War, womens history, the history of childhood, and reconstruction. I have had an opportunity to meet many of judy students. They are outstanding. She brings them here every year to gettysburg. I have had a fantastic time with judy out in the battlefield. She is a wellestablished scholar. She has published a number of books and articles. The book that has probably gotten the most acclaim is entitled civil war, sisterhood, and womens politics in transition. And just recently, she has assumed the editorship of the journal of the civil war era. It is a fantastic journal out of penn state, also published by the university of North Carolina press, and certainly worth your attention. Our second panelist, just to the left, is sarah gardner. Sarah is professor of history and director of southern studies at Mercer University in georgia, where she teaches cultural and intellectual history of the 18th and 19th century american south. She serves as the associate editor for the voices of the american stop series, and she is the author of blood and irony. That is also published by the university of North Carolina press. As you can see, the university of North Carolina press has a real stranglehold on Civil War History. Almost everything that comes out of the press is something worth your consideration if you are interested in this period of history. She is working on two other books. The title of her current project reviewing the south, the literary marketplace, and the making of the southern renaissance, and also she is working on the intellectual history of reconstruction. Our final panelist, catherine clinton. Catherine is an endowed professor of u. S. History at the university of texas san antonio, and an International Research professor at Queens University in belfast. Her specialization is womens history and africanAmerican History. She is a prolific author and editor. She has edited numerous titles, including plantation mistress womens world in the old south. Side note, my daughters who are 10, they adore the book. Im not sure they get it, but they carry it around the house all the time. And allison has an association with a plantation outside charleston, and plantation mistress is still one of the best sellers in the field. I recommend all of you, if you have not read any scholarly work on the experience of southern plantation women, catherines book is the place to start. She has written a number of other pieces including battle scars gender and sexuality in the middle of the american civil war, and in 2000 she released Harriet Tubman the road to freedom. In 2016, dr. Clinton is going to become president clinton, president clinton of im already president clinton. Dr. Carmichael im sorry. When is your inaugural address . November the third, right before the election. Dr. Carmichael november 3, president clinton will give her inaugural address in florida at the Southern Historical conference in st. Petersburg. Are we going to have a massive banner that says welcome president clinton . They have some doubt about it. A good way to welcome. But there will be about a thousand some odd historians who meet annually, and you guys are welcome to come. The first beach party since 1972. Dr. Carmichael and as you can imagine, the thought of a bunch of academics hanging around a pool at a beach party is a little frightening, id have to say. But it should be great fun. Of course, im so pleased that catherine has been able to join us. She has been here long before i was here, and it is great to have her back. Just another side note, dr. Clinton is a student of james mcphersons, and i believe one of his first, is that correct . I dont claim to be the first or the last, but there was a generation before me, and jim was at pearson from his 15 years. I came along in the 1970s. Dr. Carmichael the point is, we are all high on dr. Mcpherson. I think it is an honor that you were able to study with him. Im going to turn the panel over to catherine, and after that you will have the opportunity for questions. I do want to say that i am very pleased to be with you on this afternoon. I do enjoy returning to gettysburg. I certainly give Jim Mcpherson some credit. But i also want you to know that it is really you gathering in the summer heat and studying the civil war for 30 years. I have been asked to give preliminary remarks and observations to get the ball rolling, so that i can share insights with you, and i hope we can engage in a fourway conversation, the three of us and you, the audience. My first visit to the institute was 30 years ago, courtesy of Jim Mcpherson. I want to say it was you, the audience that convert me, rather than the scholars of Civil War History. When nina silver and i launched our counter frontal assault on civil war studies with divided houses in the last decade of the 20th century, and then with battle scars in the first decade of the 21st century, little did we realize the great waves, the mighty tide of scholarship dynamics and revisionism that would come out of that, that women in Civil War History would come out of the stockyards in which they had been trapped, caps scholars scrapping in the sandboxes. My vision is that