Akron Public Library

Documenting the difficult class relations between women slaveholders and slave women, this study shows how class and race as well as gender shaped women's experiences and determined their identities. Drawing upon massive research in diaries, letters, memoirs, and oral histories, the author argues that the lives of antebellum southern women, enslaved and free, differed fundamentally from those of northern women and that it is not possible to understand...

How Am I to Be Heard?: Letters of Lillian Smith offers the first full portrait of the life and work of the foremost southern white liberal of the mid-twentieth century. Writer Lillian Smith (1897-1966) devoted her life to lifting the veil of southern self-deception about race, class, gender, and sexuality. Her books, essays, and especially her letters boldly explored the ways in which the South's attitudes and institutions perpetuated a dehumanizing...

In this comprehensive history of women's antislavery petitions addressed to Congress, Susan Zaeske argues that by petitioning, women not only contributed significantly to the movement to abolish slavery but also made important strides toward securing their own rights and transforming their own political identity. By analyzing the language of women's antislavery petitions, speeches calling women to petition, congressional debates, and public reaction...