome in upper-middle- and upperclass parlors. When the wives and daughters of leading businessmen and Confederate officers determined who was and was not invited to these events, they were helping redraw the boundaries of the New South social hierarchy. By cementing new alliances between descendants of the old planter elite and the nouveau riche bourgeoisie, they reminded excluded whites that a class hierarchy supplemented that based on assumptions about race. At one “very elegant card reception in honor of Winnie Davis,” young ladies helped serve the supper, but they “dressed in charming shepherdess costumes” that would highlight the distinctions between them and any hired African American servants. Not just anyone could eat or even serve finger sandwiches while in the presence of Winnie Davis.12 Whether waving from a balcony or chatting at a tea party, Davis had an impressive ability to turn even minor interactions into symbolic tableaux. At one of the main receptions at the Houston reunion, she was introduced to an eighty-nine-year-old mother of five Confederate soldiers. When the woman raised a hand of the young icon’s to kiss it, Davis declared, “It is not for you to kiss my hand, but for me to kiss yours,” and “knelt to the floor and kissed it tenderly and with a caress well nigh holy.” The author of this account reported that “many an eye moistened as the scene was so touchingly enacted.”13 They also may have gone away with more thoughts about the humble, symbolic daughter than about the mother who had long ago been willing to sacrifice those dearest to her. Behind the scenes, many of the same Lost Cause ladies who appeared in public as ornamental symbols of passive elite white femininity took on more active roles. After the Civil War, women had become the primary 11. “Minutes of the Fifth Annual Meeting and Reunion of the United Confederate Veterans,” May 22–24, 1895, Houston, Texas, 25; Philpott, Souvenir Album, 25. This quote may be an observer’s later paraphrasing of what Davis actually said. 12. Philpott, Souvenir Album, 26, 23. 13. Ibid., 58–59.

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organizers of the first memorial associations and celebrations to honor the Confederate dead. Male organizers could seldom compete with women when it came to fund-raising. One veteran acknowledged in 1893, for example, that a group of Missouri women, through their “balls, picnics, strawberry and ice-cream festivals and other entertainments,” had managed to collect over a thousand dollars in two different counties, where the men had been unable to raise a dollar.14 Until the 1890s, the names of most white women’s commemorative organizations included the word ladies instead of daughters. In 1890, four years after Winnie Davis had first been proclaimed “the Daughter of the Confederacy,” the founder of a Missouri women’s association begun to build and furnish a home for disabled Confederate veterans named her organization Daughters of the Confederacy as “a compliment to the Daughter of the Confederacy par excellence—Miss Winnie Davis.” She may also have been influenced by the name of the new Daughters of the American Revolution, which had just been founded in Virginia, partly in reaction to the refusal of the Sons of the American Revolution to honor the female lines of revolutionary ancestors. Even if this was so, however, the Missouri women and all who followed their example obviously understood that they were coopting a title that most southerners associated with Winnie Davis. Over the next few years, similar organizations in other southern states sought permission from the Missouri group to use the name. They unified into a national organization in 1894, and a year later they began calling themselves the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC).15 The early members of the UDC were, indeed, daughters or granddaughters of Confederate soldiers, but the daughterhood emphasized in Lost Cause ceremonies stressed the dependence of a girl on her father rather than the ability of a grown woman to help him or to follow in his bootsteps. The UDC often spoke about the noble sacrifices of Confederate women during the Civil War, but its primary purpose was to see that the soldiers in gray received respect for decades to come. When the veterans came to Confederate reunions, they were understandably less inter14. For more on these early groups, see Foster, Ghosts of the Confederacy, 36–46; and LeeAnn Whites, The Civil War as a Crisis in Gender: Augusta, Georgia, 1860–1890 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995), 160–224; Confederate Veteran 1, no. 10 (Oct. 1893), 302, quoted in Mary B. Poppenheim et al., The History of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, (orig. pub. 1938; n.p., n.d.), 1:3. 15. Poppenheim, History of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, 2–3; Karal Ann Marling, George Washington Slept Here: Colonial Revivals and American Culture, 1876– 1986 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), 93–96; Poppenheim, History of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, 3–26.

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ested in reliving the fears, sorrows, and boredom of real war than in recreating the camaraderie and the thrilling pride they had experienced in 1861, when proud mothers had smiled through their tears, and young women had thrown flower petals as the men marched off to certain victory. Women old enough to remember the war were likewise pleased to set aside memories of economic and personal hardships to participate in the charade that all Confederates had played their proper roles brilliantly and honorably. If the members of the UDC had been seeking commemoration of their actual wartime experiences, they would have selected as a focus for all their projected ideals someone older than Winnie Davis. By the 1890s a new idealization of the mother of George Washington, Mary Washington, had arisen in Virginia, and the myth of a somewhat maternal Betsy Ross sewing the first American flag was becoming more popular every year. In theory, the UDC could have chosen a Confederate mother to emulate along with the Confederate daughter. Varina Davis might have been an obvious candidate for this, but she had alienated too many people both during and after the Civil War. Few people ever put her next to her husband and daughter on their iconographic pedestal.16 The power of the ideological descriptions of the Daughter of the Confederacy may have developed because of—rather than in spite of—the ways in which the description contradicted more accurate portrayals of the life of Winnie Davis the individual.17 While some Mississippians criticized Varina Davis for moving to New York City, they could think of Winnie as a dutiful daughter following her mother’s lead instead of as a young woman drawn to northeastern intellectual and social sophistication. Whenever admirers ignored the elements of her life that reflected her maturing into a woman in her thirties, they were, to some extent, encouraging a repressed maturation in white southern women—or at least the wearing of a mask of youthful innocence and deferential reliance on white men. They could wax poetic over Winnie Davis the baby, the toddler, and the adolescent virgin but not over a fully developed woman capable of deciding for herself whether to marry and bear children or to reject a traditional female role. Neither did they challenge a ceremonial message that encouraged white southern men to vow to offer paternal protection to all white women. In identifying themselves as “daughters,” mature females downplayed any evidence from their personal history that they might not need the 16. Marling, George Washington Slept Here, 92–93, 17–20. Gaines Foster, who dedicated several pages to Winnie Davis in Ghosts of the Confederacy, did not mention Varina Davis in the index. 17. I would like to thank Lisa Rubens for helping me see this possibility.

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men of their class to take care of them. In the late nineteenth century, white southern women both praised men for at least trying to take care of their families in the difficult decades since 1861 and reminded them that white women and girls still assumed that they needed protecting, whether from economic loss or from the fictional “black beast rapist.” They, therefore, sought to distinguish themselves and Winnie Davis from the “new women” of the North who seemed to flaunt their ability to be independent.18 At a time of an ever-widening generation gap, increasing publicity about women wanting the vote, and more opportunities for young females to shop or travel on their own, parents who clung to Lost Cause mythology hoped that their daughters would emulate a traditional rather than a modern female ideal. A young Colorado girl reflected this lesson in a letter to Jefferson Davis less than a year after Winnie had first appeared in public as the Daughter of the Confederacy. She explained that as the only southern child in a class “studying the Civil War,” she had been frustrated about having “to fight the battles alone against a whole regiment of Yankee boys and girls.” She was especially pleased when she had the idea of reading to their history club “a description of Miss Davis,” whom she assumed “must be very beautiful.” She wished she “could see her if only once.”19 Girls did not have to be of school age to look up to Winnie Davis. In 1893, a four-year-old girl exclaimed at the first sight of her baby sister, “Oh, Mama, can we name her Winnie Davis?” Over the years, many parents did just that and wrote Davis about her new namesakes. Young women similarly reported to her about organizations they had named for her. She promised the “young ladies” of the Winnie Davis Literary Society at the Buena Vista Normal College in Mississippi that she would follow the development of their college and society “with increased interest” and that she expected “to hear great things of its students.” She did not indicate what kinds of behavior she would consider “great.”20 While Winnie Davis lived, male veterans had the most influence on the nature of her idealized image, whether they did so as officers praising her from podiums or as rank and filers cheering her on with a Rebel Yell. After her death, the UDC became more involved in perpetuating her exalted 18. For discussion of ways in which adult women in the Lost Cause stressed the importance of family, see Whites, The Civil War as a Crisis in Gender, especially chaps. 5, 6, and 7; and Foster, Ghosts of the Confederacy, chap. 12. 19. Daisy Davis to Jefferson Davis, Apr. 13, 1887, Jefferson Davis Papers, Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery, Alabama (hereinafter ADAH). 20. Otis S. Tarver to the Confederate Veteran 1, no. 3 (Mar. 1893), 74; Winnie Davis to Miss Carra Powell, postmarked Mar. 13, 1891, Jefferson Davis Family Papers, MC.

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position. Davis’s life ended in Narragansett Pier, Rhode Island, on September 18, 1898; she died of malarial gastritis, possibly the result of a recent trip to Egypt. The widespread response to news of her death was quite remarkable. Changing contingents of first Union and then Confederate veterans stood guard by her body on the train trip to Richmond. In Virginia, leaders of the UDC came aboard with flowers to place by the coffin. After a crowded service in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, the body was taken to Hollywood Cemetery in a hearse drawn by four white horses, each attended by a black groomsman. The procession of mourners that followed was a mile long, even with the carriages moving two abreast, and thousands of people lined the streets. As the sun set on September 23, the Daughter of the Confederacy was buried next to her father with full military honors.21 For weeks after that, mourners across the nation expressed their sorrow through various actions. Chapters of the United Daughters of the Confederacy organized memorial services with the United Confederate Veterans. At the request of their president-general, all UDC members wore mourning badges for a month. Most of the permanent memorials to Winnie Davis were the result of their work, including a tablet in St. Paul’s Church in Richmond and a marble statue seven feet high titled “The Angel of Grief,” which was unveiled over her grave on November 10, 1899.22 The UDC chapters in Georgia, under the leadership of Mildred Rutherford, raised money not only for the statue in Hollywood Cemetery, but also for their own “Winnie Davis Educational Fund.” The Confederate Veteran credited the women of Georgia with contributing nearly ten thousand of the twenty-two thousand dollars. The UDC used the interest from this fund “for the education of descendants of veterans” until they could afford to build the Winnie Davis Memorial Hall, a dormitory in a normal school in Athens, Georgia, for “young women of Confederate descent.” The name of their dorm could encourage the students to respect their daughterly reliance on their fathers at the same time they were seeking the knowledge that might free them from it. Varina Davis donated several possessions of Winnie’s, including a Bible, to be exhibited in the Memorial Hall.23 21. Richmond (Va.) Dispatch, Sept. 24, 1898, transcribed in LaCavera, Varina Anne “Winnie” Davis, 34–48. In spite of obvious differences, there are some striking similarities between reactions to the death of Winnie Davis and public mourning for Princess Diana in 1997. 22. Poppenheim, History of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, 42–43, 45. 23. “Georgia Division, [UDC],” Confederate Veteran 8, no. 10 (Oct. 1898), 457; “Winnie Davis Memorial,” Confederate Veteran 11, no. 3 (Mar. 1903), 105; “Winnie Davis

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The bereaved mother of the Daughter of the Confederacy received at least 340 telegrams, letters, and resolutions expressing admiration for her daughter from private individuals and formal organizations. Over 100 of these were clearly from women, most of them resolutions and letters of sympathy written for UDC chapters. While a number of them encouraged Varina Davis to accept God’s will and to be grateful that her daughter was in a better place, they put more emphasis on describing what everyone had lost. The vocabulary of hyperbole was similar to that found in ordinary eulogies throughout the nineteenth century, but these documents used the romanticized images to establish more than ever that “their” Confederate Daughter was unique. As one New Orleans woman claimed, “no parallel can be found in history for the position this charming young woman held in the hearts of a people.”24 The fact that many of the descriptions of the life and virtues of Winnie Davis were distortions of her actual experiences may seem more paradoxical to us than it would have to the authors. Historical accuracy for her admirers has generally been beside the point. Most were remembering a feminine icon who existed only in their minds; the private Winnie Davis had preferred life in the Northeast to a Mississippi coast society that she labeled “sleepy.” Instead of trying to paint a realistic picture of a complex individual woman, they wanted to praise Davis as a representation of all that they wished to be—or thought they should be. Some described her as “the embodiment” of whatever they held most dear, whether it be “noble Southern womanhood” or “the memories and conflicts of the war.”25 The language and images used by women were not markedly different from those chosen by men, but similar phrases could have disparate meanings, depending on the gender of the author. When men were moved by Memorial Hall,” Confederate Veteran 11, no. 9 (Sept. 1903), 389; LaCavera, Varina Anne “Winnie” Davis, 78; “Historic Trinkets of Winnie Davis,” unidentified newspaper clipping, Sept. 2, no year, Jefferson Davis Family Papers, MC. 24. A large collection of telegrams, letters, and resolutions (at least 350 telegrams and over 100 resolutions and letters) concerning the death of Winnie Davis is available at the Eleanor S. Brockenborough Library in The Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond. Mrs. J. Pinckney Smith, UDC, New Orleans, Louisiana, Oct. 1898, Jefferson Davis Family Papers, MC. 25. Varina Anne Davis to Mrs. Comer, July 28, 1886, Jefferson Davis Family Papers, Goodlett Library, UDC Headquarters, Richmond, Virginia. One historian has declared that nineteenth-century worshipers of George Washington venerated “representations of the man, not the man.” Barry Schwartz, George Washington: The Making of an American Symbol (New York, 1987), 9; Aiken, South Carolina, Resolution, Oct. 19, 1898 and Mrs. Robert H. Pearson et al., Resolution, UDC, Birmingham, Alabama, Oct. 12, 1898, Jefferson Davis Family Papers, MC.

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the presence or thought of Winnie Davis, they reacted to her as a symbolic version of the daughter they wanted to have, sometimes with a semiconscious sexual undercurrent.26 By projecting their fantasies onto her, they could imagine themselves as chivalrous knights protecting a virtuous, adoring young female who was loyal and even obedient to them. Women, on the other hand, depending on their age and their psychological needs, could see Winnie Davis either as the proper Confederate daughter they wished to consider themselves or as the daughter they wished to have, not so much one they would protect as one who would serve as a reflection of and heir to their own virtues. Mothers of girls were not ready to reject nostalgia for a romanticized past when daughters had benefited by always staying in their place, but neither did they want to think of women only as appendages to men. The UDC leaders in Birmingham, Alabama, expressed the thoughts of most female mourners when they hoped the “angelic” statue over the grave of Winnie Davis would “recall to the daughters of coming generations in our southland the memory of the noble woman whose personality represented at once southern history, southern heroism and southern womanhood.” They considered her so representative because she had been born a daughter of the only president of the Confederacy or, as many would say, “the noble daughter of a grand and noble sire.” In a culture that emphasized the ability of “blood” to determine someone’s character, Winnie represented a more important connection to Jefferson Davis than that held by his wife.27 In their mourning resolutions, women pledged themselves, along with other aims, “to instruct and instill into the descendants of the people of the South a proper respect for and pride in the glorious war history” and “to perpetuate a truthful record of the noble and chivalric achievements of their ancestors.” Although Winnie, as a little girl, had been too young to understand what her father and his public had experienced at the end of the war, many women spoke of her as “the golden,” “tenderest,” “loving link with the heroic past of the South.” It was almost as if she had been a spiritual medium capable of connecting them to her father and the other dead heroes in the Confederate Valhalla. They were comforted by the knowledge that Winnie’s “young feet” had “pressed with [theirs] 26. For more discussion of the possible sexual undertones of the veterans’ affection for Winnie Davis and for the elite young sponsors, see Hall, “Autobiography as Social Critique,” 451; and Foster, Ghosts of the Confederacy, 97, 136–39. 27. Mrs. Robert H. Pearson et al., UDC, Birmingham, Alabama, Resolution, Oct. 12, 1898, Jefferson Davis Family Papers, MC.

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the Gethsemane of that Past.” “Born in the midst of parricidal war . . . surrounded by its painful and horrible sights,” this little girl had come to her “overburdened” parents “as a ray of sunshine,” “a rainbow amid the storm,” and “a bright angel of gladness.” In other words, she had been the classic Victorian “angel in the house.” If the female veterans of the Confederate home front were going to relive the war and Reconstruction, this time they apparently wanted to do so through the eyes of an innocent child capable of feeling a hope that adults had held only in the early days of the war.28 One of the more intriguing images of Winnie Davis involved assertions by women of her great courage and heroism, possibly a rebuff to the growing trend to portray men in battle as the only true models of courageous sacrifice. Plaques on the statue by her grave speak of the “blameless and heroic career” of this “brave and steadfast” woman. “Perfected through suffering,” she had supposedly put forth a “brave endeavor in the struggle of life.” Some women, such as the South Carolinians who described her as “the virgin martyr of the South,” may have been thinking of her alleged willingness to sacrifice the love of one man, her fiancé, so as to be true to the love of many men, the Confederate veterans. Others depicted her as a heroine for sticking to the expectations of a proper female even while “she met duties never before thrown upon young womanhood.” By pledging to teach “the youth of this and future generations . . . the story of her heroic life as fulfilling the Southern ideal of true womanhood,” they were announcing that for a woman to be a proper female and daughter, she sometimes had to resort to heroic measures.29 28. Poppenheim, History of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, 3–4, 8, 9, 16, 11; Lucy Jordan Blount, UDC, Wanesboro, Georgia, Nov. 10, 1898; UDC, Chattanooga, postmark, Sept. 24, 1898; Mrs. Joseph Hutcheson, UDC, Houston, Texas, Nov. 5, 1898; all in Jefferson Davis Family Papers, MC; Miss Elvira Sydnor Miller, “Tattler,” Louisville Times, reprinted in the Confederate Veteran 6, no. 9 (Sept. 1898), 102; UDC, Sulphur Springs, Texas, Resolutions, Sept. 23, 1898; UDC, Auburn, Alabama, Sept. 1898; I. M. Porter Ockenden to Varina Davis, Sept. 23, 1898, Ladies Memorial Association of Alabama, Montgomery, Alabama; all in Jefferson Davis Family Papers, MC. For similar statements, see UDC, Harrisonburg, Virginia, Resolutions, Sept. 1, 1898; Grand Division of Virginia, UDC, Richmond, Virginia, Resolutions, Oct. 13, 1898; all in Jefferson Davis Family Papers, MC. 29. See especially Alice Fahs, “The Feminized Civil War: Gender, Northern Popular Literature, and the Memory of the War, 1861–1900,” Journal of American History 85 (Mar. 1999), 1461–94. LaCavera, Varina Anne “Winnie” Davis, 75; UDC, Selma, Alabama, 1898 and UDC, Birmingham, Alabama, 1898, Jefferson Davis Family Papers, MC; UDC, Columbia, South Carolina, n.d., Jefferson Davis Family Papers, MC; Mrs. Robert H. Pearson et al., UDC, Birmingham, Alabama, Oct. 12, 1898, Jefferson Davis Family Papers, MC; Hollywood Memorial Association, resolutions, Confederate Veteran 6, no. 10 (Oct. 1898): 460.

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While all mourners agreed that “in the early death of our sister, the whole Southland has sustained an irreparable loss,” they always depicted this loss as “creating a void in southern womanhood.” Winnie Davis was never, for them, a genderless “southerner.” As someone possessing “all the noble qualities . . . . which form the best type of womanhood” and advocating “nothing beyond the best in woman,” she was “the type of a gentle womanhood which inspired men to deeds of valor and poets to sweetest minstrelsy.” Above all, she was “no new woman of the period.” The resolutions tended to be surprisingly vague about exactly what behavior constituted this ideal femininity. The implication was that she was such a perfect female that all aspects of her character were part of her femininity. Occasionally, women made brief references to Davis’s “intellect” and her career as a published author, but they were more apt to praise her for her gentleness and her loyalty.30 Even as a child, Davis, as imagined by her admirers, had been a model of morality. The public did not know that one of the reasons her parents had sent her to school in Germany was to break her of her willfulness and volatile temper. For some, the qualities of a daughter of both Jefferson Davis and of the South that were most deserving of respect were her acceptance of her duty to be obedient and devoted both to her parents (obeying “the command to ‘honor thy father and mother’ ”) and to “the cause of the Confederacy.” By asserting that “she was faithful to the end” to “the land of her birth,” they could erase the stain of her choosing to live elsewhere.31 Soon after the death of Winnie Davis, a few people suggested passing her title on to some other woman, whether her older, married sister, Margaret Davis Hayes (who had petulantly expressed increasing bitterness at not receiving the same attention as Winnie); the young Laura Gault, who, while attending a northern school, had refused to sing “Marching through Georgia”; or just some member of the UDC who had stood out. But most were convinced that Winnie had filled a “place in the hearts of the 30. Mollie E. Moore Davis Chapter, UDC, Resolutions, Sept. 1898, Jefferson Davis Family Papers, MC; Willie Carolina Williams, UDC, Greenville, South Carolina, postmark, Oct. 5, 1898, Jefferson Davis Family Papers, MC; UDC, Lake City, Florida, Resolutions, Oct. 27, 1898, Jefferson Davis Family Papers, MC; I. M. Porter Ockenden to Varina Davis, Ladies Memorial Association, Montgomery, Alabama, Sept. 23, 1898, Jefferson Davis Family Papers, MC. 31. Jefferson Davis to Winnie Davis, Sept. 21, 1876, Mar. 17, Oct. 17, 1877; Varina Davis to Jefferson Davis, Feb. 18, Sept. 9, 1877; Varina Davis to Winnie Davis, June 27, 1880, Jefferson Davis Papers, UA; Julia Jackson Chapter, Children of the Confederacy, Atlanta, Georgia, Sept. 29, 1898 and UDC, Staunton, Virginia, Sept. 23, 1898, Jefferson Davis Family Papers, MC; Lucy Jordan Blount, UDC, Waynesboro, Georgia, Nov. 10, 1898, Jefferson Davis Family Papers, MC.

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[southern] people, which no other [could] claim.” One anonymous Mississippi woman, certain that “Winnie Davis occupied a unique position,” proclaimed that there was “no just ground upon which to base the right of a successor” and considered it “an absurdity” to think of rewarding a girl for “insubordination to established school rules.”32 In the twentieth century, white southern women’s commitment to honoring the Lost Cause and Winnie Davis waned but did not end. Although Davis had limited her public performances to smiling and shaking hands, she nevertheless had paved the way for female speakers who would praise the traditional southern gender values while contradicting them with their oratorical ease and fervor. In 1902, in a speech to the United Confederate Veterans of Missouri that was so popular that it was reprinted two years in a row in the Confederate Veteran, Edmonda Nickerson announced that “all the women of the South” had hailed the Daughter of the Confederacy as “their queen.” To her, the “angelic figure” over Winnie’s grave portrayed “the beauty of her spotless life and her virgin hope of a glorious immortality.” She depicted women gathering “in knightly array around their enthroned idol” and attesting “by the wildest acclaim that the love they bore the father had descended in full measure to his child.” While praising the woman who was supposed to have been a model of modest femininity, Nickerson also implied that her female admirers were as “knightly” and capable of “wild acclaim” as the Confederate veterans. An icon appeals to succeeding generations only when they can adapt it to their own concerns.33 At a time when the people of the United States were debating whether the natives of the Philippine Islands were “civilized” enough to govern themselves, and railroad companies were arranging special trains for the crowds wishing to observe black men being tortured and burned to death, one’s social classification held great significance. The women who joined the Confederate veterans and their sons in idealizing Winnie Davis chose to proclaim their commitment to at least a veneer of “true womanhood” that would distinguish them from the new women of the North, as well as from the hardworking black women and white mill women of the South. In contributing to the iconization of Winnie Davis, white women of the 32. UDC, Lake City, Florida, Resolutions, Oct. 27, 1898, Jefferson Davis Family Papers, MC. See also Mrs. V. C. Tarrh, UDC, Florence, South Carolina, Oct. 10, 1898, Jefferson Davis Family Papers, MC. “A voice from Mississippi Opposing the appointment of a successor to Winnie Davis,” n.d., Jefferson Davis Family Papers, Howard-Tilton Library, Tulane University, New Orleans. 33. Hall, “Autobiography as Social Critique,” 450–51; Miss Edmonda Augusta Nickerson, “Women as Patriots,” Confederate Veteran 11, no. 11 (Nov. 1903), 500.

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upper classes were implicitly negotiating with the men of their society. They agreed to wear a mask of feminine innocence and to remain (motionless) atop a pedestal as long as white southern men remained true to their mission of protecting them like “knights of old.” In effect, they chose symbolic presence over recognition of women’s concrete contributions to families and society, daughterly dependence over mature self-reliance.

M O N IC A M A R IA T E T Z L A F F

Abbie Holmes Christensen and the Politics of Maternalism and Race Beaufort, South Carolina, 1890–1938

I

N JANUARY 1914, SIXTY-TWO-YEAR-OLD ABBIE HOLMES CHRIS-

tensen entered the South Carolina State House in Columbia to watch her eldest son, Niels, perform his duties as a state senator. Abbie Christensen was the daughter of white abolitionists, a founder of a school for African Americans, and an active suffragist. On this day, however, she was not promoting her causes but taking a quiet seat in the gallery, as a mother watching her son, a rising star in state reform politics. Despite her outwardly sentimental image of motherly devotion, Abbie Christensen was a potential political liability to Niels, and his opponents knew it. South Carolina governor Cole Blease, an infamous master of the politics of race baiting, chose the occasion of Christensen’s visit to announce “an investigation into a report that had come to him concerning the Port Royal Agricultural School,” which Abbie Christensen had founded, as well as the Penn School, another institution for African Americans founded by a northern white woman. Blease accused the two schools of teaching white and black students, and in the following days, he specifically targeted the women of the Christensen family, raising questions about their observance of the color line. Turning to his favorite tactic of raising the specter of black male sexuality, Blease warned that the next step would be “negro men marrying white women.” Niels survived this political battle by hotly defending his mother and sisters and maintaining that the Port Royal Agricultural School did not stand for “social equality.” This incident reveals the problems Abbie Christensen and other white women reformers of the New South faced when they directed their maternalism or “public mothering” to black children.1 1. Jan. 24–Feb. 18, 1914 and clipping, “Governor Attacks Senator Christensen,” 62, in Frederik Holmes Christensen diary, vol. 12, in South Caroliniana Library, Columbia, S.C. (hereinafter cited as SCL); “Passed the House,” Feb. 5, 1914; “Senator Christensen’s Statement as to the Port Royal Agricultural School,” Feb. 12, 1914; “Clears His Name,” Feb. 26, 1914, all in Beaufort Gazette.

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From the 1890s through the 1930s, southern white women were involved in a variety of reforms, including temperance, suffrage, the betterment of public schools, and civic improvement. These women usually applied themselves to the needs of white women and children. When they did venture into projects aimed at helping African Americans, the idea of maternalism or “social motherhood” suffered the strain of white women’s portrayal of themselves as mothers of black children, a distinctly taboo image. Yet white women in the South did become involved (for good or ill) in reforms aimed at African Americans. The life and writings of Abbie Holmes Christensen offer insight into the ways a white woman reformer in the Jim Crow South manipulated her public identity and the ideology of maternalism in order to participate in literary and educational activities involving African Americans, between the 1890s and the 1930s. Abbie Holmes Christensen (1852–1938) was born in Massachusetts but lived most of her life in Beaufort, South Carolina. When she was twelve years old, her parents, Reuben and Rebecca Holmes, moved the family to the Union-occupied Sea Islands to take part in the Port Royal Experiment, an abolitionist effort to provide schooling and other aid to newly freed African Americans. Young Abbie absorbed the missionary spirit of this band of northern ministers, teachers, investors, and businessmen who sought to remake this portion of South Carolina. Not surprisingly, southern whites called the northerners “carpetbaggers,” and tensions ran high between northern and southern whites. Despite this opposition, from 1866 through the 1880s, Sea Island African Americans cooperated with northern whites in governing Beaufort. During this time, Abbie became accustomed to living in a community in which the majority of residents were black, and she learned the regional “Gullah” dialect, a mixture of English and African words and grammar.2 As a young woman, Abbie moved between North and South, furthering her own education as well as the education of African Americans. In 1870, she served as a schoolteacher of “colored children” in the Beaufort public school system. She saved her earnings and in 1872 was able to attend Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, bringing with her the Gullah animal stories and “negro sermons” she had learned in Beaufort. In 1874, Abbie made her debut as a writer, publishing the story “De Wolf, De Rabbit 2. Willie Lee Rose, Rehearsal for Reconstruction: The Port Royal Experiment (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1964); Monica Maria Tetzlaff, Cultivating a New South: Abbie Holmes Christensen and the Politics of Race and Gender, 1852–1938 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2002), 1–22; Lorenzo Dow Turner, Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect (1949; reprint, New York: Arno, 1969); Charles Joyner, Down by the Riverside: A South Carolina Slave Community (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984).

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An’ De Tar Baby” in the Springfield Republican, a Massachusetts newspaper. Later that year, Abbie was back in Beaufort once again, and in 1875 she married Niels Christensen, a Danish immigrant and former captain of “colored troops” in the Civil War.3 Abbie Christensen was a pioneer in the field of African American folklore, publishing several more animal stories in the New York Independent, but the next years of Abbie Christensen’s life were mostly absorbed with bearing and rearing six children. After the last of her children was born in the 1880s, she became active in public reform efforts, starting with the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in Beaufort. In the 1890s, Christensen took her children to live in Brookline, Massachusetts, to attend the public schools in this reform-minded suburb of Boston, while her husband ran a thriving hardware, lumber, and real estate business in Beaufort. She once again brought Gullah animal tales, publishing a collection of stories under the title Afro-American Folk Lore in 1892. From Massachusetts, she carried the woman suffrage banner south and combined suffrage work with temperance organizing. In 1898, Christensen gathered the small profits from her book and then began a fund-raising campaign to start a school for African American children in a rural area west of Beaufort. She was inspired by local African Americans as well as by Margaret Washington, the wife of Booker T. Washington, the head of Tuskegee Institute. Out of these labors, the Port Royal Agricultural School was born in 1902. It continued under the guidance of its second principal, Joseph S. Shanklin, until after Christensen’s death. In addition to supporting this school, Christensen joined a white women’s civic club in Beaufort and resumed the campaign for suffrage within the context of this community of activist northern and southern white women.4 Christensen’s educational and reform activities made an impact on her part of South Carolina, and the writings she left behind offer historians an opportunity to examine the ways a white woman reformer was able to draw on the common threads of maternalism in northern and southern women’s public work to promote her causes. Christensen employed shifting identities in her public work, from her involvement with folklore to black education and white women’s associations. Her writings and actions reveal the way she presented herself as an author, a school founder, a clubwoman, and a suffragist, crafting a particular maternalism directed mainly toward African Americans. 3. A[bbie] M[andana] H[olmes], “De Wolf, De Rabbit An’ De Tar Baby,” Springfield Republican, June 2, 1874. 4. Tetzlaff, Cultivating a New South, 23–201.

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Describing Abbie Christensen as a maternalist opens the question of how a historian should use the terms maternalism and paternalism in the context of the Jim Crow South. Outside of southern history, the term maternalism has been used to describe the political activities of middleand upper-class women who used “the idealized rhetoric of motherhood,” during the time period from 1890 to 1930, to advocate public policies favorable to poor women and children. Southern historians have employed the term New South paternalism to analyze a particular group of white southerners. The ideology of paternalism, whether southern or northern, cast whites into the role of parents and blacks into the role of children. An interesting comparison to Abbie Christensen could be found in Joel Chandler Harris, the best-known collector and popularizer of African American folklore, who easily fit the definition of a New South paternalist. Harris wrote extensively on the bonds between former slaves and their masters and urged the New South children of these masters to support black education, conducted under white guidance. But aside from this harking back to plantation days, New South paternalism was similar to the ideology of conservative northern philanthropists who expressed concern about immigrants and the poor, but did not trust them to help themselves. These northern paternalists argued that education guided by the upper and middle classes was necessary to control the working classes or, as some called them, “the dangerous classes.” Christensen’s interest in African American education was influenced by the views of these northern paternalists who provided the major funding for most southern black educational institutions, including the Port Royal Agricultural School.5 Few historians of southern race relations give examples of white women as paternalists; perhaps the term does not fit them, since women could not be considered pater or father figures. But southern racial paternalism had its female side, and recent historians of southern women have used the term maternalism as a parallel to the paternalism of southern men. For example, Laura Haygood, one of the first white southern women to set up a home mission for black women and children, represents a maternalist parallel to her brother, the paternalist Methodist bishop Atticus Haygood, the author of Our Brother in Black. Continuing Haygood’s mission into 5. Patrick Wilkinson, “The Selfless and the Helpless: Maternalist Origins of the U.S. Welfare State,” Feminist Studies 25 (fall 1999): 595 n. 5; George Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817–1914 (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), 204–5; Joel Williamson, The Crucible of Race: BlackWhite Relations in the American South since Emancipation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 88–93; Paul Boyer, Urban Masses and Moral Order in America, 1820–1920 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978).

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the 1910s, white Methodist Episcopal women reported that they were engaged in “ministry to this backward race” and “helping the black sister.” These women’s belief in the social gospel led them to a racial maternalism that closely matched that of Christensen.6 Although Abbie Christensen privately embraced socialism, beginning in the 1910s, she was not one of the era’s progressive women who worked for mothers’ pensions or other aspects of the welfare state. Instead, Christensen’s activism grew out of the nineteenth-century “Woman” movement’s belief in the moral superiority of the universal “Woman” over the universal “Man.” Through her education at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in the 1870s, Christensen was infused with a sense of “woman’s mission,” a belief that educated women were called to serve God as missionaries in paid or voluntary work, especially as teachers of children. Her ideas about woman’s mission were complemented by the zeal and enthusiasm for reform which Christensen inherited as a mantle from her abolitionist parents. Christensen’s racial maternalism can be described as a belief that white women (and men) had a role to play in educating and providing for the material welfare of African Americans, most of whom were suffering the lingering effects of slavery, poverty, and ignorance. In her racial reform work, Christensen did not publicly challenge segregation or disfranchisement. Like white women in the southern Methodist church, she supported separate institutions that served the African American community.7 Aspects of Christensen’s racial maternalism can be seen in her writings of the 1870s and 1890s. When Abbie began recording African American tales of Br’er Rabbit and performing them for northern women students at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in the 1870s, she was still under the influence of the romantic racialism of abolition. This ideology viewed African 6. Elizabeth Jacoway, Yankee Missionaries in the South: The Penn School Experiment (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980), 256–58; Marjorie Spruill Wheeler, New Women of the New South: The Leaders of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the Southern States (New York: Oxford, 1993), 51; Elizabeth Enstam, “ ‘They Called It Motherhood’: Dallas Women and Public Life, 1895–1918,” in Hidden Histories of Women in the New South, ed. Virginia Bernhard et al. (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1994), 71–95; Anastatia Sims, The Power of Femininity in the New South: Women’s Organizations and Politics in North Carolina, 1880–1930 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1997), 4, 15–19, 80–127; Third Report of Council (1913) and Fifth Report of Council (1915), as quoted in Mary E. Frederickson, “ ‘Each One Is Dependent on the Other’: Southern Churchwomen, Racial Reform, and the Process of Transformation, 1880–1940,” in Visible Women: New Essays in American Activism, ed. Nancy Hewitt and Suzanne Lebsock (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 310. 7. Abbie Holmes diary (courtesy of Carroll Eve, Beaufort, S.C.), Sept. 23, 1872; Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, Alma Mater: Design and Experience in the Women’s Colleges from Their Nineteenth-Century Beginnings to the 1930s (New York: Knopf, 1984).

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Americans as different, but not necessarily inferior. Romantic racialists considered blacks naturally creative and closer to nature than whites. In this vein, Christensen begins her 1892 book with an abolitionist poem, “Song of the Negro Boatmen at Port Royal” by John Greenleaf Whittier, and then writes, “The colored people of the South have a folk lore of their own, thoroughly characteristic of this peculiar race, rich in humor and originality.” This appreciation of black artistry quickly slides into the hierarchical view of the maternalist when, in her first chapter, Christensen points to her African American storyteller’s monkeylike gestures and his “bobs, and dives to the right or left.” Adding a moralistic tone, she warns parents away from reading these stories to their children because they show Br’er Rabbit succeeding by cunning and treachery, rather than moral goodness. She blames slavery for forcing African Americans to be deceitful tricksters, who are represented by the rabbit. While she is different from most other New South paternalists in criticizing slavery, the author explicitly identifies herself with her adopted region. “[W]e of the New South cannot wish our children to pore long over these pages,” she writes, blurring her regional identity.8 Afro-American Folk Lore, however, cannot be viewed as a distinctly maternalist work, because Christensen camouflaged her gender by using her initials before her last name. She may have dissembled in this way to take on the greater authority of a (possibly) male identity. The author definitely aimed her work at a “scientific” audience when she explained that she offered her tales to “students of folklore” who might learn from them of the connections between African and African American folklore. Abbie’s book can be seen as part of a missionary project that involved the education of whites in the culture of the black folk. The appeal of dialect and folklore such as the Uncle Remus tales at the end of the nineteenth century was part of northern and southern whites’ increasing interest in the “uncivilized” peoples of other lands. As part of this project, Christensen joined the American Folklore Society and sent a paper to be read at the Chicago World’s Fair, the Columbian Exposition of 1893. This essay, a part of which was later published in the Journal of American Folk-Lore, described African American spirituals and shouts, again emphasizing their African elements.9 8. Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind, 97–129; A[bbie] M[andana] H[olmes] Christensen, Afro-American Folk Lore As Told ’Round Cabin Fires on the Sea Islands of South Carolina (1892; reprint, New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969), x-3. 9. Christensen, Afro-American Folk Lore, xii; Nina Silber, The Romance of Reunion: Northerners and the South, 1865–1900 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), 132–41; Mrs. Abigail M. Holmes Christensen, “Spirituals and ‘Shouts’ of Southern Negroes,” Journal of American Folk-Lore 7 (Apr.–June 1894): 154–55.

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When Christensen decided to republish Afro-American Folk Lore in 1895, her new publisher advised her to create two different versions of the book, one with the poem by John Greenleaf Whittier for the North and a second version without the poem for the South. Christensen’s chameleonlike self-presentation becomes clear in this literal division of her loyalties. With the deletion of Whittier’s poem, southern paternalists could enjoy the pleasures of reading dialect tales with few hints that they were written by a “carpetbagger.” Christensen also contacted African American novelist Frances Ellen Watkins Harper in an attempt to reach a black audience, but did not offer another version that would have had special appeal to black readers. Like most cultural productions in the United States in the late nineteenth century, Afro-American Folk Lore assumed a white reading audience; blacks were only an afterthought.10 Even though the book did not sell in large numbers in any racial or regional community, it did provide the seed money to start Christensen’s next project. By 1900, Christensen was using the remaining copies of Afro-American Folk Lore to raise funds for a school. Much more than her book, the Port Royal Agricultural School, which became better known as the Shanklin School, was an example of the maternalist project of uplifting African Americans. In her work as a school founder, clubwoman, and suffragist, Christensen usually conformed to a traditional maternal image. Nonetheless, the race and gender politics of the South complicated these activities, which involved the location of her body, as well as her writings.11 Like the founders of other black southern schools, Christensen dissembled and acted in contradictory ways when she raised funds in the North and negotiated politics in the South. Although Abbie Christensen was clearly the main founder of the Shanklin School, her sons persuaded her during its early years to remain invisible or marginal to white southerners as well as northern philanthropic agencies who viewed the school in person or through its literature. “You would be competent alone if it were not for the looks of the thing,” her son Frederik wrote in 1902. There are many reasons why potential funders might have been biased against a woman school founder. In the early-twentieth-century South, however, the strongest taboo was the sexual “danger” of a white woman’s working 10. Abbie Holmes Christensen (hereinafter cited as AHC), undated manuscript on Lee and Shepherd’s publication of Afro-American Folk Lore; Niels Christensen, Sr. to AHC, Apr. 16, 1895; F[rances] E[llen] W[atkins] Harper to AHC, n.d., in Christensen Family Papers (hereinafter cited as CFP), SCL; AHC to Niels Christensen, blank first page of AfroAmerican Folk Lore (Reprint, Boston: Lee and Shepherd, 1898) (courtesy of Frederik Burr Christensen, Aiken, S. C.). 11. Carline Robinson and William Dortch, The Blacks in These Sea Islands, Then and Now (New York: Vantage Press, 1985), 40.