the violation of black women in black houses, my title was reconstructing free women, almost a quartercentury ago. Now, american women, black and white, north and south, can really be a part of this great agenda. I am glad we are gathering here, and we welcome your questions about much of what is going on. But we really try to focus on southern womanhood, the struggle for women to overthrow male restraint, to defeat male assault and degradation. On the side, females seizing equal opportunity. Again, i am talking about the women during that era, though i am happy to talk about women in Civil War History during the q a. Angela was a dynamic, southern born white woman who said slaves might be emancipated at the same time women are denied equal status. But women can never be free until slavery is abolished. She recognized the interlocking systems of oppression, and she proposed a domino effect. Some joined in and participated, but we know others resisted and separated themselves. My range of southern women that not fit this unpopular definition. I showed the way in which we can find a wider ranging definition to change restrictive dead ends. Although i began my publishing career focusing on traditional southern women plantation mistresses, i also wrote on women who assumed the role of plantation mistress, women who left the slaveholding south and allied themselves with the north, certainly mary todd with her marriage to Abraham Lincoln and her allegiance to the union. And finally, i am very pleased that i worked on the women who fought the slaveholding power and worked toward a new nation born in liberty, where she fought for womens rights, black rights, as well as humanitarian causes, Harriet Tubman. Grimke might have become an exception as a white southern woman who escaped her slaveholding heritage, but during reconstruction she sought out her raciallymixed nephews and raised funds to educate these nephews. They attended Harvard Law School and princeton theological seminary. Archibald became a lawyer, later ambassador to haiti, and francis became a presbyterian minister. Both became leading civil rights advocates. Archibalds daughter, angelina, became a poet and an author. They are really Amazing Stories of reconciliation and recognition during this reconstruction period. And as we plunge into the aftermath of the civil war, we learn that the war in many ways came home, in many parts of the nation. Yes, we know that the civil war was dramatically played out at bull run and antietam, in vicksburg and petersburg, but i would suggest that from kitchens to courtrooms, from porches to pedestals, american women renewed their battles afterward. Their stories remain overshadowed by diplomats. Women were romanticized. They were eulogized as descendents of scarlet ohara, garnering the lions share of attention. Commemoration became a female preoccupation in postcivil war america, raised into an art form by groups such as the udc, and we will be hearing from caroline, so i wont dwell on that, but recovery and rediscovery are the watchwords of an era of exploding interest, expanding resources, renewed intellectual energy, and i predict our new, even more robust era of reconstruction studies will not just remember the ladies as an earlier generation admonished, but will bring up from the footnotes and into the text the story of women. Certainly a generation of scholars today is exploring the household lore. New editions of postwar voices have poured forth from university presses, some of these were very gifted and ambitious. Sarah gardner can tell us about the blood and irony that soaked the south in the way of the war. We are reminded of other womens contributions, urban, northern, struggling with wartime. We can interrogate how war accelerated the opportunity for females, intentional or not, and how competing during the postwar period. In 1990, ken burnss civil war. I had made my critique elsewhere about the minimalist treatment in the series. I give the burns brothers credit for setting a fire, transforming the cold shoulder, particularly amongst university presses, into a redhot publishing market. The fascination of civil war fans remains very buoyant, even the hunger for civil war video games, which are up to 26 and still counting. Civil war history and womens history can no longer remain mutually exclusive. Puzzled over how to engage the elusive africanamerican audience. This is a conundrum and painful puzzle for many of us excavating 19thcentury sources, but we can begin by engaging with the dismantling conceptions of southern womanhood, which continued to exclude or caricature black women. Digging out records for women of color such as Suzy King Taylor has created deeper, wider appreciation. The film rebel has resparked my interest in bringing scholarship to larger audiences. We need a new cinematic, televised presentation of reconstruction. I think we forget that scarlet oharas story in gone with the wind, which in some ways replaced the heroine lillian gish played in birth of a nation, continues very fascinating, and we have to remember that gone with the wind dealt with reconstruction. The film ends in scene 618, and