The broadest and most inclusive portrait yet of women's identities and stories in the region. . . a considerable achievement.-American Historical ReviewAmong the most prominent icons of the American south is that of the southern belle, immortalized by such figures as Scarlett O'Hara, Dolly Madison, and Lucy Pickens (whose elegant image graced the Confederate $100 bill). And yet the women of America's south iave always defied pat generalization, no more readily forced into facle categories than women in the country's other regions.Never before has a book of southern history so successfully integrated the experiences of white and non-white women. Among the myriad subjects addressed in the book are black women's suffrage, the economic realities of Choctaw women, female kin and female slaves in planters's wills, the northern myth of the rebel girl, second wave feminism in the South, and southern lesbians. Bringing to light the lives of Cherokee women, Appalachian "coal daughters," and Jewish women in the South, the essays all but one published in this book for the first time, ensure that monolithic representations of southern womanhood are a thing of the past.Filling a crucial gap in southern history and women's history, Women of the American South is a valuable reference and pedagogical aid for a wide range of scholars and students

The American South before the Civil War was the site of an unprecedented social experiment in women's education. The South, which ostracized the strong-minded woman, offered women an education explicitly designed to equal that available to men, while maintaining and nurturing the gender conventions epitomized by the ideal of the Southern belle. This groundbreaking work provides us with an intimate picture of the entire social experience provided by antebellum women's colleges and seminaries in the South, analyzing the impact of these colleges upon the cultural construction of femininity among white Southern women, and their legacy for higher education. Christie Farnham here discusses the relationships between teacher and student, the nature of female friendship, the impact of slavery on faculty and students, and the role of the schools within the larger social community. Further, she investigates the contradictions inherent in appropriating a male-defined curriculum to educate females in this particular society, and explores how educators denied these incongruities. Through correspondence, journals, and scrapbooks, the author deftly highlights the emotional life of students, the role of sororities, and the significance of the May Day queen ritual and its relationship to evangelical images of the Christian lady. These same original sources yield fascinating insights into the special intimacy that often characterized friendships between female pupils. Farnham closes her work with a discussion of how the end of the Civil War brought with it a failure to maintain the advances that had been achieved in women's education. The most comprehensive history to date of this brief and specialperiod, The Education of the Southern Belle is welcome reading for anyone interested in women's history, Southern history, women's studies, the history of American education, and female friendship.

Among the most prominent icons of the American south is that of the southern belle, immortalized by such figures as Scarlett O'Hara, Dolly Madison, and Lucy Pickens (whose elegant image graced the Confederate $100 bill). And yet the women of America's south iave always defied pat generalization, no more readily forced into facle categories than women in the country's other regions.
Never before has a book of southern history so successfully integrated the experiences of white and non-white women. Among the myriad subjects addressed in the book are black women's suffrage, the economic realities of Choctaw women, female kin and female slaves in planters's wills, the northern myth of the rebel girl, second wave feminism in the South, and southern lesbians. Bringing to light the lives of Cherokee women, Appalachian "coal daughters," and Jewish women in the South, the essays all but one published in this book for the first time, ensure that monolithic representations of southern womanhood are a thing of the past.
Filling a crucial gap in southern history and women's history, Women of the American South is a valuable reference and pedagogical aid for a wide range of scholars and students.

The American South before the Civil War was the site of an unprecedented social experiment in women's education. The South, which ostracized the strong-minded woman, offered women an education explicitly designed to equal that available to men, while maintaining and nurturing the gender conventions epitomized by the ideal of the Southern belle. This groundbreaking work provides us with an intimate picture of the entire social experience provided by antebellum women's colleges and seminaries in the South, analyzing the impact of these colleges upon the cultural construction of femininity among white Southern women, and their legacy for higher education. Christie Farnham here discusses the relationships between teacher and student, the nature of female friendship, the impact of slavery on faculty and students, and the role of the schools within the larger social community. Further, she investigates the contradictions inherent in appropriating a male-defined curriculum to educate females in this particular society, and explores how educators denied these incongruities. Through correspondence, journals, and scrapbooks, the author deftly highlights the emotional life of students, the role of sororities, and the significance of the May Day queen ritual and its relationship to evangelical images of the Christian lady. These same original sources yield fascinating insights into the special intimacy that often characterized friendships between female pupils. Farnham closes her work with a discussion of how the end of the Civil War brought with it a failure to maintain the advances that had been achieved in women's education. The most comprehensive history to date of this brief and specialperiod, The Education of the Southern Belle is welcome reading for anyone interested in women's history, Southern history, women's studies, the history of American education, and female friendship.