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closely with a black principal and black male students. This racial and sexual fear was kept alive by race-baiting politicians and the partisan newspapers that supported them. To keep up appearances, Christensen’s husband, and later her sons, appeared on the letterhead and in the lists of backers in promotional literature, while she remained in the background.12 Yet behind the scenes, Abbie Christensen did more for the school than any other white individual. She consistently attended the school’s board meetings, where she was the most active person. Christensen’s activities included arranging for an illustrated brochure, gathering donations in Massachusetts, inquiring about mortgage payments, reading letters from donors, and conveying the principal’s request for a fixed salary.13 By 1914, Christensen’s name began to appear on the school’s stationery, and her activity did not escape the notice of Cole Blease when he planned his attack on Niels Christensen Jr. in the state senate. To Blease, Abbie Christensen’s name and body were in the wrong place, on the school’s letterhead or at the school itself, not to mention, in the state house. In this case, having a politician as a son was as much of a hindrance as a help, since his high visibility attracted attention to Abbie’s activities. These racial and gender politics were the main reason Abbie Christensen does not seem to have taken part in any solicitations of white southerners.14 Like Br’er Rabbit, the trickster, Christensen could dissemble when it was necessary. Even when she wrote fund-raising letters to northern women and men, she generally downplayed her own founding role, revealing only that she had “stated our case in the [Boston] Trans[cript].” Although, in fact, she was able to relate the financial and curricular affairs of the school to the last detail, Christensen stressed that her domestic duties were her 12. Robert F. Engs, Educating the Disfranchised and Disinherited: Samuel Chapman Armstrong and Hampton Institute, 1839–1893 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1999), xiv; Louis Harlan, Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee, 1901–1915 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), ix; Glenda Gilmore, Gender and Jim Crow: Women and the Politics of White Supremacy in North Carolina, 1896–1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 178–85; Williamson, Crucible, 111–79; Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, Revolt against Chivalry: Jessie Daniel Ames and the Women’s Campaign against Lynching, rev. ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 129–57; Frederik Holmes Christensen to AHC, July 20, 1902; Annual Report of the Port Royal Agricultural School, 1903–1904 (Savannah, Ga.: Morning News, 1904); Letterhead on Port Royal Agricultural School (hereinafter cited as PRAS) stationery, J.S. Shanklin to AHC, June 24, 1904, all in CFP, SCL. 13. Minutes of PRAS Board of Trustees’ meetings, Feb. 3, Mar. 31, 1903, CFP, SCL. 14. Letterhead of PRAS, “Boarding Students,” Oct. 19, 1912; Pages from the Senate Journal (Jan. 28, 1914), 14–15, 19–20; ibid. (Feb. 4, 1914), 3–13, all in CFP, SCL; Bryant Simon, “The Appeal of Cole Blease in South Carolina: Race, Class and Sex in the New South,” Journal of Southern History 62 (Feb. 1996): 57–86.

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first concern. “I was a busy woman with a large family and many cares, having little time, less strength, to give to the cause. I did all that I could,” she wrote. These words show that a display of femininity could be calculated to draw in traditional women of the North as well as the South.15 Many years later, in an article for the Mount Holyoke Alumni Quarterly, Christensen was finally able to take credit for her school-founding activities, which she proudly couched in the maternalist language of concern for children. Groups of hungry and ragged children used to come into town bearing in their hands bundles of lightwood which they had cut from the pitch pine stumps. After walking from five to ten miles with a lightwood bundle on his head a boy or girl would feel well rewarded to receive ten cents for it. These children, barefoot, ragged and forlorn were pitiful to see.16

Christensen then went on to describe how she worked with her young daughter and others to gather funds to start a school for these impoverished African American children. In the 1930s, with an audience of northern women, Christensen could at last permit herself a leading role in her story. In 1903, around the time that the Port Royal Agricultural School began, another of Christensen’s writings showed a deepening of her maternalist consciousness. An overnight camping trip to Bay Point, a beach near Beaufort, inspired the middle-aged mother and her adult children to write in a “log.” Christensen turned her semiprivate narrative into a public letter, which she sent to the “Listener” column of the Boston Transcript. In it she connected African American folklore with her thoughts on the fate of Africans on both sides of the Atlantic. The “Listener” ’s revision of her letter shunned controversy and included only a description of the beach and its sea turtles, but Christensen’s draft contains rich musings on the subject of race.17 As she wrote, reports of a threatened lynching and a defensive “negro riot” in Beaufort were on Christensen’s mind. African Americans had massed to protect two fugitive black debtors from nearby Hampton County. These black South Carolinians feared they would be attacked by 15. AHC to Miss M., rough draft, 1903, CFP, SCL; Frederik Holmes Christensen Diary, vol. 8, Mar. 20, 1903, SCL. 16. Abbie Holmes Christensen, “Folklore on Sea Islands,” Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly 16 (Feb. 1933), 204–5. 17. “The Listener,” Boston Evening Transcript, May 6, 1903.

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white vigilantes. Christensen believed “the general press” had “foolishly exaggerated” this “negro riot.” She took pride in the fact that a lynching was prevented by Beaufort’s citizens, both black and white (including her son Frederik), who cooperated to see that the prisoners were safe and the law was enforced. When writing of this incident, Abbie saw herself on the side of the African Americans; she viewed the white lynch mob, not the black crowd, as the real threat.18 When Christensen turned to describing the African American servants and storytellers who came along on the Bay Point trip, her words again revealed her racial maternalism. Cupid Polite was a gifted storyteller, wrote Christensen. Actors we had seen, but never one who could mimic and personate animals to such perfection. Br. Rabbit with Br. Wolf for his “Grandaddy ridin’ hoss,” “Sis’ Partridge who lef’ her head home fur ten’ to her business,” “Deer an’ Cooter on de ten mile track” “Br Crane in do cou’t at de trial of Br. Rabbit” these and more he made to speak and move before us in vivid action. How we wished to show him to northern friends.

Christensen had improved on the description she used in Afro-American Folk Lore, but she still saw Polite as a person she wanted to “show,” not introduce, to northern friends. Her portrait of African Americans singing spirituals for their white audience was more romantic and drew Christensen into broader, more political themes: Cupid and Chloe gave us “Mary and Martha,” “Oh believer” “Swing low sweet chariot” “Roll Jordan” and others. . . . Chloe’s voice is rich in quality, clear, true and sweet, and listening to its cadences, earnest, plaintive, tender, how could one choose but muse on the possibilities in her exotic race? Our forefathers planted them here for their own use and behoof [sic], and they have served us faithfully for nigh three hundred years. Do not we, proud Caucassions [sic], owe it to ourselves to give to them opportunity for development and progress?19

With this passage, Christensen summed up a philosophy that encompassed both African American folklore and education. Folk tales did not inspire her as much as the creative expression in spirituals, but the sum led 18. AHC, “Glimpses of Bay Point,” Apr.? 1903, CFP, SCL; Frederik Holmes Christensen Diary, vol. 8, Apr. 21–23, 1903, SCL. 19. AHC, “Glimpses of Bay Point,” Apr.? 1903, CFP, SCL.

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her to “muse” upon the undeveloped talents and long suffering of African Americans. Even though she was not the daughter of slave owners, she did not exempt her ancestors from the part they had played in introducing slavery to the New World. As she wrote, she might have been thinking of the collective “sin” that Whittier attributes to all humans in his “Song of the Negro Boatmen at Port Royal.” Reflecting her abolitionist and missionary influences, Christensen wrote, “Africa is calling to the world today, ‘Come and help us,’ but to us in America the cry is not from afar, it is at our doors.” Abbie’s racial maternalism led her to urge white Christians to help African Americans first. These sentiments resembled those of southern racial maternalists like white Methodist deaconess Mary DeBardeleben, who had originally planned to be a foreign missionary but decided instead to work among blacks in the South.20 Christensen connected Africa and “Afro-Americans” as she had done in her writings on folklore. She celebrated the “exotic” yet “faithful” nature of African Americans, distancing them from “proud Caucasians,” whom she called on to take responsibility for the fate of blacks. While she depicted African difference in a positive way, her attitude was nonetheless maternalist. The continent of Africa was only calling for help in the form of colonization and “civilization” in Europeans’ imaginations, and if blacks had been granted true equality in the United States, they would not have needed as much “help.” Christensen, however, did not call for charity; she asked that whites grant African Americans “opportunity for development and progress.” She was likely thinking of the newly founded Shanklin School as she made these statements. In the later Mount Holyoke article in which she addressed an imagined audience of mission-oriented women, Christensen paid tribute to her abolitionist past in an explicitly maternalist reference that went beyond charity to the stronger imperative of repaying a debt. Christensen ended her article as she had originally begun her book, with lines from Whittier’s poem. She also referred to the thoughts in her earlier letter from Bay Point Beach. Years of reflection and work with African Americans sharpened her understanding of these earlier lines, which she rewrote to say “Is it still true that ‘close as sin and suffering joined, we march to fate abreast’? At any rate our Caucasian race that held the Africans as bond servants for over 200 years has not yet paid its debt to the former slaves. So let us ‘not 20. John Patrick McDowell, The Social Gospel in the South: The Woman’s Home Mission Movement in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 1886–1939 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982), 85–86.

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be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not.’ ”21 This abolitionist reference put Christensen and her Mount Holyoke sisters in an explicitly maternalist position toward southern blacks. In the public life of South Carolina women’s voluntary associations, however, Christensen participated in a maternalism that was like most of southern progressivism, “for whites only.” Christensen first entered southern white women’s organizations through the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). The WCTU drew on the traditional moral authority of women to restrict men’s use of alcohol. Christensen chose a traditionally feminine aspect of WCTU work as her specialty when she took on the organization of children into a Band of Hope in the late 1880s. When Frances Willard, the president of the WCTU, visited Christensen in 1888, she praised her beautiful home and children as highly as she did her temperance work. Childless and unmarried, but very aware of the power of femininity in the North and the South, Willard knew the importance of such details.22 WCTU work brought Abbie Christensen together with Virginia Durant Young, a white southern woman who persuaded Christensen to become a founding member of a woman suffrage organization called the South Carolina Equal Rights Association (SCERA). Young, a Confederate widow and one of the South’s few women newspaper editors, provided the publicity, including speeches and pamphlets for the organization. In her SCERA work, as in her founding of the school, Christensen stayed in the background, writing letters to Young and sending financial assistance but never appearing on a platform. Although she did not persuade the South Carolina legislature to enfranchise women, Young chose to lead the struggle publicly while Christensen remained behind the scenes. After an unsuccessful bid to include woman suffrage in the 1895 South Carolina constitution, Young’s organization faded.23 In the 1900s and 1910s, Christensen found other white women’s associations to absorb her reforming energies. In the Beaufort Female Benev21. Christensen, “Folklore on Sea Islands,” 205. 22. William Link, The Paradox of Southern Progressivism, 1880–1930 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992); Dewey Grantham, Southern Progressivism: The Reconciliation of Progress and Tradition (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1983); Ruth Bordin, Frances Willard: A Biography (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986); AHC to Niels Christensen Jr., Nov. 1, 12, Dec. 5, 1888, Feb. 13, 1889, CFP, SCL; Frances Willard, “Correspondence,” Union Signal, Apr. 25, 1889, 4. 23. Barbara Bellows Ulmer, “Virginia Durant Young: New South Suffragist” (master’s thesis, University of South Carolina, 1979); Antoinette Elizabeth Taylor, “South Carolina and the Enfranchisement of Women: The Early Years,” South Carolina Historical Magazine 77 (Apr. 1976):115–26; Virginia Young to Editors, Woman’s Journal, Apr. 19, 1892, clipping, CFP, SCL.

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olent Society and the Beaufort Civic League, Christensen maintained the vision of woman’s maternalist mission she had received at Mount Holyoke. Together, members worked for “clean government,” the education of young children, the protection of wildlife and domestic animals, and botanical beautification. To aid her in this work, Christensen took on a new literary identity as the “Stroller,” a commentator on the conservation of songbirds and gardens. Botany had been a passion of Abbie’s since her schooldays, and throughout her adult life she included descriptions of blooms and sent pressed flowers in countless letters to friends.24 Christensen’s appreciation of nature sometimes revealed her philosophical espousal of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s views in his essay “Nature.” At other times she ventured directly into local politics, taking a conservationist stance. “All good citizens should rally to rescue what we have left of wayside trees and shrubs or soon we shall have no coverts left for the birds,” she wrote at the end of one column. Through the Civic League, Abbie could unite with like-minded white women. Yet, in 1910, local politicians largely ignored the nonvoting women of the league. As she wrote dryly in her diary, “after the meeting ten of us went to interview the Intendant about the protection of grass and trees and still more of horses. He, prudently, was not at home.”25 Christensen appeared in public within the collective of the Civic League when the group compiled signatures on a petition to ask county and state authorities to enforce the laws protecting roadside trees and flowers. They also requested that the town join them in a tree-planting program. Christensen and the league succeeded in maintaining a public fountain for the town’s horses, introducing nature study in the white public schools, supporting public health measures, hosting conservation speakers, and designing a new cemetery. Though some Beaufort residents probably considered the women’s efforts trivial or at worst “meddling,” Christensen’s public persona as a conservationist remained within the accepted boundaries of southern womanhood.26 24. AHC, “An April Stroller,” Apr. 19, 1906; “The Stroller in May,” May 24, 1906; “The Stroller in March,” March 28, 1907; “The April Stroller,” Apr. 25, 1907; “The Stroller in June,” July 4, 1907; “The December Stroller,” Dec. 26, 1907, all in Beaufort Gazette; India Shanklin to AHC, Oct. 4, 1921; AHC, “A Stroller in Beaufort Fields and Gardens,” c. 1910, both in CFP, SCL. 25. Christensen, “The Stroller in March” and “The Stroller in February,” in “A Stroller”; AHC 1910 diary, Nov. 16, Dec. 14, 1910, CFP, SCL. 26. “Civic League asks for Prosecutions,” Nov. 2, 1905; “A Little Housecleaning,” Sept. 13, 1906; “The Work of Beaufort’s Civic League,” Feb. 21, 1907; “The Court House Fountain,” June 20, 1907; “A Lawn Party,” Apr. 30, 1914; “Trees Wanted,” Jan. 8, 1915; “Regular Meeting of the Civic League,” “Cemetery Work Progressing,” Feb. 11, 1915,

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In Beaufort, where half of the town’s residents were black, creating civic improvements for whites only exacerbated the inequity already apparent in daily life. Not only blacks, but also less-well-connected white women felt excluded when the men on the town council agreed to build a library for whites on the site of a public park donated to the town by the Civic League. A few members of the league felt slighted that they had not been consulted about the change. In response, Abbie wrote a letter to the editor of the Beaufort Gazette, arguing that a library would “beautify” the park. Library proponents prevailed but not without hard feelings on the part of those who opposed them—a few Civic League members and African Americans, who were taxed but excluded from borrowing privileges. Abbie made no public comment on this racial exclusion, though she must have been aware of it. In this case, Christensen was in sync with white women maternalists who supported segregation.27 Rather than fighting Jim Crowism, Christensen supported separate facilities for African Americans when they were excluded from whites-only services. For example, because gaining African Americans access to books and libraries was a continuing struggle, Christensen contributed to the formation of a black church’s “reading room.” Unfortunately, the resources available there could not compare to the number and variety of books in the white public library.28 Despite the small victories achieved through the voluntary efforts of the Civic League, Christensen continued to believe the real answer to local problems was woman suffrage. “[I]t makes me sick at heart to see how much needs doing that we ladies cannot do, and how little interest the men show in [Beaufort]. The place looks so rough and neglected, it is pitiful,” she wrote.29 In the 1910s, her daughter Andrea Christensen Patterson and her sons Niels and Frederik stepped up as leaders of the South Carolina revival of the woman suffrage campaign. As she had done in the 1890s all in Beaufort Gazette; “Civic League Urges Tree Preservation,” ms, n.d.; Mary Cutler to AHC, March 15, 1912; AHC 1912 diary, March 1, 1912, all in CFP, SCL. 27. AHC, “To the Editor of the Beaufort Gazette,” July 27, 1915; AHC 1915 diary, Nov. 11, 1915; Nancy Stratton Christensen to AHC, n.d.; Frederik Holmes Christensen to AHC, Sept. 5, 1915, all in CFP, SCL; “Public Library Building Proposed,” Beaufort Gazette, Jan. 28, 1915; “Clover Club Library,” 1914, clipping, Clover Club Papers, Beaufort County Library, Beaufort, S.C. 28. Paul Watson to AHC, Aug. 21, 1897, CFP, SCL; “Of Interest to Our Colored Readers,” Beaufort Gazette, Feb. 11, 1904; “Beaufort County Library History,” typed manuscript; Courtney Siceloff to Ethelyn Walker, Sept. 13, 1958; Hillary Barnwell, “ ‘Book Outposts’ became Bookmobile,” Beaufort Gazette, Apr. 19, 1985, clipping, all in Beaufort County Library, Beaufort, S.C. 29. AHC to Arthur Olaf Christensen, Feb. 23, 1915 (courtesy of Paul Sommerville, Beaufort, S.C.); Wheeler, New Women of the New South, 20.

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with Virginia Young, Christensen remained a relatively quiet supporter. She stood behind the feminist and maternalist aims of the South Carolina Equal Suffrage League (SCESL), which she and other clubwomen founded in Spartanburg in 1914. The SCESL called for equal guardianship of children, equal pay for equal work, equal educational opportunities, the raising of the age of consent for girls from fourteen to twenty-one, compulsory education, an end to the double standard of sexual morality, the outlawing of child labor, and the promotion of temperance and international arbitration. During this time, however, Christensen strayed from maternalist rhetoric, revealing instead her keen awareness of current events, including the traditionally masculine world of foreign policy. A newspaper story on the first SCESL convention mentions that Abbie Christensen contributed a resolution supporting President Woodrow Wilson’s use of military force in “the Mexican trouble.” This distinctly unmaternalist resolution seemed to negate the SCESL’s stance in favor of international arbitration, but no one appeared concerned about this contradiction. Wilson himself took contradictory positions in the different policies he practiced toward European and non-European peoples. Like most white southern progressives, Christensen did not criticize the president’s racism.30 Indeed, most South Carolina suffragists avoided the topic of race. The southern strategy of the National American Woman Suffrage Association was to let local chapters decide whether to admit blacks. In practice, this meant segregation prevailed. Although Christensen worked with African American women on other issues, she never included them in suffrage organizing. Her friend Laura Bragg mentioned “the Negro question” in a 1915 letter about suffrage activities, but Christensen’s reply is unknown. In this respect, Christensen did not step outside the boundaries respected by other white New South reformers. They did not challenge the racial order while fighting for suffrage, though some of them would join black women in the interracial movement when suffrage was achieved. Antisuffragists, on the other hand, were explicitly racist in their arguments, continually raising the threat to white supremacy in “the Negro question.”31 30. “Women Form Suffrage League Today Here” and “Women Will Meet in Bennettsville Next Year,” Spartanburg Journal and Carolina Spartan, May 15, 1914, CFP, SCL; Cole Blasier, The Hovering Giant: U.S. Responses to Revolutionary Change in Latin America, rev. ed. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985), 101–8. 31. Laura Bragg to AHC, June 23, Aug. 31, 1915; AHC 1920 diary, May 23, 26, 1920, all in CFP, SCL; Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, African American Women in the Struggle for the Vote, 1850–1920 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), 118–35; Aileen Kraditor, The Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement, 1890–1920 (1965; reprint, New York: Norton,

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Although the SCESL spread throughout the state, the suffrage fight was an uphill battle in conservative South Carolina, and Beaufort was no exception. Only ten women attended a meeting Christensen hosted in 1914 to discuss the new state league. Of these ten, only Abbie’s daughter-in-law, Nancy Stratton Christensen, and two visitors from Colorado were thoroughgoing suffragists. By 1915, Mabel Runette, a young Beaufort milliner and later the town librarian, led Beaufort’s group of about a dozen suffragists. Christensen was her staunch supporter. Tapping into the statewide organization, Abbie invited Hannah Coleman, the president of the SCESL, to town in 1915. Coleman had to squeeze her suffrage speech in between performances by a magician and a humorist during the town Chautauqua. Approximately twenty-five women and men out of an audience of two hundred stood up to proclaim that they were suffrage supporters. Still Christensen kept trying. Making use of her standing as a socially prominent middle-class “lady,” Christensen continued to drape her table with a yellow cloth (the woman suffrage color) when she entertained Beaufort women in 1917 to “talk suffrage.”32 In the 1910s, Christensen’s suffragist children received more attention than their mother. When they were young, Christensen had taken her children to woman suffrage events in Massachusetts, and most of them stuck to the cause. Frederik wrote pro-woman-suffrage editorials in the Beaufort Gazette, while Andrea became vice president of the SCESL. Because Niels was a state senator, Christensen’s best method for reaching the South Carolina legislature was the indirect means of “influence,” which traditionalists had always touted as women’s avenue to power. In 1918, at the convention of the South Carolina Democratic Party, Niels Christensen proposed a resolution to allow women to vote in the primary election. The resolution was rejected. Undaunted, in 1920, Senator Christensen introduced another resolution to ratify the proposed Federal Suffrage Amendment. Again his committee reported unfavorably. When the matter came before the senate, there were ninety-three votes against woman suffrage and twenty for it. In the case of woman suffrage, Christensen did not stress 1981), 163–218; Suzanne Lebsock, “Woman Suffrage and White Supremacy: A Virginia Case Study,” Visible Women, 62–100. 32. Sidney Bland, “Fighting the Odds: Militant Suffragists in South Carolina,” South Carolina Historical Magazine 82 (Jan. 1981): 32–33; Antoinette Elizabeth Taylor, “South Carolina and the Enfranchisement of Women: The Later Years,” South Carolina Historical Magazine 80 (l979): 298–310; Elna Green, Southern Strategies: Southern Women and the Woman Suffrage Question (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997); “A Lawn Party,” Beaufort Gazette, Apr. 30, 1914; Frederik Holmes Christensen Diary, vol. 12, June 9, 1914, Apr. 23, 1915, SCL; AHC 1915 diary, Apr. 23, Nov. 16, Dec. 8, 1915; AHC 1916 diary, June 12, 1916; AHC 1917 diary, Feb. 25, 1917, all in CFP, SCL.

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maternalist rhetoric; rather, she used her influence as the mother of politically active children to further the cause in South Carolina.33 Although Christensen was a faithful supporter and follower in the suffrage fight, perhaps her identity as a northern outsider kept her from playing a leading role. On the other hand, perhaps she was disinclined to do so because of her age or other reasons, for it is evident that another northern woman, Rossa Cooley, was able to be both a principal at a black school on St. Helena Island near Beaufort and an officer in the South Carolina Federation of Women’s Clubs. Cooley’s racial maternalism was accepted by white southern clubwomen who were not so inclined to the combative party politics of race and sex which Christensen encountered in her son’s conflicts with Cole Blease.34 In the 1920s and 1930s, Christensen’s racial maternalism changed with the times to follow a slowly rising tide of white southern racial liberalism. In 1931, she joined the South Carolina branch of the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching (ASWPL). As Jacquelyn Dowd Hall has argued, a chief significance of the ASWPL was the way it enabled white women to break the nexus of sex and race in which white women were taught to fear black men as rapists and look to white men for protection. Women took on the role of protectors themselves and tried to pressure “their” men not to engage in lynchings. The ASWPL fit Christensen’s earlier maternalism in that it offered help to blacks through a separate organization of white women. Finally, in 1932 Christensen entered party politics as a delegate for Norman Thomas, the American Socialist Party’s candidate for president. No longer using specifically maternalist rhetoric, Christensen argued that Thomas was “the only man capable of bringing . . . much needed change” in the way that the state took care of human needs. In the years that followed, Christensen’s health slowly failed, and she died in 1938 at the age of eighty-six, leaving behind the legacy of her writings and the school she had founded.35 33. Frederik Holmes Christensen Diary, Vol. 12, Feb. 7, 1915, SCL; “Why We are Suffragists,” Beaufort Gazette, July 9, 1915; NC to AHC, Dec. 1914; Frederik Holmes Christensen to AHC, July 4, 1915; AHC 1915 diary, Oct. 16, 1915; Nancy Stratton Christensen to AHC, n.d.; Andrea Christensen Patterson to AHC, Feb. 17, May 2, 1919, Oct. 27, 1920; Lawrence Patterson to AHC, Apr. 30, 1919; Abby Winch Christensen to AHC, May 23, 29, 1914, all in CFP, SCL; Ida Husted Harper et al., History of Woman Suffrage (1922; reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1969), 6:583–84. 34. Harper, History of Woman Suffrage, 6:580; Jacoway, Yankee Missionaries, 91. 35. Frederik Holmes Christensen Diary, vol. 14, Feb. 1, 1925, Apr. 8, 1928, June 1, 1930, Feb. 7, 1932, May 22, 1932, Oct. 15, 1933, all in SCL; AHC 1920 diary, May 23, 1920; AHC 1921–22 diary, June 16, 1922; Clelia McGowan to AHC, Aug. 31, 1931; Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching, “Resolutions deploring

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In different ways, Abbie Holmes Christensen, a northern outsider, adapted herself to the shifting ideologies of gender and race prevailing in the New South, sometimes going so far as to duck completely behind the scenes. As an author, Christensen was a white interpreter of black culture with an ambiguous regional and gender identity. In the North, Christensen’s racial maternalism was that of a dutiful mother who happened to notice the needs of children outside her family. In the South, she learned that her identity as a white woman associated with a black school could be risky when she ran afoul of party politics dominated by men. When she worked with southern white clubwomen and suffragists, however, Christensen joined into their maternalist agenda with no apparent discomfort. Although she only had a small role in the southern women’s campaign against lynching, Christensen shared many values with the white Methodist women leaders who felt called to this and other missions to the black community. Through a careful deployment of notions of maternalism shared by North and South, Christensen found a place in southern public life.

lynching and looking to its prevention,” Jan.–Apr. 30, 1931, typed manuscript; “Beaufort Woman of Eighty to Support Norman Thomas,” ca. 1932, clipping, CFP, SCL; Hall, Revolt against Chivalry, 129–253.

S ID N E Y R . B L A N D

Promoting Tradition, Embracing Change The Poppenheim Sisters of Charleston

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EW NEW SOUTH WOMEN RIVAL MARY BARNETT POPPENHEIM

(1866–1936) and Louisa Bouknight Poppenheim (1868–1957) of Charleston, South Carolina, in longevity of club work and influence on city, state, region, and nation. The sisters would eventually total almost one hundred years of service, belonging at one time or another to practically every women’s group in Charleston. Although they devoted themselves primarily to the Charleston City and South Carolina Federation of Women’s Clubs (SCFWC) and the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), it was in the women’s club movement and service to the Lost Cause, the movement perpetuating the memory of the Confederacy, that their most enduring contributions were made. Both ascended to exalted positions in major national women’s organizations, and their achievements would be lauded by the media and government and by countless women inspired by their dedication and commitment to honoring the heritage of the South and, at the same time, to generating social change for community and woman’s advancement. Southern women such as the Poppenheim sisters found the road from pedestal to public activism more circuitous than did their northern counterparts, and it was fraught with pitfalls. All who took this path performed a balancing act as they negotiated the shifting currents of tradition and change, and, in the process, they developed enhanced perceptions of self and gender and a keen sense of mission. Although American women had a long history of participation in benevolent societies and voluntary associations, dating back to well before the Civil War, and had effected political change by operating in the public sphere in two major nineteenth-century crusades—abolition and temperance—they were not expected to defy the powerful forces of tradition or stray too far from the “cult of true womanhood.” “The whole time of the noble, affectionate, and true woman is required in the discharge of 179

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the delicate and difficult duties assigned her in the family circle, in her church relations and in the society where her lot is cast,” intoned Senator Joseph Brown of Georgia in an 1887 speech pinpointing woman’s designated place. For those who dared to challenge rules writ in such bold lettering and pursue what the first woman’s club of New Orleans called “the irresistible spirit” of a new age, criticism and ridicule would surely follow. Historian Dewey Grantham states that southern progressivism is all about a reconciliation of progress and tradition. Indeed, it has been argued that Progressive Era reformers were not so much seeking to bring about radical societal change as they were trying to bring under control changes that were already taking place in American life.1 Because the cultural image of the lady was so powerful and long-lasting, those southern women seeking social innovation and political emancipation had to assume “various protective colorations” to safeguard their pursuits, often apprenticing in outwardly safe associations before venturing into club work and suffrage activity. Like Mary and Louisa Poppenheim, most women were attracted to the club movement because of its moderation and concern over matters traditionally the domain of women. The church as agent of change also made the cause of reform respectable and suitable for women’s involvement, especially in its concerns about temperance and the downtrodden. Indeed, most southern women only emerged into the public sphere after years of involvement in church associations and the “home and foreign mission movement.” Still, for southern women, entering the world of social reform was an act of courage. Rebecca Latimer Felton, a champion of penal reform, prohibition, and woman suffrage in Georgia in the early twentieth century, recalled countless “taunts and slanders and covert insinuations.” “How many sneers were leveled at me, I perhaps will never know,” she said, “but, as I look back at the struggles of that early period, I almost tremble to remember that I was the target of such entrenched power and influence.”2 1. Quoted in Anne Firor Scott, The Southern Lady: From Pedestal to Politics, 1830–1930 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1995), 167. Southern Lady, published in 1970, contained the earliest and clearest patterns charting southern women’s public involvement. Anne Firor Scott, “The ‘New Woman’ in the New South,” in Making the Invisible Woman Visible (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1984), 220–21; Dewey Grantham, Southern Progressivism: The Reconciliation of Progress and Tradition (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1983). Grantham maintains that southern progressivism was “a wideranging but loosely coordinated attempt to modernize the South and to humanize its institutions without abandoning its more desirable values and traditions” (xvi). For a relatively recent look at reformers in general in the Victorian era, with temperance as a focal point, see Gail S. Lowe, “A Bio-Bibliography of American Reformers, 1865–1917, with a Case Study of Temperance-Prohibition” (Ph.D. diss., George Washington University, 1992). 2. Karen Blair, The Clubwoman as Feminist: True Womanhood Redefined, 1868–1914 (New York: Holmes and Meier Publishers, 1980), 117–20. Blair contends that women’s

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Southern women who challenged tradition and made an imprint on New South history possessed common characteristics. Most, like Louisa and Mary Poppenheim, had impeccable family credentials. Women of talents with a desire to use them, they were religious, respectable, and careful to preserve the image of the southern lady at the same time they moved beyond it. Increased leisure, travel (the Poppenheim sisters regularly accompanied their mother to Europe during the summer months), and the widening circles of their various organizations put them in contact with magnetic leaders and larger social reform currents. Southern industrial expositions such as those in New Orleans in 1884 and Atlanta in 1895, like national exhibitions, were consciousness-raising experiences that generated networking opportunities and allowed women to celebrate their achievements. They also changed women’s lives. After serving as one of the state’s “lady managers” at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, Sallie Southall Cotton of Greenville, graduate of Greensboro Female College and mother of seven (two other children had died in infancy), returned to North Carolina sympathetic to the cause of women’s social, professional, and political advancement and spent the next three and a half decades of her life a crusading reformer in the woman’s club movement.3 The Poppenheim sisters fit this mold. An assortment of other unique variables dovetailed together, however, enabling Mary and Louisa Poppenheim to carve out their own distinctive definitions of southern womanhood and navigate more successfully than many other New South women between the worlds of tradition and change. At the heart of the Poppenheim world was their southernness; they both tenaciously held to that identity and sought to modify and reshape it. Never marrying and only apart for one year of their lives (when Mary preceded Louisa in college), the sisters had a symbiotic relationship. They drew strength from each other and from their mother, who remained an integral part of their club and personal lives until her death in the fall of 1915. Recognizing the paradox of conservatism and progressivism inherent in the public and private lives clubs promoted autonomy without completely challenging gender conventions and as such were an important stage in the history of feminism. See especially Anne Firor Scott, “Women, Religion and Social Change in the South, 1830–1930,” in Making the Invisible Woman Visible, 190–211; and John Patrick McDowell, The Social Gospel in the South: The Woman’s Home Mission Movement in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 1886–1939 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982). Rebecca L. Felton to Mrs. Angsley, Oct. 3, 1910, Mrs. William H. Felton Collection, University of Georgia Library, cited in Grantham, Southern Progressivism, 200. 3. Scott, Southern Lady, 157–58. For a brief biography of this significant southern clubwoman see William Stephenson, Sallie Southall Cotton, a Woman’s Life in North Carolina (Greenville, N.C.: Pamlico, 1987). See also Anastatia Sims, “Sallie Southall Cotton and the North Carolina Federation of Women’s Clubs” (master’s thesis, University of North Carolina, 1976).

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of herself and her sister, Louisa Poppenheim intimated it stemmed from her mother’s feeling that “devotion to the past should mean something for the future.” It was her mother, Louisa often said, who “taught us that whatever we had we must share with our community.”4 Ancestral prominence and aristocratic connections helped temper southern women’s radicalism and insured that their reform causes were not summarily dismissed. The Poppenheim lineage was impressive. The first of five generations had emigrated from Bavaria and Ireland prior to the American Revolution, a heritage proudly identified when the sisters became early members of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Pritchard and Hamilton ancestors were shipbuilders, settling in Charleston about 1740. Hessian Lewis Poppenheim stayed in the low country following the British defeat in the Revolution and became a planter. Descendants of the Poppenheims and the Bouknights (their mother’s family) flourished in the rice culture of Goose Creek off the Cooper River and remained planters into the twentieth century. The most distinguished family member, Dr. John Frederick Poppenheim, grandfather of the two sisters and a champion of women’s education, was a dominant force in the medical and political life of the low country.5 Poppenheims were members of the Episcopal church, a denomination long associated with South Carolina’s upper class and the values of hierarchy and social stability. The Civil War and their Confederate heritage were more significant in shaping the identity of Mary and Louisa Poppenheim than that of many other New South women who entered the public sphere. Their parents met, courted, and were married against the backdrop of a war in which they both participated: Christopher Poppenheim as a sergeant in several battles (his arm was shattered at Sharpsburg), Mary Elinor Bouknight Poppenheim as driving force in the Bethany (Church) Hospital and Soldiers’ Aid Association of Edgefield County. Five of Mrs. Poppenheim’s cousins 4. As historian Carroll Smith-Rosenberg has made clear in a seminal essay, women routinely formed close emotional ties with other women in a vital sharing of space and experience. “Central to this female world,” she notes, “was an inner core of kin.” In a post–Civil War world where men were scarce, sisterhood provided the most important relationship for many southern women. “The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations between Women in Nineteenth-Century America,” Signs 1 (1975), 1–29. Clipping, n.d., Louisa Poppenheim file, South Carolina Historical Society (SCHS), Charleston. 5. Christopher Pritchard Poppenheim, The National Cyclopedia of American Biography, 17 (New York: James T. White & Company, 1927), 183; Mary Poppenheim, “Corrections: Glaze’s or Poppenheims,” South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine 19 (May 1928), 339–40. See also Henry A. M. Smith, “Goose Creek,” South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine 19 (Apr. 1928), 95–96, and Michael J. Heitzler, Historic Goose Creek, South Carolina 1670–1980 (Easley, S.C.: Southern Historical Press, 1983).

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served the Confederacy, and a brother was killed in battle. The Poppenheim sisters had much at stake in honoring the Lost Cause, and their pride in family, the Confederacy, and the southern heritage is manifest throughout their lives in all that they did.6 Education was another essential key of New South women. Christopher Poppenheim made a major break with family tradition when he abandoned the life of a rice planter and became a part of the merchant class of postwar Charleston, and his ensuing success as a hardware merchant insured that the Poppenheim sisters would enjoy the finest private schools and college. In 1877 he moved his growing family into a spacious preRevolutionary War mansion on the lower peninsula, where his daughters attended “the best equipped private school Charleston has ever known,” Henrietta Kelly’s Charleston Female Seminary. A defining moment came in 1865 when their mother read in Scribner’s Magazine of the opening of Vassar College and vowed that her four daughters one day would go there—and they did. They were reputedly the first women from the South to attend the elite northern woman’s college.7 The Vassar experience was critical in the lives of Mary and Louisa Poppenheim. It heightened their awareness and appreciation of their southernness while acquainting them with the realities of a larger world and expanding roles for women. At Vassar in the late 1880s, the two participated in literary clubs and theater and worked on college committees; each served as vice president and then president of the Students’ Association. 6. Christopher Pritchard Poppenheim and Mary Elinor Bouknight Poppenheim Letters, 1860–1865, SCHS; for some analysis of the Poppenheim courtship letters and wartime correspondence see Orville Vernon Burton, In My Father’s House Are Many Mansions: Family and Community in Edgefield, South Carolina (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985); Mary Bouknight Poppenheim, “Bethany Hospital and Soldiers’ Aid Association, Edgefield, S.C.”; Mrs. A. T. Smythe et al., eds., South Carolina Women in the Confederacy (Columbia: The State Company, 1903), 1, 67–68. Coverage of Confederate women’s aid associations can be found in Anne Firor Scott, Natural Allies: Women’s Associations in American History (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1991), 68–72. 7. Don Doyle, New Men, New Cities, New South: Atlanta, Nashville, Charleston, Mobile, 1860–1910 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990), among others, argues that old planter elites, more present in Charleston than in other key New South cities, opposed extensive economic development, contributing substantially to the sluggish economy and Old South character that characterized Charleston for decades. Louisa Poppenheim, “Outstanding Women in Education Such as Dr. Blanding, Martha Berry and N. E. A. Leaders,” n.d., Century Club Papers, SCHS. The guide to the Louisa Bouknight Poppenheim and Mary Barnett Poppenheim Papers, Perkins Library, Duke University (hereinafter referred to as Poppenheim Papers, Duke) cited them as the first southerners to attend Vassar. Agnes Rogers, Vassar Women: An Informal Study (New York: Vassar College, 1940), 29–30, noted that in 1865 2.9 percent of the student body (six students) were southern girls.

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Mary and Louisa Poppenheim acquired a deep appreciation of the liberal arts, developed and honed leadership skills, and achieved a sense of purpose for their lives. In her regular correspondence, however, Mrs. Poppenheim never let her daughters stray too far from their southern identity and values. Indeed, she had palmetto trees shipped north so that her daughters could experience commencement under the South Carolina state tree. Ida and Christie Poppenheim followed their two older sisters to Vassar and started a Southern Club on campus. Mary and Louisa Poppenheim maintained an undying love of their alma mater, and at her Meeting Street home in Charleston over the years Louisa was said to have entertained several college presidents, deans, and “every Vassar person who came to town. Every alumna was her care.” The Vassar years of Louisa and Mary Poppenheim fostered a closeness to and dependence on each other, and they kept alive their own college experience and that of others of their social class as founders and lifeblood of the Intercollegiate Club, a South Carolina low-country sisterhood of graduates of “prestigious” northern colleges.8 After graduation, the sisters returned to Charleston, but with limited professional options as female college graduates and marriage not in the offing, Louisa and Mary Poppenheim turned to women’s organizations for personal fulfillment and betterment of their community. The move coincided with an explosion of women’s public activity at the turn of the twentieth century and the evolution of the “new woman.” Numerous women’s associations formed. Some, like the National Council of Jewish Women (1893), were special-interest groups. Concerns over the lot of the working woman led to creation of the National Consumers’ League (1899) and the Women’s Trade Union League (1903). Pressure groups like the National Congress of Mothers (1897) and the American Home Economics Association (1908) dedicated themselves to the protection of the home and the ennoblement of the homemaker. Other women such as nurses and educators formed professional associations. Before the Progres8. Mrs. Mary Poppenheim to Mary and Louisa Poppenheim, Feb. 14, 1887, Poppenheim Papers, Duke; Mrs. Mary Poppenheim to Mary Poppenheim, Sept. 30, 1883, Poppenheim Papers, Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina (hereinafter referred to as Poppenheim Papers, USC). The above two repositories contain extensive correspondence between the parents and daughters during the Vassar College years. Marion Murdock to Editor, Charleston News and Courier (hereinafter cited as NC ), March 7, 1957; Vassarion, 1888 and 1889, Special Collections, Vassar College Library, detail the extensive class involvement of Mary and Louisa Poppenheim in their senior years. I am indebted to Nancy MacKechnie and Melissa O’Donnell, Special Collections, for assistance in furnishing photocopies of materials relating to Vassar College history and the Poppenheim sisters’ college days.