the war ends in scene 344. A large proportion deals with reconstruction. Many of these notable works earth there offers pulitzer prizes. Meanwhile, we hope fictional heroines will be joined by reallife carolyns, who developed a more authentic appreciation of the wars impact. She is an exemplar of the formerly proud people laid low, postwar lies, littered with the debris of reckless ego. But in the 21st century, she has really become a richer, deeper resource. Battles among politicians could took precedence over caring for the sick. Homeless wanderers crisscrossed we know the famous wife of sullivan blue, who was so romantically treated in the First Episode of civil war, she did not live an easy widow life. Her southern sisters did not have the federal pensions. When i began my journey nearly 30 years ago, i was on very empty ground. We did have the emergence of the magnificent multivolume documentary history of emancipation. We had prizewinning studies by jacqueline jones, deborah gray white. We had a handful of focused studies. They are strong and sturdy inroads which are still transforming our field. Certainly, jane yellens prizewinning work. The transformation of the plantation household allows us to move the study of freed women into a forward march. We sequences of black men and women liberated and powerful memoirs, such as proud shoes, as well as Harriet Tubmans scenes from a life. Perhaps the larger understanding of these women will allow us to replace the names stand ends from all those black women. In my forthcoming book stepdaughters of history, i suggest we must dismantle the mammy before we can achieve any true understanding of reconstruction and the civil war. Writers peppered their stories with obligatory references. At this moment, my eyes are tenderly filled with tears when i look back through the myths of long years upon the dear image of that slave and recollect how she loved me and her simple manner. All this weeping and mist contributes to distortion. This became so popular, the northern writers joined in. Mamies did not leave us their story, but they stare out at us in 19th century photographs, envisioning emancipation. We heard from barbara on friday night, how we can reinterrogate this evidence. On the literary front, white confabulations are filtered through the lens of romanticized fiction, something ive revisited in one of my books, where i labeled it confederate porn. In 1923, the u. S. Senate authorized a mammy statute. A southern congressmen stated in support of the movement. We recall that you talk of southern civilization, when fidelity and loyalty prevailed. Central to this was the mammy, which resembled Harriet Beecher stowes aunt chloe. Tony horwitz, one contemporary newspaper suggested the statute of instead of having a mammy, it should be replaced by a white daddy, who could be sexually assaulting a black woman as mammy looks helplessly on. Plans for the actual monument sparked outrage. Blacks not only culminated, but they organize petitions and letters to politicians. The letter was presented to calvin coolidge. What name can we give mammy and her anonymous sisters in this new era of historical revisionism . We are not postracial, but we are more in tune with color and status, more attuned to seeing multiple layers of meaning. We could remember a sixyearold girl named melvina, who was bequeathed of her owner. When the owners wife died in 1852, melvina went to live with ruths daughter, living in rural georgia. She was illiterate. Like most women of her generation, she struggled during reconstruction, against incredible odds. In 1870, she appears with four children. She is working as a maid, a watch or woman, a farm worker. She lived a hard life before her death in the 1930s. One of her sons was born shortly before or after the civil war and learned to read and write, and by 1900, he is listed as owning his own home. The first wife, alice, had a son named robert. Robert married annie. After robert disappeared, and he moved to chicago with her children during the great migration. Her son married a nurse, and they had children. Why this genealogy . Because their granddaughter, michelle obama, lives in the white house as first lady. [applause] self liberated, southern born Harriet Tubman has emerged from the sidebars of both the american textbook and our imaginations of the era. She will not be honored just the bridge named after her in south carolina, where she liberated over 175 slaves in one night. But she will be the first woman to have her face prominently on the front of american currency with a footnote to martha washington. But when the redesign of the 20 bill emerges later in the decade, maybe we will see this not just as a token symbol of change, but perhaps heralding the new order where we can embrace a wider spectrum of southern women and there are compliments during reconstruction. I am going to hand it over to sarah. Thank you. I am delighted to see so many people here. [applause] im going to take us back to focus. One area that deserves our attention is the reconstruction of southern womens intellectual and imaginative lives in the postwar era. Certainly, we know part