Gender, race and family in nineteenth century America : from northern woman to plantation mistress

Resource Information

The work Gender, race and family in nineteenth century America : from northern woman to plantation mistress represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in European University Institute Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Gender, race and family in nineteenth century America : from northern woman to plantation mistress

Title remainder

from northern woman to plantation mistress

Statement of responsibility

Rebecca J. Fraser

Creator

• Fraser, Rebecca J., 1978-

Subject

• Gender identity
• United States -- Social conditions -- 1865-1918
• United States -- Social conditions -- To 1865
• Women -- United States -- History -- 19th century

Language

eng

Summary

• Chronicles the life of Sarah F. Williams (née Hicks), who was born in New Hartford, NY, educated at the Albany Academy, and then married a plantation owner from North Carolina, who subsequently moved to Georgia. The story is told on the basis of letters she wrote to her parents and sisters from 1853 through the Civil War to 1917--Provided by Publisher
• Sarah Hicks Williams was the northern-born wife of an antebellum slaveholder. Rebecca Fraser traces her journey as she relocates to Clifton Grove, the Williams' slaveholding plantation, presenting her with complex dilemmas as she reconciled her new role as plantation mistress to the gender script she had been raised with in the North.

Member of

• Genders and sexualities in history

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

305.30973

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography

Series statement

Genders and sexualities in history series

Summary expansion

Born to a privileged middle-class family in 1830s New York State, Sarah Hicks' decision to marry Benjamin Williams, a physician and slaveholder from Greene County, North Carolina, in 1853, was met with slight amazement by her parents, siblings and friends, not least her brother-in-law, James Monroe Brown, a committed anti-slavery campaigner from Ohio. This book traces Sarah's journey as she relocates to Clifton Grove, the Williams' slaveholding plantation, presenting her with complex dilemmas as she reconciled the everyday realities of plantation mistress to the gender script which she had been raised with in the North. She also faced familial divisions and disharmony with her northern kin and new southern in-laws, and the recognition that her whiteness and class accorded her special privileges in the context of mid-nineteenth century America