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sive Era ended, a spate of national women’s organizations were involved in myriad social causes. New women were soon a phenomenon in the New South, and the Poppenheim sisters were part of the growing numbers of women edging into public activism. Such women were first visible in Soldiers’ Aid Societies, Home Mission Societies, Literary and Self-Improvement Clubs, and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, groups not likely to be targeted by hostile critics. In the 1890s thousands more joined hereditary and preservation groups such as the Colonial Dames, the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Others flocked to settlement houses and women’s clubs, becoming “municipal housekeepers” in an urbanized, industrialized America. Nor was southern progressivism simply a “whites only” movement as valuable recent scholarship such as that of Glenda Gilmore makes clear. Suffrage ranks soon swelled to record highs as the primary argument for the franchise shifted from a natural rights thrust to an expediency argument and society recognized the value of women’s aid in solving America’s social ills. The “new women” of the New South paralleled their sisters across the nation in that most were college educated, urban, and elite socially and economically.9 Mary and Louisa Poppenheim immersed themselves in both new and established associations in Charleston and the low country. They founded the Century (Literary) Club (now in its second century) and the Civic Club. They held membership in the Ladies’ Memorial Association, the Woman’s Exchange, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Young Women’s Christian Association, and the South Carolina Audubon Society (founded by their sister Christie). Active in civic affairs in city and state, Louisa Poppenheim headed the Charleston Playground Commission after World War I, served on the South Carolina Child Labor Committee and Rural School Improvement Association, and represented Charleston at several national and state Conferences of Charities and Corrections.10 The sisters reserved most of their energies for the local, regional, and 9. The movement of southern women from parlor to political arena is effectively covered in Marjorie Spruill Wheeler, New Women of the New South: The Leaders of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the Southern States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); and Anastatia Sims, The Power of Femininity in the New South: Women’s Organizations and Politics in North Carolina, 1880–1930 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1997). Glenda Gilmore fashioned an impressive study of black female activism in Gender and Jim Crow: Women and the Politics of White Supremacy in North Carolina, 1896–1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996). 10. Barbara J. Ellison, “Louisa Poppenheim: ‘Citizen of Charleston,’ ” NC, July 12, 1964; Mirian B. Page, “Our Grand Lady of the Federation,” The South Carolina Clubwoman, 6 no. 1 (Jan. 1950), 11, 22; Sidney R. Bland, “Louisa Poppenheim: South Carolina’s Pioneer Club Woman,” Carologue (autumn 1995), 3, 19. See also obituaries in

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national federations of women’s clubs and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. As head of the City Federation of Women’s Clubs for nine years in the early twentieth century, Louisa Poppenheim sought to advance the status of women and played an important role in the admission of women to the College of Charleston, their appointment to the board of education and the playground commission, and the initiation of domestic science departments in the local schools. In a highly publicized effort, Louisa Poppenheim spearheaded a campaign lasting several years in which she and several federation members made regular visits to prisons and alms houses; as a result, women were appointed matrons in the Charleston city and county jails. A cofounder of the South Carolina Federation of Women’s Clubs, Louisa Poppenheim never missed a state convention and chaired most of the state federation committees at one time or another. During her presidency (1900–1902) the federation launched the compulsory-education movement, created an Industrial School for Wayward Boys, and secured scholarships for needy students from state women’s colleges. She long remained committed to the concept of traveling libraries, whereby cases of fifty to one hundred books were transported throughout the state to become the nucleus for local or school libraries. Three such “libraries” bore her name. Poppenheim was the unofficial historian of the South Carolina Federation, and her records make up the bulk of the organization’s archival holdings at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina.11 Louisa Poppenheim was among the pioneers who launched the General Federation of Women’s Clubs (GFWC) in the 1890s and served as corresponding secretary, then as a board member, and later as honorary vice president of the national organization. The exclusive core of GFWC founders constituted the Society of Pioneers, and Poppenheim was a regular at annual meetings, where the group renewed its loyalty and commitment. Louisa Poppenheim championed the equivalent of Rhodes scholarships for women during her years of involvement with the Society of American Women in London. Chairman of the international relations committee of the South Carolina Federation between the two world wars, she furthered national woman’s club initiatives for global awareness, world NC and Charleston Evening Post (hereinafter cited as Evening Post ), March 5, 1957. For Mary Poppenheim see Confederate Veteran, 25 no. 6 (July 1917), 282; Laura C. Hemingway, “South Carolina Club Leaders: Miss Mary B. Poppenheim,” NC, Feb. 8, 1931. An obituary can be found in NC, Feb. 13, 1936. 11. South Carolina Federation of Women’s Clubs Papers, Winthrop University Archives, Rock Hill, South Carolina.

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peace, and membership in the World Court. The South Carolina General Assembly lauded the achievements of Louisa Poppenheim upon her death in 1957, and she was among the initial inductees into the South Carolina Federation of Women’s Clubs Hall of Fame.12 Discussion over women joining clubs and organizations and their everexpanding public roles in “social housekeeping” reached a peak as Louisa Poppenheim and her sister Mary intensified their club commitments in the early years of the new century. A debate ensued for months in national periodicals following a celebrated 1904 order by Sarah Platt Decker, General Federation of Women’s Club president under whom Louisa Poppenheim acted as national corresponding secretary. Decker commanded her legions to lay aside Dante and get busy in their local infernos, a directive to which countless club regulars like the Poppenheims responded positively. Former president Grover Cleveland was among those cautioning women about the “temptations,” “untoward influences,” and “dangers of the club habit.” In two controversial and largely negative articles in the 1905 Ladies Home Journal, Cleveland concluded, “I would have them [women] disinterested and trusting. . . . I would have them happy and contented in following the Divinely appointed path of true womanhood.”13 During the period that Louisa Poppenheim immersed herself in the woman’s club movement, her older sister Mary made her mark in the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Founded in 1894, the UDC quickly became a powerful force as southerners turned from mourning the dead and rationalizing the Civil War to celebrating the Confederacy and its values. Mary Poppenheim was a charter member of the Charleston branch of the UDC, created soon after the national organization was formed. By the late nineteenth century, political, cultural, and economic elites had reclaimed regional power and had begun to erect public landmarks celebrating the glory days of the Old South while shaping public life and public memory in the New South. As its membership escalated in the Progressive period, reaching approximately seventy thousand by 1920, the 12. “Miss Louisa Poppenheim,” The South Carolina Clubwoman, 4 no. 3 (March 1948), 3–4, 20; Page, “Our Grand Lady,” 11; Jean Bosworth, “Miss Louisa B. Poppenheim, Clubwoman, to be Honored When City Federation of Women’s Clubs Marks Golden Anniversary,” Evening Post, Jan. 21, 1949; Confederate Veteran, 25 no. 6 (July 1917), 282. 13. Grover Cleveland, “Woman’s Mission and Woman’s Clubs,” Ladies Home Journal, 22 no. 6 (May 1905), 3–4; “Would Woman Suffrage Be Unwise?” 22 no. 11 (Oct. 1905), 7–8. See Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature between 1890–1920 for examples of women’s expanding club involvement. For an assessment of the career of Sarah Platt Decker, see Clifford E. Rinehart, “Sarah Sophia Chase Platt Decker,” in Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary, ed. Edward T. James, Janet Wilson James, and Paul S. Boyer (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 1:451–52.

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United Daughters of the Confederacy embarked on educating the young with a messianic zeal, insuring that southern schools utilized only those histories that were “just” and “true.” Mary Poppenheim’s early years in the UDC were devoted to the organization’s educational goals, serving as historian of the Charleston and South Carolina UDCs (Poppenheim initiated the position at the state level and held it from 1899 to 1905) and promoting the existence and dissemination of “accurate” histories of the South and the Civil War to schools.14 Mary Poppenheim was state UDC president from 1905 to 1907. She led the campaign for funds for the Shiloh battlefield monument, and thanks to her aggressive efforts, only two other southern states contributed more to that cause than South Carolina. Poppenheim then led the national UDC committee on education for almost a decade. For that service the UDC created a five thousand dollar scholarship for gifted southern girls at her alma mater, Vassar College, and then accorded her its highest honor— naming her president-general, a position she held from 1917 to 1919. Poppenheim coordinated the UDC’s endeavors in support of World War I and established educational endowment funds to honor Confederate descendants, including those who served in World War I. With the aid of the family of a French nobleman who had aided the Confederacy, General de Polignac, sometimes referred to as “the Lafayette of the South,” Mary Poppenheim organized a branch of the UDC in Paris to salute his service to a glorious cause.15 History was central to much of Mary Poppenheim’s UDC work. Her keen love of American history had been fueled by studying at Vassar under the legendary professor Lucy Salmon. Besides serving as historian for the UDC at every level, Mary Poppenheim pioneered promoting “historical evenings” at the organization’s state conventions, and she encouraged the reading of historical papers at club meetings. An editorial on her death in 14. For a good survey of Confederate monument-building in North Carolina see Catherine Bashir, “Landmarks of Power: Building a Southern Past, 1885–1915,” Southern Cultures, 1 no. 1 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1993), 5–45. Gaines Foster, Ghosts of the Confederacy: Defeat, the Lost Cause, and the Emergence of the New South, 1865–1913 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987). For a thorough study of women and the Lost Cause see Karen Cox, “Women, the Lost Cause and the New South: The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Transmission of Confederate Culture 1894–1919” (Ph.D. diss., University of Southern Mississippi, 1997). A good local study of the UDC is Angie Parrott, “Love Makes Memory Eternal: The United Daughters of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia,” in The Edge of the South: Life in Nineteenth-Century Virginia, ed. Edward L. Ayers and John C. Willis (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1991), 220–38. 15. NC, Feb. 13, 1936; The United Daughters of the Confederacy Magazine, 10 no. 9 (Sept. 1947), 11; Vassar (College) Alumnae Magazine, May 15, 1936.

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1936 expressed regret that she had never pursued a career in politics. Touting Poppenheim’s indispensable role in and “scholar’s love” of preserving the glorious past of the Palmetto State, the Charleston News and Courier proclaimed her “intellectual training and experience superior” to men who had served in state politics since passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.16 For Mary and Louisa Poppenheim the writing, promotion, and preservation of history shaped their lives and identities in the New South. Their activism in the public sphere was legitimized in no small way by their manifest love of the southern past, its values and traditions. Mary Poppenheim lovingly coedited South Carolina Women in the Confederacy (1903) as well as a multivolume history of the UDC. She insisted that her mother’s “Personal Experiences with Sherman’s Army at Liberty Hill” and her service with the Bethany Hospital and Soldiers’ Aid Association be included in South Carolina Women, joining mother and daughter in promotion of the Lost Cause. Mary Poppenheim was coauthor of Heroes in Gray (1909), a volume of “truthful and just history” for the young generated by observance of the centennial of the births of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis in 1907 and 1908, respectively. Several pages on Lee’s faithful horse Traveler accompanied lengthy sketches of key Confederate officers. Mary Poppenheim contributed a chapter on the “stormy” history of Fort Sumter. She was on the publication board of the UDC-sponsored Women of the South in War Times (1920), written by Matthew Page Arnold, which contained an excerpted version of her mother’s wartime remembrances. Mary Poppenheim was one of the first five women admitted to membership in the South Carolina Historical Society, joining in 1899.17 Louisa Poppenheim celebrated the Confederate heritage as well and saw honoring the past as a way of inspiring the clubwomen of the early twentieth century. Her lengthy, “able and entertaining” address on the character and career of Jefferson Davis, read at the reunion of Confederate veterans in Richmond in 1896, was deemed worthy of reprint in the Confederate Veteran. Proudly proclaiming that the women of the South “have contributed largely to the social and economic building of the Nation,” Louisa Poppenheim challenged the women of the Progressive Era to look to the heritage of their foremothers. “As they look out into the misty morning 16. Louise Fargo Brown, Apostle of Democracy: The Life of Lucy Maynard Salmon (New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1943); Confederate Veteran, 25 no. 6 (July 1917), 282; NC, Feb. 13, 14, 1936. 17. Mrs. A. T. Smythe et al., eds., South Carolina Women in the Confederacy (Columbia: The State Company, 1903); Mary B. Poppenheim et al., eds., The History of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, 1, 1894–1929, 2, 1930–1955 (Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton Company, 1929 and 1956); Samuel W. Sherrill, Heroes in Gray (Nashville: Claude G. Bell, 1909).

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of the future they receive fresh courage from the prestige of the past, for they believe that inspiration for the future can be secured through the contemplation of the past,” she concluded her essay “Woman’s Work in the South” in a multivolume history titled The South in the Building of the Nation.18 Louisa and Mary Poppenheim proved themselves daughters of the Old South and shapers of the New through another means, the Keystone, a monthly journal published out of their home from 1899 to 1913. Launched to coincide with the explosion of women’s club work in Charleston and the South, the Keystone covered the activities of several southern state federations, but it also regularly carried news of the state UDC and the South Carolina Audubon Society. Literary critic and editor, Mary was the more creative force of the publishing enterprise, and she faithfully reported highlights of women’s activities nationwide. While Louisa regularly wrote book reviews and oversaw all club news, she also solicited advertisements and handled subscriptions and routinely referred to herself as “proprietor and business manager.” The entire family, plus butlers, maids, and their father’s hardware drayman, were a furious assembly team on publication day. The Keystone both defended the Old South and its image of the lady and pointed to a new southern lady for a new century. The Keystone could, and did, convey contradictory messages.19 Time and again the proprietors of the Keystone reminded the readership where their priorities lay. “We stand for the home, for patriotism, for the best interests of the school and the community; literature and the culture that raises life above a bare routine of the gratification of material needs is also a part of our field of endeavor,” declared an editorial published at the end of the journal’s seventh year as the sisters headed off for their usual summer travel abroad. “Our influence is pledged first for the South with its ideals, its principles and its traditions; then for the highest and best in all American life.” Celebrating with pride the fourteenth birthday of the Keystone in June 1912, a Poppenheim editorial observed that “our policy has been, and will continue to be, conservative along all the lines for which it stands.” A turn-of-the-century Keystone addressed the plea of the South Carolina Federation of Women’s Clubs that state clubs study civil service 18. Louisa B. Poppenheim, “A Tribute to Mr. Davis: Character and Career of the Confederate President,” Confederate Veteran, 4 no. 9 (Sept. 1896), 292–94; Poppenheim, “Woman’s Work in the South,” in History of the Social Life of the South, ed. S. C. Mitchell (Richmond: Southern Historical Publication Society, 1909), 622–37. 19. Louisa Poppenheim, “The Keystone Report-1906–07,” Minutes SCFWC, May 8, 1907, Winthrop; Keystone, June 1913; “The Clubwoman Salutes the Keystone,” (The South Carolina) Clubwoman, 4 no. 3 (March 1948), 4; Bosworth, “Louisa Poppenheim, Clubwoman.”

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reform with its own curt aside: “there is no idea of Politics in this suggestion.” Woman suffrage was a subject that was usually shunned, except for an occasional reminder to the readership that the question was not one that “enter[ed] into the plans of the great club movement in America . . . [which] has plenty to occupy its time and energy without assuming this great responsibility.”20 Like women’s club regulars throughout the South, the Poppenheim sisters defended chivalry, upheld white supremacy, and honored the Confederacy. Louisa Poppenheim’s leadership role in the formative years of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs helped insure its prosegregationist stance, and she was pleased with the decision of the GFWC at its 1902 biennial convention in Milwaukee not to admit “Negro Clubs.” A decision otherwise would have obligated her to follow instructions and withdraw South Carolina from the national federation. South Carolina clubwomen rarely targeted blacks in their social reform endeavors, and the Keystone generally ignored the race issue, choosing instead to highlight the achievements of white women’s voluntary organizations.21 When they became civic activists, Mary and Louisa Poppenheim focused primarily on issues affecting home and family. Their interest in education, child labor, health, safety, and family values linked them to traditional white maternalistic concerns and muted potential critics. What was most conclusive about white clubwomen in South Carolina, one recent scholar observed, was not their “progressive” behavior as reformers, but rather their ability to fuse southern identity construction with social reform work and to reconcile tradition with progress.22 As Barbara Welter noted in a seminal essay, however, “the very perfection of True Womanhood . . . carried within itself the seeds of its own destruction.” If woman “was so very little than the angels,” and possessed with superior virtues by nature and divine decree, then she should take a more active role in bettering her world.23 While they remained true to the ideals of purity and piety, the Poppenheim sisters significantly altered standard views of the other two tenets of the cult: submissiveness and domesticity. 20. Keystone, June 1906, 3, June 1912, 3, May 1900, 5, June 1912, 3. 21. For a thorough examination of the race question and South Carolina women’s groups, especially the South Carolina Federation of Women’s Clubs and the United Daughters of the Confederacy, see Joan Marie Johnson, “ ‘This Wonderful Dream Nation!’: Black and White South Carolina Women and the Creation of the New South, 1898–1930” (Ph.D. diss., University of California at Los Angeles, 1997), 230–74. 22. Ibid., 3. 23. Barbara Welter, “The Cult of True Womanhood, 1820–1860,” in Dimity Convictions: The American Woman in the Nineteenth Century (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1976), 41.

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In her years as leader and key force in the Century Club, and in the Charleston City and South Carolina Federations of Women’s Clubs, Louisa Poppenheim moved the memberships toward reform agendas they were not always comfortable in embracing. Charleston ladies attending literary gatherings during the Poppenheim presidency listened to papers on the origins of labor unions, the tariff and trust issues, immigration law, and the growth and meaning of socialism. At a 1908 meeting Louisa Poppenheim read a letter from National Consumers’ League Secretary Florence Kelley asking Century Club aid in securing protective labor legislation for women. At a 1913 gathering, following a presentation by a Dr. Scratchley of Philadelphia about the franchise, club minutes noted that “at the end of the meeting, although no vote was taken, the majority seemed to favor ‘Votes for Women.’ ” By the 1930s, however, the Century Club was exclusively a literary club once more, and it eventually severed its connections to the state and national federations of women’s clubs. Histories of the Century Club blot out its Progressiveera reform focus and with it an integral component of the legacy of Louisa Poppenheim.24 Mary and Louisa Poppenheim often belied the ideals of true womanhood in the pages of the Keystone. They sounded the theme of women as a force in history decades before Mary Beard’s magnum opus of the same title. “Power and force there seems to be aplenty among our modern women,” a 1913 editorial noted, “but has the woman with the finer social talent been doing her part in this great world-movement of women?” The Keystone always urged attendance at General Federation biennial meetings, where “the American Clubwoman can know herself” and develop her capabilities, and the modern student of sociology can study women as social housekeepers, “this great force in American life today.” Women of achievement often appeared in Charleston and were frequently hosted by the Poppenheims. An April 1910 Keystone advertised that noted suffragist and woman’s rights activist May Wright Sewall of Indianapolis would speak on the “Status of Woman at Home and Abroad” at the Freundshaftsbund Hall and two days later would join Dean Marion Talbot and social reformer Sophonisba Breckinridge of the University of Chicago for an Intercollegiate Club of South Carolina meeting at the Poppenheim mansion. 24. Minute Books, Century Club, SCHS; Century Club Papers, SCHS; Johnson, “Wonderful Dream Nation,” concluded that despite the encouragement and inspiration of women like Louisa Poppenheim, Sarah Visanka, and Emily Evans, “only a limited number of specific clubs, mostly civic clubs or city unions, and a few literary clubs, ever responded to the (reform) call . . . those who did respond may have been inspired by the rhetoric of the Poppenheims, who stressed their obligation to the South” (441).

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Reports on significant gatherings of women involved in reform and charities were standard fare in the Keystone.25 The journal also applauded female success in the business world, especially that of women from Charleston and the South. “Two plucky young Charleston girls, the Misses Rosenthal, are the proprietors of a store on King Street which would reflect credit on any town,” a February 1900 issue declared; “the bright, neat, comfortable store, with its optical parlors, dark room for developing photographs, should be patronized by our women.” An issue a short time later told the story of a “wonderful scientific bakery in Boston” owned and operated by South Carolinian Bertha Stevenson. After receiving a degree from Converse College, Stevenson did postgraduate work at Radcliffe, then three years of “special work” in chemistry, after which she and a Canadian friend opened a bakery in Cambridge. Specializing in “Samore bread,” the store featured white milk bread, entire wheat bread, entire wheat malted bread, bread sticks, sticks for soup, and tea sticks. Business boomed, reported the Keystone, and the Women’s Industrial and Educational Union of Boston purchased well over a hundred loaves of bread a day, which they supplied to Cambridge residents. “The Southern woman is successful on the platform or in the kitchen and is able to successfully theorize or to be practical, as the occasion demands,” stated the Poppenheims in blending regional identity with female entrepreneurial acumen and adaptability.26 Half of the ads in the first issue of the Keystone were for Charleston businesses operated by women. These included two private schools, a millinery shop, a boardinghouse featuring hot and cold artesian baths, and a beauty shop offering everything from the latest styles in waves and bangs and pompadour and empire side combs to harmless hair stains (all colors) and bleaches for removing tans and freckles.27 The Poppenheim sisters themselves stood as a business success story in their ownership and management of a journalistic enterprise for almost a decade and a half. They regarded the Keystone as an investment and their personal property, and when their mother’s failing health forced them to stop publishing, Louisa refused to allow the journal to become the 25. Keystone, Apr. 1913, 3, Oct. 1908, 3, Apr. 1910, 4. See, for example, ibid., Jan. 1903, 3. Detailed coverage of the annual meeting of the National Civil Service Reform League noted that Vassar’s Lucy Salmon was among those presenting papers. The Poppenheims highlighted the ten female sanitation inspectors who had recently qualified for appointment in the New York tenement district. One of those, Emily Dinwiddie, graduated from the University of Virginia, affording the sisters yet another opportunity to highlight the South and its women of achievement. 26. Ibid., Feb. 1900, 3, July 1902, 3. 27. Ibid., June 1899, 12.

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personal property of anyone else. On ceasing operations in the autumn of 1913, the sisters highlighted the solvency of their publishing venture over its last four years. In “Woman’s Work in the South” Louisa Poppenheim labeled the Keystone the “oldest clubwoman’s publication” in the United States. Louisa placed herself and her sister Mary alongside the renowned Elizabeth Timothy, coowner (with Benjamin Franklin) of the South Carolina Gazette as historic newspaper owners/operators. Mary and Louisa Poppenheim remained intensely involved in the world of club work long after the last issue of the Keystone was published. With Mary’s sudden fatal heart attack in 1936, however, a unique partnership ended. The remainder of the club journey for Louisa Poppenheim was a solitary one.28 The Poppenheim sisters of Charleston were a blend of femininity and feminism. Sometimes the contrast was stark. Long after her sister’s death, Louisa Poppenheim continued her mother’s tradition of holding Thursday “at homes” to entertain guests and serve her home-brewed scuppernong grape wine in the drawing room of her antique-filled, nonelectrified Victorian home. No divorcées were allowed, nor was smoking. Outside the privacy of the fenced-in mansion at Thirty-one Meeting Street, Louisa Poppenheim was an automobile driver who boldly insisted she would traverse the one-way streets of the lower peninsula the way she always had, regardless of traffic laws to the contrary.29 In the South Carolina Federation of Women’s Clubs and the United Daughters of the Confederacy, as well as in the pages of the Keystone, Louisa and Mary Poppenheim demonstrated a commitment both to change and to maintenance of tradition. They ardently sought to preserve southern identity but at the same time were active and highly visible agents in promoting social reform as part of a New South. They advocated using the term woman rather than female because the first conveyed an ideal while the second simply expressed biological difference, yet they championed intellectual and organizational growth for women and forcefully defended women’s new public roles in community, state, and 28. Louisa Poppenheim, “Report of the Press Committee,” The South Carolina Federation of Women’s Club [yearbook] (Charleston: J. J. Furlong, 1914), 52–57, folder 19, box 5, SCFWC Papers, Dacus Library, Winthrop University; Armida Moses to Louisa Poppenheim, May 30, June 3, 1913, folder 4, box 1, SCFWC Papers, Winthrop; Louisa Poppenheim, “Woman’s Work in the South,” 636. For the journalistic career of Elizabeth Timothy see Richard Maxwell Brown, “Elizabeth Timothy,” Notable American Women, 3, 465–66. Ben Franklin concluded that Elizabeth Timothy was far superior to her husband in the operation of the printing business. 29. Life, Apr. 14, 1947, 68–72; Bosworth, “Louisa Poppenheim, Clubwoman”; NC, March 6, 1957; Page, “Our Grand Lady”; Johnson, “ ‘This Wonderful Dream Nation!’ ” 21.

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nation.30 The two sisters traveled extensively at home and abroad with that message. The careers of Mary and Louisa Poppenheim are filled with paradox and irony and embraced some of the same complexities as the Progressive movement. Their life stories tell us much about a South in transition.

30. Keystone, Oct. 1905, 3.

DEBORAH L. BLACKWELL

A Murder in the Kentucky Mountains Pine Mountain Settlement School and Community Relations in the 1920s

O

N SEPTEMBER 7, 1920, LURA PARSONS GOT OFF A TRAIN AT

Dillon in eastern Kentucky and set out on foot for her workplace at Pine Mountain Settlement School some six miles away. Two days later, searchers found her body near the usual walking path; she had been raped and bludgeoned to death with a heavy piece of wood, and her corpse tossed over a thirty-foot ledge.1 The circumstances surrounding the murder of Parsons and subsequent efforts to prosecute the suspected killers form a story worthy of the greatest mystery writers. This murder case also provides a window into the intersection of race, class, and gender in a New South community. The women leaders of the settlement school, Ethel DeLong Zande and Katherine Pettit, depended upon the goodwill of the community they served. However, clashes over this case pitted Pine Mountain Settlement School’s female administrators and their statewide allies against much of the local Harlan County power structure and divided county residents. The resulting fallout put that essential community goodwill in jeopardy and had the potential to render the already difficult task of running a settlement school in rural Kentucky practically unmanageable. Parsons’s murder took place at a time when the local community was undergoing numerous fundamental changes, among them the establishment of the settlement school in 1913. The settlement movement in Appalachia, of which Pine Mountain Settlement School was an important part, embraced the notion of a secular institution of reform devoted to building both “the institutions of community and the spirit of community” in a region long isolated from mainstream America. Katherine Pettit, a native Kentuckian famous for having founded Hindman Settlement School in 1902 under the auspices of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, had been approached some years earlier by the locally prominent Creech

1. “Teacher on Way to School Murdered on Lonely Trail over Pine Mountain; Body Found Two Days after Tragedy,” Lexington Herald, Sept. 11, 1920.

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family to build a school in one of the most remote areas of Harlan County. In 1913, she established operations on Pine Mountain with the help of Ethel DeLong Zande, a New Jersey native and Smith College graduate who had worked with Pettit at the Hindman school for several years. In so doing, Pettit was living up to her promise to the Creech family and escaping the civilization that had begun to encroach on Hindman.2 The move to the new school proved harder than Pettit and DeLong Zande had anticipated, however. Their difficulties in getting supplies and mail, combined with their belief that the community needed a reliable link to the outside world, led them as early as 1916 to begin petitioning the state roads commission and Harlan County officials to build a road from the Dillon train station up the mountain to the school. DeLong Zande negotiated a deal that offered the school’s assistance in financing the road; she and Pettit would raise some fifty-five thousand dollars from their usual donors. At the time, this seemed like the best way to ensure that “their” road got built, and their correspondence with supporters indicates that they embraced the idea: “I feel very much like the old woman in the Mother Goose rhyme, who kept asking, ‘If this be I,’ ” exclaimed DeLong Zande in one such letter. “I can scarcely realize that . . . we are out of debt, and that we are embarked on this tremendous road proposition. I know it will go through, but you can imagine how I pinch myself at the thought of the Pine Mountain School issuing bonds and contracting with a fiscal court.”3 DeLong Zande and Pettit’s enthusiasm for this project was tested time and time again between 1916 and 1920. Delays of all kinds, including arguments over road specifications, debates over unpaid bills, constant personnel changes, engineers and other officials who dragged their feet, incompetent field management, and money troubles, meant that by the summer of 1920 the road was under way but in no sense near completion. The Pine Mountain leadership continually expressed concerns about 2. Henry D. Shapiro, Appalachia on Our Mind: The Southern Mountains and Mountaineers in the American Consciousness, 1870–1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1978), 145; Lucy Furman, “Katherine Pettit: Pioneer Mountain Worker,” reprint from the Louisville Courier-Journal, Sept. 6, 1936, folder 7, box 12, in the Katherine Rebecca Pettit Papers, Bullock-Pettit Family Papers, Special Collections and Archives, M. I. King Library, University of Kentucky (hereinafter KP-UK papers); Thomas A. DeLong, The DeLongs of New York and Brooklyn: A Huguenot Family Portrait (Southport, Conn.: Sasco Associates, 1972), 138–41. Ethel DeLong married Luigi Zande, a fellow worker at the school, in 1918. For the sake of clarity I have chosen to refer to her throughout by her married name. 3. Ethel DeLong (Zande) to Mr. Martin, Nov. 17, 1916, Pine Mountain Settlement School (hereinafter PMSS) microfilm archives, reel 68, Special Collections and Archives, Hutchins Library, Berea College.

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the presence and especially the management of the convict labor camp located alongside the road project. Convict leasing was a common practice throughout the South in the early 1900s, particularly for public works projects, and the Pine Mountain road was no different. The vast majority of leased convicts were African Americans, and they were overseen by white officials. Given Pettit and DeLong Zande’s vital interest in the road project, accusations of lax management of the convicts worried them. Initially their primary concern was the “great waste” of time and money caused by the lack of cooperation between the convicts’ supervisor and the road’s chief engineer. Their concerns over the convict labor camp would only intensify in the aftermath of Parsons’s murder.4 The opening of the settlement school was not the only change reshaping life in Harlan County. A predominantly agricultural area for generations, Harlan County in the decade before Parsons’s murder experienced a fundamental economic shift. By 1921, some 30 percent of the coal mined in eastern Kentucky came from Harlan. This dramatic change brought with it a substantial population increase, as thousands poured into the county looking for jobs in the mines. The increasing presence and power of the coal companies and their owners also led to a shift in the balance of political power in Harlan County. According to historian Ronald Eller, the Republican Party in many counties “underwent . . . [a] conversion during these years, as the coal producers and other industrialists usurped the power of the native leadership and turned the party into the guardian of the new economic order.” The development of organizations such as the Harlan County Coal Operators’ Association promoted even greater control over local politics. In the case of Harlan County, officers of that organization served as county chairmen of both the Republican and Democratic Parties. This connection between coal companies and party politics in Kentucky was highlighted in a January 1921 newspaper article recounting Republican Governor Edwin P. Morrow’s endorsement of the Consolidated Coal Company—the leading coal-mining operation in nearby Jenkins—as “[having] both a head and a heart” for running such a clean, well-developed town. Parsons’s murder thus occurred in a context of fundamental social, economic, and political change in this mountain county, 4. Lawrence M. Friedman, Crime and Punishment in American History (New York: Basic Books, 1993), 156–57; DeLong Zande to Edward W. Hines, March 1, 1920, PMSS microfilm, reel 68. For more information on the Pine Mountain road project, see Deborah L. Blackwell, “The Ability To ‘Do Much Larger Work’: Gender and Reform in Appalachia, 1890–1935” (Ph.D. diss., University of Kentucky, 1998), chap. 5; and James S. Greene, III, “Progressives in the Kentucky Mountains: The Formative Years of the Pine Mountain Settlement School, 1913–1930” (Ph.D. diss., Ohio State University, 1982), chap. 12.

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changes that made Pettit’s belief that the area could provide a retreat from civilization ironic at best.5 The murder was headline news across Kentucky, and newspapers reported Parsons’s death in chilling detail. The twenty-five-year-old woman, a domestic science teacher at the settlement school, was returning to Pine Mountain after visiting her family in central Kentucky. Settlement workers regularly walked up the mountain unescorted and without incident. That day, however, Parsons was “outraged”—the word most often used to denote rape in the newspaper accounts—and then struck several times with a wooden post, one of a number that had been used to mark the path of the projected road. The Louisville Courier-Journal graphically referred to the weapons having been used to “batter out the teacher’s brains.” When Parsons did not arrive at the school, a search party was formed. The searchers spent two days retracing her steps, only to find their worst fears confirmed.6 The tragic fate of Parsons marked the beginning of a bizarre series of judicial proceedings. Over the course of three and a half years, the on-again, off-again investigation led to the arrest of no fewer than five men. From the beginning, two theories emerged about the identity of the murderer. The day after Parsons’s body was discovered, headlines in several Kentucky newspapers proclaimed that authorities believed that a black convict had committed the crime. The Richmond Daily Register announced “Negro Road Convict Suspected of Crime,” while the Louisville Courier-Journal opted for the more direct “Convict Slew Miss Parsons”; neither paper named a suspect.7 The certainty with which these initial articles proclaimed the guilt of one of the leased convicts gave the impression that the case would be solved as soon as the particular individual could be identified. Although Sheriff H. H. Howard immediately announced to the press his belief in the guilt of some as-yet-unspecified black convict, the women of the settlement school thought that a quite different party was responsible. Dr. Harry C. Winnes, a fifty-year-old white veterinarian employed by the state, had traveled to Dillon on the same train as Parsons; he was on his 5. Ronald D Eller, Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers: Industrialization of the Appalachian South, 1880–1930 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1982), 146, 211, 212; “Jenkins Is Model Mining Town of Kentucky,” Lexington Herald, Jan. 9, 1921. 6. “Teacher on Way to School Murdered on Lonely Trail over Pine Mountain: Body Found Two Days after Tragedy,” Lexington Herald, Sept. 11, 1920; Personnel file for Lura Parsons, PMSS microfilm, reel 89; “Second Probe of School Teacher’s Murder Planned,” Lexington Herald, Nov. 7, 1920; “Writ out in Girl’s Murder,” Louisville Courier-Journal, Sept. 11, 1920. 7. Richmond (Ky.) Daily Register, Sept. 11, 1920; Louisville Courier-Journal, Sept. 12, 1920.

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way to Pine Mountain to test the school’s cows for tuberculosis. He did not walk, but rode a hired mule up the mountain, and he was the first to raise the question of where Parsons might be. Winnes’s reportedly erratic behavior and strange comments to various individuals about her disappearance led DeLong Zande to swear out a warrant for his arrest on September 10, the day after the dead woman’s body was discovered. Sheriff Howard, however, publicly declared Winnes’s innocence to the media even as he executed the arrest warrant.8 Gaps in the public record make the first two months of the investigation difficult to reconstruct. Coincidentally, a Harlan County grand jury was in session when the murder took place, and it immediately heard testimony against both Winnes and one of the black convicts, James Robinson. The grand jury failed to indict either man for the crime. The investigation remained largely at a standstill until early November, when, according to the newspapers, pressure brought on state and county officials by angry women from all over Kentucky resulted in an examination trial before Circuit Court Judge W. L. Bailey. As a result of the eight-day proceeding, Winnes and convict Jerry Reed were bound over to the next scheduled session of the Harlan grand jury in January, and convict James Robinson was held under suspicion of having additional information bearing on the case. When the grand jury met, it indicted Winnes for having “unlawfully, wil[l]fully, fel[o]niously, and with malice aforethought kill[ed] and murder[ed] Lura Parsons by forcibly ravishing her and by striking, beating and wounding her upon and about her head and other parts of her body.” This indictment set up a showdown in court between the women who ran Pine Mountain Settlement School and a significant portion of Harlan County’s population, including many of its political and economic elites.9 Winnes’s trial in late January and early February 1921 proved to be the biggest spectacle to date in an already volatile situation. The small courtroom was filled with both male and female spectators on a daily basis, which was unusual for Harlan County trials. Winnes sat with his 8. Arrest Warrant, Commonwealth of Kentucky vs. Dr. H. C. Winnes, Sept. 10, 1920, box 230, Harlan County Circuit Court Papers, Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives (KDLA), Frankfort, Kentucky; “Veterinarian Arrested in Pine Mountain Murder Case; Is Taken to Harlan County,” Lexington Herald, Sept. 12, 1920. 9. “Indictment Quashed in Mountain Murder,” Louisville Courier-Journal, Sept. 17, 1920; “Winnes Released; Remains in Harlan,” Lexington Herald, Sept. 18, 1920; Notation on Arrest Warrant of Sept. 10, 1920, box 230, Harlan County Circuit Court Papers, KDLA; W. S. Sherwood, “State Veterinarian Winnes Again Arrested as Investigation of Harlan Murder Reopens,” Lexington Herald, Nov. 9, 1920; Sherwood, “Veterinarian and Convict Held to Grand Jury,” Lexington Herald, Nov. 17, 1920; Grand Jury Indictment for Wil[l]ful Murder, Commonwealth of Kentucky vs. Dr. H. C. Winnes, Jan. 11, 1921, box 236, Harlan County Circuit Court Papers, KDLA.

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wife and two daughters throughout the testimony, and reporters generally described him as calm and confident. The case against him was largely circumstantial: mule tracks found near Parsons’s body seemed to match those of the mule he had ridden up the mountain; a newspaper was found in the dead woman’s pocket that Winnes was reported to have given her; and Winnes had supposedly appeared either drunk or drugged upon his arrival at the school. The prosecution called witnesses who testified in great detail about what time Winnes had left the Dillon station relative to Parsons’s departure and stated that it took him much longer than would be usual to travel up the mountain, thus giving him the opportunity to commit the crime. Winnes’s own words were recounted in some of the most damning testimony against him: a member of the search party, who had accompanied Winnes back down the mountain before Parsons’s body was found, testified that the veterinarian asked him, “What would they do in the mountains to a man who mistreated a woman?” This question, which Winnes admitted asking, seemed to many of his accusers to be a red flag.10 While the prosecution built its case by weaving together circumstantial evidence, the defense offered many prominent character witnesses for Winnes and consistently drew attention to what it called lax management of the convict labor camp, which, it suggested, made it probable that a convict had committed the crime. At least thirty-five character witnesses appeared on Winnes’s behalf, including fellow state veterinarians, law officers, and coal and foundry company officials. The veterinarian testified on his own behalf that he had spoken to Parsons briefly in Dillon to ask her how many cattle were at the school and to offer to hire a mule for her to ride to the school. When she refused his offer, he said, he rode away. It took him some hours to reach the school, and he said that his mule had caused the delay by taking the wrong route, though he had been assured that the animal would know the way. Contrary to the claims of the prosecution, Winnes declared that he had quit drinking when he began working for the state of Kentucky and that he had never used narcotics. Also on the defense witness list were a former camp guard and a number of convicts, both black and white, one of whom offered testimony that bloodstained men’s underclothing had been found at the convict camp and burned at the behest of camp officials. The whereabouts of various convicts at the time of the murder was called into doubt, and defense attorneys also introduced 10. “Nine Men Chosen for Winnes Jury,” Lexington Herald, Jan. 23, 1921; “Dr. Winnes Takes Stand after State Concludes Case Today,” Middlesboro (Ky.) Daily News, Jan. 28, 1921; “Second Trial of Winnes Delayed,” Lexington Herald, Apr. 15, 1921.

