Jacqueline Jones

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.

Half sisters of history : southern women and the American past

Long relegated to the margins of historical research, the history of women in the American South has rightfully gained prominence as a distinguished discipline. A comprehensive and much-needed tribute to southern womens history, Half Sisters of History brings together the most important work in this field over the past twenty years. This collection of essays by pioneering scholars surveys the roots and development of southern womens history and examines the roles of white women and women of color across the boundaries of class and social status from the founding of the nation to the present. Authors including Anne Firor Scott, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, and Nell Irwin Painter, among others, analyze womens participation in prewar slavery, their representation in popular fiction, and their involvement in social movements. In no way restricted to views of the plantation South, other essays examine the role of women during the American Revolution, the social status of Native American women, the involvement of Appalachian women in labor struggles, and the significance of women in the battle for civil rights. Because of their indelible impact on gender relations, issues of class, race, and sexuality figure centrally in these analyses. Half Sisters of History will be important not only to womens historians, but also to southern historians and womens studies scholars. It will prove invaluable to anyone in search of a full understanding of the history of women, the South, or the nation itself. Contributors. Catherine Clinton, Sara Evans, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, Jacqueline Jones, Suzanne D. Lebsock, Nell Irwin Painter, Theda Perdue, Anne Firor Scott, Deborah Gray White

All Educational Politics Are Local: New Perspectives on Black Schooling in the Postbellum South

By any measure, the founding of the Savannah Education Association in January 1865 represented a remarkable achievement for the African American community of that Georgia river port city. On New Year’s Day, just a week after the occupation of Savannah by the army of General William Tecumseh Sherman, black leaders gathered in the First African Baptist Church and formed an organization to provide elementary schooling for the city’s estimated 1,600 black children. An ecumenical mix of Baptist, Methodist, and Episcopalian ministers proceeded to constitute themselves as an executive board of the new Savannah Education Association (SEA). Two days later they met again, and in front of a large and expectant crowd, conducted a public examination of persons applying for teaching positions; by the end of the meeting, fifteen black Savannahians—ten women and five men—had received appointments as the first SEA instructors. The committee also drafted and approved a constitution that provided for a school board and a finance committee, and set fees for SEA membership on a monthly (25¢), annual (

Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow

3), or lifelong (

Soldiers of Light and Love: Northern Teachers and Georgia Blacks, 1865-1873

10) basis. In response to calls for community support, many in the audience came forward in what one observer called “a grand rush … Much like the charge of Union soldiers on a rebel battery,” depositing a total of

American Work: Four Centuries of Black and White Labor

730 in membership fees on a table in front of the committee.