of the story that southern white women wrote. Indeed, a prodigious river flew from the pans of southern white women. Some wrote about this in the postwar period, and for the most part we can find ourselves examining the degree to which our subjects example of hide some version of the lost cause. I am interested in something more fundamental and more expensive. My comments here today are suggestive rather than for i was studying the reconstruction period. I have put that on hold. I am now working on a project about reading. This project comes out of that, but what i am giving you today is all ive got. [laughter] whatever questions you have for me, i will say, thats a fabulous question. My contention is that the romantic period lasted a generation or so longer in the u. S. Than it did in england and continental europe, that mid19th century americans, those who came of age in the 1820s, 1830s, 1840s, were romantics, and that the war utterly shattered those romantic sensibilities. I dont mean to suggest that southern white women willingly or easily abandoned romanticisms tenets. I do suggest, however, that holding on proved increasingly difficult. I am going to turn to mary chestnut to illustrate this point. The first example comes from the late summer of 1864. As union troops lay siege on atlanta, mary chestnut went in for the warlike, readings are epic scotts epic poland, something i am sure you are all familiar with, as well as the work of thomas campbell. In the moment, she could distance patriotic sentiment from mourning, but only for a moment. Oh, my confederate heroes fallen in the fight, she wrote, you are not to be matched in song or story. Except that they were not matched, they were outsung. Chestnut acknowledged an unspoken truth. We talked so commonly of them. The enormity of wartime losses can dull sensibilities. Literature was designed to heighten sensibilities, heighten the imagination, so persons abilities her friends sensibilities. Conversations become banal and formulaic. Remember, was he not a nice fellow . He was killed at shiloh. Day after day, she read the death roll. Someone pulled up her hands. Oh, heres another one of her friends killed. She was such a good fellow, hardly heroic. The juxtaposition of these two entries is telling. Chestnut, who allowed herself to be caught up in martial spirit, but she was unable to fulfill the other half of the bargain, mainly elevating the fall and two olympian status. We might understand chestnuts ability to render the confederate dead. Chestnut was less understanding. Reading had rekindled a patriotic fire when all seemed bleak, but it also reminded her of the beauty unfulfilled. Ralph Waldo Emerson described the civil war as a new glass to see all our old things through. By the time the confederacy gasped its last breath, chestnut understood this sentiment in ways she previously had not. Chestnut spent the last few months of the war as a refugee, first in North Carolina, and then in chester, south carolina. Let me turn to an excerpt that comes from her time in exile. Chestnut, and indeed for her compatriots old ways of understanding had been destroyed. This comes as something of a shock to chestnut, as we shall see in a moment. Still, she seems prepared to stare defeat in the face. She remains unsure of her compatriots. So here is chestnut in exile. This is a lengthy passage, so bear with me. So heres chestnut in exile. Then they overhauled my library, which was on the floor because the only table in the room they had to use for a tea table. Leer i read last, the tragedy of the world. Curtain of propriety we hold up. Humanity morally stripped makes us shiver. Look at the judge. Look at the thief. Presto, change sides. Who is the judge . Who is the thief . And he preceded thackeray and the tearing off of shams. Old mrs. Chestnut. And here she is speaking of her motherinlaw, who died the year before. All mrs. Chestnut shared her face to share only be pleasant things of life, and shut her eyes to wrong. The most devoted, unremitting reader of fiction i ever knew. Thackeray is a very uncomfortable, disagreeable creature. We have seen ms. Chestnut. She sat like a canary bird with no care of tomorrow. She lived in a physical paradise and made her atmosphere for her own private delusion. Chestnut saw, but for many, the answer to her question seemed uncertain. As these packages suggest, the dissolution of one worldview does not mean a replacement is at the ready. For former confederates to transition to modernism was slowgoing. The question before it is how to transition play out on the ground . I will need the first to admit that in the great marketplace of American History, the intellectual culture of the south deserves only a few modest boosts, and i am cool with that. But for those of us who like this sort of thing, these questions bear scrutiny. Thank you. [applause] i will add my thank you to catherine. Thank you all for coming, and thanks for organizing. Well, you might be wondering after petes introduction why i am here, because i have never gone farther south in my research than washington. Im going to keep my remarks where i might have something to add