0
Your cart

Your cart is empty

Books > History > American history

Not currently available

The Hammonds of Redcliffe (Paperback, New edition) Loot Price: R474
Discovery Miles 4 740
You Save: R102 (18%)
The Hammonds of Redcliffe (Paperback, New edition): Carol Bleser

The Hammonds of Redcliffe (Paperback, New edition)

Carol Bleser

 (sign in to rate)
List price R576 Loot Price R474 Discovery Miles 4 740 You Save R102 (18%)

Bookmark and Share

Supplier out of stock. If you add this item to your wish list we will let you know when it becomes available.

Selected letters, 1855-1938, from and to the Hammonds of "Redcliffe," on the South Carolina bank of the Savannah River: a correspondence which carries one Southern family from antebellum eminence to Depression egg-purveying. . . to "historic preservation." Singly, the letters are unremarkable - except for the experiences of two of the Hammond women. Plantation-founder James Henry (1807-1864) was the only Hammond of large affairs - remembered for boasting, on the Senate floor, "Cotton is king" (and terming slaves "the mudsills of society"). His letters, however, dwell chiefly on the besmirchment of his name (he had, admittedly but unashamedly, carried on a long dalliance with four young nieces) and the worthlessness of his sons. "A tough son of a bitch," editor Bleser calls him unceremoniously. At his death (in flight, one son wrote another, from Southern defeat), his eldest son Harry put most of the 14,000 Hammond acres up for sale; but as "no one was buying land," it remained in the family - to slip away piecemeal over the next 70 years. Of Reconstruction, and succeeding upheavals, we see little: most of Redcliffe's blacks apparently remained on the plantation (out of choice or no-choice) as wage labor - from which Bleser infers that the number who remained, overall, may "have been greater than indicated in previous studies." On firmer ground, she notes that "the lot of the Southern woman" changed far less than that of her planter-menfolk. Harry's strong-willed wife Emily silently endured his peccadilloes and bore his rages - while eldest son Henry mocked him (and daughter Julia fumed). More interesting - and ambiguous - were the situations of Julia and her sister Katherine. For uncertain reasons, they, not their brothers, were urged on to higher education - so we find Julia, in 1881, at Harvard Annex studying Botany and Physics, glimpsing "real New England life" (with "no servant to wait at the table"), assessing the platform performance of her sex ("Women will do very well while you praise them but we don't like the other side"), and telling her mother unceasingly of "the intolerable anguish of being separated from you." She shortly returned home, rejected the man she loved - and, long after he married, wrote him one after another desolate, not-to-be-mailed letter. Katherine, the beauty, went to Johns Hopkins to study nursing, and almost stuck it out - despite the filthy, all-hours work and a loathsome supervisor. She turned away suitor after suitor; then finally married, at 30, ardent, disarming Dr. John Sedgwick Billings (son of prominent New Yorker John Shaw) - only to be miserable. (He philandered - but also scored her attachment to Redcliffe.) And - in the story's most curious twist - it was their son, John Shaw II, a Time editor enamored of Redcliffe since childhood, who rescued and restored the plantation-house; and, being childless, left it to the state. Bleser sees a feminist lesson in the fates of Julia and Katherine (reasonably, perhaps, in the former case; heavy-handedly in the latter); she hasn't the humor to appreciate John Shaw II's disgruntled flight from Luce-dom to Tara-hood. But the letters are copiously annotated, and certainly worth an airing - for their time-span, plus the light they throw in all sorts of odd directions. (Kirkus Reviews)
The riveting saga of an articulate, intelligent southern family blessed with wealth but marred by personal scandal Drawing on four generations of family correspondence --reflecting the hopes, fears, desires, frustrations, and failures of an American family touched by personal scandal-- this book presents the saga of the Hammonds of Redcliffe from before the Civil War to after the New Deal. Set in Redcliffe, the plantation home of the Hammonds, this sweeping collection of letters, many of them by women, recaptures a way of life that is gone forever as it provides fascinating insights into the reactions of the participants to disaster on the battlefield and on the homefront and into the agony of an eminent plantation family that had to adjust as best it could to a new social order. More than just the story of one family, the book casts in high relief the whole fabric of society: how all people worked and wept, married and mourned, lived and died.

General

Imprint: University of South Carolina Press
Country of origin: United States
Release date: December 1997
First published: October 1997
Editors: Carol Bleser
Dimensions: 229 x 152 x 31mm (L x W x T)
Format: Paperback
Pages: 445
Edition: New edition
ISBN-13: 978-1-57003-221-9
Categories: Books > Language & Literature > Biography & autobiography > General
Books > Humanities > History > World history > 1750 to 1900
Books > Humanities > History > American history > General
Books > Humanities > History > History of specific subjects > Social & cultural history
Books > Humanities > History > World history > From 1900 > General
Books > Humanities > History > History of specific subjects > Genealogy, heraldry, names and honours > General
Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Gender studies > Women's studies > General
Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social institutions > Family & relationships > General
Books > History > American history > General
Books > History > History of specific subjects > Genealogy, heraldry, names and honours > General
Books > History > History of specific subjects > Social & cultural history
Books > History > World history > 1750 to 1900
Books > History > World history > From 1900 > General
Books > Biography > General
LSN: 1-57003-221-1
Barcode: 9781570032219

Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate? Let us know about it.

Does this product have an incorrect or missing image? Send us a new image.

Is this product missing categories? Add more categories.

Review This Product

No reviews yet - be the first to create one!

Partners