Many early-nineteenth-century slaveholders considered themselves ""masters"" not only over slaves, but also over the institutions of marriage and family. According to many historians, the privilege of mastery was reserved for white males. But as many as one in ten slaveholders - sometimes more - was a widow, and as Kirsten E. Wood demonstrates, between the American Revolution and the Civil War, slaveholding widows developed their own version of mastery. Because their husbands' wills and dower law often gave women authority ...
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Many early-nineteenth-century slaveholders considered themselves ""masters"" not only over slaves, but also over the institutions of marriage and family. According to many historians, the privilege of mastery was reserved for white males. But as many as one in ten slaveholders - sometimes more - was a widow, and as Kirsten E. Wood demonstrates, between the American Revolution and the Civil War, slaveholding widows developed their own version of mastery. Because their husbands' wills and dower law often gave women authority over entire households, widowhood expanded both their domestic mandate and their public profile. They wielded direct power not only over slaves and children but also over white men - particularly sons, overseers, and debtors. After the Revolution, southern white men frequently regarded powerful widows as direct threats to their manhood and thus to the social order. By the antebellum decades, however, these women found support among male slaveholders who resisted the popular claim that all white men were by nature equal, regardless of wealth. Slaveholding widows enjoyed material, legal, and cultural resources to which most other southerners could only aspire. The ways in which they did - and did not - translate those resources into social, political, and economic power shed new light on the evolution of slaveholding society.
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Add this copy of Masterful Women: Slaveholding Widows From the American to cart. $18.70, like new condition, Sold by Sequitur Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Boonsboro, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2004 by The University of North Carolina Press.
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Seller's Description:
Like New. Size: 9x5x0; Softcover. Good binding and cover. Minor shelf wear. Owner's name on front end page, else unmarked. "Wood offers a wonderfully rich and revealing reading of slaveholding widows' particular kind of mastery over a long period of southern history. Masterful Women makes an important contribution to the literature on women, gender, and slaveholding society in the American South."-Stephanie McCurry, University of Pennsylvania.
Add this copy of Masterful Women Slaveholding Widows From the American to cart. $26.65, very good condition, Sold by Books on the Boulevard rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Sherman Oaks, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2004 by The University of North Carolina Press.
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Very Good. 0807855286. Penned liner notes to one page. Binding tight and straight, all remaining inner pages clean and unmarked.; Gender And American Culture; 9.3 X 5.7 X 0.7 inches.
Add this copy of Masterful Women: Slaveholding Widows from the American to cart. $39.93, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2004 by University of North Carolina Press.
Add this copy of Masterful Women: Slaveholding Widows From the American to cart. $44.55, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2004 by The University of North Caroli.
Add this copy of Masterful Women: Slaveholding Widows From the American to cart. $50.83, new condition, Sold by BargainBookStores rated 3.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Grand Rapids, MI, UNITED STATES, published 2004 by University of North Carolina Press.
Add this copy of Masterful Women: Slaveholding Widows From the American to cart. $94.51, new condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2004 by The University of North Caroli.
