Nell Irvin Painter

The Secret Eye: The Journal of Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas, 1848-1889. Gender and American Culture.

The journal of Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas, spanning the years from 1848 to 1889, is rare for its treatment of both the Civil War and postbellum years and for its candor and detail in treating these eras. Thomas, who was born to wealth and privilege and reared in the tradition of the southern belle, tells of the hard days of war and the poverty brought on by emancipation and Reconstruction. Her entries illuminate experiences shared with thousands of other southern women.

The Mind of Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass was unquestionably the foremost black American of the nineteenth century. The extraordinary life of this former slave turned abolitionist orator, newspaper editor, social reformer, race leader, and Republican party advocate has inspired many biographies over the years. This, however, is the first full-scale study of the origins, contours, development, and significance of Douglasss thought. Brilliant and to a large degree self-taught, Douglass personified intellectual activism; he possessed a sincere concern for the uses and consequences of ideas. Both his peoples struggle for liberation and his individual experiences, which he envisioned as symbolizing that struggle, provided the basis and structure for his intellectual maturation. As a representative American, he internalized and, thus, reflected major currents in the contemporary American mind. As a representative Afro-American, he revealed in his thinking the deep-seated influence of race on Euro-American, Afro-American, or, broadly conceived, American consciousness. He sought to resolve in his thinking the dynamic tension between his identities as a black and as an American. Martin assesses not only how Douglass dealt with this enduring conflict, but also the extent of his success. An inveterate belief in a universal and egalitarian humanism unified Douglasss thought. This grand organizing principle reflected his intellectual roots in the three major traditions of mid-nineteenth-century American thought: Protestant Christianity, the Enlightenment, and romanticism. Together, these influences buttressed his characteristic optimism. Although nineteenth-century Afro-American intellectual history derived its central premises and outlook from concurrent American intellectual history, it offered a searching critique of the latter and its ramifications. How to square Americas rhetoric of freedom, equality, and justice with the reality of slavery and racial prejudice was the difficulty that confronted such Afro-American thinkers as Douglass. |Frederick Douglass was unquestionably the foremost black American of the nineteenth century. The extraordinary life of this former slave turned abolitionist orator, newspaper editor, social reformer, race leader, and Republican party advocate has inspired many biographies over the years. This, however, is the first full-scale study of the origins, contours, development, and significance of Douglasss thought.

Planters and the Making of a "New South": Class, Politics, and Development in North Carolina, 1865-1900.

Billings disputes the assumption that an incipient merchant class built the states cotton mills; he reveals that a majority of the early mills was owned by prominent planters and agrarians. He shows the persistent hegemony and support for industrialization among the landed upper class and describes several generations of five powerful North Carolina families who spread plantation paternalism to the mill-village system. Billings compares this with similar cases in Germany and Japan.A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.