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conflicting accounts of convict Jerry Reed’s actions, suggesting that he had been involved in the slaying.11 Closing statements in the case came before a packed courtroom on January 31 and offered “a direct appeal to intellect,” according to the Middlesboro Daily News. “There was little opportunity for display of flowers of oratory except for such appeals as might be made by the prosecution in the name of the honor of Kentucky womanhood or by the defense in the name of the sense of fair play that is characteristic of Kentucky men.” The jury finally received the case against Winnes that afternoon. The judge instructed jurors to deliberate on a charge of willful murder, considering not just Winnes’s guilt or innocence but also whether or not they believed he intended to kill Parsons. If the jurors found Winnes guilty, they could sentence him either to death or to life in prison. But jurors could not reach agreement, and after eighty-eight hours of deliberation, the judge declared a hung jury. At various times during the deliberations Judge W. T. Davis urged the panel to come to an agreement and was unmoved for days by suggestions that he dismiss the jury. At one point an elderly juror named Moses Brewer claimed to be ill and asked that the jury be released; the judge refused. Brewer’s was the only vote to convict, and reports circulated after the jury’s dismissal that he had threatened fellow jurors with a knife for arguing with him. Brewer later told the press that the veterinarian’s questioning what punishment a man might receive for harming a woman was proof of guilt as far as he was concerned. The Richmond newspaper further noted both that “Brewer left the court house with Mrs. Ethel DeLong Zande, head of the Pine Mountain Settlement School, who aided the prosecution” and that “Henry Creech, a nephew of Mr. Brewer’s, was, it is said, a guard at the convict camp near Dillon.” Although Winnes was supposed to be retried in April 1921, the commonwealth’s attorney declined to prosecute for what he said was a lack of evidence, and Winnes was never again brought up on charges in the case.12 11. “Prosecution Fails to Close Case in Dr. Winnes’ Trial,” Lexington Herald, Jan. 28, 1921; “Winnes, on Stand, Denies Murder of Miss Lura Parsons,” Lexington Herald, Jan. 29, 1921; “Speedy Acquittal of Dr. Winnes Is Predicted after Hearing of Favorable Evidence of Convicts,” Middlesboro Daily News, Jan. 29, 1921; “Winnes’ Defense Will Close Case Monday Morning,” Lexington Herald, Jan. 30, 1921; “Winnes Case to Jury ToNight, Verdict Is Expected Tuesday,” Middlesboro Daily News, Jan. 31, 1921; “Winnes’ Defense Will Close Case Monday Morning,” Lexington Herald, Jan. 30, 1921. 12. “Winnes Jury Reported Hung; Harlan Awaits Verdict with Breathless Suspense at 4 P.M.,” Middlesboro Daily News, Feb. 1, 1921; Commonwealth of Kentucky vs. H.C. Winnes, Instructions to Gentlemen of the Jury, n.d., box 236, Harlan County Circuit Court Papers, KDLA; “Jury Dismissed, Standing 11 to 1,” Richmond Daily Register, Feb. 5, 1921; “Winnes Jury, Unable to Agree, Is Dismissed after 88 Hours,” Lexington Herald,

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The search for Parsons’s murderer later took another strange turn. In March 1922, former state convict John Bramley stated that he had received a letter from another convict named Frank Brown, giving the location of a pair of bloodstained prison underwear. Brown, who had been sentenced to the Pine Mountain labor camp at the time of the murder, had testified at Winnes’s trial in 1921 that he had found a pair of bloody convict underwear that he had been ordered to destroy. In his 1922 letter, however, he told Bramley that the garment could be found in a hollow tree stump near the murder scene. Bramley then apparently contacted Dr. U. S. Vermillion, an employee of the Kentucky state veterinary service, and the two found the clothing exactly where Brown’s letter had indicated it would be. The convict number stamped on the union suit belonged to Jerry Reed, one of the original suspects in the Parsons case. Reed was indicted on the basis of this evidence in December 1922. After a number of delays, including a change of venue, Reed was brought to trial in Madison County Circuit Court in Richmond. Testimony in the trial was hampered by the fact that Bramley had died just before the trial began, and Frank Brown, who had been freed from prison shortly after he wrote the letter, was nowhere to be found. Interestingly, Winnes was called to testify at Reed’s trial, and Reed’s defense attorneys cast suspicion on him in much the same way that Winnes’s defense had cast aspersions on the convict. Reed was acquitted, although one juror told the press that the jury had believed him to be guilty but lacked evidence to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. “Perhaps some day a death-bed will yield a solution of the crime,” the Harlan Enterprise lamented, “but unless the facts are volunteered the prospects are that the name of the murderer will remain a secret to him and the trees sheltering the trail Lura Parsons was walking when a lick on the head ended her life.”13

Feb. 5, 1921; “Jury Dismissed, Standing 11 to 1,” Richmond Daily Register, Feb. 5, 1921; “Winnes Dismissed on Murder Charge in Harlan Court,” Lexington Herald, Apr. 16, 1921. Henry Creech was related to William and Sally Creech, who had donated the land for the Pine Mountain School, and also testified that the tracks found near Parsons’s body matched those of the mule hired by Winnes. See “Jury Is Chosen in Reed Trial,” Lexington Herald, Feb. 19, 1924. 13. “Harlan County Grand Jury Returns Indictments,” Harlan Enterprise, Dec. 9, 1922. Brown’s testimony in the Winnes case may be found in “Winnes’ Defense Will Close Case Monday Morning,” Lexington Herald, Jan. 30, 1921. The exact nature of the relationship between Vermillion and Winnes is unclear from the newspaper accounts. “Jury Is Chosen in Reed Trial,” Lexington Herald, Feb. 19, 1924; “Jerry Reid [sic] Case in Hands of Madison County Jury,” Harlan Enterprise, Feb. 22, 1924; “One Man Freed Reed,” Lexington Herald, Feb. 24, 1924; “Reed Is Acquitted of Murder Charge,” Harlan Enterprise, Feb. 29, 1924.

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In one of the many unusual elements in this case, the women who ran the settlement school took a leadership role in trying to solve the mystery. Ethel DeLong Zande in particular shifted her attention from the road project to overseeing the school’s efforts to find justice for their murdered friend. Pine Mountain Settlement School hired its own attorney, A. Floyd Byrd of Lexington, and engaged a detective firm in Cincinnati to aid in the investigation. DeLong Zande felt compelled to do so, to bring justice to the guilty man and to “assure the friends and relatives of the young women we have here of our initiative in this affair.” Why the settlement women felt the immediate need to hire an attorney and detectives who were outsiders remains unclear from the school’s records. In so doing, however, they were following the precedent that they had established in their direct involvement in the minutiae of building “their” road as well as their constant concern for the public image of the school. As it turned out, Byrd did more than simply represent the school’s interests; acknowledged in court as a “special prosecutor,” Byrd handled almost the entire case against Winnes in January and February 1921, from questioning potential jurors to cross-examining the veterinarian himself. “The prosecuting attorney did absolutely nothing in the case except to make the last speech,” DeLong Zande complained privately. “He did not get any witnesses; he asked no questions, and in his speech to the jury he said the crime was either committed by a negro or by Dr. Winnes, and he did not ask that a verdict of ‘Guilty’ be returned against Winnes.”14 Although they were unable to get Winnes convicted of Parsons’s death, Pine Mountain Settlement School’s administrators and teachers appear to have been instrumental in his being brought to trial in the first place, through their direct efforts and through appeals to clubwomen statewide. Several newspaper articles commented on the presence of DeLong Zande in the courtroom, and one described her as having “worked incessantly since the discovery of the crime to find the slayer.” The Lexington Herald noted that Kentucky’s clubwomen, who had traditionally supported the school, concentrated their efforts on raising money to offset the costs of the private attorney and detectives and on pressuring state and local officials to pursue the case more vigorously. Under the unfortunately worded subheading “Club Women Aroused,” the Herald credited them with the renewed official interest in finding Parsons’s killer in early November 1920. Newspaper articles throughout the period chronicle resolutions passed by a number of women’s clubs, including the Woman’s Club 14. “Reed Is Acquitted of Murder Charge,” Harlan Enterprise, Feb. 29, 1924; DeLong Zande to “Mabel” [probably member of PMSS Board of Trustees], Apr. 19, 1921, PMSS microfilm, reel 4.

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of Central Kentucky, the Harrodsburg chapter of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, the Louisville Woman’s Club, the Sorosis Club of Louisville, the Women’s Club of Pineville, and a northern Kentucky branch of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, all of which demanded the prosecution and punishment of the guilty party. The list of donors to the Herald’s special fund to reimburse the school for its legal expenses contained the names of many prominent individual women and their clubs. Editorial contributor Robert Breckinridge paid tribute to the clubwomen’s efforts, writing that “as a woman suffered, so shall she be avenged by women. For it was by their solicitation that the search has been renewed.”15 Although the evidence presented both in the newspapers and in the school’s archives seems to confirm Robert Breckinridge’s judgment, it is worth asking why the Herald so especially felt the need to emphasize the role that women played in this case. Mixed in as these articles were with front-page stories about women’s first opportunity to exercise their right to vote, the commentary sounds like part of an overall embrace of women’s larger public role for which the Progressive Era has been widely noted by scholars. Then again, personal connections and party politics may have played a role in the Herald’s case; editor in chief Desha Breckinridge was a leading Kentucky Democrat with several prominent women reformers and active clubwomen in his immediate family, including his wife, Madeline McDowell Breckinridge.16 Desha Breckinridge’s politics thus allied him and his paper against Harlan County’s dominant Republican Party, which there, as elsewhere, was particularly powerful in towns and among the coal company owners. Whether or not he took on this case for personal, political, financial, or humanitarian reasons, Breckinridge’s involvement in fact may have complicated matters for the settlement school women. In becoming the cause célèbre of one of the major newspapers of Kentucky Democrats, Pine Mountain Settlement School’s leaders risked alienating 15. “Nine Men Chosen for Winnes Jury,” Lexington Herald, Jan. 23, 1921; “State Veterinarian Winnes Again Arrested as Investigation of Harlan Murder Reopens,” Lexington Herald, Nov. 9, 1920; “Woman’s Club of Central Kentucky Urges Prompt Action in Parsons Case,” Lexington Herald, Nov. 9, 1920; “Aids Lura Parsons Fund,” Lexington Herald, Jan. 27, 1921; “The Case of Lura Parsons” (unsigned editorial reprinted from the Louisville Post ), Lexington Herald, Jan. 10, 1921; “Sorosis Club Condemns Crime,” Lexington Herald, Feb. 5, 1921; “Pineville Women Ask Justice,” Lexington Herald, Jan. 28, 1921; “U.D.C. Resolute on Parsons Case,” Richmond Daily Register, March 8, 1921; Robert J. Breckinridge, “Who Will Be Next?” Lexington Herald, Nov. 13, 1920. 16. For more information on Desha Breckinridge and his family, see James C. Klotter, The Breckinridges of Kentucky, 1760–1981 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1986). Madeline McDowell Breckinridge’s death in November 1920 may also explain some of her husband’s fervor for pursuing this case so publicly, as a tribute to her work.

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some of the very people whose goodwill was absolutely crucial to their overall success. Subsequent events stemming from this connection to party politics may provide some insight into the rift this case caused in the Harlan County community. Regardless of the suspicions aimed at the convict camp, DeLong Zande, Pettit, and the rest of the women working at Pine Mountain Settlement School steadfastly maintained their belief in Winnes’s guilt throughout the ordeal. From the first, according to the papers of the Pine Mountain teachers, it seemed that local officials were unwilling to consider Winnes as a suspect. Extension worker Marguerite Butler wrote her mother just ten days after Lura Parsons’s murder: “Mother, I am telling you what we all feel stronger than I can express, it was the doctor. . . . [W]e all feel we must have our families believe in our judgment for public opinion means so much.” Butler went on to report how the school’s detective had been approached by one of Winnes’s attorneys and “asked his price. . . . If [the] Dr.’s [sic] lawyer thought him an innocent man[,] why would he try to buy off [a] private detective who came to represent neither side but [to] find [the] guilty man?” In a November 1920 letter to a longtime donor, Ethel DeLong Zande fretted about the reasons for the two-month delay of the examination trial and about county officials’ persistent focus on the convict labor camp: “we are having a terrible fight with local officials. I do not know whether there is some sinister political influence at work, but against evidence which does not admit of any reasonable doubt, they persist in trying to fix the blame on one of the convicts.” The women privately speculated on the possibility of a conspiracy afoot. For example, Evelyn Wells’s diary from March 1921 recorded her belief that “there is absolutely no doubt of the fact that Dr. Winnes is the murderer. . . . It must be that Winnes has some secret power somewhere.” DeLong Zande herself was even more straightforward in a letter to a member of the school’s board of trustees in September 1920 just after the murder took place. “There just isn’t any doubt—it wasn’t a convict and it wasn’t a moonshiner,” she insisted. “You know such crimes as these are the rarest in the mountains.”17 From the perspective of local officials, the accusations leveled against Winnes by the settlement school women were ludicrous. Although he resided in Cincinnati at the time of the murder, Winnes had lived for several years in the mining town of Jenkins in nearby Letcher County. Twentyfive of the character witnesses produced by the defense came from Jenk17. Marguerite Butler to Mother, Sept. 17, 1920, PMSS microfilm, reel 2; DeLong Zande to Mrs. Lucy C. Underwood, Nov. 18, 1920, PMSS microfilm, reel 68; Evelyn Wells’s Remembrances/Notes, March 13, 1921, PMSS microfilm, reel 2; DeLong Zande to Elizabeth Hench, Sept. 17, 1920, PMSS microfilm, reel 72.

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ins and the immediate vicinity, including prominent local business owners, the mayor of Jenkins, the president of the Jenkins’ women’s club (a fact that particularly irritated Ethel DeLong Zande), a former judge, and a sitting commonwealth’s attorney from Whitesburg. In contrast to the Democratic Lexington Herald, the solidly Republican Harlan Enterprise and Jenkins Recorder began their own drives to pay for Winnes’s legal defense and raised well over one thousand dollars. The newspapers also carried reports of multiple fundraisers in Jenkins, Harlan, and Cincinnati to raise money and demonstrate public support for Winnes. In addition, pointed commentaries appeared in the Jenkins and Harlan papers accusing the other side of a conspiracy to railroad Winnes on shaky evidence. The Jenkins Recorder attested to his sterling character and noted that “after the discovery of the murder and outrage, every effort, on the part of the people of the convict camp and of the school, spared no pains, it seems, to fasten the crime on our Dr. Winnes, as the circumstances gave them power to make him the ‘goat.’ ” The Harlan Enterprise further charged that “the case as made out by the Commonwealth was one of the weakest ever submitted to a jury. . . . Evidence of a confession on the part of negro convicts has been covered up. . . . Every official in Harlan County has been hampered in his investigation at every turn.” The Winnes Defense Fund, comprising the leading citizens of Jenkins, issued a front-page appeal for donations that went so far as to compare the persecution of the veterinarian with the trial of Jesus in Judea. Like Jesus, Winnes was “a man noble of character; a man whose life has been one of unselfish devotion to his fellow men, who has always defended the right, attacked the wrong, [and] was placed on trial for his life.”18 The possibility of a political connection to the case was noted rather pointedly by the avowedly Democratic Lexington Herald, which seemed to hint at ulterior motives. An unsigned editorial in November 1920 remarked that the investigation of Parsons’s murder had only been pursued actively after the elections that month in which Republicans won a 18. Letter to “Mabel,” Apr. 19, 1921, PMSS microfilm, reel 4; “Prosecution Fails to Close Case in Dr. Winnes’ Trial,” Lexington Herald, Jan. 28, 1921; “Won’t Ask Change of Venue in Winnes’ Case,” Richmond Daily Register, March 21, 1921; “Thank You for the Funds,” Jenkins (Ky.) Recorder, Apr. 15, 1921. Unfortunately, the 1920–1921 issues of the Harlan Enterprise are no longer extant; the microfilm copy begins in late 1922. As a result, I have had to rely on secondary accounts of the Enterprise’s actions. “Dr. Winnes Now Backed by Harlan Residents,” Richmond Daily Register, Nov. 29, 1920; “Winnes’ Friends Donate,” Richmond Daily Register, Feb. 26, 1921; “Benefit Banquet for Dr. Winnes,” Richmond Daily Register, March 17, 1921; “Winnes Trial Continued,” Jenkins Recorder, Feb. 18, 1921; Editorial from the Harlan Enterprise, Feb. 4, 1921, quoted in Jenkins Recorder, Feb. 18, 1921; “Persecution Then and Now,” Jenkins Recorder, Apr. 1, 1921.

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number of offices in Harlan County. The author thus implied that pursuing Winnes might have hurt the chances of Republican candidates at the polls. Whether or not there was a connection between the two events, the women at Pine Mountain certainly believed them to be linked, a perception enhanced for them by newspaper accounts of the court proceedings. Winnes was an appointee of the Republican administration in Frankfort and appeared to have made friends with the Harlan County Republican elites. After Winnes’s trial but before the charges were dropped, the Richmond Daily Register noted that “Commonwealth’s Attorney Forrester is known to have expressed the opinion privately that Dr. Winnes could never be convicted.” This comment was followed by the notation that “[Forrester] is a [Republican] candidate for Circuit Judge.” Upon the dismissal of the charges against Winnes in April, “Dr. Winnes was given a brief reception in the courtroom. Judge Davis, noted for the informality of his court, halted the session long enough to shake hands with Dr. Winnes [as did] the Commonwealth[’s] attorney, sheriff, county attorney and other officials together with scores of residents of the community.” A line in a Lexington Herald article about the anticipated second trial claimed that “Pine Mountain School officials have received an anonymous letter declaring that the school will be forced to close unless the prosecution [of Winnes] is dropped,” but no record of this accusation appeared in any of the other newspaper accounts of the trial or in the settlement school’s surviving records.19 One simultaneously interesting and frustrating aspect of examining this case is the difficulty in finding sources. Certainly there were plenty of newspaper accounts of the crime and the trials, but there are few references to the case in the Pine Mountain archives, and no firsthand account from Winnes or Reed has turned up in the newspapers or in the major Kentucky archives. Searches of the Harlan County Circuit Court records yielded only the indictments of Winnes and jury instructions; apparently in that era, if a criminal case was not appealed, the testimony and other court papers were usually discarded.20 For a case that caused such a sensation at the time, the relative lack of surviving official sources is surprising at the very least. 19. “The Pine Mountain Tragedy” (unsigned editorial), Lexington Herald, Nov. 7, 1920; “Won’t Ask Change of Venue in Winnes’ Case,” Richmond Daily Register, March 21, 1921; Henry Harvey Fuson, History of Harlan County, Kentucky: Some Chapters (Privately published, 1942), 120, 133–36; “Winnes Dismissed on Murder Charge in Harlan Court,” Lexington Herald, Apr. 16, 1921; “Winnes Will Face Trial Second Time,” Lexington Herald, Apr. 10, 1921. 20. Author’s conversation with archive employees at the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, Frankfort, May 2000.

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About Lura Parsons herself, there is very little information. She had been a domestic science teacher at Pine Mountain for only a short time, and she had worked hard to help support her father and younger siblings. The Pine Mountain Settlement School personnel files, which contain recommendation letters and data sheets on the other settlement workers, yield nothing but a handwritten note, to wit, “Laura [sic] Parsons, Teacher of Domestic Science, murdered September 7, 1920 as she crossed Pine Mountain by herself, a common practice in those days.”21 Although the women at the school clearly expressed grief over the loss of Lura Parsons the woman, most of the newspaper articles focused on the murder and the trials rather than on Parsons herself. In fact, the victim seemed to take on an almost mythic quality in some accounts. One particularly dramatic example, an editorial written by Robert Breckinridge for the Lexington Herald, described her final moments. Have you thought of that last walk of hers? A little school teacher, her heart filled with gentle love for all the world. Crowned with a coronet of Autumn shade through which the sunshine, soft as the silken sheen that shows on baby cheeks, crept through to light the mountain path she trod with welcoming rays. . . . Day dreams of duty well performed. Of sacrifice, of labor and of love. . . . Of how she would strive to bring [her students] on until they were an honor to her State. A lonely road, a burley, hideous beast, a desperate struggle for her honor, a bruised and bleeding body, a piteous, cruel death and a shattered dream.22

With the victim so pure and innocent, the crime became even more monstrous. Winnes’s defense team never countered with an attack on Parsons’s character; they even emphasized the defendant’s concern for her safety in undertaking such a journey alone. That tactic may have worked in Winnes’s favor, as the prevailing assumption in Harlan County (and indeed in most of America) at the time was that rape was “not a white man’s crime.”23 In any case, like so many other crime victims, Lura Parsons, the person, was eclipsed by Lura Parsons, the symbol of outraged womanhood. Why this case generated such acrimony is a somewhat difficult question to answer, although certain possibilities appear in retrospect. Certainly, 21. “Kentucky News,” Berea Citizen, Sept. 16, 1920; “Teacher on Way to School Murdered on Lonely Trail over Pine Mountain: Body Found Two Days after Tragedy,” Lexington Herald, Sept. 11, 1920; Personnel file for Lura Parsons, PMSS microfilm, reel 89. 22. Breckinridge, “Who Will Be Next?” Lexington Herald, Nov. 13, 1920. 23. DeLong Zande to Darwin Martin, Sept. 24, 1920, quoted in Greene, “Progressives in the Kentucky Mountains,” 356.

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a split was evident between the Democratic press and the female school leadership on one side and the Republican elite of Harlan County on the other, but to reduce the bitter struggle to simple partisan bickering is to ignore other divisions in the community. Explaining the Harlan side as an example of a “good old boy” network in operation cannot fully account for the rancor. Scholar James Greene asserts that “both DeLong Zande and Pettit in private letters repeatedly expressed their desire that the murderer prove to be a convict, for then they could again feel secure on the mountain, but in their hearts, neither believed one was.”24 Another possible explanation lies with the difference between the two sides’ visions of what the mountain community was supposed to be. The settlement school women did not articulate a critique of the coal companies and their operations. Instead they championed an agrarian vision in their fundraising literature and in their curriculum of “practical education,” which emphasized self-sufficiency and recognized the probability that their students would be farmers and farmers’ wives. Pettit preferred running all the farm activities at the school herself and frequently gave seeds to mountain residents she met on her walking tours. Historian David Whisnant has criticized the settlements for their unwillingness to face the problems of industrial development, writing that “having focused on a romantic cultural ‘world of green and silver,’ having declined to involve itself in the major economic and political realities that were shaping the mountains . . . the settlement had at best neutered itself and become a subtle agent and facilitator of the changes it formally opposed.” Whether the settlement women declined such a critique out of a basic conservatism or out of pragmatism, there was still an implicit tension with the coal companies in their celebration of the agricultural way of life as the salvation of the mountain people. In no way did they appear to be training students to become good industrial workers. Fundraising literature for the school praised the simple beauties of “corn-toppings, bean-stringings, and cane-ginnings” and country Christmases filled with homemade gifts. For the teachers and administrators of Pine Mountain Settlement School, this agrarian vision was more than simply an effective fundraising tactic; they were convinced that teaching self-sufficiency would help the mountain residents survive in their rapidly modernizing world. For them, the coal mines exemplified some of the worst features of modern life and made their goal that much more difficult to attain.25 24. Greene, “Progressives in the Kentucky Mountains,” 357. Greene offers no specific citations in support of his assertion. My examination of the microfilmed letters turned up no such direct mention. 25. Furman, “Katherine Pettit: Pioneer Mountain Worker”; David E. Whisnant, All That Is Native and Fine: The Politics of Culture in an American Region (Chapel Hill: University

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While the settlement philosophy praised the agrarian lifestyle, the political and economic elites of Harlan’s towns, as in many industrializing Appalachian counties, were increasingly tied to the coal companies. For them, having a settlement school that encouraged their likely workers to remain on their land and to increase their self-sufficiency could very well have seemed threatening. Pettit and DeLong Zande’s connections to the state Democratic Party, which seem clear from the position taken by the Lexington Herald, might have widened the split between the two sides. Winnes had connections to the coal companies in Jenkins; at least one officer of Consolidated Coal Company testified as a character witness on his behalf, and one of his attorneys, Republican former judge W. F. Hall, owned one of the biggest coal seams in Harlan County. Although none of the sources articulate their differences in this manner, it is reasonable to suppose that their contrasting visions of what the mountains should be could have helped lead them to diametrically opposite points of view on the murder case.26 The potential for an “insiders versus outsiders” conflict in Harlan County may also have shaped this case. In their fundraising literature, Pettit and DeLong Zande were careful to remind donors that they had been invited into the Pine Mountain community by the Creech family and that their neighbors embraced both the teachers and their school. To take these statements at face value is to ignore the fact that demonstrating such cooperation was in the settlement school’s financial interest. The significant number of local students coming through the school’s doors was a more reliable indication of community welcome. Even so, it seems entirely possible that there was resentment among some Harlan County residents about the work of these “fotched-on women,” particularly in light of the divisions within that community over the county’s economic and political future and between rural and town factions.27 Undertones of class conflict are also apparent in the newspaper articles about the case. In an article with the headline “Mountain People Back Dr. Winnes,” the Lexington Herald reported that it had received a letter from of North Carolina Press, 1983), 81; Ethel DeLong (Zande) to donors, Oct. 13, 1913, PMSS microfilm, reel 4; Ethel DeLong (Zande) to donors, Jan. 24, 1917, folder 3, box 1, PMSS Papers, Berea College Archives. 26. For well-articulated discussion of alliances between company management and town leadership, see Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, “Disorderly Women: Gender and Labor Militancy in the Appalachian South,” Journal of American History 73 (Sept. 1986): 354–82. “Prosecution Fails to Close Case in Dr. Winnes’ Trial,” Lexington Herald, Jan. 28, 1921; Eller, Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers, 147. 27. Whisnant, All That Is Native and Fine, 32. “Fotched-on” was a phrase used by mountain residents to designate that the settlement school leaders came from outside the region.

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the editor of a Jenkins newspaper telling of a November mass meeting at which some four hundred people assembled to hear a commonwealth attorney describe the details of the recent examining trial. Those in attendance pledged more than five hundred dollars to a defense fund for Winnes, a fund that would increase over the course of the subsequent trial. Most commentaries on Winnes’s behalf contain the names of members of the political and economic elite of Jenkins and Harlan County. The implication was that with so many upstanding citizens supporting Winnes, how could anyone believe that he was capable of cold-blooded murder? Alternatively, the descriptions of Moses Brewer, the lone holdout juror, smack of stereotypes of the ignorant mountain man. This “aged juror” who “consistently refused to enter into any discussion of the evidence” had to be restrained when he pulled a knife on the other jurors. The notion of a stubborn, grizzled old mountain man prone to violence seems to reawaken the image of the mountains as home to bloody feuds between families. By noting his relationship to a convict guard, as well as his friendliness with Ethel DeLong Zande, the image of mountaineers as easily swayed by their personal ties becomes even clearer. Because of his kinship to William Creech, who had been responsible for bringing Pettit to Pine Mountain and who had donated the land for the school, Brewer very likely had a personal interest in the outcome of the case. Interestingly, however, the jury foreman (the only other juror identified by name) was a small-town banker. Foreman C. A. Smith may also have had a vested interest in the outcome. In a case involving so many political and economic interests, there seems to be an extraordinarily strong possibility of class conflict further complicating matters.28 Yet another question about this case concerns the active involvement of Kentucky women’s clubs in the case against Winnes. Katherine Pettit’s earliest forays into eastern Kentucky in the late 1890s had been sponsored by the Kentucky State Federation of Women’s Clubs, and the cofounder of Hindman Settlement School, May Stone, had been the secretary of that organization when Pettit accepted the challenge to go to eastern Kentucky. Over the years the clubwomen of Kentucky provided money to the settlement schools as well as connections to political elites. For example, Mrs. Lafon Riker, a longtime supporter of Pine Mountain Settlement School, served on the Board of Control (from whom DeLong Zande had to get permission to use the leased convicts) and was also the president of the Kentucky Federation of Women’s Clubs. In their resolutions supporting 28. “Mountain People Back Dr. Winnes,” Lexington Herald, Nov. 29, 1920; “Jury Dismissed, Standing 11 to 1,” Richmond Daily Register, Feb. 5, 1921.

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the search to find the culprit, the women’s clubs made references to the need for immediate justice as well as the need to protect all women by finding Parsons’s killer. The Sorosis Club of Louisville resolved “that for the protection of Kentucky womanhood, and that the work of the mountain school be continued . . . [the club] is sending a contribution . . . to aid in bringing the guilty to justice.” These women identified with the murder victim, perhaps because she was out doing the sorts of good works that they embraced when she was so brutally assaulted. The fact that she was raped may also have contributed to this identification, for the attack on this one young woman seemed to symbolize an attack on all women. DeLong Zande and Pettit greatly appreciated the help that these clubwomen offered. The Lexington Herald quoted DeLong Zande as saying, “it is comforting to know that the women of the State are behind the school in its efforts to bring the murderer to justice and are not only assisting financially but morally and sympathetically.” If in fact resentment about the “outsider” status of the settlement women played a role in the antagonism of Harlan elites, then the tremendous statewide interest from clubwomen may indeed have been another irritant.29 Could the strain evident between the Pine Mountain Settlement School leadership and local elites involve clashes of gender expectations? Katherine Pettit and Ethel DeLong Zande embodied the Progressive-era women reformers who transcended the home sphere in a quest to change the world for the better. Female students predominated at Pine Mountain during the 1910s and 1920s for a variety of reasons, including more female student housing, greater parental willingness to let their daughters go to school, and, not unimportant, the girls’ greater ease in living with settlement school rules banning liquor and tobacco (rules the boys resisted). At the same time, the education settlement schools offered to young female students centered around domestic science training combined with more traditional classwork. The domestic science curriculum at Pine Mountain in 1923 was typical for the period: girls in all grades learned increasingly challenging lessons in sewing, cooking, housekeeping, and laundry, and all had tasks they were required to perform to keep the school running. While Pettit and DeLong Zande were not gender radicals in any sense, they were themselves models of what a young woman’s life could be beyond marriage and motherhood. A number of their female (and male) students went on 29. An example of the connection with Mrs. Riker may be found in a letter from DeLong Zande, Feb. 9, 1920, PMSS microfilm, reel 68. “Sorosis Club Condemns Crime,” Lexington Herald, Feb. 5, 1921; “Defense Begins Fight in Pine Mountain Case,” Lexington Herald, Nov. 13, 1920.

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to college at places like Berea; fundraising literature often featured their stories as examples of the school’s success. As with the difference in perceptions of what economic future would best suit the area, the possibility of a clash in expectations of what was or was not appropriate for women (or at least for certain women, defined by class status) may have increased the distance between the two sides. Even so, this issue is complicated by the fact that the gender expectations taught by Pine Mountain Settlement School of a middle-class, stay-at-home role for women may very well have been similar to that of the modernizing town elites of both sexes who opposed the prosecution of Winnes. No obvious evidence of a dispute of this sort appears in the rhetoric of the Harlan County elites, but such a clash could have been a factor.30 Interestingly, there is little evidence to suggest the point of view of the women in the Pine Mountain community or that of the female students who made up the majority of the school’s population. Beyond the defense of Winnes by the president of the Jenkins’ women’s club that had so annoyed DeLong Zande, there is nothing in the official records concerning this case.31 In none of the surviving archives is there a reference to a belief that Parsons was targeted because of her outsider status, although the women teachers at the school certainly became concerned for their own safety following the attack. In the absence of evidence, it is perhaps logical to conclude that the women of Harlan County were as divided among themselves over this case as were the men of the community, although the nature of those divisions is unclear. More obvious in this case were the racial overtones, and yet it is worth asking whether the black convicts were targeted by Harlan authorities simply because of prevailing racial prejudice and Jim Crow attitudes, or whether the accusations stemmed more from resentment of the school and its activities. Certainly the generalized perception of whites at that time was of pervasive black criminality, particularly when it came to rape. As an editorial in the Louisville Courier-Journal pointed out, “residents of Harlan [County] assert[ed] that such a crime cannot reasonably be laid at the door of a native of the mountains because violation of women is not in the calendar of crimes often committed by mountaineers.” Racial overtones 30. Greene, “Progressives in the Kentucky Mountains,” 144–45. Examples of testimonials include letters from DeLong Zande to donors, Apr. 1, 1924 and Apr. 1, 1925, folder 3, box 1, PMSS papers. Hall, “Disorderly Women,” 375–77, discusses the perceptions of working-class women who combined facets of tradition and modernity in their disdain for merchants’ wives, who in turn looked down on working-class women as “hussies” not embodying female respectability. 31. DeLong Zande to “Mabel,” Apr. 19, 1921, PMSS microfilm, reel 4.

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are clear in newspaper accounts, especially those covering the first phase of the case; any black person discussed was always carefully identified as such. Racial tensions in other eastern Kentucky communities at the time lend credibility to a theory of antiblack sentiment in Harlan. For example, a race riot in nearby Corbin one year earlier had resulted in the white mob’s forcibly running off all of the three hundred or so black railroad workers who had settled in their community. On the other hand, there were no publicly reported attempts to lynch any of the convicts, at a time when lynchings were occurring in record numbers. In fact, one of the more surprising elements of the case in retrospect is not the fact that black convicts were automatically suspected by authorities, but that none were subjected to “Judge Lynch,” and moreover that a white man actually stood trial for a case involving rape. Then, too, though possibly motivated to save the road project, the women demonstrate throughout the surviving records their sincere belief in Winnes’s guilt and the convicts’ innocence.32 And what of the road project? What effects did Parsons’s death have on it? Clearly use of convict laborers became more controversial. A new flurry of complaints about the convict camp emerged in the wake of the Winnes trial. DeLong Zande began receiving reports from state roads official Joe Boggs of numerous criticisms, including accusations of alcohol consumption. “If we have drinking going on over there,” she worried, “some terrible tragedy may happen, which would certainly make many people believe that Miss Parsons’ death really lay at the doors of the camp and that we had tried to cover it up.” Matters deteriorated in subsequent months to the point that DeLong Zande wrote Boggs in June 1921 to say that it would be better to stop work on the road entirely than to continue with “the present farce. The convicts are doing as little work as they can possibly get away with. I have never seen a group of ten or twelve year old children shirk any more than those men shirked yesterday as I watched them all along the line.” The dawdling wasted the state’s money and the school’s money, and she was thoroughly disgusted with the conduct of the prisoners. Nevertheless, she made an effort to secure larger rations for them so that they might be better fed and possibly work better.33 32. Editorial from the Louisville Courier-Journal, reprinted under “A Dismissal Justified,” Middlesboro Daily News, Apr. 18, 1921; George C. Wright, Racial Violence in Kentucky, 1865–1940: Lynchings, Mob Rule, and “Legal Lynchings” (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990), 144–47. 33. State Roads Superintendent Joe Boggs to DeLong Zande, Jan. 25, 1921, PMSS microfilm, reel 68; DeLong Zande to Boggs, Feb. 12, 1921, PMSS microfilm, reel 68; DeLong Zande to Boggs, June 4, 1921, PMSS microfilm, reel 68; DeLong Zande to H. V. Bastin, Superintendent of State Reformatory at Frankfort, Aug. 4, 1921, PMSS microfilm, reel 68.

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Money trouble combined with the difficulties of using convict labor to finally derail the road project in the early 1920s. Although the fifty-five thousand dollars raised by the school had seemed like enough to complete the project in 1916, money had been wasted; actual cost had been underestimated; and costs of materials had risen after World War I. DeLong Zande knew well that raising any additional money specifically for the road was impossible; the school had instructional needs, and donors had already given a considerable sum to the project. But, she said, a half-finished road would be a “calamity” and “will be no good to anybody, and I cannot imagine a more humiliating position for the school to be in, or one to cause its friends to doubt its integrity or energy any more.” In 1922 she lobbied the Kentucky General Assembly for the funds necessary to complete the road and succeeded in getting a spending bill signed into law, but without an appropriation to back it up, that effort failed as well. Until she died, she went on seeking a source of funding, but it was not until the arrival of Franklin Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s that the road was completed, some twenty years after the effort to build it had begun.34 Although the surviving papers of Pine Mountain Settlement School’s archives reveal the frustration of DeLong Zande and others at being unable to get their road finished, they do not point toward a belief that this failure might be a political retaliation for their role in the prosecution of Harry Winnes. On the other hand, Lura Parsons’s murder was a turning point for the project; it took attention from building the road and increased the community’s ill will toward the convict labor camp. At the very least, the outcry in the community about the presence of the convicts, following the difficulties with the road from the beginning, had stalled a project begun by the women of Pine Mountain Settlement School in the hopes of bettering the community and may have permanently damaged the working relationship between the school and the people of Harlan County. No one was ever convicted of Parsons’s rape and murder, and the case remains officially unsolved. This most complicated murder investigation, while failing to bring the guilty party to justice, nevertheless is tremendously revealing of the dynamics of one rural New South community. Lura Parsons’s brutal death exposed divisions between the women of the 34. DeLong Zande to Boggs, June 17, 1921, PMSS microfilm, reel 68; Greene, “Progressives in the Kentucky Mountains,” 362–63; DeLong Zande to H. Green Garnett (friend of the school), July 19, 1921, PMSS microfilm, reel 68. DeLong Zande died in March 1928 after battling cancer. Pettit retired from Pine Mountain Settlement School in 1930, and died in 1936. Greene, “Progressives in the Kentucky Mountains,” 364–71, offers a more detailed account of the road project in the years after 1922.

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Pine Mountain Settlement School and the community they served that their upbeat fundraising literature never mentioned. Although the surviving evidence is sometimes fragmentary, the implication remains that the Parsons murder investigation, and particularly the school’s desire to prosecute Winnes, antagonized local elites and may very well have had a lasting impact on the ability of DeLong Zande and Pettit to exercise their influence on their school’s behalf to complete the road project and, more important, to realize their vision of Appalachia’s salvation.

L A N D O N R . Y. S T O R R S

Gender and Sectionalism in New Deal Politics Southern White Women’s Campaign for Labor Reform

I

N FEBRUARY 1935, WHITE SOUTHERNER LUCY RANDOLPH

Mason made a bold address before the South Carolina legislature. She urged the assembled politicians to embrace “a new kind of states’ rights . . . [whereby] the highest right of a state is to do all in its power to raise the standard of living for all of its people, every class, every person, the farmer and the industrial wage-earner, and both races.” With two prominent South Carolina women at her side, Mason exhorted the legislators to shorten the workday for women and men, pass a workers’ compensation law, and create a labor department that was serious about enforcing these laws. This white-haired descendant of Virginia’s “first families” went on to argue that modern “states’ rights” required cooperation with the federal government. She challenged her audience to endorse the federal child labor amendment and federal plans for a permanent social security system. Greater economic democracy, Mason insisted, was essential to regenerating political democracy in the South and in the nation.1 Mason’s speech is surprising in two respects. First, little in the historiography prepares us to find a southern woman leading a charge for labor and social welfare legislation in the 1930s, least of all for federal initiatives in these areas. Second, it is curious that Mason made this pitch in South Carolina, of all places in the South. There the textile industry had an even stronger grip on the state’s political economy than it did in other southern states, and the industry used local pride in New South progress to oppose The author thanks commentator Patricia Sullivan and our audience at the Fifth Conference on Southern Women’s History in Richmond, Virginia, for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this essay. 1. The two women with Mason were the governor’s wife and home economist Mary Frayser. “Consumers’ League Official Thinks S.C. to Progress under Johnston,” Anderson (S.C.) Independent Tribune, Feb. 11, 1935, and Columbia (S.C.) State, Feb. 8, 1935, both from microfilm reel 101, Records of the National Consumers’ League, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (hereinafter NCL Papers).

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regulatory efforts. Poor whites had not been disfranchised at the turn of the century as they had in many southern states, and politicians played the race card with special alacrity (African Americans represented just over half the population). Also, the shots fired on Fort Sumter to begin the Civil War still reverberated, lending extra resonance to antifederal government rhetoric. Yet here was Lucy Mason asking South Carolinians to build a strong regulatory state and empower it to raise the purchasing power of the masses—rural and urban, female and male, and black and white alike. And she was insisting that state governments recognize federal authority in order to end the depression. In her judgment, only the federal government could check the interstate competition that fed a downward spiral of prices, wages, and living standards.2 Actually, it is not so hard to explain why Mason chose this place and time for her speech. South Carolina had just elected a new governor, former millhand Olin Johnston. Although he did not eschew white supremacy, Johnston campaigned as a New Dealer, a friend to Franklin D. Roosevelt and to labor. Johnston defeated Cole Blease, the legendary antistatist who for years had used the languages of white supremacy and patriarchy to block reform. Johnston’s win raised the hopes of South Carolina textile workers and of labor reformers near and far.3 The more difficult question is why middle-class white women were at the forefront of a drive to generate southern support for labor laws, both state and national. Lucy Mason was not an anomaly. Dozens of female activists across the South waged a coordinated campaign to shorten hours, raise wages, and otherwise improve their region’s labor standards. They faced powerful, intensely hostile opposition, and they lost more often than they won, but they did secure the passage and implementation of several important state laws. They also offered valuable political support for national labor regulation. These female insurgents have not received much attention from scholars of women’s “state-building” activism or from historians of southern liberalism. Most scholarship on women and the welfare state is northern-centered. The literature on southern female reform is growing, but little of it examines labor legislation, least of all for the period after 1930. Recent studies of southern liberalism have challenged historian 2. Bryant Simon, A Fabric of Defeat: The Politics of South Carolina Millhands, 1910–1948 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998); George Tindall, The Emergence of the New South, 1914–1945 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1967), 533, 610, 629. It may not be clear how Mason expected some of her proposed measures to “raise purchasing power.” She hoped state hours legislation and the creation of a labor department would pave the way for minimum-wage laws and unions. Child labor prohibitions were expected to raise purchasing power because child labor depressed adult wages. 3. On the hopes of South Carolina millhands, see Simon, Fabric of Defeat.

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Alan Brinkley’s assertion that southern liberals in the 1930s either were too timid to fight or were not really very liberal. We now know quite a bit about “the generation before the civil rights movement,” white and black southerners who challenged white supremacy, (sometimes) supported labor rights, and were willing to use the power of the federal government to achieve their ends. But scholars have not explained women’s prominence in these dissident groups.4 This article begins by documenting southern women’s labor reform work and then analyzes the personal characteristics and political experiences that distinguished these activists from other white southerners. A distinctive minority of southern white women joined a national network of women who rejected sectionalism, states’ rights, and laissez-faire in favor of social democracy. These women sought to empower workers and consumers in order to promote economic democracy, which they believed was the basis for true political democracy. Uncovering this female activism in the depression-era South complicates our understanding of southern women’s politics and their role in state building. It also offers a new perspective on the well-known southern reaction against the New Deal. Lucy Mason worked in the South in the 1930s under the auspices of the National Consumers’ League (NCL). The NCL was a New York–based women’s organization founded in the 1890s on the premise that consumers should take an interest in the conditions under which goods were produced. The league’s chief constituency was non-wage-earning women who viewed purchasing as their chief economic role and “ethical consumption” as a social reform tool. Under the leadership of the socialist Florence Kelley, the NCL grew to a peak of about fifteen thousand members organized into more than sixty local and state branches.5 During the Progressive Era, the league was the chief force behind a proliferation of state laws establishing hours limits and minimum wages for women. Most league leaders would have preferred laws covering men and women, but when judges and labor leaders resisted regulating men’s labor, the NCL developed a sex-based strategy. The league is probably most 4. Alan Brinkley, “The New Deal and Southern Politics,” in The New Deal and the South, ed. James C. Cobb and Michael V. Namorato (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1984), 111. On southern liberals, see Linda Reed, Simple Decency and Common Sense: The Southern Conference Movement, 1938–1963 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991); John Egerton, Speak Now against the Day: The Generation before the Civil Rights Movement in the South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994); and Patricia Sullivan, Days of Hope: Race and Democracy in the New Deal Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996). 5. For an introduction to the NCL, see Kathryn Kish Sklar, “Two Political Cultures in the Progressive Era,” in U.S. History as Women’s History, ed. Linda Kerber et al. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995).