to my conversation today. My work is focused on women on the northern homefront, but i do have a couple of things i thought i would throw into our mix today. I want to add thanks to catherine for inspiring all of us to follow in your footsteps. I read divided houses when i was in graduate school, and i realized it was safe to teach both womens history and Civil War History, something catherine it is no longer a no mans land by any means. No womans land. [laughter] so why am i here, and what do i have to add this afternoon . Next week marks the oneyear anniversary of what has been, to my mind, one of the most potent and poignant reminders of what all of us, americans, blackandwhite, women and men, gained in reconstruction. A federal government that has at times been willing to exercise power to extend rights and enforce those rights. Invoking equal protection clause of the 14th amendment, obergefell versus hodges handed down on june 26, was a good decision, i thought, to the civil rights gains of reconstruction. I was teaching reconstruction class last summer when all of this came. It turned out to be a Perfect Moment to think about what reconstruction had meant, and how americans at the time thought the war had changed marriage, and what the ramifications were in the postwar era. My mind rushes in many directions. Some of you might know bruce, the Montgomery County registrar of wills, who had been issuing marriage license since 2013, in violation of state law at the time. I thought, great for bruce. He is getting his day in the sun, and he is a civil war aficionado. He writes about civil war issues as well. He is a friend of those of us who study civil war. I also thought of a lot of friends and family members, and how extraordinary that day was. I am sure all of you as well thought the same thing. I also thought that it was so appropriate that the position came at the tail end of the civil wars anniversary, when everyone was wondering if there was going to be a positive discussion on reconstruction, whether it would be commemorated. Including, of course, the 13th amendment ending slavery, the 14th amendment promising equal protection, and the 15th amendment which granted black men Voting Rights, and the Civil Rights Acts of 1856 and 1875, extending various protections to africanamericans and granting them access to various public places. That last measure, the Civil Rights Act of 1875, lived only a short life, being been declared unconstitutional in 1883. But it pays to remember that among other things, it guaranteed equal treatment in public accommodations. Like me, and many of you are likely struck by the difference a year can make from last summer to this summer. Last summer, i was thinking that maybe we are in the midst of another reconstruction, a third reconstruction, several scholars have wondered. Where we were a year ago versus where we are today on federal, and then we fastforward to the summer, where we are on federal mandates and civil rights protections is a more open question than it was last year. A number of states have launched challenges to a recent federal mandate regarding public accommodations. It is once again under attack. For our discussion today about reconstructing southern womanhood, i have something to say about that. I want to draw attendees attention to a vigorous debate that occurred along lawmakers early in reconstruction, and i am just going to be talking about a few things in the spring of 1865, when lawmakers in washington were worried about marriage. They asked how the civil war changed the institution of marriage, and how might lawmakers come together to try to protected or shape this future, mostly to protect it. I want to tell you about three of these briefly, and maybe we can talk more about it in our discussion. And i should say that i am borrowing all this from extraordinary scholars who have done this work. I will name it for you now so you can jot them down. Hannah rosen has written an excellent piece on reconstruction. Amy drew stanley has written extraordinary pieces on lawmakers discussing marriage, the contextualizing marriage. And catherine frank, who has a new book out on marriage, sort of rethinking this notion of equal access to marriage, or marriage as an expression of the quality. They are the ones doing the heavy lifting. I am just doing the easy work, reading their stuff in telling you about it. Let me tell you about these three moments. The first occurred in february 1865 in the lead up to the passage of a bill called sr82, to protect the military efficiency of the united states. It was tied to recruitment of u. S. Colored troops. This debate occurred while the 13th amendment went to the states for ratification. This lesserknown measure extended the immediate reach of emancipation by freeing soldier wives and children owned by masters in border states exempt from the emancipation proclamation. As historian amy drew stanley has shown, the measure imposed freeing of slaved wives as compensation to their enlisted husbands. The outcome turned on how members of the 38th congress defined marriage. Senators raised questions about what affects such measures might