Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War (The Fred W. Morrison Series in Southern Studies)

When Confederate men marched off to battle, southern women struggled with the new responsibilities of directing farms and plantations, providing for families, and supervising increasingly restive slaves. Drew Faust offers a compelling picture of the more than half-million women who belonged to the slaveholding families of the Confederacy during this period of acute crisis, when every part of these women's lives became vexed and uncertain. Faust chronicles the clash of the old and the new within a group that was at once the beneficiary and the victim of the social order of the Old South. When Confederate Men Marched Off To Battle, White Women Across The South Confronted Unaccustomed And Unsought Responsibilities: Directing Farms And Plantations, Providing For Families, And Supervising Increasingly Restive Slaves. As Southern Women Struggled To Do A Man's Business, They Found Themselves Compelled To Reconsider Their Most Fundamental Assumptions About Their Identities And About The Larger Meaning Of Womanhood. Drew Faust Offers A Compelling Picture Of The More Than Half-million Women Who Belonged To The Slaveholding Families Of The Confederacy During This Period Of Acute Crisis. According To Faust, The Most Privileged Of Southern Women Experienced The Destruction Of War As Both A Social And A Personal Upheaval: The Prerogatives Of Whiteness And The Protections Of Ladyhood Began To Dissolve As The Confederacy Weakened And Crumbled. Faust Draws On The Eloquent Diaries, Letters, Essays, Memoirs, Fiction, And Poetry Of More Than 500 Of The Confederacy's Elite Women To Show That With The Disintegration Of Slavery And The Disappearance Of Prewar Prosperity, Every Part Of These Women's Lives Became Vexed And Uncertain. But It Was Not Just Females Who Worried About The Changing Nature Of Gender Relations In The Wartime South; Confederate Political Discourse And Popular Culture - Plays, Novels, Songs, And Paintings - Also Negotiated The Changed Meanings Of Womanhood. Exploring Elite Confederate Women's Wartime Experiences As Wives, Mothers, Nurses, Teachers, Slave Managers, Authors, Readers, And Survivors, This Book Chronicles The Clash Of The Old And The New Within A Group That Was At Once The Beneficiary And The Victim Of The Social Order Of The Old South. Mothers Of Invention Show How People Managed Both To Change And Not To Change And How Their Personal Transformations Related To A Larger World Of Society And Politics. Beautifully Written And Eminently Readable, This Study Of Women And War Is A Pathbreaking And Definitive Study Of The Forgotten Half Of The Confederacy's Master Class. Ch. 1. What Shall We Do?: Women Confront The Crisis -- Ch. 2. World Of Femininity: Changed Households And Changing Lives -- Ch. 3. Enemies In Our Households: Confederate Women And Slavery -- Ch. 4. We Must Go To Work, Too -- Ch. 5. We Little Knew: Husbands And Wives -- Ch. 6. To Be An Old Maid: Single Women, Courtship, And Desire -- Ch. 7. Imaginary Life: Reading And Writing -- Ch. 8. Though Thou Slay Us: Women And Religion. Ch. 9. To Relieve My Bottled Wrath: Confederate Women And Yankee Men -- Ch. 10. If I Were Once Released: The Garb Of Gender -- Ch. 11. Sick And Tired Of This Horrid War: Patriotism, Sacrifice, And Self-interest. Drew Gilpin Faust. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 259-312) And Index. Contents 7 Illustrations 9 Preface 11 Acknowledgments 15 Introduction: All the Relations of Life 19 Notes 276 1. What Shall We Do?: Women Confront the Crisis 25 Public Afairs Absorb Our Interest 26 Your Country Calls 28 Some Womanly Occupation 36 A Part to Perform 39 Notes 277 2. A World of Femininity: Changed Households and Changing Lives 46 Thinned Out of Men 46 The Best Way for Me to Do 51 The Bitterness of Exile 56 Home Manufacture 61 Notes 282 3. Enemies in Our Households: Confederate Women and Slavery 69 Unprotected and Afraid 72 The Fruits of the War 78 Troubled in Mind 81 More Expense Than Profit 86 An Entire Rupture of Our Domestic Relations 90 Notes 287 4. We Must Go to Work, Too 96 To Where Shall We Go for Teachers? 98 Us Poor Treasury Girls 104 The Florence Nightingale Business 108 Notes 292 5. We Little Knew: Husbands and Wives 130 Separation Is Always Very Sad 130 My Longing Wears a Curb 139 Little Animals 145 How Queer the Times 150 Notes 299 6. To Be an Old Maid: Single Women, Courtship, and Desire 155 Ever Lovingly and with a Great Desire 158 I Wish I Was a Soldier's Wife 161 Notes 302 7. An Imaginary Life: Reading and Writing 169 A Regular Course of Reading 173 The Liberty of Writing 177 Writing and Reading the Confederate Novel 184 Notes 304 8. Though Thou Slay Us: Women and Religion 195 Affliction Sanctifies 196 The All Important Subject 200 War Has Hardened Us 203 Notes 308 9. To Relieve My Bottled Wrath: Confederate Women and Yankee Men 212 The Day of Woman's Power 213 The Right to Bear Arms 218 Discretion Is the Better Part 220 Women (Calling Themselves Ladies) 223 All Was Fair in Love and War 230 Notes 312 10. If I Were Once Released: The Garb of Gender 236 Anything I Can Get 237 Hoops Are Subsiding 239 A la Soldier 242 In Female Attire 244 A Man's Heart and a Female Form 247 Notes 315 11. Sick and Tired of This Horrid War: Patriotism, Sacrifice, and Self-Interest 250 So Much Rests upon the Mind 251 You Must Come Home 254 Mirth and Reckless Revelry 260 Notes 319 Epilogue: We Shall Never...Be the Same 264 Notes 322 Afterword: The Burden of Southern History Reconsidered' 271 Notes 324 Notes 275 Bibliographic Note 325 Index 329 W-Y 342 A-B 329 C 330 D-E 332 F-G 333 H 334 I-L 335 M 336 N-O 337 P-R 338 S 339 T-V 341 ch. 1. What shall we do?: women confront the crisis -- ch. 2. World of femininity: changed households and changing lives -- ch. 3. Enemies in our households: confederate women and slavery -- ch. 4. We must go to work, too -- ch. 5. We little knew: husbands and wives -- ch. 6. To be an old maid: single women, courtship, and desire -- ch. 7. Imaginary life: reading and writing -- ch. 8. Though thou slay us: women and religion. ch. 9. To relieve my bottled wrath: Confederate women and Yankee men -- ch. ch. 10. If I were once released: the garb of gender -- ch. 11. Sick and tired of this horrid war: patriotism, sacrifice, and self-interest. As the nation passed anxiously through the long and uncertain months of the "secession winter" of 1861-62, Lucy Wood wrote from her home in Charlottesville, Virginia, to her fiance, Waddy Butler.