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famous for its role in drafting the so-called Brandeis brief that won the Muller v. Oregon case in 1908; this ruling sustained a women’s hours law a few years after the Supreme Court struck down a similar law affecting men. The determination of league activists to win laws for women workers stemmed from their recognition that many women labored for longer hours at lower wages than most men, while carrying a greater burden of unpaid domestic labor. The NCL advocated women-only labor laws not as a way to give women greater protection than men, but rather as a means of bringing women’s wages and hours closer to men’s while avoiding the political and constitutional obstacles that prevented regulation of men’s labor. At the same time, league thinkers viewed women-only labor laws as an “entering wedge” for universal laws and for regulatory and redistributive state policies in general. The 1920s found the league struggling; its membership dwindled to about three thousand and did not exceed that number again. However, the Great Depression gave the league program new salience, and its members wielded influence beyond their numbers, in part by influencing larger organizations and coalitions, and in part through league veterans who obtained powerful positions. Eleanor Roosevelt, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, Democratic Party women’s division leader Mary Dewson, and lawyer Felix Frankfurter were just a few of the prominent New Dealers closely associated with the NCL.6 A chief focus of league activists during the 1930s was the South, which barely had been touched by the Progressive-era wave of state labor regulation. Southern states had passed some child labor laws (even these were weak and poorly enforced), but adult labor was scarcely regulated. Most southern state economies depended on a few industries and agriculture; this lack of diversification enhanced the control of major employers over legislatures. Southern impediments to political democracy—legislatures dominated by rural interests, restricted primaries, poll taxes, and one-party rule, for example—made it all the harder for ordinary southerners to win prolabor legislation from the ruling elite. The relative absence of labor laws was one factor that gave southern manufacturers an edge over nonsouthern competition, most obviously (but not only) in textiles. The low cost of southern labor had implications for workers inside and outside the South. Increasingly, in the 1920s and 1930s, northern employers justified their opposition to worker demands by pointing to the competitive threat of the unregulated, nonunionized 6. See Landon Storrs, Civilizing Capitalism: The National Consumers’ League, Women’s Activism, and Labor Standards in the New Deal Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000).

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South. Some employers in fact moved southward; many more used the threat of relocation to force employees to accept their terms.7 This phenomenon foreshadowed the migration of manufacturing across national borders that would transform the American economy later in the twentieth century. In response to this problem of industry migration, leaders of the Consumers’ League crafted a “southern strategy.” Raising southern labor standards, they believed, was essential to increasing national purchasing power and thus to ending the Great Depression. This southern strategy would dovetail with other New Deal initiatives to lift working-class living standards and shake the grip of southern conservatives on the Democratic Party. (Southern politicians exercised disproportionate influence in Congress, and discriminatory implementation by local southern officials undermined the intent of key New Deal programs.) To implement the new southern initiative, the NCL board hired Lucy Mason. Best known for her later career with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), Mason first was a YWCA industrial secretary in Richmond, where, in the 1910s and 1920s, she backed woman suffrage, supported female strikers, and fought race segregation. In 1931, the Consumers’ League paid Mason to lead a short-lived Southern Council for Women and Children in Industry. The following year, Mason became NCL general secretary. She organized a southern committee of the league that would eventually have several hundred members. From this group state committees formed in Virginia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Texas. Combined with the Consumers’ Leagues of Kentucky and New Orleans, two branches established early in the century, these new groups gave the Consumers’ League a presence in most of the more industrial southern states.8 These local activists arranged for the introduction of the league’s model bills, generated publicity, and coordinated lobbying coalitions among women’s groups, labor unions, church groups, and academics. The plan was to win uniform hours laws, then minimum-wage laws, first for women and 7. Lucy R. Mason, Standards for Workers in Southern Industry (New York: National Consumers’ League, 1931); Gavin Wright, Old South, New South (New York: Basic Books, 1986), 10; Steve Fraser, Labor Will Rule (New York: Free Press, 1991), chap. 14. 8. Fraser, Labor Will Rule, chap. 14; Jill Quadagno, The Color of Welfare (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), chaps. 1–2. On the Southern Council, see Storrs, “Gender and the Development of the Regulatory State: The Controversy over Restricting Women’s Night Work in the Depression-Era South,” Journal of Policy History 10 (1998): 179–206. On Mason, see John Salmond, Miss Lucy of the CIO (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1988). The league’s southern committees had approximately eight hundred members, not including about two hundred branch members in Kentucky and Louisiana. The number of southerners who devoted major and sustained energy to league work was smaller, fewer than one hundred.

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then for all adults. Other goals included ratification of the federal child labor amendment and improved state labor departments. In most states the first objective was a nine/forty-eight law for women (establishing a nine-hour day and forty-eight-hour week as the maximum), in accordance with the best state hours laws in the country at the time. (Most southern states allowed fifty-five or sixty hours per week, and even those limitations were not enforced.) In 1937 and 1938, after several disappointing legislative seasons, league efforts bore some fruit: hours laws of unprecedented scope and stringency passed in North Carolina and Virginia, and Kentucky and Louisiana adopted the South’s first minimum-wage laws. Several states strengthened their labor departments, and in 1937 Kentucky ratified the child labor amendment. Although other league-backed bills were defeated (including several important ones in South Carolina), this remarkable burst of legislation narrowed the regulatory gap between the South and the rest of the country.9 A painstaking reconstruction of these state-level campaigns points to a few generalizations, some more surprising than others. One variable in the success of league campaigns was the strength and attitude of local labor groups. Unions were weaker in the South than elsewhere, reflecting the intensity of their opposition more than workers’ preferences; the most recent of several strike waves in the region’s major industry, textiles, had been brutally repressed in 1929–1930. Even after the general expansion of the labor movement in the 1930s, only about 11 percent of nonagricultural workers in the South belonged to unions, compared with the national figure of 22 percent. Nationwide, the labor movement’s view of government regulation of wages and hours was in flux during the 1930s, and southern unions were especially ambivalent. Historically, labor leaders had viewed wage and hour laws with suspicion, fearing government intrusion and also that such laws would undercut workers’ incentive to organize. By the early 1930s, however, and particularly after witnessing job migration to low-wage states, certain key labor leaders began actively backing wage-hour laws as a useful complement to unionization. Wage and hour laws might spur unionization in a variety of ways, according to proregulatory unions like the Amalgamated Clothing Workers and the International Ladies’ Garment Workers as well as the NCL: such laws would give workers more time and money for union participation (especially important for organizing women), reduce employers’ motivation to relocate to cheap 9. For contemporary comments on the significance of this wave of laws, see Addison T. Cutler, “Labor Legislation in Thirteen Southern States,” Southern Economic Journal 7/3 (Jan. 1941): 297–316, and Virginius Dabney, “Wage and Hour Beginnings in Dixie,” The South Today (May 1938).

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labor states, and stimulate worker participation in union efforts to enforce the labor laws. Northern leaders such as Sidney Hillman of Amalgamated favored southern state laws and a national wage-hour law as a check on competition from the South. Southern trade unionists feared, not without reason, that such regulation was an effort to deprive them of jobs, a fear that southern employers were quick to encourage. In the South, sectional rivalry thus sometimes compounded lingering labor skepticism of wagehour laws. Even when southern unions did seek such regulation, they were too weak to win it on their own.10 Southern activists of the Consumers’ League were essential, both in encouraging southern labor’s support of wage-hour laws and in forming the labor-liberal coalitions that were needed to enact them. In Kentucky, league activists spearheaded a lobbying coalition of women’s groups, social welfare organizations, and unions to back the 1938 state minimumwage law. Joining with women workers such as Emma Saurer of the local Amalgamated Clothing Workers, the Kentucky league managed to unite rival American Federation of Labor (AFL) and CIO groups behind the bill. Both labor groups credited the league for the resulting victory; one local Federation of Labor officer chastised his own group for its sluggish support of labor legislation. The pattern was similar in Virginia, although league activists there were frustrated to find labor leaders more concerned with testing politicians’ support and impressing their own groups’ memberships than with effecting immediate reductions of hours in long-hour occupations—which, not incidentally, tended to employ unorganized female and black workers. League activists kept private their resentment of labor leaders’ callousness to the most oppressed workers, and a joint lobbying effort produced Virginia’s relatively strong hours law of 1938. As one last example, the outcome in South Carolina confirms that union backing alone did not win adequate labor laws. There, textile workers had more electoral clout than elsewhere, but not as much as they thought they did. South Carolina labor leaders rejected league advice to back the nine/fortyeight bill and held out for eight/forty bills, which were killed or rendered ineffective by the state senate. By the time the union leaders recognized their mistake, the window of political opportunity had closed. Meanwhile, 10. These case studies are based on detailed correspondence in local and national league records, state and federal department of labor records and publications, local newspapers, and published proceedings of state labor federations and state legislatures. Some of this research is discussed in Storrs, Civilizing Capitalism, chap. 6. Unionization rates for 1939 are from F. Ray Marshall, Labor in the South (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967). See also Fraser, Labor Will Rule, chap. 14.

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outside the textile industry, many South Carolinians continued to labor fifty-five to sixty hours per week.11 Another key factor in southern legislative outcomes was the salience of race—in dividing the workforce and in inhibiting white women’s activism for labor reform. Southern league activists had to shrug off blows from the club so long used to discipline southern white women: accusations that behind their “unfeminine” political involvement and their interest in labor reform lay a lesser commitment to white supremacy (which rested on white women’s submission to white men’s protection) and a lurking desire to mix with black men. Race affected league bills in another, more direct way. Because most minority women labored in agriculture and domestic service, which at the time were deemed unregulatable, league bills primarily covered white workers. By the mid-1930s, league leaders were searching for ways to regulate agriculture and domestic work, but they considered it futile to begin with such “advanced” bills in the South.12 Southern league members did try, however, to protect black workers in occupations other than agriculture and domestic service, and they steadfastly refused to accommodate racist arguments. In 1937, a Tennessee legislator resisted a league bill with the excuse that the “large amount of Negro labor” brought “far-reaching complications” to the minimumwage issue (meaning it would be unacceptable for blacks and whites to have the same minimum). Lucy Mason replied that “until we can raise the wages of Negro labor we cannot assure white workers living wages. Any group of workers which can be employed at very low wages threatens the living standards of competing groups.” In Virginia, southern league women adamantly resisted exempting black-dominated occupations from 11. Proceedings of the Thirty-Fourth Annual Convention of the Kentucky State Federation of Labor, Paducah, Ky., Nov. 21–23, 1938, pp. 18–19, 49–50, State Labor Proceedings microfiche collection, George Meany Memorial Archives, Silver Spring, Md.; ACWA, Report and Proceedings, Thirteenth Biennial Convention, p.151; Ethel duPont, “Report of Consumers’ League Lobbyist” [March 1938], file 5, reel 1, Consumers’ League of Kentucky Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Mass.; Storrs, Civilizing Capitalism, 166–70. 12. For southern constraints on white women’s activism, see Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, Revolt against Chivalry: Jessie Daniel Ames and the Women’s Campaign against Lynching (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979). Not until the 1960s would domestic and agricultural work receive protection under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 and the Social Security Act of 1935. The league’s bias toward manufacturing jobs mirrored that of organized labor, whose interest in wage-hour regulation usually reflected fears of interstate competition (which chiefly affected manufacturing). That said, in the late 1930s the NCL took the lead in pressing to regulate intrastate occupations (for example, beauty parlors and restaurants), which employed many women and minorities.

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their bills. In 1936, it was laundry operators, tobacco rehandlers, and peanut shellers who killed the women’s eight-hour bill. Tobacco rehandling and peanut shelling employed large numbers of black women and virtually no whites; laundries employed many black women and some white women. The Virginia league let its bill die in 1936 rather than adopt an amendment excluding those occupations. In 1938, league lobbyist Naomi Cohn finally compromised by accepting an amendment that allowed a tenhour day for ninety days per year in tobacco rehandling, peanut cleaning, canning, and oyster shucking, occupations chiefly employing black women. The 1938 Virginia law’s unqualified coverage of laundries was a major victory.13 Perhaps the most fundamental factor behind the success or failure of labor standards bills was whether a core of local activists emerged who made such reforms their first priority, even in the face of harsh criticism. Behind each southern legislative victory—in Virginia, Kentucky, Louisiana, and North Carolina—was a coalition led by Consumers’ League women. (In North Carolina the initiative lay with a group called the Legislative Council of North Carolina Women, but Lucy Mason coached this group from behind the scenes, and many of its members also belonged to the NCL.) By contrast, in South Carolina and Georgia, where hours and minimumwage bills were backed by isolated individuals, some of whom had other reform priorities, those bills repeatedly died. It should be emphasized that southern middle-class women showed much less support for the league program than did northern women. Labor reform was a more charged issue in the South, where opponents cast it as a second Reconstruction. Southern employers and their allies linked labor reformers with communism, “negrophilia,” and northern conspiracy. Textile employers long had been portrayed as “New South” heroes— saviors of white supremacy who gave white women alternatives to fieldwork and brought the South out of economic “backwardness.” Arguments against government involvement in relations between employers and workers had special resonance in the South. Lucy Mason believed that a “slave-holder psychology” still pervaded the region. “Domination of the Negro has made it easy to repeat the pattern for organized labor,” she observed. The largest southern women’s organizations, including the

13. Harry Phillips to Lucy Mason, Apr. 30, 1937; Mason to Phillips, May 14, 1937, reel 97, NCL Papers; Naomi Cohn to Mary Elizabeth Pidgeon, Feb. 10, 1938, box 66, A1 entry 8, Women’s Bureau Records, National Archives; Forty-First Annual Report of the Virginia State Department of Labor and Industry, 16–19; Dabney, “Wage and Hour Beginnings in Dixie.”

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Federation of Women’s Clubs and the United Daughters of the Confederacy, either opposed labor regulations or avoided the issue altogether.14 However, of the few southern whites willing to agitate publicly for labor laws, most were women. Organizing through the Consumers’ League, these southerners rejected the sectionalist rhetoric that for so long had been used to resist challenges to class, race, and gender hierarchies in the region. Instead, they projected a vision of a redistributive, regulatory “state” in which federal and state governments cooperated. In Richmond, Virginia, for example, Naomi Cohn and Adele Clark were the core members of a Consumers’ League branch formed in 1936. Clark, an artist and former local suffrage leader, was a native Virginian; Cohn had moved to Richmond more than twenty years earlier from Pennsylvania and led various women’s organizations, including the National Council of Jewish Women. Cohn made winning a good hours bill for women her full-time job, to the extent that Virginia legislators referred to “the Cohn bill.” She once addressed the legislature “breathing fire and armed with statistics and accompanied by several mill and factory women in their work clothes.” In addition to working with female wage earners, Cohn and Clark mobilized state labor leaders and editors such as Virginius Dabney of the Richmond Times-Dispatch behind their bill. Furthermore, in doing battle with the state political machine, the Virginia league sought and received the support of federal bureaucrats, in the shape of female experts from the U.S. Women’s Bureau, Children’s Bureau, and Division of Labor Standards.15 Virginia league members invoked their state heritage to counter the laissez-faire, antifederal rhetoric of those they called the “Bourbons.” A Virginia league pamphlet claimed that southerners who opposed labor laws were confusing Thomas Jefferson’s means with his ends: “Because Mr. Jef14. See Mason’s notes for an address to University of Kentucky Forum, early 1938, reel 64, Papers of Lucy Randolph Mason, Operation Dixie Papers, Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. Second quotation from Mason to Molly Dewson, Sept. 6, 1937, reel 62, Operation Dixie Papers. Also see Marion Roydhouse, “The ‘Universal Sisterhood of Women’: Women and Labor Reform in North Carolina, 1900–1932” (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1980), and LeeAnn Whites, “The De Graffenried Controversy: Class, Race and Gender in the New South,” Journal of Southern History 54 (1988): 449–78. Mary Martha Thomas, The New Woman in Alabama (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1992); Joan Johnson, “ ‘This Wonderful Dream Nation’: Black and White South Carolina Women and the Creation of the New South” (Ph.D. diss., University of California at Los Angeles, 1997). 15. On Cohn, see articles in the Richmond Times-Dispatch: “1938 Honor Roll,” Jan. 1, 1939 (quotation); “What Happened to Mrs. Jacob S. Cohn?” July 26, 1971; also see Dabney, “Wage and Hour Beginnings in Dixie”; “Wages and Hours-Virginia” file, reel 97 and “Virginia” file, reel 23, NCL Papers; “Consumers’ League-Virginia” file, box 66, A1 entry E8, Women’s Bureau Records, National Archives.

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ferson opposed state intervention and advocated self-reliance in an agricultural era . . . it does not at all follow that a policy of state non-intervention is the way of liberalism today.” Furthermore, the pamphlet remonstrated, “Too many of us Virginians . . . are parading our standpattism under the banner of Jeffersonian liberalism.”16 The Virginia league had an impact, forcing the calling of a special legislative session in 1936 and winning the hours law for women in 1938. But as in other southern states, such measures did not precipitate the hopedfor wave of additional labor laws. Rather, a conservative reaction gathered strength after 1938. A Virginia league member would report in 1950 that the local branch had faded away, and the state political machine was once again “ruining” the state labor department.17 In Kentucky, a close-knit group of female social workers, lawyers, and volunteers was the motivating force behind a labor-liberal coalition that won the minimum-wage law in 1938. The group also could take credit for Kentucky’s ratification of the federal child labor amendment in 1937, making Kentucky one of very few southern states to so ratify. The all-female Kentucky league shared mailing lists with local garment unions and the Socialist Club, interceded with the Louisville mayor on behalf of strikers, pressured the state labor department to enforce labor laws for black children as well as white, and recommended a black woman for appointment to the new minimum-wage board. Its chief activists, Annie Ainslie Halleck and Anna Hubbuch Settle, were (like Lucy Mason) early members of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare, founded in 1938 to promote repeal of the poll tax, antilynching legislation, desegregation, and union rights.18 In Louisiana, league members were so infuriated by Huey Long’s attack on the National Recovery Administration (which established the first national wage and hour standards) that they joined a women’s campaign 16. Virginia Consumers’ League, The General Assembly of Virginia and Social Legislation, 1936, NCL reel 97. In the 1930s, the mention of Jefferson’s name still evoked ritual applause from Virginia legislators; see Suzanne Lebsock, “Woman Suffrage and White Supremacy,” in Visible Women: New Essays in American Activism, ed. Nancy Hewitt and Suzanne Lebsock (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993). 17. Brownie Lee Jones to Elizabeth Magee, Jan. 13, 1950, reel 34, NCL Papers. Jones noted that a few league activists were still promoting progressive legislation with the NAACP, CIO, and YWCA but that the outlook was bleak. 18. The only “southern” states to ratify the child labor amendment were Arkansas (1924), Oklahoma and West Virginia (1933), and Kentucky (1937). It is probably no coincidence that those were also the southern states that, along with Texas and Tennessee, ratified the Nineteenth (woman suffrage) Amendment. This summary is derived from numerous sources in the Consumers’ League of Kentucky Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College.

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to oust him from the Senate. Meanwhile, a league campaign to ratify the federal child labor amendment drew fire both from the locally powerful Catholic Church and from employers. A leading New Orleans clergyman charged—inaccurately—that the amendment would give the “women of the federal children’s bureau” unlimited authority over children’s labor in the home. Revealingly, he used a racial metaphor to warn voters against the amendment. “There is a dusky gent in the fagot heap who should be carefully watched,” he claimed, linking female authority, federal labor laws, and a lurking threat to white supremacy. Not all Louisiana women shared this allergy to federal measures. One female supporter of the New Deal criticized a leading Louisiana clubwoman for clinging to “the wornout doctrine of ‘States Rights,’ ” a doctrine that the New Orleans Consumers’ League also found exasperating. A pamphlet published by the local league in support of the federal child labor amendment approvingly quoted Lucy Mason: “No section has benefitted more than the South from the recent extension of Federal powers; and yet no section is so vociferously clamorous in proclaiming ‘states’ rights’ as a means of defeating the Child Labor Amendment.” Apparently New Orleans members agreed with Mason that “we of the South are making ourselves ridiculous by this inconsistency.” Although Louisiana did not ratify the child labor amendment, the legislature did pass a women’s minimum-wage law in 1938, the result of continued pressure by the local league.19 Their frustrations with the fate of the federal child labor amendment and with the slow progress of state legislation made southern league women receptive to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Finally passed in 1938, much weakened by concessions to southern industry, the FLSA established minimum wages and a forty-hour week for adults employed in interstate commerce and prohibited child labor. The South’s leading politicians cast the act as a northern-backed effort “to overcome the splendid gifts of God to the South,” meaning its low labor costs. They also 19. See “Long’s Attack on NRA Is Condemned: Women of U.S. Are Urged to Insist on Ouster from Senate,” unidentified clipping, and other clippings in box 18, Ida Weis Friend Papers, Tulane University Library, New Orleans. Pamela Tyler’s valuable account of the Women’s Committee against Long, Silk Stockings and Ballet Boxes (Athens: University of Georgia, 1996), stresses the women’s concern with Long’s vulgarity and sexual infidelity at the expense of discussing their political ideologies. “Father Wynhoven opposes Federal Child Labor Plan,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, March 7, 1934; Mary Arthur to Mary Dewson, Apr. 2, 1934, “Louisiana” file, box 77, Women’s Division of Democratic National Committee Papers (hereinafter WD-DNC Papers), Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N.Y.; Mason quotation from H. C. Nixon and Charles Pipkin, eds., Southern Symposium in Advocacy of the Child Labor Amendment (Louisiana Committee for Ratification, 1934). Copy in Garnett McNeill, “History of Child Labor Legislation in Louisiana” (master’s thesis, Tulane University, 1935), Appendix B.

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denounced the FLSA because it would prescribe “the same wages for the black man as for the white man.” League women in Virginia, Kentucky, and Louisiana nonetheless organized local support for the federal legislation.20 In addition to backing national labor laws, southern league women forged alliances with national forces in the U.S. Department of Labor (in the Women’s and Children’s Bureaus and the Division of Labor Standards) and in the women’s division of the Democratic National Committee. Through regular correspondence and through conferences under the auspices of the NCL, Department of Labor, and Democratic Party, small bands of southern women were incorporated into a national, predominantly female network of labor standards activists. In the South, this cooperation with “outside” forces took on a particularly rebellious meaning. Indeed, evidence from several southern states indicates that progressive women drew on these female national allies to fight local machines and anti–New Deal politicians. Certain Georgia women cooperated with the women’s division of the Democratic National Committee in a 1938 effort to block the reelection of conservative senator Walter George. Members of the North Carolina League of Women Voters formed ties with the Democratic Women’s Division to challenge local politicians. In New Orleans, a Women’s Committee that included league members instigated federal investigation of the Long machine. Contemporaries certainly noticed some southern women’s allegiance to the New Deal. One journalist reported that in Virginia, Democratic women “are regarded as the most ardent of all New Dealers because of Roosevelt’s social welfare program” and that some female Virginians were leading a drive to unseat conservative U.S. senator Carter Glass. Another southerner commented that Lucy Mason was just one of “the awakened women in the South—the YWCA, welfare workers, church workers—who have the courage to buck the status quo.” Within a wider group of southern white women who embraced New Deal relief and social insurance measures, league members stood out for their strong stands in support of labor and black civil rights.21 20. Senator E. D. Smith of South Carolina, in William Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), 261; Congressman Martin Dies of Texas, in James T. Patterson, Congressional Conservatism and the New Deal (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1967), 195. 21. On Georgia, see WD-DNC Papers. On North Carolina, see Sarah WilkersonFreeman, “Women and the Transformation of American Politics: North Carolina, 1898– 1940” (Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, 1995). On New Orleans, see Tyler, Silk Stockings. For evidence from Virginia, see Richmond Times-Dispatch, Oct. 29, 1936. Not incidentally, Molly Dewson, head of the DNC Women’s Division, was a Consumers’ League official, as were her Women’s Division successors Gladys Tillett and

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A collective portrait of two dozen southern activists for the Consumers’ League permits some generalizations about what kinds of southern women were most likely to risk their reputations by backing the league agenda.22 The profile of southern league women was similar to that of their northern counterparts, but in the South these characteristics were more unusual and more transgressive of prescriptive norms of white womanhood. In short, the southern defense of white supremacy intensified the emphasis on white women’s “purity” and “submissiveness.” The South had a smaller pool of college-educated, economically independent, urban women than did the North, and it was this type of woman that was so prominent in northern Progressivism. Many of the factors that stimulated the emergence of middle-class women’s Progressive political culture were weaker or absent in the South, with elite women’s colleges and the U.S. Sanitary Commission as the most obvious examples. The “southern lady” ideal and the South’s later industrialization delayed southern white women’s access to higher education and their entry into the professions and new white-collar occupations. However, by the 1930s, these gaps between northern and southern white women had narrowed, and the number of southern women active in voluntary associations had increased.23 The most fertile recruiting grounds for the league were the industrial departments of southern YWCAs, social work circles, and local administrations of state and federal welfare agencies. In some places Leagues of Women Voters and Federations of Women’s Clubs yielded league activists, but more often those groups were too conservative on labor and race issues to support the NCL. Southern league women were white, urban, and highly educated; most held bachelor’s degrees, and many had graduate degrees. Many of them had attended northern universities, notably Columbia and the University of Chicago. Many were directly influenced by Jane Addams and Sophonisba Breckinridge in Chicago. Others studDorothy McAllister. Richmond Times-Dispatch, Oct. 29, 1936. George C. Stoney, an official of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare, to Frank Graham, Apr. 29, 1940, quoted in Salmond, Miss Lucy of the CIO, 201. 22. Selected chiefly for the availability of biographical data, this group includes, in addition to Lucy Mason: in Kentucky, Annie Halleck and Anna Settle; in Virginia, Naomi Cohn, Adele Clark, and Brownie Lee Jones; in Louisiana, Ida Weis Friend, Catherine Labouisse, Elizabeth Wisner, Florence Sytz; in North Carolina, Bertha Newell, Harriet Elliott, Gertrude Weil, Gladys Tillett, Louise Leonard, Lois MacDonald; in South Carolina, Mary Frayser and Leila Johnson; in Georgia, Josephine Wilkins, Jessie Ames, Mrs. Martin Underwood, Charlotte Califf; in Tennessee, Estelle Haskins. Some of these women made league work their first priority; others were active members for at least several years. 23. Hall, Revolt against Chivalry; Anne F. Scott, Natural Allies (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991); Darlene Rebecca Roth, “Matronage: Patterns in Women’s Organizations, Atlanta, Georgia, 1890–1940” (Ph.D. diss., George Washington University, 1978).

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ied with women like Harriet Elliott of the University of North Carolina and Elizabeth Wisner at Tulane, who themselves had studied at Columbia or Chicago. Most of those who did not take degrees in the North lived there or in Europe for a time. Most were unmarried; the rest were widowed without young children (many had no children). A few are known to have lived in long-term partnerships with other women. (Lucy Mason had at least two such relationships; Adele Clark and Nora Houston shared a household in Richmond; and in New Orleans Florence Sytz and Elizabeth Wisner were romantic partners as well as colleagues at Tulane’s School of Social Work.) Most southern league women were at least partially selfsupporting; unlike the most elite southern women, few league activists had family ties to textile industrialists and other major employers. The majority of southern league activists were born during the last three decades of the nineteenth century and had been active in the woman suffrage movement. Also, through groups such as the Urban League, the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching, and later the Southern Conference for Human Welfare, many made “interracial cooperation” a high priority; their dedication to that goal marked them as racial liberals of their era. Finally, a striking number of southern Consumers’ League women were Jewish. Jewish women were more likely than other American women to back labor causes, reflecting both a greater tolerance for women’s political activism and a European socialist tradition among Jews. Jewish women also may have been more likely than other southern women to have ties outside the region that exposed them to new ideas and undercut the pull of sectionalism. Taken together, these characteristics suggest that the southern women who joined the NCL already had been defined outside of, or to some degree had broken with, their region’s especially restrictive conventions of white female respectability.24 These ingredients did not constitute a foolproof formula for a southern league activist. There existed unmarried, northern-educated, or Jewish southern women who were members of national women’s organizations 24. The all-white ASWPL was founded by Jessie Daniel Ames about 1930. Ames was a NCL member, but she did not break with states’ rights thinking, as evidenced by her resistance to a federal antilynching law; Hall, Revolt against Chivalry. A few southern league women were Catholic or married to Catholics, further suggesting their atypicality in the South. On southern antagonism to Jews and Catholics, see Nancy MacLean, Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). On Jewish women, see Beth Wenger, “Jewish Women of the Club: The Changing Public Role of Atlanta’s Jewish Women, 1870–1930,” American Jewish History 76 (1987): 311–33; and Sarah Wilkerson-Freeman, “Two Generations of Jewish Women: A Heritage of Activism in North Carolina, 1880–1970,” Southern Jewish Historical Society Newsletter (July 1989).

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but nonetheless revered the Confederacy and states’ rights. The Poppenheim sisters of South Carolina fit this description, as did North Carolina’s Jewish clubwoman Sarah Visanska. Thus, it is necessary to look not only at personal characteristics and backgrounds, but also at the political ideologies of these unusual southerners. Students of women’s politics too often assume or imply that “middle-class white women” thought alike, when they did not. The point is not that all southern white women were more progressive than southern white men. Indeed, some southern white women played lead roles in creating and sustaining the white supremacist, antistatist ideology of the “Lost Cause.” But women also were prominent on the other side of the contest over southern memory, not least through participation in the Consumers’ League. Closer examination of a set of assumptions and experiences that these women shared illuminates their political views.25 First, most southern league women seem to have shared Lucy Mason’s belief that women were socialized to be less profit-oriented and more nurturing than men. Mason claimed that women had a special obligation to “humanize industry,” to curb the brutal excesses of capitalism. Talk of restraining “cutthroat” competition through a democratically planned, cooperative economy seems to have resonated among women in particular. Their language often cast “the state” as a civilizing (feminine) force protecting the community from the excesses of competitive (masculine) individualism. One might call league women “maternalists,” in the sense that they believed gender differences entitled women to authority over policymaking, but improving the quality of motherhood was not their only or even their primary goal. Maternalism could produce a variety of political ideologies, ranging across the left-right spectrum, and the league’s gender ideology was part of a broad social-democratic agenda.26 A second tendency shared by league women was their linkage of partisan politics, men, and corruption or incompetence. This view often was bolstered by conflicts with local machines over the implementation of reform legislation. After winning a victory, such as a child labor or women’s hours law, women reformers became watchdogs over the enforcement of that 25. Johnson, “ ‘This Wonderful Dream Nation,’ ” 82, 341; Wilkerson-Freeman, “Transformation of American Politics,” on Visanska; Anastatia Sims, The Power of Femininity in the New South: Women’s Organizations and Politics in North Carolina, 1880–1930 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1997). 26. The literature on maternalism is large and contentious; for a start, see Seth Koven and Sonya Michel, eds., Mothers of a New World (New York: Routledge, 1993); Theda Skocpol, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992); and Gwendolyn Mink, The Wages of Motherhood (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995).

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law. At this administrative stage, reformers frequently found their legislative successes thwarted by corrupt or inept officials. Efforts to hire betterqualified officials typically brought league women into conflict with local and state political machines, which used jobs as patronage. Years of women’s exclusion from electoral politics had typed partisan politics as “masculine.” Suffragists had transformed the Victorian ideals of female purity and piety into a weapon: women’s moral superiority. They argued that enfranchisement would enable women to clean up a corrupt political system. Even as large numbers of women moved into party politics in the 1920s and 1930s, Consumers’ League activists sustained this belief that women were less partisan, less self-interested, and less corruptible than men. League women jockeyed to ensure that qualified, “nonpartisan” administrators—often women trained by the league—would receive appointments over local “party hacks.” In designing a labor department for Florida, Lucy Mason worried about creating a “single-headed” agency because she feared “the senile old governor will appoint one of his relatives.” In South Carolina, she wrangled with the state industrial commission, a “green and greedy group of young men . . . hungry for power and more jobs for their friends,” who wanted jurisdiction over the proposed labor department. One of the few southern state agencies that Mason admired was the Alabama Department of Child Welfare, which she described as run by a “capable and socially minded” woman executive and her “efficient staff of young women.” It appears that league women’s support for an administrative state was gendered. It also was not necessarily antidemocratic. Although many scholars emphasize the elitist bias of antimachine reformers, southern examples offer vivid reminders that machine politics sometimes directly served the ruling elite. As Mason put it in commenting on Virginia politics, “the legislature will be the usual state Democratic machine bunch and I do not know how far they will respond to the people back home.”27 Finally, as former suffragists, league women may have been more ready than most southerners to relax the principle of state sovereignty, because it had been used against them during the bitter fight over ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. According to historian Marjorie Spruill Wheeler, 27. Mason to Clara Beyer, U.S. Division of Labor Standards, March 29, 1937, and Nov. 17, 1935, NCL reel 36; on Virginia, Mason to James Sidel, Aug. 31, 1935, NCL reel 94. Wilkerson-Freeman, “Women and the Transformation of American Politics,” finds female administrators for the Federal Emergency Relief Administration in North Carolina and Georgia embattled over their refusal to base appointments on party service. On Louisiana, see Tyler, Silk Stockings.

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although a few southern suffrage leaders opposed the Nineteenth Amendment in the name of states’ rights, most of them became disgusted with states’ rights as an excuse for antireform, anti–women’s rights positions. And, although not all white southern suffragists were progressive on labor and race issues, virtually all labor and race progressives had been suffragists. Few “antis” supported race or labor reform.28 These political experiences—campaigns to regulate industry, conflict with political machines, and (earlier) woman suffragism—brought southern league activists into contact with women from outside their state and region who could offer critical support in these local battles. This contact with federal bureaucrats and national political figures created a powerful impression that the federal government was willing to use the talents of women. The high profile of women like Frances Perkins at the U.S. Department of Labor, Molly Dewson in the Democratic Party, and Ellen Woodward of Mississippi in the Federal Emergency Relief Administration conveyed a new sense of possibility for female professionals and reformers. Several southern league women held or applied for positions in New Deal agencies. Although certain New Deal policies reinforced gender inequality, the New Deal also offered white women (and a few black women) unprecedented opportunities in federal office. The women who joined the Consumers’ League did not call themselves feminists. “Feminism” had become associated with the Equal Rights Amendment, which the Consumers’ League opposed as an obstacle to sexbased labor laws and thus to the development of a regulatory state. But part of their attraction to the league program and the New Deal in general stemmed from their desire for women to have a greater voice in policymaking (which they optimistically assumed would result in policies beneficial to women of all classes). When Lucy Mason wrote to congratulate her friend Helen Douglas Mankin on getting elected to the U.S. Congress from Georgia in 1936, Mason predicted gleefully that “labor and liberals—both men and women—will soon hold the balance of power.” Her prediction was overly optimistic but telling. For southern women of the Consumers’ League, the New Deal years were “days of hope,” offering new possibilities for women as well as for southern labor and African Americans.29 28. Marjorie Spruill Wheeler, New Women of the New South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), chap. 5; Elna Green, Southern Strategies: Southern Women and the Woman Suffrage Question (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1997), appendices. 29. During the Great Depression, attacks from both right and left caused many women to mute their public criticism of gender inequality, but feminism continued to animate their activism. See Linda Gordon, Pitied but not Entitled (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), chap. 8; Lois Scharf, To Work and to Wed: Female Employment, Feminism,

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Indeed, the aspirations of southern women reformers may have been a hitherto-unnoticed factor in the ferocity of the conservative backlash that developed in the South after 1938. Political scientist Kristi Andersen has suggested that women, as well as labor unions and northern blacks, were part of the transformation of the Democratic Party in the 1930s.30 Women’s groups were leading pro–New Deal insurgencies in several southern states, as noted above, and it seems they had a hand in some of Roosevelt’s ill-fated 1938 attempts to purge the Democratic Party of conservatives. Certainly, southern opponents of the New Deal attacked its supporters in gendered terms. Female New Dealers like Frances Perkins and Eleanor Roosevelt were favorite targets of southern reactionaries. And recall the New Orleans priest who opposed a national child labor amendment on the ground that it would empower women at the U.S. Children’s Bureau (as dangerous as ignoring that “dusky gent in the fagot heap,” he warned). His words echoed alarms from across the region. North Carolina activists who sought a study of working conditions in textile mills as a step toward regulation were called “radical women” in cahoots with Grace Abbott of the Children’s Bureau, whose alleged agenda was jobs for “an army of her women friends.” In addition to such hinting that female authority was linked to lesbianism, southern conservatives insinuated that white female New Dealers sought or engaged in sexual interaction with black men. Thus they denounced race mixing in a way that particularly appealed to white men; accusations of sex with black women rarely were central to attacks on white male New Dealers. When Senator E. D. Smith of South Carolina said that the antilynching bill was drafted by “long-haired men and short-haired women,” he was conflating female activism with a collapse of all kinds of southern hierarchies. Historians usually characterize the southern backlash against the New Deal as resentment of the growing power of unions and African Americans in the Democratic Party; however, the experience of southern women active in the Consumers’ League suggests that the southern reaction that would shape American politics and social policy for decades to come was a defense of male supremacy, as well as of employer power and white supremacy.31 and the Great Depression (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1980); and Martha Swain, Ellen S. Woodward: New Deal Advocate for Women (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1995). Mason to H. D. Mankin, Oct. 22, 1936, reel 94, NCL Papers. See Sullivan, Days of Hope, for the argument that the New Deal for all its shortcomings opened up new possibilities for African Americans in the South. 30. Kristi Andersen, The Creation of a Democratic Majority, 1928–1936 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979). 31. On the New Orleans priest’s remarks, see note 19. North Carolina quotation from David Clark, ed., Southern Textile Bulletin, cited by Wilkerson-Freeman, “Women and the

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Among the relatively few southern whites who agitated for stronger labor laws, women predominated, as we have seen. In the late 1930s, they were decisive in generating a wave of state regulation that was small but of greater practical impact and political significance than the dearth of scholarly attention would suggest. Consumers’ League activists in the South were women whose personal characteristics had forced or enabled them to transgress the conventions of white feminine respectability, and whose political experiences with employers, party machines, and antisuffragists had inured them to rigid sectionalist thinking. Through their labor reform work they developed a gendered, national identity that made them more likely than other white southerners to believe social democracy, not sectionalism or states’ rights, would be the region’s salvation. Thus, women’s activism across state and sectional lines worked to offset the fragmenting effects of a federated political system. Interstate competition and states’ rights arguments in the political and legal arenas made it hard to develop a uniform, comprehensive wage-hour policy in the United States. Some atypical southern white women tried to get around these obstacles by forging ties with national reformers, trade unions, and government officials who shared their interest in transforming the South. Some of these national allies also shared their interest in expanding opportunities for women. The immediate legislative victories of these Consumers’ League activists were modest, but in the southern context, their work was downright subversive.

Transformation of American Politics,” 469. For examples of attacks on Eleanor Roosevelt by linking her with black men, see Harvard Sitkoff, A New Deal for Blacks (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 106, 118. Smith quotation from Simon, Fabric of Defeat, 195.

M E L IS S A A . M C E U E N

Exposing Anger and Discontent Esther Bubley’s Portrait of the Upper South during World War II

I

N THE FALL OF 1943, A GREYHOUND BUS DRIVER WHO DROVE

a regular route from Louisville to Cincinnati told U.S. government photographer Esther Bubley a story. Shaking his head, he began: These people. Only the other day I was loading at Louisville, and a drunken soldier wanted to get on. I can tell by looking at them whether it’s safe to take a drunk—and I turned this one down. Some old bag in the third seat back started to holler that, by God, her boy was in the Army, and she would like to see anyone refuse him a ride. That started things, and pretty soon everyone on the bus was spouting patriotism, so what could I do? I put the soldier on. Well, we hadn’t gone more than ten miles when he started up the aisle. I stopped quick and opened the door, but it was too late. Did that bus smell. The old lady, who started things in the first place, commenced to holler, “Driver, can’t you do something”—but I told her I had a schedule to meet and I couldn’t do a thing. I opened my window and got along fine, but it was cold, and most of the passengers didn’t want to keep their windows open. I never saw so many green faces.1

This story, one of many that Bubley collected on a regional bus trip, subtly reveals the heightened emotions felt and expressed in the midst of American involvement in World War II. The driver who related this exchange contributed but a small part to a larger mosaic of written text and visual imagery that Bubley put together in her six weeks on the road in the Upper South. She took nearly five hundred photographs and kept copious notes recounting conversations, stories, complaints, and her own observations. The author would like to thank Beverly Brannan, Christina Conkright, Kathleen Ewing, and John Hennen for their comments on the people and issues discussed in this essay. 1. Esther Bubley, typewritten notes entitled “Bus Drivers,” supplementary reference files, Farm Security Administration—Office of War Information Written Records, Lot 12024, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress (hereinafter cited as Written Records, FSA-OWI).

