Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Exploring the gendered dimension of political conflicts, Laura Edwards links post-Civil War transformations in private and public life. She illustrates how ideas about men's and women's roles within households shaped the ways groups of southerners--elite and poor, whites and blacks, Democrats and Republicans--envisioned the public arena and their own places in it. By using those on the margins to define the center, Edwards demonstrates that Reconstruction was a complicated process of conflict and negotiation that lasted beyond 1877 and involved all southerners and every aspect of life.
Table of Contents
You can't go home again : marriage and households --"How can they do it on three barrels of corn a year?" : labor -- "Rich men" and "cheerful wives" : gender roles in elite white households -- "I am my own woman and will do as I please" : gender roles in poor African-American and common white households --"Privilege" and "protection" : civil and political rights -- The "best men" : party politics and the collapse of the Knights of Labor.