This volume gathers personal recollections by fifteen eminent historians of the American South. Coming from distinctive backgrounds, traveling diverse career paths, and practicing different kinds of history, the contributors exemplify the field's richness on many levels. As they reflect on why they joined the profession and chose their particular research specialties, these historians write eloquently of family and upbringing, teachers and mentors, defining events and serendipitous opportunities. The struggle for civil rights was the defining experience for several contributors. Peter H. Wood remembers how black fans of the St. Louis Cardinals erupted in applause for the Dodgers' Jackie Robinson. ""I realized for the first time,"" writes Wood, ""that there must be something even bigger than hometown loyalties dividing Americans."" Gender equality is another frequent concern in the essays. Anne Firor Scott tells of her advisor's ridicule when childbirth twice delayed Scott's dissertation: ""With great effort I managed to write two chapters, but Professor Handlin was moved to inquire whether I planned to have a baby every chapter."" Yet another prominent theme is the reconciliation of the professional and the personal, as when Bill C. Malone traces his scholarly interests back to ""the memories of growing up poor on an East Texas cotton farm and finding escape and diversion in the sounds of hillbilly music."" Always candid and often witty, each essay is a road map through the intellectual terrain of southern history as practiced during the last half of the twentieth century.

Women in the United States organized around their own sense of a distinct set of needs, skills, and concerns. And just as significant as women's acting on their own behalf was the fact that race, class, sexuality, and ethnicity shaped their strategies and methods. This authoritative anthology presents some of the powerful work and ideas about activism published in the acclaimed series Women, Gender, and Sexuality in American History. Assembled to commemorate the series' thirty-fifth anniversary, the collection looks at two hundred years of labor, activist, legal, political, and community organizing by women against racism, misogyny, white supremacy, and inequality. The authors confront how the multiple identities of an organization's members presented challenging dilemmas and share the histories of how women created change by working against inequitable social and structural systems. Insightful and provocative, Women’s Activist Organizing in US History draws on both classic texts and recent bestsellers to reveal the breadth of activism by women in the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Contributors: Daina Ramey Berry, Melinda Chateauvert, Tiffany M. Gill, Nancy A. Hewitt, Treva B. Lindsey, Anne Firor Scott, Charissa J. Threat, Anne M. Valk, Lara Vapnek, and Deborah Gray White

Women in the United States organized around their own sense of a distinct set of needs, skills, and concerns. And just as significant as women's acting on their own behalf was the fact that race, class, sexuality, and ethnicity shaped their strategies and methods. This authoritative anthology presents some of the powerful work and ideas about activism published in the acclaimed series Women, Gender, and Sexuality in American History. Assembled to commemorate the series' thirty-fifth anniversary, the collection looks at two hundred years of labor, activist, legal, political, and community organizing by women against racism, misogyny, white supremacy, and inequality. The authors confront how the multiple identities of an organization's members presented challenging dilemmas and share the histories of how women created change by working against inequitable social and structural systems. Insightful and provocative, Women's Activist Organizing in US History draws on both classic texts and recent bestsellers to reveal the breadth of activism by women in the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Contributors: Daina Ramey Berry, Melinda Chateauvert, Tiffany M. Gill, Nancy A. Hewitt, Treva B. Lindsey, Anne Firor Scott, Charissa J. Threat, Anne M. Valk, Lara Vapnek, and Deborah Gray White

Born, raised, and retired in Mississippi, Lucy Somerville Howorth (1895--1997) was a champion for the rights of women long before feminism emerged as a widely recognized movement. As told by Dorothy S. Shawhan and Martha H. Swain, hers is a remarkable life story-from a small-town upbringing to a career as an attorney, an activist, and the last of a generation of New Deal women in Washington, D.C. She held a presidential appointment under every chief executive from Franklin Roosevelt to John Kennedy.

Howorth was a fervent believer in the power of organizations to bring about change, and she became known for her leadership qualities, acumen, and quick appraisal of social problems, particularly as they affected women. Shawhan and Swain point out that her winsome personality, small stature, and delightful sense of humor also aided her as a female aspiring in a man's world. In 1931 she was elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives and, after campaigning for Roosevelt, was rewarded by the new president with a federal appointment. She served in a number of subsequent roles, rising to become general counsel of the War Claims Commission, at that time the highest legal position in an executive commission ever filled by a woman.

Howorth worked relentlessly for the advancement of women, especially through the American Association for University Women and the National Federation of Business and Professional Women. She lobbied for equality in the workplace, helping to effect significant advances in government and the professions. In 1944, at the request of Eleanor Roosevelt, Howorth delivered the keynote speech at the White House Conference on Women in Postwar Policy-Making, the most memorable of her many public addresses.

This first-ever biography of Howorth bestows long-overdue recognition of her many notable achievements and illuminates the activism of women in the decades often considered to be the doldrums of the women's movement.

"I wonder if the new year is to bring us new miseries and sufferings," seventeen-year-old Emma LeConte wrote in her diary on December 31, 1864. In fact, the worst was yet to come. Her later entries portray the city of Columbia, South Carolina, like much of the South, under the grip of Sherman's army. No reader of this diary is likely to forget the defiant, well-bred Emma, who describes a family's anxieties and brave attempts to get on with life while the Civil War rages around them. In a new foreword to the Bison Books edition, Anne Firor Scott, a professor of history at Duke University whose writings include The Southern Lady: From Pedestal to Politics, 1830-1930, rounds out the story of the remarkable Emma LeConte and the life she made after her familiar world ended.

This title explores the cross-race friendship of two feminist activists.In 1942, Pauli Murray, a young black woman from North Carolina studying law at Howard University, visited a constitutional law class taught by Caroline Ware, one of the nation's leading historians. A friendship and a correspondence began, lasting until Murray's death in 1985. Their forty-year correspondence ranged widely over issues of race, politics, and international affairs.In time, Murray became a labor lawyer, a university professor, and the first black woman to be ordained an Episcopal priest. Ware continued her work as a social historian and consumer advocate while pursuing an international career as a community development specialist. Their letters, products of high intelligence and a gift for writing, offer revealing portraits of their authors as well as the workings of an unusual female friendship. They also provide a wonderful view of the social and political thought of the times, particularly regarding civil rights and women's rights.