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Genre/Form: | History |
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Additional Physical Format: | Online version: Frankel, Noralee, 1950- Freedom's women. Bloomington : Indiana University Press, ©1999 (OCoLC)607384284 |
Document Type: | Book |
All Authors / Contributors: |
Noralee Frankel |
ISBN: | 0253334950 9780253334954 0253212782 9780253212788 |
OCLC Number: | 41049672 |
Description: | xvi, 270 pages ; 24 cm |
Contents: | Slavery -- The impact of the war of liberation on families and work -- Within the union lines -- Labor after the war -- Male and female intimate relationships -- Families -- Kin networks -- Communities. |
Series Title: | Blacks in the diaspora. |
Responsibility: | Noralee Frankel. |
Abstract:
Reviews
Publisher Synopsis
Frankel's scholarship in this carefully researched and clearly written study is impressive. Her examination of Civil War widows' pension records and other primary sources reveals a great deal about the importance of Mississippi slave families and how emancipation strengthened them. Although women gained fewer legal rights than men from Reconstruction, they obtained much that had been denied them during slavery. They shared family authority and economic responsibility so much that Frankel concludes the free African American family was neither patriarchal nor matriarchal, but combinations of both. Freedwomen did not rely solely on legal definitions of marriage but developed codes of morality based on community standards. Their community tolerated intimate relationships outside of legal marriages and recognized terminations of relationships without legal divorce. Extended kin were considered members of the family, and family responsibilities included support of orphans, unmarried pregnant daughters, and handicapped children. The study is thoroughly documented with 70 pages of footnotes and a 14-page bibliography, reflecting Frankel's grasp of the secondary literature as well as extensive work in primary documents. Upper-division undergraduates and above. -R. Detweiler, California Polytechnic State UniversitJune 2000 -- -R. Detweiler, California Polytechnic State University San Luis * Choice * Read more...

