Civil Wars: Women and the Crisis of Southern NationalismBorn into a male-dominated society, southern women often chose to support patriarchy and their own celebrated roles as mothers, wives, and guardians of the home and humane values. George C. Rable uncovers the details of how women fit into the South's complex social order and how Southern social assumptions shaped their attitudes toward themselves, their families, and society as a whole. He reveals a bafflingly intricate social order and the ways the South's surprisingly diverse women shaped their own lives and minds despite strict boundaries. Paying particular attention to women during the Civil War, Roble illuminates their thoughts on the conflict and the threats and challenges they faced and looks at their place in both the economy and politics of the Confederacy. He also ranges back to the antebellum era and forward to postwar South, when women quickly acquiesced to the old patriarchal system but nonetheless lived lives changed forever by the war. |
Contents
Tradition Change and Uneasy Accommodation | 1 |
Defenders of the Faith | 31 |
The Civil War as Family Crisis | 50 |
Southern Women and Confederate Military Power | 73 |
The Political Economy of the Southern Home Front | 91 |
The New Women of the Confederacy | 112 |
Duty Honor and Frustration The Dilemmas of Female Patriotism | 136 |
The Coming of Lucifers Legions | 154 |
Refugees and Revelers | 181 |
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ADAH Alabama antebellum April army August became Benedict Joseph Semmes Braxton Bragg Children of Pride civilians Clanton Thomas Diary Clement Claiborne Clay Confederacy Confederate Crabtree and Patton Dawson December Despite Diary of Emma domestic Duke economic Edmondston Journal Elizabeth Elmore Diary Emma Holmes Family Papers February female GDAH Georgia Gertrude Clanton Thomas girls History husband James January Jefferson Davis John John Gill Shorter John Letcher Joseph Joseph E Journal of Kate July June Kate Stone ladies Letters lives Louisiana State University Lucy March Marszalek Mary Chesnut's Civil McGuire MDAH Myers NCDAH North Northern November October patriotic plantation mistresses planters political poor white Richmond roles roll seemed September slavery slaves Smith social society soldiers South Carolina Southern Refugee Southern women Susan University Press Virginia white women widows William woman Woodward worried Yankees yeoman York young Zebulon Baird Vance