have on the institution of marriage, like when one senator asked in response to an earlier proposal that the 13th amendment to clara a more openended universal freedom, the senator asked, i supposed before the law, a woman would be as free as a man. A wife would be equal to her husband. And as free as her husband before the law. The senators question was rhetorical, but concern about upsetting the relations between husband and wife live below the surface of many debates about slave emancipation. The heart of the manner, amy drew stanley explains, was the sovereignty that would supplant the slave master. That is the first moment that i am going to mention. On the last day of the same session, congress voted to create a bureau. Among the duties was an ambitious effort to regularize marriage practices among free women and men. Examining Freedmens Bureau reports and warwidowed pension applications found that rather than universally enjoying the freedom to marry, many women were forcibly inducted into the Regulatory Regime of marriage, as she describes it, by rigorous enforcement of local antibigamy and fornication laws. People were being arrested and jailed for not regularizing their marriage and living in a way that the fines marriage. This is something behind what we have often lauded as a humanitarian relief effort. With the authoritarian white male agencies no longer opposed to slavery, white masculinity required new ground on which to be setoff. Fat ground was marriage. The work of scholars has shown that policies to protect traditional marriage, you might call it today, for more board forces that stood to disrupted. I have a third example, and i wont talk a lot about it, but there is another measure that if you guys write something nice about me, i can come back in the summer and talk about something in the spring of 1965, the same law that outlawed dissemination of pornography to the troops. They were worried about what men were reading and what kind of husbands and sons they would be when they came home, and they were worried about what pornography would do to marriage, but i wont talk about that today. Thats just a teaser. But there are a lot of these conversations. What would it be like . How could they, through legislation, shake it or contain what happened during the war . This leaves a few questions. What elements of this reconstruction era debate about marriage do we see resonances of today . Or to put it another way, what can we learn from that debate that can guide us today, and are we in the midst, as hannah rosen said in an update coming up, are we in the midst of what by the considered another period of reconstruction . I think i might stop there and turn it over to the rest. [applause] rather than talking among ourselves, maybe we would like to open up to anyone who has any questions, or would like to expand the discussion . I could say that i am very happy to comment on most aspects, although i have switched to looking at northern man. I just became aware that there were a lot of white northern men in the war. Latebreaking news, but nevertheless. If you wouldnt mind just giving us your name and putting your thoughts out there. My name is lewis. I am from pennsylvania. Just speak a little slower. I am not catching at all. My name is louis. I am from pennsylvania. Thanks so much. Question is, back in 1965, i worked with the department of welfare in the city of new york. At that time, common law marriages were accepted. I am hearing what you are saying about congress trying to force people to get married, i think i understood it correctly. Was commonlaw marriage common at that time, or is this something the federal government wanted to impose . Im sorry, the last part of the question . Is this something the federal government wanted to impose . I think the answer to the second question is absolutely yes. In franks study of it, she found that among three people, there was a federal effort to use it many freed people were incarcerated for violating the laws of marriage and not legalizing them, getting the proper paperwork. So were their white people who lived with commonlaw partners, or is this law for everybody . Absolutely. This is not the exclusive terrain of free people. And i dont know whether or not she did a comparative study of if people in the same socioeconomic class i do know margaret did an early study of what happened to slave marriages, what was the transformation to marriage in the new era . We find a lot of moving testimony. There were people going to register a marriage of a spouse that had already been dead for a decade or more, but they found it very powerfully important to register their marriage. At the same time, you had different states dealing with it alabama, mississippi, texas, virginia, West Virginia declared all slave customary marriage is legal. Others, you had to go to a county clerk. The charges could be prohibitive. There were also inheritance laws, were only legal marriages would honor the children. Some think it was an imposition, others suggest there may have been other motives at play. It is a mix, but it was a legal mess when you have taken a group of people that you