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Bubley’s composite portrait challenged the U.S. government’s campaign to depict a united, patriotic, happily sacrificing American home front population. In 1943, U.S. Office of War Information (OWI) director Elmer Davis stated in a widely disseminated pamphlet, “we believe truth is on our side, we believe the United States has a good story to tell, a convincing and heartening story, and we are going to go on telling that story, the same story, at home and abroad by whatever means we find likely to bring results.”2 Yet OWI employee Esther Bubley discovered a divided, frustrated, and unhappy wartime population in the states she visited, which included Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia. Her camera work and journal notes interweave three narratives of domestic discontent: the first, that overcrowded conditions in every mode of transportation resulted in widespread contention among a highly mobile wartime population; the second, that the promise of wartime employment went unfulfilled for some native southerners who had invested their hopes in northern industrial cities; and the third, that racial segregation eliminated the possibility of claiming justifiable home front cooperation. Inside these narratives, Bubley revealed how the realities of southern women’s lives tested and exposed the limitations of American wartime propaganda. Bubley’s work manipulated Elmer Davis’s desire to “employ truth” in his office’s attempts at “psychological” warfare. Her pictures confronted not only domestic propaganda, but also the agency’s messages designed to illuminate the “total war effort” for American allies abroad. One OWI instructional resource assured those allies that “the present conflict has deeply affected the people of the United States, but it has not divided them, as totalitarian leaders had hoped, along national or racial lines. Men and women of every extraction are fighting a common foe and working side by side in war industry.” As historian Mark Leff has pointed out, the tone of official American information provided a tremendous contrast to the understatement and humor of British propaganda at the time. American propaganda was “full of bluster, high emotion, guilt over the greater sacrifices of soldiers, and other techniques appropriate to a country virtually compelled to fight the war ‘on imagination alone.’ ” Bubley’s emphasis on dissent and disappointment allowed for alternate visions of America, some perhaps closer to the “truth” that Elmer Davis had so often invoked than the millions of advertisements, posters, radio spots, and newsreels that actually reached target audiences.3 2. Elmer Davis and Byron Price, War Information and Censorship (Washington, D.C.: American Council on Public Affairs, 1943), 22. 3. Ibid., 12, 10; Roy Stryker to C. W. Barker, March 12, 1943, Office Files, Written Records, FSA-OWI; A Handbook of the United States of America: Pertinent Information

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Although the pictures Bubley took belonged to the OWI, they represent one of the last field assignments for an earlier government information initiative directed by Roy Stryker. The photography unit had been set up in 1935 as the propaganda arm of the Resettlement Administration, later renamed and more widely known as the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Stryker’s job was to convince Congress and the American public that victims of drought and economic depression needed federal government aid in large measure. Believing the case could best be made with visual images, Stryker sent out photographers—such as Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, and Arthur Rothstein—to find the dispossessed and desperate rural Americans whom the early New Deal programs had left untouched. Their unforgettable documents were published nationwide in journals, newspapers, and magazines, and they convincingly made the argument that government assistance to deserving Americans was not only necessary but worthwhile.4 The 1938 midterm elections brought a number of conservative critics of the New Deal to Washington, so an increasingly skeptical, even hostile, Congress demanded evidence that programs such as the FSA were effectively handling economic problems. Stryker recognized that pictures of displaced farmers and exhausted migrant mothers had circulated sufficiently, so he redirected his newer field photographers, Marion Post and Russell Lee, to show the successes of the agency. And they did. Among the FSA successes were adult literacy classes, land use planning committees, and home economics programs for former sharecroppers and their families (figs. 1 and 2). Images like these convinced Stryker that his photography project had transcended its public relations function to become a tremendous documentary record, one that he hoped would expand into the most complete and representative portrayal of the United States ever made. As historian Alan Trachtenberg has noted, Stryker “adopted the idea of a historical record with evangelical fervor.”5 about the United States and the War Effort (London: Hutchinson, 1943), 61, produced by the Features Division, News and Features Bureau, Overseas Branch, U.S. Office of War Information; Mark H. Leff, “The Politics of Sacrifice on the American Home Front in World War II,” Journal of American History 77 (March 1991): 1314. 4. The vast literature on Stryker and FSA photography includes the following critical works: James Curtis, Mind’s Eye, Mind’s Truth: FSA Photography Reconsidered (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989); Carl Fleischhauer and Beverly W. Brannan, eds., Documenting America, 1935–43 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988); and Nicholas Natanson, The Black Image in the New Deal: The Politics of FSA Photography (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992). 5. Alan Trachtenberg, “From Image to Story: Reading the File,” in Documenting America, 1935–43, 58.

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FIG. 1. MARION POST WOLCOTT. Family Dinner. Coffee County, Alabama, 1939.

U.S. Farm Security Administration Collection, Library of Congress. (Italics indicate the captions written by the photographers themselves.)

By 1940, with the Roosevelt administration increasingly focusing on international affairs, Stryker feared the FSA might be abolished and his burgeoning history project aborted. To appear a team player, he deliberately sent his photographers on more assignments dealing with American preparedness for war and engaged them in a large-scale photomural project designed to encourage defense-bond sales. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Stryker asked editors and publishers about their needs for pictures. He appealed to Carey Robertson of the Louisville Courier-Journal to say what he thought would be “most useful for the public” and whether the British approach should be imitated, with pictures used “to keep people diverted from the difficulties which they face[d].” Stryker desperately hoped to continue building his cultural record of American life, but his fears that the FSA would be abolished were well founded, as he witnessed other New Deal agencies, including the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the National Youth Administration (NYA), become casualties of war. A May 1942 directive dismantled the FSA; the photography

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Child of an FSA Client. LaDelta Project, Thomastown, Louisiana, 1940. U.S. Farm Security Administration Collection, Library of Congress.

FIG. 2. MARION POST WOLCOTT.

unit, however, survived and was transferred to the OWI. Although the six-month conversion of the office from civilian to war agency proved a “headache” for Stryker, he delighted in the prospect of being able to “legitimately photograph more things” now that the unit had become “part of a war agency.”6 In spring 1943, Stryker hired Esther Bubley, a twenty-two-year-old art school graduate from Wisconsin who was happy to leave a less-thanglamorous job microfilming documents at the National Archives. Stryker knew that Bubley would be able to capture the essence of the home front experience after he viewed a series of her photographs on boardinghouse life in the nation’s capital. Her poignant images showed young, single women who had come to Washington seeking independence and good 6. Annette Melville, Farm Security Administration, Historical Section: A Guide to Textual Records in the Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1985), 19, 40; Stryker to Carey Robertson, editor of the Rotogravure Section, Dec. 12, 1941; Stryker to William McGaughey, Nov. 11, 1942, Office Files, Written Records, FSA-OWI.

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wages but found those advantages offset by loneliness and spartan living conditions. These were shots of women staring forlornly while waiting for buses, wandering about with suitcases in hand, or killing time in local bars, hoping to meet eligible men. American studies scholar Jacqueline Ellis has likened these women to the Great Depression migrants, who formed “a constant stream of expendable labour.” Yet these women faced the pressures to assume an acceptable middle-class female/feminine identity exerted in government propaganda, a difficult goal given their meager wages, Ellis asserts.7 Bubley seemed particularly drawn to the emptiness and boredom that characterized these women’s lives (fig. 3). In one particularly arresting image, she used a stark, bright background and long shadow to encase her subject, thus bringing emotion to the surface with her gaze on a pensive residence-hall boarder. With her eyes downcast, head supported by one arm, a nearly finished cigarette in hand, the woman’s demeanor belies the message tacked on the overhead shelf: “OUT FOR A GOOD TIME.” Bubley’s caption tells us the woman is listening to a murder mystery, which might partially explain her mood. But Bubley’s message reaches much further, alerting her audience to the realities of home front life for some single women, whose lives failed to mirror the stories they read in popular magazines. Short fiction featured brave, competent, risk-taking women whose efforts would contribute to a military victory while their verve and dedication would win the hearts of men at home and abroad. The women could even aspire to marry above their socioeconomic status if their deeds proved sufficiently heroic. The propaganda that brought many women to Washington directly connected clerical work and other similar service employment with “adventure, glamour, and romance.”8 Bubley’s photograph seems to suggest that her melancholy subject must live vicariously, experiencing adventure and romance through radio broadcasts, while pressed under the weight of a powerful message that urges her to seek excitement outside the boundaries of her drab residence-hall existence. Just a few weeks into her tenure at the OWI, Bubley witnessed an attack on the agency from congressional conservatives who complained about its liberal bent. In particular, white southern conservatives railed against the 7. “Women Come to the Front: Journalists, Photographers, and Broadcasters during World War II,” exhibition pamphlet, Library of Congress, 1995; Jacqueline Ellis, “Esther Bubley: FSA Documentarist,” History of Photography 20 (autumn 1996): 265–70. Ellis concludes that Bubley “exposed the class and race biases which were central to the rhetorical success of government-sponsored propaganda.” 8. Maureen Honey, Creating Rosie the Riveter: Class, Gender, and Propaganda during World War II (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1984), 72–85, 49.

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Listening to a murder mystery on the radio in a boarding house, 1943. U.S. Farm Security Administration Collection, Library of Congress.

FIG. 3. ESTHER BUBLEY.

OWI’s attempts to improve race relations by challenging racial stereotypes of the Jim Crow era. An OWI pamphlet highlighting African American achievement evoked impassioned responses, as did attempts to show black soldiers and officers in feature films and newsreels. In The Censored War, cultural historian George Roeder identifies race as the era’s “most explosive issue.” He points to Life magazine’s “Letters to the Editor” column for evidence of the widespread disgruntlement white readers voiced about strides made by blacks. One Kentuckian wrote in July 1942, How in the name of God do you expect to contribute to the promotion of unity in this country when you display pictures of white women working under the supervision of Negro men, while in the same article you excuse the degraded actions of Lincoln in sending Negro troops against the homes of those people who had raised them. Why remind the Southern people of an injustice as foul as any Hitler ever conceived? Your Negro war article is inflammatory to the point of treason.9 9. Life, July 6, 1942, p. 2, recounted in George H. Roeder Jr., The Censored War: American Visual Experience during World War II (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 44–

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The OWI’s efforts to address race issues usually omitted any mention of African American women. The government’s gendered approach to race meant that black women faced almost complete exclusion from official wartime propaganda. While white women viewed myriad female icons whom they could emulate, manipulate, or discard, African American women saw very few black female faces urging them to do their patriotic duty in factories and behind desks. Had they existed, such depictions would have misled viewers, since only a tiny percentage of black women held clerical positions or sophisticated industrial jobs. They were forced to perform tasks that required few, if any, special skills; more than anything else, they were given janitorial work. Even African American army nurses reported having to “perform menial jobs in place of and in addition to their nursing assignments.”10 In particular, the dominant racialized culture viewed black women in uniform as threatening. Stories related by Women’s Army Corps members, known as WACs, reveal the extent of harassment, discrimination, and cruelty black women endured throughout the war. At Camp Nathan Bedford Forrest in Tennessee, a white civilian slapped an African American WAC and then attempted to pour hot grease on the soldier. At Fort Des Moines, Iowa, WAC Maj. Charity Adams Earley faced verbal abuse by her superior officer, who was offended that a black woman had spent time at the officers’ club. Earley’s poignant story about her experience opens a window onto the intersection of race and gender during World War II. In her memoir, entitled One Woman’s Army, Earley recounted the embarrassing session. “So you are the Major Adams, the ‘negra’ officer who went into the officers club last night,” the colonel charged. “I don’t think any colored person has ever been a guest there before. What were you doing there? Who had the nerve to invite you there? I don’t believe in race mixing, and I don’t intend to be party to it. . . . Don’t let being an officer go to your head; you are still colored and I want you to remember that. You people have to stay in your place. Why, your folks might have been 45. See also John W. Jeffries, Wartime America: The World War II Home Front (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1996), 177–78, and Leila J. Rupp, Mobilizing Women for War: German and American Propaganda, 1939–1945 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978), 91–93. 10. The black press, especially The Crisis and Opportunity, did follow the popular trend of using “cover girls” and so offered images of black women engaged in professional work or educational pursuits. See Maureen Honey, ed., Bitter Fruit: African American Women in World War II (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1999), 29, 6–8; nurses’ quote from Judy Barrett Litoff, “Southern Women in a World at War,” in Remaking Dixie: The Impact of World War II on the American South, ed. Neil R. McMillen (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1997), 61.

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slaves to my people . . . and here you are acting like you are the same as white folks.”11

The volatile nature of race relations in the midst of the war shaped Esther Bubley’s visual consciousness. Disastrous events in the summer of 1943 prepared her to assume the most challenging assignment she would complete for the OWI, a six-week bus trip through seven states. Bubley’s journey began in the wake of race riots in Detroit, Los Angeles, and Harlem, and Congress’s decision to slash funds for the OWI’s domestic branch. Although seemingly unrelated, the two phenomena were linked by congressional conservatives who saw the OWI as a contributor to unrest among African Americans. Soon after the Detroit riot, southerners jumped at the chance “to instruct northerners on their failures in race relations.” An important factor in both the Detroit and Harlem riots was the inextricable bond between race and gender. In Detroit, some white sailors had allegedly thrown a black woman and her child from a bridge, but the white community believed that a black man had raped a white woman at the site. In a Harlem hotel lobby, a black soldier jumped in to defend a black woman who was scuffling with a white policeman. The policeman shot the soldier, which set off a neighborhood disturbance.12 Domestic unrest informed Bubley’s photography for the remainder of her employment at the OWI. She was acutely aware of racialized violence and social segregation, as well as the messages directed at American women during the war. That she managed to seamlessly integrate these sensibilities into a relatively simple field assignment makes her work all the more valuable for understanding the American home front, especially in the Upper South. Because Bubley had no driver’s license, her initial OWI assignments had kept her in the Washington area. Her general charge, as outlined in a letter of introduction that she carried, was to produce “factual photographs of the American people and American industries for use in the war information program.” Beyond that was a specific assignment “to take pictures covering the special transportation facilities available for the transportation of soldiers.” It was a perfect job, given Bubley’s own dependence upon public transportation. To pursue the assignment in depth, Bubley embarked on a regional bus trip, determined to show how a migratory wartime population managed to get around in spite of gas rationing and 11. Litoff, “Southern Women,” 61; Earley’s story opens Maureen Honey’s collection, Bitter Fruit, 1; Charity Adams Earley, One Woman’s Army: A Black Officer Remembers the WAC (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1989). 12. Dewey W. Grantham, “The South and Congressional Politics,” in Remaking Dixie, 27; Honey, Bitter Fruit, 129.

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other restrictions. During Bubley’s weeks on the road, she photographed and interviewed bus drivers, mechanics, station washroom attendants, and passengers of all sorts, including vacationers; people who claimed to be just “seeing the country”; women headed to army camps and navy hospitals to see sons, brothers, boyfriends, and husbands; and commuters and schoolchildren who rode commercial buses from farms into nearby towns.13 What Bubley discovered went well beyond Stryker’s earlier promise to present “as intelligently as possible, the story of this nation’s war effort.” Her visual and textual narrative offered more than U.S. government hype promoting cooperation, resourcefulness, and patriotism, showing instead an uneasy and uncomfortable populace. In the Louisville, Kentucky, terminal, Bubley recorded a terribly common scene in bus stations throughout the nation (fig. 4). With all of the benches occupied, a young woman, who was on her way to Nebraska to enroll in nursing school, had settled on some newspaper comic pages spread on the waiting-room floor. Bubley’s angle, at ground level, puts the viewer head to head with the subject. Squeezed into a corner (and a small part of the frame), the woman seems to be so accustomed to overcrowded conditions that she huddles in a tiny space even when no one else is near. The wall behind her serves to protect her, no doubt a necessity in the atmosphere of wartime travel. Stories told by women during World War II reiterated their vulnerability and not merely to transportation schedules. Frances Veeder remembered, “Once in El Paso I missed three trains and had to spend the night sleeping on the marble bench in the ladies’ washroom. They had a guard at the door to the ladies’ room because men would get drunk and wander in and there’d be trouble.”14 As easy targets in crowded bus and train stations, cautious women remained on their guard, a fact that raises questions about one poignant scene that Bubley captured in a Pittsburgh terminal. She framed a portrait of a tired young girl, perhaps five years old, sitting alone on a suitcase outside a rest room entrance marked “THIS LOUNGE FOR LADIES 13. Stryker to whomever, Apr. 8, 1943, Office Files, Written Records, FSA-OWI. Bubley probably carried this letter of introduction to all assignments, to assure any detractors that her camera work bore U.S. Government approval and should not be questioned; Stryker to M. McDonald, Apr. 3, 1943, Office Files, Written Records, FSA-OWI. (McDonald was with Greyhound Bus Company in Washington, D.C.). See also Bubley, “Bus Drivers,” Written Records, FSA-OWI. 14. Stryker to Allis Chalmers Company, March 12, 1943, Office Files, Written Records, FSA-OWI. Veeder’s story is told in Mark Jonathan Harris, Franklin Mitchell, and Steven Schechter, The Homefront: America during World War II (New York: G. Putnam’s Sons, 1984), 178.

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Woman on her way to enroll in nursing school. Louisville, Kentucky, terminal. September, 1943. U.S. Farm Security Administration Collection, Library of Congress.

FIG. 4. ESTHER BUBLEY.

ONLY.” The child, seemingly abandoned, looks more like a lifeless doll than a human being. The little girl joined hundreds of others in Bubley’s pictures whose glazed-over, glum expressions led critic Kathryn Dieckmann to call Bubley’s wartime America “a nation of zombies.” Dieckmann argued that these photos challenged Stryker’s agenda to show a certain determined “spirit” among Americans. Identifying what appeared to be a massive sleeping throng in the United States, Dieckmann likened Bubley’s work to that of nineteenth-century trendsetters who photographed dead people “posed as though they were sleeping.”15 Women dominate the photographs in Bubley’s bus series. Young, old, married, single, testy, clever, or disillusioned, they fill her notebook pages 15. Negative number 34–37098-E, Lot 882, FSA-OWI Collection, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (hereinafter cited as Photos, FSA-OWI); Kathryn Dieckmann, “A Nation of Zombies,” Art in America 77 (Nov. 1989): 55–61, 57.

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and her film rolls. A 1943 Time magazine article identified a “strange, unorganized home-front battle being fought all over the U.S. by a vast, unorganized army of women . . . the wives, mothers, sweethearts, or fiancées of servicemen. Their only plan of campaign is to follow their men.”16 In Days of Sadness, Years of Triumph, Geoffrey Perrett’s description is borne out by Bubley’s images, where for many women the only married life they had ever known was built around suitcases, rented rooms, frequent good-byes, packed trains and buses . . . fixed incomes, missed connections, exorbitant rents and unscheduled changes in military orders. . . . Long before the war ended, they were the saddest and the most predictable feature of the crowded train stations and bus terminals. . . . At one time or another almost all the women under forty were caught up in this migration.17

Some women easily coped with the hardships while others felt jarred and resented their conditions. Unfulfilled promises and sudden geographical dislocation affected both single and married women during the war. Keenly aware of their shared predicament, war brides on the move “recognized each other on sight, exchanged views on living quarters, babies, and allotments, and helped each other in times of difficulty.”18 Yet some women remained psychologically isolated. West Virginian Marjorie Cartwright, who married her sweetheart in 1942 and immediately moved to San Francisco, endured what she called “the most painful, lonely years I think I will ever spend.” After her husband shipped out, she felt like an “orphan” for nearly four years and admitted crying alone in her room on many nights. Bubley talked to one young woman who had left her home in Knoxville and was on her way to visit her boyfriend in a Minneapolisarea army camp. Indifferent and candid, the woman said, “I don’t think I love him, but I must like him a lot, because if I didn’t I wouldn’t come all the way from Knoxville to visit him, would I? No, I don’t think I would. Anyhow, he sent me the money for the trip.” The remark, completely devoid of romantic undertones, reveals the woman’s pragmatism as well as her boredom with the life the war has created for her. She offers no echoes of the stereotypical perky female depicted in newsreels or popular short fiction, because the American home front has failed to provide meaning in 16. Time excerpt quoted in Geoffrey Perrett, Days of Sadness, Years of Triumph: The American People, 1939–1945 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1973), 347. 17. Perrett, Days of Sadness, Years of Triumph, 347. 18. Judy Barrett Litoff and David Smith, eds., American Women in a World at War: Contemporary Accounts from World War II (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1997), 125.

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her life. She is on the road because someone sent her money. Perhaps her flippant response masked deeper sentiments, serving as a defense mechanism against fears of a fleeting wartime romance. Some women used such coping devices to guard against heartbreak and disappointment. Patricia Livermore explained that during the war “there was always an underlying sadness, a melancholy,” because a woman had no way of knowing how long a relationship might last. Frances Veeder remembered how disturbed she was by a scene she viewed through the window of a slowly passing train— that of a GI and a woman having sex “while other GI’s stood around watching or not watching.” The act combined with the indifference of the men who sat nearby enjoying drinks and cigarettes “made a deep impression” on her. She recognized the evaporative nature of the chance meetings and quick romances, and the effects these brief encounters were having. “You were passing each other in the night,” Veeder said.19 Bubley’s creative camera angles exposed and magnified the gross discomforts in wartime public transportation. On the crowded route from Cincinnati to Louisville, Bubley photographed a frequently reported occurrence in domestic transportation: the use of makeshift sleeping accommodations (fig. 5). In this scene, the soldier’s cramped quarters have relegated him to a small section of Bubley’s frame. He is pressed up against the bus ceiling, his body conforming to the streamlined curves of the vehicle’s design. Crumpled in appearance, with his head pressed against the luggage rack, the man appears to have lost the lower half of his body, which is obscured in shadow and in the distance of the frame. Bubley used a deep shadow to cut across the frame, upsetting the human proportions and giving her viewer a disturbed sense of space. Passengers of the day ended up in strained and uncomfortable positions, their discomfort exaggerated by the angles at which Bubley shot their faces and bodies. She often positioned herself in the aisle below seated individuals, thus magnifying the size of their chins, cheeks, and arms.20 In one shot from her bus trip, Bubley captured only half a face, the image sliced by the edge of a bus seat (fig. 6). The passenger’s odd single eye adds mystery and interest to what could otherwise be a portrait of a well-dressed man. The viewer’s eye is drawn, however, to the adjacent figure, whose reticence at being photographed is marked by the physical barriers he has erected before the photographer: a raised left leg that blocks access to his seat, extended by his left arm, 19. Cartwright’s story told in Harris et al., The Homefront, 190–91; Bubley, “Bus Drivers,” Written Records, FSA-OWI. Honey discusses female stereotypes in wartime popular culture in Creating Rosie the Riveter, 72–85. Personal stories recorded in Harris et al., Homefront, 168, 177. 20. Dieckmann, “A Nation of Zombies,” 57.

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FIG. 5. ESTHER BUBLEY. Soldier sleeping in the luggage rack, Cincinnati to Louisville. September, 1943. U.S. Farm Security Administration Collection, Library of Congress.

which disallows further intrusion. He has positioned his right arm to offer reinforcement for the barrier, enhanced by the live, “smoking” cigarette. Bubley’s angle situates these body parts out of normal proportion: the particularly oversized, foregrounded hand takes precedence in the frame. Viewers can then imagine the stifling physical contact that people experienced in overcrowded facilities and perhaps comprehend the passengers’ resulting distress. Bubley suggested with her camera and her accompanying story that deplorable traveling conditions had come to be expected, although not willingly accepted, by Americans in mid-1943. One bus driver bragged to Bubley about taking sixty-eight people on a thirty-seven-passenger bus, commenting proudly, “Aw, it’s nothing.” On one leg of the journey, Bubley noted that passengers seemed to be waiting at “every mail box” for the bus to pick them up and that “standing room” only was commonplace. Overcrowding in transportation facilities tested people’s resolve and, according to Bubley, led them to complain more loudly and beg more hungrily than they would have under ordinary circumstances.

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Returning to Tennessee, after a second unsuccessful trip to get a defense job in Ohio. September, 1943. U.S. Farm Security Administration Collection, Library of Congress.

FIG. 6. ESTHER BUBLEY.

Bubley witnessed a sobbing woman plead with a bus driver to let her onto an already overloaded vehicle so that she could reach her injured son in a nearby navy hospital. When the driver said he would allow her to stand, she wept even louder, crying that she “couldn’t possibly stand up all the way.” At a brief stop on the route from Louisville to Nashville, restless passengers continually pulled the cord and honked the bus horn to hustle up the driver. One slumbering soldier yelled, “Don’t wear down the batteries, or we’ll never get home.” Bubley observed that her own seatmate “glared” at another passenger who kept bumping her seatback in his attempts to get settled comfortably. A woman making her way from her home in Louisiana to her husband’s army camp north of Indianapolis began “to complain bitterly about Northern weather” as soon as the bus crossed the Ohio River. Her whining so frustrated the driver that he threw his coat back to her.21 21. Bubley, “Bus Drivers,” Written Records, FSA-OWI.

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Mothers traveling with their children found the demands of public transportation particularly stressful. One southern bus driver told Bubley that a young woman had asked him to get her child a bottle because her only one had broken. So the driver stopped at a drugstore, went inside, and came back with a bottle; when the mother complained that it had no nipple, the driver went back into the store to buy one. When the driver returned, the mother exclaimed, “But it ain’t filled.” So the driver left again and came back with a full bottle of milk. Instead of an offer of payment or expression of gratitude, the mother added insult to injury by concluding irritably, “you’d certainly make a Hell of a father!” The Children’s Bureau, a U.S. Labor Department agency, published instructional pamphlets for mothers on how to prepare for train or bus trips with children. Advice ranged from how to pack bottles to what to do about overly friendly fellow travelers. The first rule stated, “plan well and travel light.”22 Sadness, frustration, and restlessness on the road often emerged from deep-seated cultural prejudices. On her trek through the border states of the Upper South and Midwest, Bubley frequently heard complaints that bespoke regional biases and resentment. One Ohio woman intimated how little she cared for the South. After staring out the windows at the eroded hills and rundown dwellings on the road from Nashville to Memphis, the woman remarked, “I love scenery, but I don’t look at that . . . it’s too depressing. How can people live in those houses, why don’t they fix them up, or build new ones?” And on the trek from Memphis to Chattanooga, a “glum looking soldier” from out of state announced unequivocally to two Tennessee girls, “Memphis is a lousy town—no place to go—I didn’t have a good time in Memphis at all.” The girls’ attempts to cheer him up failed, and the conversation waned, Bubley recorded in her notes.23 But more serious than the lack of scenic vistas or nightlife options were the limited opportunities afforded by wartime industry in the wake of the Great Depression. Most studies of home front America emphasize the advent of good jobs and high wages for millions of Americans; certainly OWI propaganda proclaimed their availability and emphasized that it was every American’s duty to assume the positions necessary for winning the war. Yet Bubley interviewed and photographed a substantial number of men and women who had failed to find employment. All were southerners looking for jobs in northern industrial cities. Each had been turned away, and all were headed back to their homes in Kentucky or Tennessee. Their stories 22. Ibid.; “If Your Baby Must Travel in Wartime” (Washington: U.S. Dept. of Labor, Children’s Bureau, Bureau Publication 307 [1944]), reprinted in Litoff and Smith, American Women in a World at War, 138–47. 23. Bubley, “Bus Drivers,” Written Records, FSA-OWI.

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suggested that their northern counterparts found them undesirable as fellow workers and invented reasons not to hire them. One of two young women who had been to Detroit complained, “They told us we had to have a state clearance. . . . I don’t know what it is, but we ain’t got it.”24 A Nashville man attempting to find employment in Ohio was put off, informed he would have to wait sixty days. Another frustrated southerner was returning home after his second unsuccessful trip north to obtain work in the defense industry. Bubley’s visual and written records highlighted the bewilderment, disappointment, and alienation felt by southerners shunned or ignored in northern cities. Literature produced by the Public Affairs Committee in 1943 suggested that many southern workers were unskilled and therefore unemployable in war industry. Washington Post reporter Agnes E. Meyer claimed in 1943 that southerners from “country districts” were unreliable laborers as well as rowdy neighbors who needed instruction about how to live in close proximity to other people. Historian Pete Daniel has identified other barriers to successful adjustment by rural Americans in urban areas. “Rural people were not accustomed to punctuality, hourly work, and strict oversight—or to working among strangers. To people comfortable with the annual cycle of farming and the pace of mules, working by a clock and competing for jobs, housing, seats on buses, recreation, and medical care required adjustment.” Nevertheless, a quantitative study of the Ford Motor Company in Detroit showed that of all women workers at Ford in 1944, more than half had been born in the Southeast. Of all black women workers at Ford during the war, 73.3 percent had been born in the Southeast, while 32.5 percent of all white women workers were native southerners. Despite the rejection faced by the people that Bubley encountered, many southerners were actively engaged in industrial work in northern cities.25 One woman on the Louisville-Nashville route told Bubley about being turned away from war work in Ohio. Puzzled, the woman questioned why she should not be allowed to work since she knew that “they needed people.” Women like these were caught in the confusing maelstrom of public 24. Leff, “The Politics of Sacrifice,” 1296–318; U.S. OWI, A Handbook of the United States of America; Bubley, “Bus Drivers,” Written Records, FSA-OWI. See Lot 885 for photographs of these individuals, Photos, FSA-OWI. 25. Public Affairs pamphlets, “The South’s Place in the Nation,” U.S. Government Documents, William T. Young Library, University of Kentucky. Pete Daniel discusses Agnes E. Meyer’s work in “Going among Strangers: Southern Reactions to World War II,” Journal of American History 77 (Dec. 1990): 902–3, 898. The Ford Motor Company study may be found in Public Affairs pamphlets, “The South’s Place in the Nation,” U.S. Government Documents, William T. Young Library, University of Kentucky.

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and private messages that urged them to embrace their patriotic duty to their men and their country and the reality that provided no outlet for them to do so. For example, the film Glamour Girls of ’43 reinforced gendered roles by juxtaposing scenes of traditional female jobs with those of wartime occupations that required similar skills. The film’s male narrator noted that “instead of cutting the lines of a dress, this woman cuts the pattern of aircraft parts. Instead of baking cake, this woman is cooking gears to reduce the tension in the gears after use. . . . After a short apprenticeship, this woman can operate a drill press just as easily as a juice extractor in her own kitchen.”26 One widely published OWI photograph featured two cheerful-looking working women chatting. The caption promoted the agency’s purpose, instructing viewers, American women fight on home front in U.S. industries: two American girls, employed as war workers by a big American railroad, enjoy a moment of relaxation after cleaning and preparing the locomotive. . . . These girls, like millions of other American women, left homes, schools, and pleasanter occupations to work on U.S. railroads, in shipyards, steel plants and war industries to release more men for U.S. fighting forces.27

Women also got messages from familiar companies whose products they knew well. Eureka, peacetime producer of vacuum cleaners, highlighted women in war industries. And various food companies, including Maxwell House Coffee, appealed to their female consumers by focusing their attention on women engaged in war work.28 Augmenting Bubley’s focus on lost hopes for employment and overcrowded travel conditions is the most powerful element in her portrait of an unsettled Upper South, the force of racial segregation. Upon crossing the famed Mason-Dixon line, Bubley, a Wisconsin native and child of Russian immigrants, noted signs and symbols of a region divided by race designation. Her disturbing photographs exhibit the divisiveness and reveal the incongruity of such scenes in a nation summoned to band together to deal with an international crisis. Because race was a touchy subject during World War II, many government officials “flirted with censorship as 26. Bubley, “Bus Drivers,” Written Records, FSA-OWI; “Glamour Girls of ’43,” newsreel, described in Ruth Milkman, “Gender at Work: The Sexual Division of Labor during World War II,” in Women’s America: Refocusing the Past, ed. Linda K. Kerber and Jane Sherron DeHart (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 437–49; Penny Colman, Rosie the Riveter: Women Working on the Home Front in World War II (New York: Crown Publishers, 1995), 70; Rupp, Mobilizing Women for War, 93–99. 27. Colman, Rosie the Riveter, 49. 28. Honey, Creating Rosie the Riveter, 109.

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Greyhound Bus Terminal. Memphis, Tennessee. September, 1943. U.S. Farm Security Administration Collection, Library of Congress.

FIG. 7. ESTHER BUBLEY.

they tried to head off disaster.” Historian Geoffrey Perrett pointed out that Elmer Davis, the OWI director, actually “gave special commendations and favors to editors who minimized racial clashes. Those who reported them at length were told they were dabbling in treason.”29 Even though she was a Davis subordinate, Bubley chose to expose and illuminate southern racism and its manifestations. A view from above a crowded platform at the Memphis bus station shows the throng dictated by a clear directive that reads “WHITE WAITING ROOM” (fig. 7). Bubley photographed the scene from several angles, keeping the sign clearly visible in each frame. Close examination of the picture reveals a racially mixed crowd, where even a few African American passengers emerge from the doorway pointedly marked for whites. What, then, is the photographer’s message with the Memphis series? As a composite of her thematic efforts on the bus trip, it juxtaposes segregation icons and interracial mixing, contradictory phenomena that may have intensified the discomforts already felt by southern travelers. 29. Perrett, Days of Sadness, Years of Triumph, 311.

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FIG. 8. ESTHER BUBLEY. A schoolgirl waiting to get a bus at a small town in Tennessee. September, 1943. U.S. Farm Security Administration Collection, Library of Congress.

To expand on her exploration of race in the American South, Bubley also employed more traditional portraiture. Bubley framed the serious, resolute manner of an African American schoolgirl waiting at a bus stop in a small Tennessee town (fig. 8). The adolescent’s demeanor challenges the camera, and perhaps Bubley herself, who has elected to fill the foreground of her photograph with the most stylishly coiffed and fashionably dressed of all of the girls at the scene. Bubley’s style of documentary portraiture fails to flatter the young woman, yet it shows something more satisfying: a spirited nonverbal exchange between photographer and subject. Historian Nicholas Lemann identified this particular characteristic of Bubley’s work as “an effortless equivalence among subject, photographer, and audience” which kept her from creating archetypes. Lemann hinted that Bubley’s pictures have the ability to arouse her viewers’ empathy, instructing them, “Whatever way it is that these people are hurting, it’s the same way we all are hurting.”30 If this framework is applied to her fall 1943 field assign30. Nicholas Lemann, “Esther Bubley’s America,” American Heritage (May 2001), 72.

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FIG. 9. ESTHER BUBLEY. Rome, Georgia. September 1943. U.S. Farm Security Administration Collection, Library of Congress.

ment, then Bubley recognized tensions in the Upper South as problems shared by all Americans, even if they never had ridden a bus from Louisville to Memphis nor ever would. In other locations on her southern journey, Bubley allowed the icons of apartheid to magnify her narrative. At a stop in Rome, Georgia, the southernmost point on Bubley’s regional excursion, the camera eye rested on a large and imposing sign pointing certain passengers to a “COLORED WAITING ROOM” (fig. 9). Bubley positioned herself directly beneath the sign to effect an angle promoting the authority of the command, which is further strengthened by a large arrow cutting fully across the horizontal plane of the image. For someone who preferred human subjects to inanimate objects, Bubley found segregation signage strangely compelling and gave it tremendous force by magnifying and illuminating its divisive and oppressive nature. One of the most telling photographs in Bubley’s segregation oeuvre features a Greyhound Bus rest stop on the LouisvilleNashville route (fig. 10). At the center of the landscape stands a wooden hut that houses two rest rooms for black passengers. The bucolic setting

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A rest stop for Greyhound bus passengers on the way from Louisville, Kentucky, to Nashville, Tennessee. September, 1943. U.S. Farm Security Administration Collection, Library of Congress.

FIG. 10. ESTHER BUBLEY.

includes tall trees and autumn sunshine that together produce a dappled effect of pleasant shadows and warmth. But the pleasant surroundings encase an odd focal point for the camera eye: a boldly lettered sign announcing “COLORED DINING ROOM IN REAR.” Does this suggest that African Americans eat behind the toilet facilities? Bubley’s camera angle leads her viewers to believe so. For Bubley, racial issues would remain unresolved if information failed to surface. As an OWI information specialist, Bubley strove to compile as thorough and pointed a record as she possibly could. Her written notes from the trip contain a monologue by an Ohio woman (on her way to visit first her brother at an army camp in Texas, then her husband in California) who articulated a measure of the resentment and misunderstanding that Bubley attempted to capture on film. On her first trip south, the woman expressed her ill will for the region and its inhabitants. “The people aren’t a bit friendly—if you tell them you’re a working girl, they look down on you. In the South, they don’t think women should work.” Then she scanned

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the bus to see if anyone was listening and intimated to Bubley, “Have you seen how they make the [N]egroes wait in a separate room at the bus station? And did you know that they can only sit in the back seats on the bus? Another thing I saw—in some stores I went into, drinking fountains marked White, Only.” Observing a passing military vehicle filled with African American soldiers waving and shouting, the same woman told Bubley that the soldiers had to be from the North since, in her judgment, “southern [N]egroes wouldn’t dare make all that noise.”31 These spoken sentiments powerfully buttressed Bubley’s photographic record of race relations in the Upper South, providing additional evidence for the multilayered portrait she constructed during her six-week stint on the road. Esther Bubley’s 1943 bus trip resulted in an invaluable store of home front images that not only enriched Roy Stryker’s burgeoning history of America but also offered a refreshing if disturbing view of one region’s cultural and social complexities. Setting aside the Office of War Information’s directive to accentuate the positive, Bubley looked and listened carefully to real Americans rather than attempting to reduce them to the one- and twodimensional figures created for posters, newsreels, and radio shows. What she found underneath the publicly produced facade of spirited wartime unity and patriotism was a cadre of Americans fighting their own wars at home. Perhaps the greatest irony is that she fulfilled a personal quest to record “objective social truth” while on the payroll of the nation’s preeminent propaganda manufacturer.32

31. Bubley, “Bus Drivers,” Written Records, FSA-OWI. 32. On Bubley’s general mission as a documentarian see Andrea Fisher, Let Us Now Praise Famous Women (London: Pandora, 1987), 124. By 1944 Bubley was no longer a U.S. government photographer. However, she continued her work as a documentarian/propagandist under the tutelage of Roy Stryker, who left U.S. government employment to direct for Standard Oil a massive photo-documentary project designed to improve the company’s image. See Standard Oil of New Jersey Collection, University of Louisville Photographic Archives, Ekstrom Library, Louisville, Kentucky.

S H A N N O N L . F R Y S TA K

‘‘With All Deliberate Speed’’ The Integration of the League of Women Voters of New Orleans, 1953–1963

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T ITS INCEPTION IN 1942, THE LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS

of New Orleans (LWVNO) was not racially integrated; yet, it was expected to abide by national league bylaws, which called for a membership “that would not only be representative of the community, but that would be community-wide in its interest in setting up programs.” New Orleans’s population was and still is a diverse one, including African Americans, Hispanics, Italians, French, Irish, and Germans. While the LWVNO did represent a large percentage of the white community, it, like other political organizations of the time, did not represent the larger New Orleans community, specifically African Americans. This was, of course, due to the long-standing segregationist attitudes that gripped the Deep South, attitudes that seemed only to intensify in some quarters after the Supreme Court decreed the end of “separate, but equal” in its 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. In the 1950s and 1960s, the LWVNO leadership found itself uncomfortably caught between national mandates and local traditions.1 The League of Women Voters for decades had regarded itself as “progressive,” citing its origins in the suffrage movement of the early twentieth The author wishes to thank J. William Harris, Elizabeth Palumbo, Bettie Purcell for early readings and suggestions on this essay and most especially my editors, Tom Appleton and Angela Boswell, as well as the outside readers for their insightful comments and suggestions. I am also extremely grateful to the numerous Louisiana women whose great acts of courage instruct future generations in how to create a more just and democratic society. 1. Emily Blanchard to Rosa Keller, July 24, 1974, in the “League of Women Voters of New Orleans History, 1942–1985” (unpublished), copy in possession of the author, 7 (hereinafter cited as “LWVNO History”). In 1956, a broad demographic profile conducted by the Research Institute at the University of Michigan revealed that the League of Women Voters comprised well-educated, well-to-do community members around the country. Historian Susan Ware maintains that the league could have been more accurately called “the League of Affluent Women Voters,” “American Women in the 1950s: NonPartisan Politics and Women’s Politicization,” in Women, Politics, and Change, ed. Louise A. Tilly and Patricia Gurin (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1990).

