Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow : Black Women, Work, and the Family, From Slavery to the Present

The forces that shaped the institution of slavery in the American South endured, albeit in altered form, long after slavery was abolished. Toiling in sweltering Virginia tobacco factories or in the kitchens of white families in Chicago, black women felt a stultifying combination of racial discrimination and sexual prejudice. And yet, in their efforts to sustain family ties, they shared a common purpose with wives and mothers of all classes. In Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow , historian Jacqueline Jones offers a powerful account of the changing role of black women, lending a voice to an unsung struggle from the depths of slavery to the ongoing fight for civil rights. An Historical Study Of The Roles Of Black Women Examines The Weight Of Racial Prejudice And Sexual Discrimination On The Dual Responsibilities Of Black Women As Bread Winners And Guardians Of Family And Community Stability. My Mother Was Much Of A Woman: Slavery -- Freed Women? The Civil War And Reconstruction -- A Bridge Of Bent Backs And Laboring Muscles: The Rural South, 1880-1915 -- Between The Cotton Field And The Ghetto: The Urban South, 1880-1915 -- To Get Out Of This Land Of Sufring: Black Women Migrants To The North, 1900-1930 -- Harder Times: The Great Depression -- The Roots Of Two Revolutions, 1940-1955 -- The Struggle Confirmed And Transformed, 1955-1980. Jacqueline Jones. Includes Index. Bibliography: P. 406-415. Frontmatter Acknowledgments (page xi) Introduction (page 3) 1. "My Mother Was Much of a Woman": Slavery (page 11) 2. Freed Women? The Civil War and Reconstruction (page 44) 3. A Bridge of "Bent Backs and Laboring Muscles": The Rural South, 1880-1915 (page 79) 4. Between the Cotton Field and the Ghetto: The Urban South, 1880-1915 (page 110) 5. "To Get Out of This Land of Sufring": Black Women Migrants to the North, 1900-1930 (page 152) 6. Harder Times: The Great Depression (page 196) 7. The Roots of Two Revolutions, 1940-1955 (page 232) 8. The Struggle Confirmed and Transformed, 1955-1980 (page 275) Epilogue: 1984 (page 322) Appendices (page 331) Notes (page 343) Selected Bibliography (page 406) Index (page 416) A powerful account of the changing role of American black women in the labor force and in the family The Bancroft Prize-winning classic, now completely revised and updated