Georgia Women: Their Lives and Times, Volume 1 (Southern Women: Their Lives and Times Ser.) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0820333379 ISBN 13: 9780820333373

Publisher: University of Georgia Press, 2009

Synopsis

This first of two volumes extends from the founding of the colony of Georgia in 1733 up to the Progressive era. From the beginning, Georgia women were instrumental in shaping the state, yet most histories minimize their contributions. The essays in this volume include women of many ethnicities and classes who played an important role in Georgia’s history.

Though sources for understanding the lives of women in Georgia during the colonial period are scarce, the early essays profile Mary Musgrove, an important player in the relations between the Creek nation and the British Crown, and the loyalist Elizabeth Johnston, who left Georgia for Nova Scotia in 1806. Another essay examines the near-mythical quality of the American Revolution-era accounts of "Georgia's War Woman," Nancy Hart. The later essays are multifaceted in their examination of the way different women experienced Georgia's antebellum social and political life, the tumult of the Civil War, and the lingering consequences of both the conflict itself and Emancipation. After the war, both necessity and opportunity changed women's lives, as educated white women like Eliza Andrews established or taught in schools and as African American women like Lucy Craft Laney, who later founded the Haines Institute, attended school for the first time. Georgia Women also profiles reform-minded women like Mary Latimer McLendon, Rebecca Latimer Felton, Mildred Rutherford, Nellie Peters Black, and Martha Berry, who worked tirelessly for causes ranging from temperance to suffrage to education. The stories of the women portrayed in this volume provide valuable glimpses into the lives and experiences of all Georgia women during the first century and a half of the state's existence.

Historical figures include:Mary MusgroveNancy HartElizabeth Lichtenstein JohnstonEllen CraftFanny KembleFrances Butler LeighSusie King TaylorEliza Frances AndrewsAmanda America DicksonMary Ann Harris GayRebecca Latimer FeltonMary Latimer McLendonMildred Lewis RutherfordNellie Peters BlackLucy Craft LaneyMartha BerryCorra HarrisJuliette Gordon Low

About this title

About the Author:

Ann Short Chirhart (Editor)
ANN SHORT CHIRHART is an assistant professor of history at Indiana State University.

Betty Wood (Editor)
BETTY WOOD is a Reader in American History, Girton College, University of Cambridge. Her other works include Slavery in Colonial America, 1619-1775 and Women's Work, Men's Work: The Informal Slave Economies of Lowcountry Georgia, 1750-1830 (Georgia).

Review:

Women have made their mark on all aspects of Georgia's history, from early colonization and revolution, through slavery, war, and defeat, and on through the era of racial repression and reform. Their stories, as told here by accomplished historians all, provide valuable new gendered lenses through which to view that history afresh. Full of new insights and fascinating reading throughout.

(John C. Inscoe editor of The New Georgia Encyclopedia)

This important work brings to light the role of significant women in our state's history. Reflecting the latest scholarship in the field, it brings more depth and analysis to women whose stories may be familiar and introduces women whose efforts and contributions deserve a place in Georgia's historical record.

(Lee Ann Caldwell director of the Center for the Study of Georgia History, Augusta State University)

[T]his exploration of 'Georgia Women' provides a stunning introduction to the study of the role of passionate women in the creation of history and today.

(Metro Spirit of Augusta)

While the essays might hold special interest for those who study Georgia, they can also introduce scholars of women's and southern history to new intricacies in the lives of even the most famous of the women

(Journal of Southern History)

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Georgia Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0820333379
• ISBN 13: 9780820333373
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 392
• Editor: Chirhart Ann Short, Wood Betty