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century. Progressivism, a middle-class urban movement, encouraged government agencies as well as individual citizens to work for a wide range of economic, political, and humanitarian concerns. In this tradition, the league’s primary goals were to “aid its members in how to be better citizens” and to “reflect the community and community opinion.” Still, while progressivism was based in democracy, in the Deep South most white southerners embraced the status quo of race relations: white over black. Even during the early suffrage movement, the league had never been inclusive of nonwhite or lower-class white women, as the term progressive might imply.2 Ironically, the social and political upheavals of the 1950s and 1960s led many progressive league members around the country to conclude that they needed to become more active leaders and role models for young women, poor women, and minority women. Indeed, the general climate of reform had benefited the league in terms of increased membership applications, a phenomenon that historian Anne Firor Scott has called “a sign of the times.”3 But the leadership recognized that this trend could not last if the league did not better adapt to modern circumstances. An examination of the New Orleans league’s struggle with issues of race and class provides fresh insights into women’s roles as civic leaders, progressive southerners, and members of New Orleans’s elite, white community. The League of Women Voters of New Orleans had its roots in an organization called the Woman Citizen’s Union (WCU). Founded in 1933 by Martha Gilmore Robinson, former suffragist and white women’s rights advocate, the WCU was created to encourage women to use their voting privilege wisely. Its main purpose was to “educate the woman voter so that she may intelligently bring pressure to bear upon all officials in all civic and political matters.” Similar to the League of Women Voters, the WCU acted as a nonpartisan organization, never taking a stand for or against an individual candidate or party. It was politically influential nonetheless. 2. League of Women Voters of New Orleans Charter, LWV Papers, Special Collections, Tulane University (hereinafter cited as LWV Papers). Article III (“Membership”), Section 2 (“Eligibility”) states, “Any woman who subscribes to the object and policy of the League shall be eligible for membership.” With “any woman” being the key phrase, nothing was ever mentioned in league bylaws, from the inception of the League of Women Voters, regarding segregation of the organization because of race. For more on the woman suffrage movement and its relationship with black women see Marjorie Spruill Wheeler, New Women of the New South: The Leaders of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the Southern States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), and Steven Buechler, Women’s Movements in the United States: Woman Suffrage, Equal Rights, and Beyond (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1990). 3. Anne Firor Scott, “Unfinished Business,” Journal of Women’s History 8 (summer 1996): 118.

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In its minutes may be found the statement “The Woman Citizen’s Union is for good government. [I]f our democracy is to survive, we, its citizens must insure that the vote of each citizen is counted and that a majority of these votes prevail.” On October 28, 1942, the WCU voted itself out of existence and became the New Orleans chapter of the League of Women Voters, continuing to work for good government and claiming to educate and support all women, regardless of race and class.4 The league believed that it was an important part of the New Orleans political community, providing published studies of candidates and their stance on issues as well as policing polls at election time and making sure that all who were registered, white and black, could vote. In 1947, the past president of the Louisiana League of Women Voters and one of the founding members of the fledgling LWVNO, Emily Blanchard, was the first to suggest that the New Orleans league consider “opening up membership to negro women in the community who were eligible.” However, Blanchard’s appeal made no headway, in part, because it came on the heels of her earlier request to speak to the LWVNO on behalf of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare (SCHW), a racially integrated organization. Though it had been labeled a communist organization by its critics since its inception in 1938, the SCHW described itself as a “southwide membership organization to promote the general welfare and to improve the economic, social, political, cultural, and spiritual conditions of the people of the South without regard to race, creed, color, or national origin.” Among its members were such high-profile individuals as Mary McLeod Bethune, a black woman appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to head the National Youth Administration in the 1930s, and former Vice President Henry Wallace. Yet, as historian Adam Fairclough has noted in his work on the civil rights struggles in Louisiana, “[T]he issue of communism . . . prevented the SCHW from making common cause with ‘respectable’ organizations such as the League of Women Voters.”5 4. Minutes of the Woman Citizen’s Union, Feb. 28, 1940; Martha Gilmore Robinson to members of the WCU, Sept. 29, 1941; and minutes of the WCU, Oct. 28, 1942, all in LWV Papers. In 1919, Carrie Chapman Catt, at the 50th Anniversary Convention of the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association, proposed establishing a League of Women Voters to work on achieving woman suffrage and ending other forms of political and legal discrimination against women. On Feb. 14, 1920, six months before ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, the League of Women Voters was formed nationally. 5. Blanchard to Keller, July 24, 1974, in “LWVNO History,” 8; SCHW Pamphlet, Apr. 23, 1947, LWV Papers. See also Thomas A. Krueger, And Promises to Keep: The Southern Conference for Human Welfare, 1938–1948 (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1967), and John Egerton, Speak Now against the Day: The Generation before the Civil Rights Movement in the South (New York: Knopf, 1994); Adam Fairclough, Race and Democracy: The

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In a 1974 letter, Blanchard recalled that Martha Gilmore Robinson, cofounder of the New Orleans league and president from 1942 to 1944, refused her request, stating that the league would like to avoid any “unfortunate publicity.” Robinson declared that the league did not “endorse much of the legislation which is actively being pushed by the SCHW” and that the league had no intention of “getting embroiled in the controversies which the SCHW deliberately fosters.” Further, Robinson felt that the SCHW bore “all the earmarks of a communist front group.” Thus, when Blanchard, a proponent of the SCHW, raised the issue of integrating the LWVNO, “there was obviously much anxiety among members concerning this suggestion,” as members were fearful that the league could also be branded a “communist front group.” Blanchard also recalled that “[S]hortly thereafter . . . Mrs. Robinson brought to my home a letter from the New Orleans League which deplored my position concerning membership for negro women and stated concretely that unless I resigned from the Southern Conference for Human Welfare, I would be stricken from the League’s membership.” With no doubt as to the course she would take, Blanchard responded that the “ultimatum from the New Orleans League was not a problem for me at all, that I would not resign from the Southern Conference for Human Welfare and would accept immediate dismissal from the League. I have had no communication with the League since.”6 Although there were not many southern women who were outspoken about African American participation in political organizations, Blanchard was not alone. Just a few years after Blanchard’s appeal to the league, Rosa Keller revisited the issue of integration. As a member of the New Orleans white elite as well as of the LWVNO, and as a woman and a Christian who had married into a Jewish family, she condemned all forms of bigotry and segregation. Throughout the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s, Keller was often criticized by her peers for her activism in the city. As outspoken as she was on civil rights issues, Keller later agreed with Martha Robinson that “obviously the forties were no time to be breaking Civil Rights Struggle in Louisiana, 1915–1972 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995), 139. 6. Martha Gilmore Robinson to Ruth Preston, Sept. 2, 1947, LWV Papers. Robinson states that “the League of Women Voters and the Southern Conference for Human Welfare are not at all interested in the same way in influencing public opinion. There is no reason for any association between these two organizations.” Blanchard to Keller, July 24, 1974, in “LWVNO History,” 8. Robinson commented that “Unfortunately fine liberals like Emily Blanchard . . . often let their hearts govern their hard common sense” (Martha Gilmore Robinson to Ruth Preston, Sept. 2, 1947, LWV Papers).

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the racial barrier.” However, during the 1950s, Keller’s holding of integrated meetings in her home in an exclusive, all-white area of the city was instrumental in challenging the dominant separatist southern ideology.7 The extent of racism in New Orleans has been the subject of considerable debate. Adam Fairclough has asserted that “the Crescent City was in many ways a world unto itself, and its lazy, hedonistic culture seemed to discourage racism.” Indeed, one national league member claimed that New Orleans was a “port city and far more cosmopolitan . . . far ahead of the rest of the state in its racial attitudes.” Still, the league’s records indicate that racism was a serious and persistent problem. As Keller later explained, “ ‘Discretion’ is a delicate word to use to describe such farreaching conditions, but if a League was to be formed in New Orleans in 1942, it had to circumvent the racial question. It was absolutely imperative that the women who formed the League must do so without incurring the wrath of the community it wished to serve.” The separation of the races, particularly in the South, “was so ingrained in people,” recalled league member Felicia Kahn, that “they were doing this up until the 1950s. Black people [in New Orleans] couldn’t even go try on clothes in stores then.” Throughout the process of integration, the LWVNO not only challenged the racial status quo in the South, it also attempted to circumvent any criticism from the New Orleans conservative white political community.8 At a league meeting held at her home in the upscale “silk stocking district” of New Orleans, Rosa Keller broached the subject of integration. Keller definitely fit the description of the “silk stocking” woman, being gracious, polite, and ever the perfect lady, even while promoting controversial causes, including women’s and civil rights. Diplomatically, yet resolutely, she almost single-handedly financed the desegregation lawsuit against Tulane University in the early 1960s and actively worked on the issue of desegregating the city’s public school system. The subject of the meeting was whether to consider admitting black women into the New Orleans League of Women Voters. Keller felt it was time to raise the issue for serious consideration. As past president of the integrated New Orleans YWCA as well as president of the New Orleans Urban League, another interracial organization, she believed that integration was the only path for a political group such as the LWV. While it had not been discussed since Emily Blanchard posed the idea in 1947, integration was on the minds of many league members. Keller recalled, though, that “[integration] was so 7. Keller, “LWVNO History,” 8. 8. Fairclough, Race and Democracy, 9; Mrs. Theo Goss to Mrs. Charles Crawford, March 2, 1955, integration file, LWVNO office records; Keller, “LWVNO History,” 8; author interview with Felicia Kahn, Sept. 5, 1996.

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hard back then, because of the times. People didn’t understand like they do now.”9 The 1953 meeting included established white members of the community as well as some prospective black members. “We gathered people here one day to talk about being members of the League of Women Voters,” Keller stated. “Some of the women were black. They were mostly doctors’ wives. One of the white members said, ‘We don’t think we want niggers in our League.’ ” A board member attending the meeting quickly sent off a letter to the president of the state league, which stated, “I cannot refrain here from injecting that I loathe such evasions and compromise. . . . I have given the major portion of my time, spare or not, to the League of Women Voters, and I cannot sit idly by and see the League used and perhaps ruined by the injection of the racial question.”10 Of course, these were not the only league members questioning the issue of integration; many other members were torn between a desire to change and a fear of consequences. The president of the LWVNO at the time of Keller’s integration meeting was Mathilde Dreyfous, who served from 1952 to 1955. Dreyfous was a newcomer to the Crescent City. A widow with two children, she had married civil rights attorney George Dreyfous and moved to New Orleans in the early 1950s. With a degree in psychology and a penchant for activism, she quickly joined the LWVNO. Her friends remember her as someone with a strong personality who supported different ideas and thoughts. “She was good at dealing with all kinds of personalities, and she handled people just wonderfully,” notes Felicia Kahn.11 Dreyfous, with Rosa Keller, pushed for integration. Moreover, she actively sought out the six African American women who would be the first to join the league, after much deliberation, in 1955. Despite initial dissension from some members, the league’s board decided to explore the issue of integrating. Rosa Keller and Mathilde Dreyfous were the most fervent advocates, and Keller was appointed to head a committee to “look into the problem of negro members.” Dreyfous was further concerned that “although League bylaws stated that membership was open to all women of voting age, [the LWVNO] had no black mem9. “Silk stocking” refers to the area of New Orleans called Uptown where the older, more elite families in the city reside. Lindy Boggs, cited in Pam Tyler, Silk Stockings and Ballot Boxes: Women and Politics in New Orleans, 1920–1963 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996), 1; author interview with Rosa Keller, March 13, 1996. 10. Keller interview, March 13, 1996; Eleanor Crawford to Mrs. John G. Lee, Feb. 24, 1953, National LWV Papers, Louisiana State Material, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (hereinafter cited as National LWV Papers). 11. Kahn interview, Sept. 5, 1996.

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bers.” She wondered if her “frail new League . . . [could] withstand what was then a bold step.”12 Without delay, the board sent letters to the national and state leagues regarding integration and presenting the New Orleans league’s predicament. The letter stated that one of the unit groups this month “expressed concern over the fact that 46% of [the New Orleans] population is now colored and from there went into a lengthy discussion of why we have no colored members.” While the LWVNO had not yet received any requests for admission from African American women in the New Orleans community, nor had they “gone out of their way to encourage negro attendance . . . and do not intend to do so in the future,” the board felt that “at some time in the future there may be such a request and we want to be prepared to meet it.” The women further explained that it was too early to “encourage such membership, that aside from any personal problems which might arise, our standing in the community and our political effectiveness would be seriously injured.” Initially, “one of the chief difficulties the admission of negros would bring would be the operation of our unit group system,” which met at individuals’ homes throughout the city. The board wondered if it “would be possible for New Orleans to set up two types of classification of membership,” black and white. Or perhaps black women who applied for membership might be “satisfied temporarily with general membership” and not attend meetings.13 The response from the national league was encouraging. The LWVNO was commended for its practice of holding general, open meetings in nonsegregated places, yet the national board believed that there was no “magic formula” for this process. Thus, the New Orleans league board was instructed to let the state board know if and when it actually decided to integrate as “it is best to use the same general patterns of organizational development,” so that the local leagues “do not work at cross purposes.” Following this, the national board felt that it would be best to “start with the principle that all members are full members, sharing equally in the privileges and responsibilities of the organization.” Because league bylaws stated nothing regarding segregated membership, the LWVNO could neither set up separate classifications for membership nor discourage black women from attending unit meetings. Moreover, the national league believed that holding integrated meetings in the community was a good way 12. Mathilde Dreyfous in “LWVNO History,” 10. 13. Crawford to Lee, Feb. 24, 1953, National LWV Papers. She also notes that for a few years the LWVNO held their open meetings at “places which tolerated a non-segregated audience.”

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to begin to address the issue and to get to know leaders of the black community, as this route would more than likely “stimulate applications for membership.”14 Because the South still honored the system of segregation, the focus turned toward the issue of integrated unit meetings. The national league suggested scheduling them in public, integrated places, a strategy already implemented in other cities. Charleston, South Carolina, held meetings at the public library, the Memphis league held meetings at the YWCA, and a unit group in Oklahoma City had been organized in a predominantly black section of town. As a portent of issues to come, the national league proposed that the women eliminate refreshments at unit meetings to avoid the appearance of a social gathering, which could possibly pose legal problems. Finally, the national league believed that consulting other integrated groups in the New Orleans community, such as the YWCA or the Community Chest, might help them to “avoid some of their pitfalls.”15 While the New Orleans league had never encouraged members of the black community to attend league functions, members for many years had held general informational meetings and workshops at nonsegregated places, and they vowed to continue this practice as well as to make public notice of these meetings throughout the New Orleans community. One member pointed out that black women had been attending unit meetings in the Gentilly area of New Orleans, an integrated neighborhood, although without knowledge of the wider league membership. Because integrated meetings could jeopardize both the league’s political standing in the community and much-needed outside donations, the board decided not to push “actively” for integration at that time. The board also decided to “plan to include negro groups in the list which our Speakers Bureau contacts in our efforts to carry League work to the community.” All potentially interested groups were notified of open league meetings; among those receiving materials were students at Dillard and Xavier, predominantly African American colleges. Indeed, the women concluded that 14. Mrs. Robert F. Leonard to Eleanor Crawford, March 3, 1953, National LWV Papers. 15. Unit meetings are an integral part of the league’s strategy for getting community members involved in league activities. “The Unit is primarily a discussion group . . . where the individual can be given answers to her questions. The members exchange much incidental information that it takes a long time to acquire alone. This sharing of supplemental information . . . is one of the keys to rapid development of informed citizens” (adapted from “The Member-Unit and the League of Women Voters, 1952,” National LWV Papers). See also Leonard to Crawford, March 3, 1953, National LWV Papers. The matter of serving refreshments at unit meetings ultimately did become a legal issue that the LWVNO, as well as other southern community organizations, was forced to address after the Brown decision.

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while “this practice may be hastening the day when we may receive a request for membership from a negro . . . we hope we may be educating our white members to accept colored members at some future date and the community to be accepting of the idea.”16 Correspondence between the New Orleans league and the state and national leagues prompted the national league to send a letter to all leagues nationwide attempting integration. In it, the national board acknowledged that each local league knew the best way to deal with the inclusion of African American members within its community. While the board was not urging “membership for all races,” its primary concern was that the local leagues were “promoting participation in our democratic form of government,” that each league was doing its best to ensure that it remained a “truly Democratic organization.” The letter added that the “National Board realized that it would be short-sighted to grant membership to minority groups in those communities in which the very act in itself could kill the League in those communities.” Thus, each local league was to decide for itself whether it could withstand the inevitable scrutiny from the wider community. In effect, the national league provided a way out for those leagues that were unwilling or unable to integrate.17 Following this statement by the national league, the Louisiana state league contacted the New Orleans board, attempting to justify its position on integration. In a letter the state league argued that the LWV was “just about the best friend any minority group can have in a community and that it would be defeating the purpose of both groups to do anything that would jeopardize the position of the League.” Obviously, the state league believed that its legislative efforts to promote full government participation by all American citizens were beneficial to all members of society, regardless of race, class, or gender, and especially to blacks, most of whom, ironically, could still not vote in the South. Citing the actions of other leagues throughout the state, the Louisiana state league’s board added that “most negro members realize this and are eager to do whatever is best for them.” While such a [m]aternalistic attitude was common in 1953, it is questionable whether members of the African American community agreed.18 The New Orleans league then formed a “Membership Problems Committee,” whose job it was to seek any and all information that would assist the league in successful integration. The New Orleans board decided 16. Author interview with Elizabeth Rack, March 5, 1996; Mathilde Dreyfous to Mrs. Robert Leonard, March 11, 1953, National LWV Papers. 17. Mrs. Theo Goss to Eleanor Crawford, March 2, 1953, LWV Papers. 18. Ibid.

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not to solicit or encourage black members, to continue to hold discussion meetings at nonsegregated places, to publicize those meetings for all community members to attend regardless of race, and to put the word out that members of the league would be willing to speak to black groups concerning issues on the league’s agenda. Any applications for “membership by a negro” would be referred to President Dreyfous, who would “deal frankly with them individually with the understanding that our membership is open to them if after our conversation they feel that they would like to join.” After meeting with some of the potential black members and community leaders, Dreyfous believed that the LWVNO would “be able to meet the situation.”19 At the national league’s suggestion, the LWVNO set out to initiate an active study of integration practices throughout the country. One member, commenting on the league’s study of integration, remarked that the LWVNO wanted to make sure that it had meticulously gathered every bit of information in an effort to present to its members a complete and unbiased view. The national league sent the LWVNO a list of seven southern cities whose leagues had previously integrated: Memphis, Tennessee; Greensboro, North Carolina; Falls Church, Virginia; Charleston, South Carolina; Louisville, Kentucky; and Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Oklahoma. Subsequently, the LWVNO mailed a short questionnaire to each of the leagues that focused on how it dealt with the legal and social aspects of having an integrated membership. The process of gathering information lasted three years; however, the data received were invaluable in presenting league members with a complete examination of how integration could work in the Crescent City. The responses from Louisville, Tulsa, and Charleston were strikingly similar. All three leagues stated that, initially, African American women from the community approached the leagues. In Charleston, after the first black woman was admitted, the board decided to ask “several conservative members of the colored community, teachers, librarians, etc. and form a separate unit with a white leader.” The three cities had little or no problem with the majority of their white membership; only one or two members resigned in protest. Indeed, the Louisville 19. Mrs. Theo Goss to Eleanor Crawford, March 4, 1953, integration file, LWVNO Office Records. Only one New Orleans board member objected (privately) to the first recommendation; another member said that if she were personally approached by a black individual for membership, she “would tactfully point out the disadvantages to both the applicant and the organization of such a step at this time, but if said applicant persisted she would have to be admitted.” This member subsequently resigned for fear of “involvement in the racial question.” See also Mathilde Dreyfous to Mrs. Robert Leonard, March 11, 1953, National LWV Papers.

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league reported that the general league reaction “to our having Negro members is notable by its almost total absence.”20 Finding appropriate meeting places was apparently the greatest hurdle for all leagues in the South to overcome. Louisiana, like other southern states after the Brown decision, prohibited integrated social events, particularly in individuals’ homes, where unit meetings were normally held. South Carolina also specifically forbade black and white women dining together; thus, when a league luncheon or supper meeting was held, “The negro members [came] in after the meal, to hear the speech.” In Louisville, in contrast, meetings were held “at one of the finest hotels in the city,” which did not bar blacks, the only nonsegregated hotel in Louisville at the time. In Oklahoma, the Tulsa league’s greatest problem was not where to eat lunch, but which facility was large enough to accommodate all of its members, black and white. More important, each league agreed that black members were an asset to the organization.21 With the exception of those in Oklahoma, all of these leagues were located in former slave states. If these leagues had integrated, indeed some had always had integrated memberships, why was it such a problem for New Orleans? According to historian Nancy Neuman, “[T]he League of Women Voters is accustomed to accusations of rank liberalism in conservative times and regressive conservatism in liberal times.” The New Orleans organization, regarded as liberal by most New Orleans community members but located in an area of the country caught up in racial strife, hesitated to include black women so as not to jeopardize its standing in the political community, whether liberal or conservative. League members feared that all of their organization’s hard work in making New Orleans a better community would be lost over the integration issue. Indeed, as Neuman states, “A key benefit of membership is the League’s political clout: it magnifies the voice of the individual citizen in government and politics.” As league member Felicia Kahn explained, “The political climate 20. Throughout the league’s history, its studies on controversial issues have been characteristically thorough and comprehensive. The national league believed that a comprehensive study of the integration of the LWVNO was in order, noting that the process the league uses “sometimes seems slow, but that makes a less emotional approach to a problem fraught with great difficulties” (Mathilde Dreyfous to Mrs. John Lee, June 22, 1954, National LWV Papers); Katherine Hancock to Mrs. W. P. Hilliker, Oct. 18, 1953, integration file, LWVNO office records; Mrs. Henry V. Sanders to Mrs. W. P. Hilliker, no date, integration file, LWVNO office records. 21. Mrs. Hancock to Mrs. W. P. Hilliker, Oct. 28, 1953, integration file, LWVNO office records; Mrs. Sanders to Mrs. W. P. Hilliker, no date, integration file, LWVNO office records; Mrs. Philip L. Howell to Mrs. W. P. Hilliker, Oct. 27, 1953, integration file, LWVNO office records, emphasis mine.

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was such that anything you did to an extreme would mean that you were less than effective in anything else.”22 And integration in 1953 was thought extreme by most white southerners. Moreover, 1954 was an especially critical year for leagues across the country due to the Supreme Court’s decision in the Brown case. Subsequently, because the league was a multi-issue organization and had historically supported educational causes nationwide, leagues across the country faced an even more controversial matter than simply integrating their own organizations. Indeed, the national league became more intent on addressing the issue of integrating the public schools. Thus, in June 1954, the national league sent word to local leagues throughout the South that there was no “National [League] stand on the matter,” but that local leagues would need to concentrate all of their energies on the issue of school desegregation. At a general meeting, the LWVNO resolved to “affirm their allegiance to the Constitution and . . . to the Supreme Court,” and further resolved to “cooperate with the Supreme Court’s expression of the supreme law of our country.” However, the league took no public stand on the issue because some members believed it “unwise for the New Orleans League to get involved in this matter at this time.”23 While organizations such as the League of Women Voters had been quietly advocating integration as early as the 1940s, more overt and direct challenges to Jim Crow were not so ubiquitous as they were after May 1954. However, sporadic attacks on Jim Crow prior to Brown never appeared to pose a serious threat to the racial status quo in the South. According to law professor Michael Klarman, after the Supreme Court placed the “moral authority of the court and the Constitution behind the black demand for desegregation,” southern intransigence toward federal intervention in states rights and race issues reached a high point not seen since Reconstruction. Moreover, Klarman notes that the moderate political faction all but disappeared after 1954, creating opposing camps—the integrationists and the segregationists. Indeed, race became the focal point of southern politics and massive resistance the dominant theme.24 Consequently, a group such as the League of Women Voters, whose mission was to support and uphold the supreme law of the land, was pushed into siding 22. Nancy Neuman, The League of Women Voters: In Perspective, 1920–1995 (Washington, D.C.: League of Women Voters Publication #995, 1994), 13, 58; Kahn interview, Sept. 5, 1996. 23. Board minutes, June 1, 1954, LWVNO Papers; Mathilde Dreyfous to Mrs. John Lee, June 14, 1954, LWV Papers. 24. Michael J. Klarman, “How Brown Changed Race Relations: The Backlash Thesis,” Journal of American History 81 (June 1994): 87.

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with the prointegration camp, in turn forcing it into a highly controversial position. Indeed, the New Orleans League of Women Voters found itself in a precarious position. The New Orleans board noted that in meetings, school integration was discussed “with great difference of opinion.” As a result, the idea of issuing any public statement was tabled until national and state league presidents could be consulted, as “it would be most likely that such an expression would be considered to be approval of the Supreme Court’s decision as such.” The national league president reiterated this sentiment in stating that while “the League’s support would be an important factor in helping the community face up to the Supreme Court decision,” it was “extremely important that local Leagues work closely with the state in developing a common approach.” That July, delegates from the League of Women Voters in eleven southern states gathered for a conference in Atlanta to “deal with the problems raised by the Supreme Court decision on segregation.” In the end, they voted to stand firmly behind the high court and that the public school systems in the South “must be maintained.” The southern leagues agreed on “concentrated study” and with that, the problem of keeping the public school system open in New Orleans, indeed throughout the South, became the focus of the southern leagues’ agendas.25 In New Orleans, however, the league board and the membership problems committee decided that it could also address integration of the LWVNO. By November 1954, after attending some of the open meetings around the city, several African American women had inquired about admission. The women stated that they were interested in joining, but only if they could participate fully. They were not willing to create a separate “Negro unit,” which had been suggested at earlier board meetings and which was a violation of national league bylaws. Unsure how to proceed, the board tabled the issue until December, at which time it decided that President Dreyfous should attend unit meetings personally and read a statement and questionnaires aloud for reaction; a copy would be mailed to each member to be answered and returned to the league office. Questions such as “Are you satisfied with the present type of mem25. Board minutes, June 8, 1954, LWV Papers; Mrs. John G. Lee to Mathilde Dreyfous, June 22, 1954, integration file, LWVNO office records; memo from Helen Goss to LWVNO members, July 1954, integration file, LWVNO office records. League presidents from Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, North and South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas were in attendance. The LWV never stated “open and integrated,” had “no stand on segregation,” and simply wanted to “maintain the current system and keep the schools open.”

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bership?” and “Would you continue to attend meetings with a broader type of membership?” were a tacit attempt to solicit member reaction while avoiding the direct question of integration. The questionnaire accompanied a statement by President Dreyfous reminding members of the national league policy, which stated that “any person who subscribes to the purpose and policy of the League shall be eligible for membership” and that “voting members shall be women citizens of voting age.” Further, the league could not “refuse Negro members if they apply for membership.” The statement ended by informing members that the “membership problem [had] been reopened” and asking them to “think this over quietly and unemotionally . . . bearing in mind always that the purpose of the League of Women Voters is to promote informed and active participation of citizens in government.” “PLEASE DO NOT DISCUSS THIS PROBLEM WITH ANY NON LEAGUE MEMBERS AS PUBLICITY AND INEVITABLE MISUNDERSTANDING AT THIS TIME COULD DO MUCH DAMAGE,” the statement continued. “PLEASE COOPERATE TO ‘KEEP IT IN THE FAMILY.’ ”26 The statement’s note of urgency was reflected in a letter the local league secretary wrote to the national league president: “You will notice the statement, which did not leave the president’s hands, was explicit but the questionnaires, which might fall into non-League hands, was rather enigmatic.” Moreover, not all members regularly attended unit meetings; thus, less than half of the membership had been apprised of the current debate regarding accepting black members. The three hundred members who had not received questionnaires created an additional dilemma for the LWVNO; the leadership did not want to phone them for fear of reprisal. And adding to the league’s anxiety over the integration issue was the impact of McCarthyism. As one member recalled, “anyone who was for any kind of integration was labeled a communist.” Some of the league’s members had already been accused of being “Reds.” As Rosa Keller remembered, “So deeply was the racial barrier embedded in the social structure of the South that the terms ‘nigger lover’ and ‘communist red’ were synonymous.” The league admitted that they were proceeding with “some caution because there was strong feeling on the part of many board members that any full statement should not be mailed—too many copies lying about in too many homes might inevitably lead to some undesirable publicity and misunderstanding in the community.” Word of the orga-

26. LWVNO board minutes, Nov. 4, 1954; Statement—Jan. 1955, both in LWV Papers; LWVNO questionnaire, Jan. 1955, integration file, LWVNO office records.

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nization’s integrating might provoke public outcry that the LWV was a communist organization and, therefore, not to be trusted.27 Amid the turmoil of the era, and after further review of the LWVNO’s board minutes, questionnaires, correspondence from other integrated leagues in the region, and member statements, the national league concluded that the New Orleans league must comply with national LWV policy and integrate immediately. They commended New Orleans for its “trailblazing” in this area and alluded to the slowness with which other southern leagues had been dealing with this issue. Immediately upon receiving word from the national league president, the New Orleans board convened to decide how to address the next month’s unit meetings. The board concluded that it should hold an orientation meeting in May 1955 for both the current white membership and prospective black members. In the meantime, board members would personally attend unit meetings to discuss the questionnaire results and to answer any questions regarding “Negro membership.” To alleviate the anxiety of those who were not expecting this kind of news so soon about their all-white organization, the board stated that “if the New Orleans experience at all parallels that of other Leagues with Negro members, and there is no reason to think it shouldn’t, the number of new [black] members will probably be very small and should present no particular problem.” In June, after a successful orientation meeting, five black women applied for membership.28 After a relatively calm first year, the New Orleans league was presented with its first major obstacle. The city’s liberal-leaning mayor, DeLesseps “Chep” Morrison, planned a sightseeing trip for league members for July 26, 1956. New Orleans sightseeing buses, however, would not accept blacks. The women were left with three alternatives: they could cancel the trip, tell their new black members they were not welcome, or use a bus company that accepted blacks but made them sit at the rear of the bus. Not wanting to “embarrass [their] hosts” by declining the invitation altogether, and not wanting to deny part of their membership a chance to participate 27. Eleanor Crawford to Mrs. Newton Pierce, Feb. 9, 1955, National LWV Papers. Of 570 members listed at the beginning of 1955, a total of 73 returned the questionnaire with approximately 55 percent approving of integrated membership. Rosa Keller interviewed by Kim Lacey-Rogers, Nov. 28, 1978, Amistad Research Center, New Orleans, Louisiana; Keller, “LWVNO History,” 8–9. As Fairclough notes in his book on the movement in Louisiana, the “Cold War had produced an ideological chilling effect that made criticism of the social order . . . unfashionable, unpatriotic, and politically dangerous” (Race and Democracy, 141, 137). Crawford to Pierce, Feb. 9, 1955, National LWV Papers. 28. National League to LWVNO, Feb. 16, 1955, National LWV Papers; statement by the Membership Problems Committee, 1955, and board minutes March 16, 1955, and June 1955, integration file, LWVNO office records.

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in the trip, the board decided to adopt the latter alternative, agreeing to use the Teche Bus Lines, which provided blacks with segregated seating. The board hoped that the situation would not “lead to unpleasantness” and that the black members would understand the predicament.29 Unfortunately, not all problems presented to the newly integrated organization could be dealt with so easily. In the wake of the Brown decision, Louisiana and other southern states enacted many segregation laws designed to limit and complicate desegregation efforts. The New Orleans league was “hampered by intense community opinion” regarding their integration efforts, as well as by “state law which provides that all meetings including membership of both races shall provide for segregated seating and separate sanitary facilities.” The league’s only recourse was to try to hold meetings in the buildings of the newly integrated public library system, but even those venues were ultimately refused them. One librarian was “afraid to stretch his luck as he was already being harassed by those who were against it.”30 Furthermore, the league was forced to address two other Louisiana state laws that posed considerable problems to an integrated organization. The first, enacted in 1924 and known as the “Ku Klux Klan Law,” was originally intended to gather membership information about the Klan. This law stated that “all organizations with minor exceptions must file a list of membership with the Secretary of State.” The law in and of itself would not have posed a problem, yet coupled with a second law, which stated that “teachers who advocate or in any way contribute to integration in the public schools, or who [hold] membership in an organization which advocate[s] racial integration, are subject to dismissal and loss of tenure,” it was potentially quite harmful to some members. Considered an educational organization, the league was excluded from any laws pertaining to social organizations. However, unit meetings at which refreshments were served could be considered social functions, so the board decided to refrain from serving food or drink at meetings in which black and white members were participating. Moreover, the act pertaining to social functions, nicknamed the “Sugar Bowl Law,” explicitly stated that “at any entertainment or athletic contest, where the public was invited” the persons in charge, in this case the hosts of unit meetings, were to maintain separate “sanitary, drink29. Board minutes, July 23, 1956, LWV Papers. 30. Mrs. Thomas Crumpler to Mrs. John Lee, Jan. 14, 1956, integration file, LWVNO office records. League member and civil rights activist Rosa Keller was the first woman appointed by Mayor Morrison to a New Orleans City Board Council seat, heading the New Orleans Public Library System. Her first duty was to desegregate the city’s public library system in 1954.

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ing water, and any other facilities for members of the white and negro races and to mark separate accommodations and facilities with signs printed in bold letters.” This act made compliance with the law embarrassingly difficult, if not impossible, as it was unlikely that even elite league members could provide separate black and white “facilities.”31 More important, though, the issue pertaining to the public school teachers and integration remained unresolved. If the league filed its membership roster with the state, those members employed by the New Orleans Public Schools ran the risk of losing their jobs as well as tenure. Upon further review, the league board determined that “While advocating integration in the League and integration in the public schools are not synonymous in our minds, our action in integrating is so unusual for an organization of this type that any publicity would probably affect not only those teachers, but general League effectiveness.” Moreover, the league experienced a drop in membership from 550 to 463 during 1956; while the board did not believe that it was completely due to the matter of integration, many members considered it a contributing factor. By November, the league was expected to file its membership list with the state, which would inevitably “spotlight the fact of integrated membership of the New Orleans League and would put not only the Negro members, but the entire State League in the illegal position of advocating integration.” The board further noted that “with the political climate reaching turbulence,” retaining an integrated membership could do more harm than good: “Practically speaking, we can gain little for the Negroes but can lose much of our effectiveness in our efforts to obtain better government and fairer laws.” The national league concurred, stating that “if integration were publicized it might indeed injure rather than contribute to progress” of the league and its members.32 31. Fuqua/KKK Law, 1924, R.S. 12:401, et. seq. Named after Henry L. Fuqua, the law stated that organizations had to file membership lists with the secretary of state and be open to public inspection. In addition, it made it a misdemeanor to appear in public masked, except during Mardi Gras. Ironically, the law was later used by the KKK against the NAACP. When the law was enforced in 1956, the Louisiana branch of the NAACP dropped from 13,190 to 1,698 members and fell from 65 branches across the state to 7. See Fairclough, Race and Democracy, 9, 195, 209, 225. Letter to the President of the LWVUS, Jan. 14, 1956, National LWV Papers; Muriel Ferris to Mathilde Dreyfous, Sept. 7, 1956; Mathilde Dreyfous to Mrs. Thomas Crumpler, Sept. 20, 1956, both in LWV Papers. The purpose of Louisiana Act No. 579, House Bill No. 1412, regarding social functions, was “To prohibit all interracial dancing, social functions, entertainment, athletic training, games, sports, or contests and other such activities and to provide separate seating and other facilities for whites and Negroes.” See New Orleans Times-Picayune, July 31, 1956. 32. Nancy Crumpler to Mrs. John Lee, Jan. 14, 1956, integration file, LWVNO office records; board minutes, Sept. 7, 10, and Nov. 11, 1956, LWV Papers. According to the

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It appeared that the only course for the New Orleans league was to accept the resignation of its black members. This way, the organization could call itself nonintegrated when it filed a membership list with the secretary of state. The board concluded, “Under optimal conditions and with broader consent and understanding, integrated membership could be tried at a later time.” The difficulty and apprehension felt by the members over integration outweighed the fact that the league only had six paid black members, and they rarely attended unit meetings. As then-league president Nancy Crumpler stated, “None of us are pleased with it. We have done what we feel is necessary.”33 Relaying its decision to the national league, the board wrote, As you know, the New Orleans League has had eight negro members . . . six paid-up negro members. The New Orleans League has felt the problems of working around the social situations and membership attitudes; however, they made all the necessary concessions and carried on. New Orleans membership has decreased by 100 since the legislative climate brought about passage of antiminority legislation . . . . [We] reluctantly abandon [our] policy of integrated membership temporarily.34

Ultimately, three board members and the LWVNO president met with the six black members and asked them to resign. One member recalled that the situation was “very embarrassing, but the black members tendered their resignations ‘graciously’ as they did not want to ‘imperil their jobs.’ ” The state president recognized that the “members voluntarily agreed to resign until such time as the climate would permit their rejoining and being members without jeopardizing the League’s position and strength.” New Orleans league president Crumpler was heartbroken. She felt that the LWVNO had worked hard and through some oppressive times to successfully recruit these women into the organization. In a letter to Rosa Keller, Crumpler remembered that “dreadful day” when a small committee met and decided the black members should temporarily resign for the “good New Orleans board, “Presumed reasons for the resignations are the raise in dues, our integrated membership, and the inequality of the work load.” However, one board member suggested that one reason for a drop in membership “might be the criticism that some of the unit programs were uninteresting, and that we should now concentrate on improving them” (LWVNO board minutes, Dec. 5, 1956, LWV Papers); Crumpler to Lee, Jan. 14, 1956, integration file, LWVNO office records. 33. Board minutes, Nov. 19, 1956, LWV Papers. 34. Mrs. Joseph Daum to Mrs. John G. Lee, Dec. 10, 1956, National LWV Papers.

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of the League.” Considering the state laws “oppressive,” Crumpler said she did not get through the day without tears in her eyes.35 In response to this action, the national league president stated, We share with you the distress we know you feel that conditions are as they are and we realize the decision was a hard one for the local Board. Perhaps the legal processes through which these laws must pass will make conditions more tenable for the Leagues, and we hope the time is not far off when this will come to pass. It is unfortunate that the climate in Louisiana and other southern states is such that it is increasingly difficult for local Leagues that do not already have Negro members to take them in at this time.

However, she suggested that “all local Leagues work with . . . Negro groups, both women and men, to see that they have the materials published by the League.”36 Following this action, the national league board sent a statement to all local and state leagues regarding the integration issue. It reiterated its position that membership was open to all women, including African Americans. However, as far as the southern leagues were concerned, it stated: “[W]e realize that it is hard for a League in the South to do anything on individual liberties without running the risk of confusion in the public mind with regards to civil rights, including the segregation issue.” The board commended the “outstanding work done by the Leagues in the southern states under extreme difficulties” and expressed “admiration for the League leaders and membership.” Indeed, the national league could not expect a Deep South league to integrate when it operated in a state that had yet to integrate its public school system. While national league bylaws authorized the inclusion of black women, integration for the southern leagues would have to wait until such time as public opinion and the law were more receptive to the idea.37 By 1960, the League of Women Voters of New Orleans had regained some sense of normality. While its agenda still included racial issues, partic35. Mrs. Joseph Daum to Mrs. John G. Lee, Dec. 10, 1956, National LWV Papers; author interview with Jean Boebel, Nov. 13, 1996; Daum letter, Dec. 10, 1956, National LWV Papers. Under national league bylaws, membership could not be terminated; thus the New Orleans league had to request that the black members resign, “in the interest of the League.” Nancy Crumpler in Keller, “LWVNO History,” 19. 36. Mrs. John F. Latimer to Mrs. Joseph Daum, Dec. 17, 1956, National LWV Papers. 37. Dixie Drake to Mrs. E.E. Roberts, July 10, 1957, National LWV Papers; State Office to Louisiana league presidents and state board members, July 15, 1957, integration file, LWVNO office records.

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ularly the school desegregation crisis, the league remained wary of integration and continued to work on various community and political concerns, such as elections and voter registration. However, while most southern leagues remained idle on the topic of desegregating the public schools, the Louisiana leagues worked to gather information from other southern states about public school integration and held workshops throughout the state, presenting both sides of the desegregation controversy to their communities. In the fall of 1957, the Louisiana state league attempted to assemble a group of southern league leaders, as it had in 1954, to address the current desegregation crisis, most noticeable in Little Rock, Arkansas. The idea was quickly dismissed when the Louisiana state league president received a telegram that stated that it was “strongly advised not [to] hold [the] proposed conference. Have tested sentiment of six southern leagues here . . . find no desire to meet together and some fear of repercussions from such a meeting.”38 In New Orleans, the LWV confronted such issues as the withdrawal of white students from the entire public school system, boycotts of schools to be desegregated, and delays in financing the current operational costs and expenditures for new construction and improvements. In the midst of the turmoil, the New Orleans league’s goal was to ensure that educational standards were maintained. During the highly publicized New Orleans public school desegregation crisis, in which rioting and violence overwhelmed the city, the LWVNO was at the forefront of the battle for school desegregation, and many group members were crucial to the integration efforts in the city. After a lengthy study, the league announced that it had finally “progressed from the idea of education limited to a few to the ideal of educational opportunities for all.”39 Yet, while the New Orleans league had “progressed” on the idea of integrated education, it had yet to integrate its own organization. Just as the league was beginning to contemplate the issue, a black transfer member arrived from out of state. Edith Boggs was the wife of a doctor who came to the Crescent City to work at Flint-Goodridge, a hospital serving the African American community. A longtime member of the St. Louis League of Women Voters, she had never considered that she could not join a league when she moved to New Orleans. Her transfer brought about the 38. Western Union Telegram from Dyke and Richards to Mrs. John Lee, Oct. 17, 1957, integration file, LWVNO office records. 39. Board minutes, May 18, June 15, 1960, and Feb. 1, 1961, LWV Papers. League members Rosa Keller, Gladys Cahn, and Betty Wisdom, among others, founded an organization called “Save Our Schools” created to deal with the public school integration crisis in New Orleans in 1960.

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necessary reassessment of integration that the LWVNO would soon realize. Because of Edith Boggs, for the second time in a decade the LWVNO would begin to admit black women members. Discussion of black applicants quickly arose at board and unit meetings, and it was immediately decided that the six former members who had been persuaded to resign would be promptly asked back. While the board still did not think it necessary to solicit applications from other black women in the community, those who did apply for membership would receive the same welcome as Edith Boggs. Indeed, the board stated that “the nature of the organization would counterbalance any aimless joining.” The president and other board members began to announce at unit meetings that the league was reintegrating. And, with “only small minority dissension” among the units, the league was finally poised to reintegrate successfully. As Rosa Keller recalled, “When we finally got it all worked out and black members could come to meetings, it was easy after that.”40 In 1963, the national league, hoping to encourage all of its local leagues to reach a consensus on the integration issue, placed what it called “The Crisis on Civil Rights” at the top of the League of Women Voters’ nationwide agenda. Each state league was to help coordinate this massive effort at consensus. When the Louisiana state league learned of New Orleans’s plans to integrate immediately, it quickly suggested that the LWVNO might “postpone any decisions and actions concerning civil rights” until after the state president could ponder the issue. However, the New Orleans league president in 1963 was Jean Reeves, more of an activist than some of her predecessors. A special board meeting was called for October 4, 1963, where a national staff member was present who suggested that board members “make sacrifices if necessary, to attend, and wind this matter up as other League business is suffering.” Reeves decided that any delay was both unnecessary and detrimental, and the New Orleans board voted to proceed.41 After a most deliberate struggle, in late 1963 and early 1964, African American women members of the New Orleans community permanently joined the LWVNO. Sybil Morial, wife of Ernest “Dutch” Morial, who later became the first black mayor of the city, was one of the first black women to join and remembers that there were already a few black women in the league, including Edith Boggs. Another early African American fe40. LWVNO memorandum to state president, July 18, 1963, integration file, LWVNO office records; Keller interview, March 13, 1996. 41. Kate Brown to Jean Reeves, Sept. 23, 1963; president of the LWVNO memorandum to all board members re: special board meeting, Sept. 27, 1963, both in integration file, LWVNO office records.

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male member, Isabelle Robinet, joined shortly after Morial. She saw an advertisement on television and, not knowing at first whether the league accepted black women, hand-delivered her application to the league office instead of mailing it and was pleasantly surprised to be accepted with open arms. Within one year, she was the first black board member and in charge of publications.42 The 1965–1966 membership roster indicates fifteen African American members among the 499 members for that year. The rosters for 1953 through 1958, and many for the years through 1964, are missing. While the league still did not represent a true cross section of the New Orleans community, annual and unit meetings were now attended by both races. Today, the league even accepts male members, black and white. With few if any problems during the first years of integration, the league went about its usual business of educating the community on political issues.43 While the modern civil rights movement in the South enters into our collective psyche as a watershed in the history of African Americans, the women who played integral roles within the movement often do not receive the attention they deserve. Women such as Rosa Keller, Mathilde Dreyfous, and Jean Reeves fit the role of “inside agitator” described by historian David Chappell. Seldom acting in the maternalistic fashion characteristic of many “white progressives” of the time, they fit instead the new culture of liberalism that many white southerners embraced. As historian William Chafe argues, these women “perceived existing race relations as unjust” and were “willing to participate in programs to fight segregation” in this case and for a time, even to the detriment of their cherished league. According to Chappell, this successfully conveyed to the black community that there were in the white community “figures who were repulsed by the system of segregation and disfranchisement.”44 However, some might argue that these women were solely working to integrate according to national league bylaws. Indeed, the majority of the women members of the New Orleans league were intensely concerned 42. Author interviews with Sybil Morial and Isabelle Robinet, Sept. 22 and 17, 1996, respectively. 43. The names of the first six women who integrated the league are unknown. Membership rosters for the years 1953 to 1958 are “missing,” and no older member seems to recall that information. One member suggests that they were all school teachers and resigned when asked because they were fearful of losing their jobs in the public school system. Sybil Morial believes that her mother may have been one of the first black women to join in 1956. 44. William Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina and the Black Struggle for Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 6; David Chappell, Inside Agitators: White Southerners in the Civil Rights Movement (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), 4.

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with how integration might affect their position within the community. Of course, many others resisted any kind of integration at all, as reflected in a drop in membership during the integration years. Yet, the history of New Orleans and indeed many other areas of the South indicates that many southern white women willfully and deliberately stepped beyond prescribed boundaries of class and race to initiate change. Moreover, these women had been born and bred in a world that not only accepted but also taught and lived the mantra that white was better than black. Still, the women of the LWVNO who attempted to challenge the racial status quo established long before the Civil War did so within a climate of racial extremism and at great risk, not only to themselves, but also to their families and friends and, most important, to the organization they cherished.

About the Editors and the Contributors THOMAS H. APPLETON JR. is professor of history at Eastern Kentucky University. He is the coeditor of four previous books, including A Mythic Land Apart: Reassessing Southerners and Their History.

is professor of history at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. Her many publications include Ima Hogg: The Governor’s Daughter; A Durable Fire, a historical novel about seventeenthcentury Virginia; and Slaves and Slaveholders in Bermuda, 1616–1782.

VIRGINIA BERNHARD

is assistant professor of history at Texas A&M International University in Laredo. Her doctoral dissertation, “The Ability ‘To Do Much Larger Work’: Gender and Reform in Appalachia, 1890– 1935,” considered the efforts of women reformers to reshape life in the mountains and the influence of gender ideals on those efforts.

DEBORAH L. BLACKWELL

SIDNEY R. BLAND is professor of history at James Madison University. His

publications include Preserving Charleston’s Past, Shaping Its Future: The Life and Times of Susan Pringle Frost. ANGELA BOSWELL is associate professor of history at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, and author of the award-winning Her Act and Deed: Women’s Lives in a Rural Southern County, 1837–1873.

is a doctoral candidate in American history at Emory University. Her dissertation-in-progress is titled “On Slavery’s Border: Slavery and Slaveholding on Missouri’s Farms, 1821–1865.”

DIANE MUTTI BURKE

is associate professor of history at the University of Texas at Arlington. She will serve as president of the Southern Association for Women Historians in 2003–2004.

STEPHANIE COLE

285

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associate professor of history at the State University of West Georgia, is completing a book-length study titled “Growing Up White, Genteel, and Female in a Changing South: Natchez Young Ladies, 1830– 1910.”

CITA COOK,

is a doctoral candidate in American history at the University of New Hampshire. She currently serves as a visiting scholar in the Newcomb College Center for Research on Women at Tulane University.

SHANNON L. FRYSTAK

CYNTHIA M. KENNEDY is assistant professor of history at Clarion University of Pennsylvania. Her current research is a study of the social relations of urban slave society (Charleston, South Carolina) through the lens of African American and European American women’s lives. MELISSA A. MCEUEN is associate professor of history at Transylvania Uni-

versity and author of the award-winning Seeing America: Women Photographers between the Wars. NORMA TAYLOR MITCHELL is professor emerita of history at Troy State University. Among her publications is “From Parsonage to Hospital: Louise Branscomb Becomes a Doctor,” in Stepping out of the Shadows: Alabama Women, 1819–1990, edited by Mary Martha Thomas.

is assistant professor of history at Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi. She is currently researching religious services in antebellum and Civil War Louisiana. JULIA HUSTON NGUYEN

is completing her doctorate in American history at the College of William and Mary. Her dissertation examines race, gender, and sexuality during the Civil War in Winchester, Virginia.

LAURA ODENDAHL

is associate professor of history at the University of Houston and author of Civilizing Capitalism: The National Consumers’ League, Women’s Activism, and Labor Standards in the New Deal Era.

LANDON R. Y. STORRS

MONICA MARIA TETZLAFF is associate professor of history at Indiana University South Bend and author of Cultivating a New South: Abbie Holmes Christensen and the Politics of Race and Gender, 1852–1938.

Index

Abbott, Grace, 236 Abingdon, Va.: and Mary Hamilton Campbell, 79, 80, 81, 82, 85, 86, 97, 98 Abroad marriages: abuse of slaves in, 61, 67; dual unions in, 68–70; effect of migration and sales on, 61, 70, 71–73; importance of socializing in, 76–78; and kin networks, 76–77; in Missouri, 5, 57–78; and miscegenation, 67; neglect by historians of, 58; persistence of, 57, 62, 73–75; prevalence of, 58– 59, 60, 61–62; reasons for, 58–61, 63; and slave hiring, 61, 70; and slave patrols, 76; weddings in, 62–63, 76; and women as heads of households, 64–68 Adams, Kate, 108, 118 Adams, Louisa Catherine, 80 African Americans: education of, 8, 9, 161–63, 164–65, 167–69, 174; perceived nature of, 165–66, 171–72; and race riots, 169–70, 246; as soldiers during Civil War, 136–39 African American women: during World War II, 245–46; and membership in League of Women Voters of New Orleans, 261–83 African Methodist Episcopal Church: in New Orleans, 111 Afro-American Folk Lore (Christensen), 163, 166–67, 170 Allgor, Catherine, 80 Amason, Alice: on Jefferson Davis, 146 Ames, Jessie Daniel, 232n Andersen, Kristi, 236 Antilynching, 169–70, 177, 178, 228, 232, 236 Archer, Gabriel, 21–22

Armstrong, Mary, 68 Arnold, Mathew Page, 189 Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching, 177, 232 Babino, Agatha, 115 Bacon, Nathaniel, 25, 28–35 Bacon’s Rebellion, 14–15, 25, 28–35 Baer, Elizabeth, 120 Banks, Martha, 70 Baptists: in Louisiana, 102, 103, 110, 112–13 Barguet, Barbara Tunno, 46 Barker, Rachel, 113 Barton, Henrietta, 110 Bayne, Maria, 66 Beaufort, S. C.: Abbie Holmes Christensen’s work in, 162–77; civic league of, 173, 174; race riot in, 169–70 Behn, Aphra, 34 Bell, Mary, 57, 58 Berkeley, William, 25, 28, 29 Bernhard, Virginia, 4, 13–36 Berry, Henry, 68 Bethune, Mary McLeod, 263 Bettingall, Margaret, 46 Beverley, Robert, 36 Blackwell, Antoinette Brown, 113 Blackwell, Deborah L., 9, 196–217 Blair, Karen, 180–81n Blanchard, Emily, 11, 263–64, 265 Bland, Sidney R., 8, 179–95 Blease, Cole, 161, 168, 177, 219 Boggs, Edith, 280–81 Bond, Priscilla Munnikhuysen, 109 Borum, Emma, 69 Bragg, Laura, 175 Bramley, John, 203 Breckinridge, Desha, 205

287

288 Breckinridge, Madeline McDowell, 205 Breckinridge, Robert, 205, 209 Breckinridge, Sophonisba, 192, 231 Brent, Giles, 25 Brent, Giles, Jr., 25 Brewer, Moses, 202, 212 Brim, Clara, 108 Brinkley, Alan, 220 Brown, Elsa Barkley, 3 Brown, Frank, 203 Brown, Joseph, 180 Brown, Kathleen, 35 Brown, Mary, 73 Brown, William Wells, 78 Brown v. Board of Education, 11, 261, 272–73, 276 Bruce, Henry C., 69, 76 Bruce, Sandy, 69 Bubley, Esther: biographical sketch of, 242–43; and Roy Stryker, 240, 242; and wartime photography of Upper South, 10, 238–60 Burke, Diane Mutti, 5, 57–78 Burns, Squire, 65 Burwell, Laura Lee, 123n, 139 Burwell, Louisa Carter, 123n, 139 Burwell, P. C. L., 126–27 Butler, Anna, 107 Butler, Marguerite, 206 Butler, Sarah Ker, 107 Bynum, Victoria, 124 Byrd, A. Floyd, 204 Byrd, William, 36 Cahn, Gladys, 280n Campbell, David: career of, 81, 82, 84, 90, 98; description of, 79, 81; term as governor, 84–96 Campbell, Mary Hamilton: childhood of, 80–81; death of, 99; description of, 79; and feelings of insecurity, 79–80, 81, 86, 90, 99–100; as first lady of Virginia, 84–96; health of, 80–82, 84, 87, 90, 93–95, 97–98, 99; home at “Montcalm,” 82–83, 84, 96; relationship with niece, 79, 83, 84–100; slaves of, 83, 84, 87, 88, 94 Campbell, Virginia: description of, 79, 87, 89; education of, 83; marriage of, 97; and relationship with aunt and

Index

uncle, 83, 84–100; religious faith of, 92–93 Campbell, William, 96 Camp Nathan Bedford Forrest (Tenn.), 245 Carter, John, 65 Cartwright, Marjorie, 249–50 Cassen, George, 25–26, 27 Catt, Carrie Chapman, 263n Celia, A Slave (McLaurin), 67, 77 Century (Literary) Club: and role of the Poppenheim sisters, 185, 192 Chafe, William, 282 Chapman, Maria, 45 Chappell, David, 282 Charleston, S. C.: female seminary in, 183; League of Women Voters in, 268, 270; and the Poppenheim sisters, 8, 179–95; sexual mingling/mixing in, 37–56 Cheatham, William, 68–69 Cherry, Katie, 68 Child labor laws, 218, 221, 223, 228, 229. See also Labor laws/legislation Chinn, Jane, 118 Christensen, Abbie Holmes: on “AfroAmericans,” 170–72; antilynching efforts of, 169–70, 177, 178; club work of, 163, 172–77; education of, 162–63, 165; family of, 8, 161, 162, 163, 167–68; as folklorist, 162–63, 165–67, 169, 170; as fundraiser, 163, 164, 167–69; maternalism of, 8, 161–78; and racial segregation, 174; socialism of, 165, 177; suffrage and temperance work of, 8, 163, 167, 172, 174–77; as teacher of African American children, 8, 9, 162, 163; and “woman’s mission,” 165 Christensen, Frederik, 167–68, 170, 174, 176 Christensen, Nancy Stratton, 176 Christensen, Niels, Jr., 161, 168, 174, 176 City Federation of Women’s Clubs (Charleston, S. C.), 179, 186, 192 Civil War: African American soldiers during, 136–39; effect on household of elite single women, 6, 122–43; effects of Emancipation Proclamation

Index during, 133–34; gender expectations during, 128, 129–30, 140; pension claims for service in, 59, 64, 69, 73; runaway slaves during, 131, 133; in Winchester, Va., 6, 122–43 Clapp, Theodore, 105, 106, 108 Clark, Adele, 227, 232 Clark, Micajah, 94 Clay, Henry, 87, 94, 95, 98 Clear, Sarah: as aunt of Union soldier, 128, 139; and choice of surname, 142–43; as cook in Lee household, 123, 126, 127, 128; illness of, 132, 134; perceived loyalty of, 135–36; reaction to emancipation by, 130–31, 134 Cleveland, Grover: on “true womanhood,” 187 Clinton, Catherine, 109 Coal industry: in Kentucky, 198, 210–11 Cochran, Frank, 73 Cockacoeske, Queen of the Pamunkey, 28–35 Cohabitation: of women of color and white men, 38–43, 46, 55–56 Cohn, Naomi, 227 Cole, Alice, 108, 113 Cole, Stephanie, 1–12 Coleman, Hannah, 176 College of Charleston, 186 Colonial Dames, 185 Communism: and alleged ties with racial integration, 263, 274–75 Concubine/concubinage: problematic definition of in slave society, 4, 38, 39, 40; and women of color in antebellum Charleston, S. C., 40–43, 55–56 Convict leasing: and alleged African American criminality, 198, 199, 200, 201–3, 207, 214–15 Cook, Cita, 7, 144–60 Cooley, Rossa, 177 Corn, Peter, 62 Cotton, Sallie Southall, 181 Crashaw, Unity, 31 Creech, Henry, 202, 203n Creech, Sally, 203n Creech, William, 203n, 212 Crozet, Claudia, 89 Crumpler, Nancy, 278–79

289 Cult of True Womanhood, 159, 179–80, 191, 192 Curry, Kate, 112 Dabney, Virginius, 227 Dale, Sir Thomas, 24 Daniel, Pete, 254 Daughters of the American Revolution, 185 Daughters of the Cross, 116, 117, 119 Davids, Benjamin, 45 Davis, Elmer, 239, 256 Davis, Jefferson, 7, 144, 145, 146, 147, 153, 156, 189 Davis, Varina Anne “Winnie”: birth of, 145; death of, 144, 154; education of, 145–46, 158; engagement of, 147–48; iconization of as “Daughter of the Confederacy,” 7, 144–60; mourning at death of, 154–59; visit to Houston by, 149–50; writing career of, 148 Davis, Varina Howell, 145, 147, 148, 152, 154–55, 156 Davis, W. T., 202, 208 Deal, Douglas, 35–36 DeBardeleben, Mary, 171 Decker, Sarah Platt, 187 De La Warr, Thomas Lord, 27 Depression. See Great Depression Desegregation/integration. See League of Women Voters of New Orleans Detroit, Mich.: race riot in, 246 Dewson, Mary (Molly), 221, 230n, 235 Dieckmann, Kathryn, 248 Dinwiddie, Emily, 193n Discus, Melinda, 73 Dreyfous, Mathilde, 11, 266–67, 270, 273, 274, 282 Duncan, Frank, 73 Earley, Charity Adams, 245–46 Education: of African American children, 162, 163, 164–65, 167–69, 174; and Appalachian settlement school movement, 196–97, 210–11, 213–14; of elite white women, 83; by Sisters of the Holy Family, 117 Edwards, Madaline, 105, 106, 108 Eller, Ronald, 198 Elliott, Charles, 64, 76–77

290 Elliott, Harriet, 232 Ellis, Elise, 108 Ellis, Jacqueline, 243 Emancipation Proclamation, 133–34, 143 Emory, William Hemsley, 139 Employment: and “huckstering women,” 48–49; of women as prostitutes, 51– 55. See also Slave hiring; Labor unions; Wage/hours legislation Episcopalians: in Louisiana, 103, 105, 107, 108, 109, 111–12, 118, 119–20; in South Carolina, 182 Escott, Paul, 58 Evans, Emily, 192n Evans, Walker, 240 Everett, Mary Leonard, 72 Ewing, John, 71 Fable, John, 42–43 Faery, Rebecca Blevins, 19 Fair Labor Standards Act, 225n, 229– 30 Fairclough, Adam, 263, 265, 275n Farm Security Administration (FSA), 10, 241–42 Faust, Drew Gilpin, 130 Federal Emergency Relief Administration, 234n, 235 Felton, Rebecca Latimer, 180 Folger, Mary, 106 Ford Motor Co.: women workers at during World War II, 254 Forsyth, James William, 142 Fort Des Moines (Iowa), 245 Fowler, Henry S., 74 Fowler, Isaac, 74 Fowler, Mary, 74 Fox, George, 28 Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth, 124 Francis, Mary, 110 Franks, Orelia, 106 Free women of color: and participation in religion, 103–4, 105–6, 107–8, 111, 115, 117; and sexual mingling/mixing, 4–5, 37–56 Friedman, Jean, 101 Frierson, John, 44 Frierson, Lydia, 44 Frystak, Shannon, 10–11, 261–83 FSA. See Farm Security Administration

Index

Furman, Mary, 112 Gaines, Sallie, 64, 69 Gatewood, Elizabeth, 75–76 Gatewood, Emanuel, 75–76 Gault, Laura, 158 Gender. See Free women of color; Women’s club movement General Federation of Women’s Clubs, 8, 186, 187, 191, 192 George, Walter, 230 Georgia: labor legislation in, 226 Gibbon, John, 30 Gilkes, Cheryl Townsend, 114 Gilmer, Thomas Walker, 95–96 Gilmore, Glenda, 185 Glamour Girls of ‘43, 255 Glass, Carter, 230 Gordon, John B., 146 Grantham, Dewey, 180 Graves, Sarah, 70 Great Depression: Farm Security Administration (FSA) photography during, 240–41; female activism during, 218–37 Greene, James, 210 Guidry, Ogis: slaves of, 115 Gullah dialect, 162 Gutman, Herbert, 143 Hall, Jacqueline Dowd, 2 Halleck, Annie Ainslie, 228 Hamilton, Nippy, 118 Hancock, Fil, 77 Harlan County, Ky.: murder and criminal investigation in, 196–217 Harlem, N.Y.: race riot in, 246 Harper, Frances Ellen Watkins, 167 Harrell, Clara McNeely, 78 Harris, Joel Chandler, 164 Harrison, John, 120 Hayes, Margaret Davis, 158 Haygood, Atticus, 164–65 Hedges, Chaplain, 125–26 Hedges, Mary R., 125–26 Henson, Jim: slaves of, 108 Hewitt, Nancy, 3 Hickam, Ed, 77 Hindman Settlement School, 196, 197, 212

Index Hite, Elizabeth Ross, 106, 114 Hollywood Cemetery (Richmond, Va.), 154 Hopkins, Mary, 110 Houston, Nora, 232 Howard, H. H., 199, 200 Indian women: displays of sensuality by, 17, 18–20, 23; gender expectations of, 15; and liaisons with English colonists, 4, 13–36; and matrilineal society, 14; reasons for hospitality toward Englishmen, 15–16; use of dancing and music by, 18–20 Inskeep, Maria, 103 Intercollegiate Club of South Carolina, 184, 192 Isaac, Rhys, 137 Jackson, Andrew, 84 Jackson, Josh, 112, 114 Jamestown, Va., 13–36 Jarvis, John Wesley, 83 Jefferson, Thomas, 227–28 Jews: in Louisiana, 5, 9, 102, 107, 264; in reform movements, 227, 232–33 Johnson, Martha, 68 Johnston, Olin, 219 Jones, Caleb, 70 Jones, Dora Duty, 146–47 June, Cornel, 54 Kahn, Felicia, 265, 266, 271–72 Keller, Rosa, 11, 264–66, 274, 276n, 278, 280n, 281, 282 Kelley, Florence, 192, 220 Kelly, Rebecca, 40 Kennedy, Cynthia M., 4, 37–56 Kentucky Federation of Women’s Clubs, 212–13 Kentucky: celebrated murder of teacher in, 9, 196–217; labor legislation in, 223, 224, 228 Ker, Mary, 118 Keystone magazine: and the Poppenheim family, 190–94 Kimbrough, Mary Craig, 148 Kimmons, Richard, 63 Kitomaquund, Mary, 25 Klarman, Michael, 272

291 Ku Klux Klan: in Louisiana, 276, 277n Kurd, Nisa, 68 Labor laws/legislation: efforts of southern women to secure, 9, 218–37; during Progressive Era, 220–21; race issue in, 225–27, 229–30, 236 Labor unions: in the South, 221–24, 228, 237 Lane, William Carr, 72 Lange, Dorothea, 240 Latrobe, Benjamin H., 102, 103–4, 107–8 Laveau, Marie: and voodoo, 115 Lawson, William, 24 League of Women Voters of New Orleans: integration of, 10–11, 261– 83; membership demographic of, 261, 266–67, 282 Lebsock, Suzanne, 124 LeConniat, Mary Hyacinth, 117, 119 Lee, Antoinette, 123, 124–26, 128, 141 Lee, Hugh Holmes, 123, 125 Lee, Laura: and African American soldiers, 136–37; banishment of, 139–41; Confederate aid by, 129, 133; death of, 142; and evolving relationship with slaves, 6, 122–43; financial independence of, 124–26; journal of, 122–23, 143; nieces/nephews of, 123, 128, 139 Lee, Mary Greenhow: and African American soldiers, 136, 137–38; banishment of, 139–41; Confederate aid by, 129, 133; death of, 142; diary of, 123, 143; and evolving relationship with slaves, 6, 122–43; financial independence of, 124–26; gender notions of, 129–30; genteel poverty of, 141–42; nieces/nephews of, 123, 128, 139; on Southern men’s courage in wartime, 129 Lee, Robert E., 189 Lee, Russell, 240 Leff, Mark, 239 Lemann, Nicholas, 257 Lenoir, Walter Raleigh, 70 Leonard, Abiel, 77 Litwack, Leon F., 134 Livermore, Patricia, 250

292 Long, Huey, 228–29, 230 Lost Cause mythology: and the Poppenheim sisters, 179, 182–83, 187–88, 189–90; southern women’s support of, 233; and “Winnie” Davis, 144– 60 Louisiana: antebellum religion in, 101–21; labor legislation in, 223, 228–29 Louisville, Ky., 247, 248, 270–71 Lyons, William: slaves of, 108 Madison, Dolley, 80, 84, 87 Mankin, Helen Douglas, 235 Manumission: laws governing, 41, 42; of women of color, 40–42 Marshall, Mattie, 118 Marshall, Ria, 112 Martineau, Harriet, 37 Mason, Lucy Randolph: background of, 218, 232; and child labor legislation, 229; “maternalism” of, 233; as member of Southern Conference for Human Welfare, 228; and National Consumers’ League, 220, 222; and New Deal politics, 230, 235; on race and labor, 225–27; on “states’ rights,” 218–19, 229; and wage/hours legislation, 219 Maternalism: defined, 8, 164; exemplified by Abbie Holmes Christensen, 161–78, and Laura Haygood, 164–65; and women of National Consumers’ League, 233 Mathew, Thomas, 29, 31 Mathews, Donald, 101 Mathews, Hattie, 62 McAllister, Dorothy, 230–31n McEuen, Melissa A., 10, 238–60 McLaurin, Melton, 67 Megret, Antoine, 116 Memphis, Tenn., 253, 256, 268 Merrick, Caroline, 120 Merriweather, Scott, 76–77 Methodists: in Louisiana, 102, 109, 110, 113, 118, 119; in South Carolina, 164–65, 171, 178 Meyer, Agnes E., 254 Missouri: slavery in, 5, 57–78 Mitchell, Norma Taylor, 5, 79–100

Index

Monumental Episcopal Church (Richmond, Va.), 92, 93 Moore, Richard Channing, 92, 93, 95 Morial, Sybil, 281–82 Morrison, DeLesseps (“Chep”), 275, 276n Morrow, Edwin P., 198 Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, 162, 165, 169, 171–72 Mundy, Lewis, 68 Nanticoke Indians, 24–25 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People: in Louisiana, 277n National Consumers League (NCL), 9, 220–37 Neuman, Nancy, 271 New Deal: agencies, 9, 240, 241–42; in southern politics, 218–37 New Orleans, La.: antebellum religion in, 101–2, 103–4, 105–8, 111, 113, 115–17, 118, 119; desegregation efforts in, 10–11, 261–83 New South movement, 181–95 Newport, Christopher, 21 Nguyen, Julia Huston, 5–6, 101–21 Nickerson, Edmonda: on “Winnie” Davis, 159 Noisette, Margaret, 41 Noisette, Philip Stanislas, 41 North Carolina: labor legislation in, 223 Odendahl, Laura, 6, 122–43 Office of War Information (OWI), 10, 239, 240, 242, 243–45, 246, 253, 255, 259, 260 Olandt, Dietrick, 53–54 Olmsted, Frederick Law, 102, 104, 105–6 Opossunoquonuske, Queen of Appomattoc, 21–22, 26–27 Overton, Eliza, 65 Pamunkey Indians, 28–35 Parsons, Lura, 9, 196–217 Patterson, Andrea Christensen, 174, 176 Peixotto, Grace, 53 Percy, George, 27 Perkins, Frances, 221, 235, 236

Index Perrett, Geoffrey, 249, 256 Pettit, Katherine, 9, 196–217 Photography: during Great Depression and World War II, 238–60 Pine Mountain Settlement School, 196–217 Pipsco: wife of, 22–23 Pocahontas: descriptions of, 16–17; illness and death of, 24; and John Smith, 17–20, 25; marriage of, 23– 24; relationship with colonists of, 4, 16–17; visual depictions of, 13 Poche, Felix, 105 Pocomoke: queen of, 27–28 Politics: in South during the New Deal, 9–10, 218–37 Polk, Leonidas, 103, 119 Poole, Caroline, 105 Poppenheim, Christie, 184, 185 Poppenheim, Christopher, 182, 183 Poppenheim, Ida, 184 Poppenheim, John Frederick, 182 Poppenheim, Louisa Bouknight: on African American clubwomen, 11, 191; and celebration of Confederate heritage, 182–83, 189–91, 233; club work of, 8, 179–80, 185, 186–87, 192–94; education of, 181, 183–84; family history of, 182; influence of mother on, 181–82; and Keystone monthly, 190–94; last years of, 194; “southernness” of, 181; and traveling libraries, 186 Poppenheim, Mary Barnett: celebration of Confederate heritage, 182–83, 189–91, 233; club work of, 8, 179– 80, 185, 187–89, 192; death of, 187–88, 194; education of, 181, 183– 84; family history of, 182; influence of mother on, 181–82, 189; and Keystone monthly, 190–94; and promotion of history, 188–89; “southernness” of, 181 Poppenheim, Mary Elinor Bouknight, 181–82, 182–83, 184 Port Royal Agricultural School, 161, 163, 164, 167, 171 Port Royal Experiment, 162 Post, Marion, 240 Powhatan, 14, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24

293 Pratt, Henry, 68, 69 Pratt, Millie, 69 Presbyterians: in Louisiana, 102, 109, 118 Price, David, 66 Priest, George, 64 Progressivism, 179–95, 220–21 Property: bequests to women of color, 41–43, 45, 46 Prostitute/prostitution: problematic definition of in slave society, 4, 38–39; and women of color in antebellum Charleston, S. C., 51–56 Quakerism: in Louisiana, 113 Race: absence of from reform initiatives, 8, 11; and civil disturbances, 169–70, 246; and gender politics of Abbie Holmes Christensen, 161–78; in a Civil War household of single women, 122–43; and interracial cohabitation, 38–43, 55–56; as issue in southern politics, 161, 219, 225–26; overtones of in murder of Kentucky teacher, 214–15; and specter of black men and white women, 161, 167–68, 177, 236. See also African American women; Free women of color; Slave women Racial segregation: in houses of worship, 104–5; during World War II, 239, 243–46, 255–60; and Jim Crow legislation, 276–77; views of Abbie Holmes Christensen on, 174 Ramsay, Jonathan, 72 Reed, Jerry, 200, 202, 203 Reeves, Jean, 281, 282 Religion: in antebellum Louisiana, 5–6, 101–21; and gender expectations, 113–14. See also specific denominations Reynolds, Mary, 110, 111 Rice, Julia Elizabeth Baldwin, 149 Rice, Spottswoods, 57 Richardson, Hagar, 41–42, 43 Richmond, Va.: antebellum political and social life in, 79–100 Riker, Mrs. Lafon, 212 Ripley, Eliza, 105 Ritchie, Thomas, 82, 86

294 Rives, Eliza, 107, 118 Rives, Judith Page Walker, 90 Rives, William Cabell, 87, 89, 94, 95, 98 Roberts, Nannie, 107 Robertson, Carey, 241 Robertson, Eliza Anne, 106–7, 108–9 Robertson, Mary Jane, 108 Robertson, Mary Smith, 86, 90 Robertson, Wyndham, 86 Robinet, Isabelle, 282 Robinson, James, 200 Robinson, Martha Gilmore, 262, 264– 65 Roeder, George, 244 Rolfe, John, 4, 23–24 Roman Catholics: in Louisiana, 101–2, 103–4, 105, 108, 111–12, 115, 116– 17, 119–20; and religious orders, 104, 116–17 Rome, Ga., 258 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 221, 236, 237n Rothstein, Arthur, 240 Rountree, Helen, 15 Runette, Mabel, 176 Rush, Benjamin, 81 Salmon, Lucy, 188, 193n Sanders, Eli, 112 Saurer, Emma, 224 SAWH. See Southern Association for Women Historians Scarburgh, Edmund, 27–28 Scott, Anne Firor, 262 Scott, Susan, 77 Segregation. See Racial segregation Settle, Anna Hubbuch, 228 Sewall, May Wright, 192 Sex: as survival mechanism of women of color, 4, 39, 40, 55–56 Sexual abuse: in slave society, 37, 39, 43–45, 52, 55 Sexual liaisons: of Indian women and English colonists, 4–5, 13–36 Sexual mingling/mixing: in antebellum Charleston, S. C., 37–56 Shanklin School. See Port Royal Agricultural School Shelton, William, 97 Sheridan, Philip Henry, 139–40 Sherrard, Anne M., 139–40

Index

Sherrard, Elizabeth, 139–40 Sherrard, Joseph H., 139–40 Sherrard, Virginia, 139–40 Sherwood, William, 28–29 Shine, Polly, 119 Sides, Mollie Renfro, 63–64 Silvy, William, 62–63 Simms, William Gilmore, 44 Simons, Samuel, 45 Sisters of Mount Carmel, 116 Sisters of the Holy Family: in New Orleans, 104, 117 Slave hiring, 49–52, 61, 70, 126–27 Slave women: as active participants in religion, 103, 104, 105–6, 108, 110–11, 112–13, 114–16, 118–19; and desire to keep family together, 128; effect of Emancipation Proclamation on, 133– 35; empowerment of during Civil War, 122–43; historical scholarship on, 2–6, 38; in Civil War household of single white women, 122–43; laws governing, 50; number of in Charleston, S. C., 47–48; perceived “loyalty” of, 6, 129, 130–31, 135–36, 140–41; and pregnancy, 127; presumed sexual practices of, 43, 45; and prostitution, 51–52; resistance of, 132–33; and sex trade, 47, 52–55; surnames of, 142–43; work/labor of, 48–49. See also Abroad marriages; Slave hiring Smith, Alfred, 66 Smith, Clarinda, 66 Smith, Ellison D., 236 Smith, Henry, 71 Smith, John, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17–20, 21, 22, 25, 27 Smith, Pleasant, 76 Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll, 182n Social Security, 218, 225n Solomon, Clara, 107 South Carolina Audubon Society, 185, 190 South Carolina Equal Rights Association, 172 South Carolina Equal Suffrage League, 175 South Carolina Federation of Women’s Clubs, 177, 179, 186, 190–91, 192, 194

Index South Carolina Historical Society, 189 South Carolina: labor legislation in, 218–19, 223, 224–25, 226 Southern Association for Women Historians (SAWH), 1, 2 Southern Conference for Human Welfare, 11, 228, 232, 263, 264 Southern Conferences on Women’s History, 1, 2 Southern Historical Association, 1 Southern Literary Messenger, 85 Southerners: stereotypes of, 253–54, 259–60 Spelman, Henry, 20 St. Andrew’s Society: in Charleston, S.C., 46 St. Louis Cathedral (New Orleans, La.), 102, 103–4 St. Paul’s Episcopal Church (Richmond, Va.), 154 States’ rights, 218–37 Sterkx, H. E., 115 Stevenson, Bertha, 193 Stirling, Mary: slaves of, 114 Storrs, Landon R. Y., 9–10, 11, 218–37 Strachey, William, 16, 22–23, 26 Stribling, Francis T., 95 Stryker, Roy, 240–42, 247, 260 Suffrage. See Woman suffrage Sully, Kate, 109–10 Sytz, Florence, 232 Talbot, Marion, 192 Taylor, Clay, 68 Taylor, Tishey, 68, 76 Temperance: in South Carolina, 162, 172, 175. See also Woman’s Christian Temperance Union Tennessee: labor legislation in, 225 Tetzlaff, Monica Maria, 7–8, 161–78 Textile industry: and labor movement, 218, 221, 223, 224–25, 226, 236 The Widow Ranter (Behn), 34–35 Thomas, Ann Raney, 102, 109, 117 Thorne, John S., 41 Thorne, Rebecca, 41 Tillett, Gladys, 230n Toledano, Betsy: and voodoo, 115–16 Totopotomoy, King of the Pamunkey, 30 Tower, Luther, 113, 119

295 Trachtenberg, Alan, 240 Tucker, Beverley, 72 Tulsa, Okla., 270–71 Tunno, Adam, 46 United Confederate Veterans, 148 United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), 7, 144, 151–52, 153–54, 155, 156, 179, 185, 186, 187–88, 190, 194, 227 Ursuline sisters, 116 Van Buren, Martin, 87 Vanderhorst, Arnoldus, 41–42 Varon, Elizabeth R., 98 Vassar College: and the Poppenheim family, 183–84, 188 Vaughn, Thomas, 76 Veeder, Frances, 247, 250 Vermillion, U. S., 203 Virginia: antebellum politics and society in, 5, 79–100; labor legislation in, 223, 224, 225–26, 227–28 Visanka, Sarah, 192n, 233 Voodoo, 115–16 Wage/hours legislation, 218, 219, 220, 222–23, 224, 226, 228, 229–30. See also Labor laws/legislation Waggoner, Sarah, 72 Warden, Asbury, 64, 69 Warden, Emma, 69 Warden, Harriet, 69 Ware, Susan, 261n Washington, Ella, 111 Washington, Emily: and duties of motherhood, 132; home life of following emancipation, 142–43; illness of, 134; perceived disloyalty of, 133, 135–36; pregnancy of, 127; reaction to emancipation, 130–31, 134; as slave in Lee household, 123, 126, 128; wedding of, 137 Washington, George (slave), 137, 139, 142 Washington, Jane, 72, 75 Washington, Margaret, 163 Watson, Dianah, 112 WCTU. See Woman’s Christian Temperance Union

296 Wells, Evelyn, 206 Welter, Barbara, 191 Werowocomoco: Indian village of, 18, 19, 20 West, John (husband of Cockacoeske), 31–32, 34 West, John (son of Cockacoeske), 31, 32, 33, 34 Western Insane Asylum of Virginia, 94–95 Wheeler, Marjorie Spruill, 234 Whisnant, David, 210 White, Adeline, 112 Whites, LeeAnn, 129 Whittier, John Greenleaf, 166, 171 Wilkinson, Alfred, 147 Wilkinson, Rose, 105 Willard, Frances, 172 Willard, Nancy, 109 Wilson, Levi, 72 Wilson, Sarah, 106 Wilson, Woodrow, 175 Winchester, Va.: Civil War in, 6, 122–43 Winnes, Harry C., 199–217 Wisdom, Betty, 280n Wisely, Martha, 72 Wisner, Elizabeth, 232 Woman Citizen’s Union, 262–63 Woman suffrage, 8, 162, 163, 172, 174–77, 180, 185, 191, 192, 222, 228n, 234 Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), 8, 172, 185, 196, 205 Woman’s Club of Central Kentucky, 204–5 Women: antebellum church attendance and participation of, 101–21; and choice of religious denomination, 108–11; and club work, 163, 172–77, 179–95; elite white, 5, 7, 79–100; 179–95; as heads of household,

Index

122–43; historical scholarship on, 1–12; Indian, 13–36; and Lost Cause mythology, 144–60, 233; as “outsiders,” 8, 9, 161–63, 167–69, 178, 211, 216–17, 232, 274–75; and property rights in Virginia, 125; and religious conversion experiences, 102–4; at revivals and camp meetings, 117–20; as “southern ladies,” 7, 8, 43, 144–45, 231; unmarried white during Civil War, 122–43; as war brides during World War II, 249–50. See also African American women; Free women of color; Slave women Women’s Army Corps (WAC), 245 Women’s club movement, 163, 172–77, 179–95 Woodward, Ellen, 235 Workers’ compensation, 218. See also Labor laws/legislation Works Progress Administration (WPA): slave narratives collected by, 5, 59, 68, 73, 74; 241 World War II: and cultural expectations of women, 243–46; employment opportunities for southerners during, 239, 253–55; employment opportunities for women during, 242–46, 254–55; and photography of Esther Bubley, 238–60; and psychological isolation of women, 243, 249–50; race riots during, 246; on U.S. home front, 10, 238–60; women as targets of violence during, 245–46, 247 Wright, Sarah, 107 Yates, Anna, 51 Young, Virginia Durant, 172, 175 YWCA, 222, 230, 231 Zande, Ethel DeLong, 9, 196–217