treated as property and now youre saying they are citizens. So refresh my memory, was the law passed to make marriage its a states right, so each state has to deal with it, so thats why it was complicated. But you have a federal issue going on as well. So the federal never passed . Through organizations like the Freedmens Bureau, though, you sort of had agents on the ground administering relief, but also monitoring the behaviors of free people. It is something the states control, but on the ground, federal agents are i understand what youre saying. The final one from me is, if you were not married according to the law, would you get freedmens relief . It would go to the head of the family. Sometimes there would be more than one woman attached, because even though you had slavery, lets say a matriarchal, legal claim of the status of children, it slipped during the reconstruction period to the federal and state governments only recognizing males as the heads of families, and distribution during that time was very much in the hands of the patriarchy getting it to the patriarchal. My final question is, how many angels are there on a [laughter] in new york, a lot. Bruce from new hampshire. A personal question, my wife is a graduate of the university in roanoke. There are a number of womens colleges in the shenandoah valley. I was just wondering, what role, if any, did the womens colleges play in the reconstruction in that particular period . I dont know if you can answer or not southern women in southern colleges. Specifically womens colleges. My First Response is, thats a fabulous question. [laughter] what can i say . I know for some of those, and i know about the lutheran womens seminary that was in virginia, and its library stayed open during the war, so i can tell you that there were folks, women who were attending classes, but there were also soldiers who were stationed nearby who were borrowing books. That does not answer your question, but thats what ive got. I think you can look at the work of amy mchandler. I think the idea of what went on for white southern women, and generally american women, you had 700,000 young been essentially wiped out, and some scholars suggested that might have prompted reform movements that led to his settlement houses, to the growth of womens colleges, to womens education, two women trying to seek out selfsupport during that period, which was very important. In the south as well north, i think the impetus was there. The war had offered an opportunity to continue it. Although womens education was important, it was limited to people with means, private more than public. So we see the private School Movement and the Larger Movement of womens education had been in the north. To see it move to the south, it is a great book for your wife to work on. Thank you. Im from columbia, maryland. I was wondering if you might be able to expand upon the characteristics of post antebellum southern femininity, and how those might have been valued within different racial and economic communities. Thats a great big question. [laughter] i remember a really great story, it was either in mississippi or louisiana, and it was in the late stages of war and occupation, young white southern women thought it would be honorable to deny their beauty, and they were fails. Then africanamerican women took it up, and that was hard to imagine, equality behind the veil. Then there were laws about how you act with status and class. I think there is a project between what happened between civilian women and soldiers, and that has been taken up in romantic films of the 1930s. But i think, what was the definition of southern womanhood, how it changed, we have a lot of literature on what the dramatic changes were for women during that period. David courtwright, in writing on opium addictions, said that opiates have become the drug of choice, and the classic Opiate Addict of the late 19th century was a white woman. We have ironic turns and twists with what womanhood and southern womanhood was what it became in the wake of war. On a brighter note, women took up the banner of preservation, and to be a true southern woman, a good southern woman revered her loss. You touch on something that is a problem, what can be the difference between mourning and heralding the cause . Even burying the dead was a great ordeal during reconstruction, reclaiming bodies, bringing them home, having a sense of home. I am struck by some of the southern white womens heritage which pine for lost children, and a very much paralleled the slave parents whose children disappeared, and they never got to bury them. Sorry, ive wandered. But womens roles were very powerful in the ritual of mourning. I think that is something southern women seized during the postwar period, and they put themselves on a level Playing Field with the men. The women stepped in and after decades, put it together, put it up, and confederate demoralization rested on the shoulder of southern white women. I would add to that, i think what we have seen in the historiography over the past 15 or 20 years or so is that no one really speaks of southern women in the sense that it is too broad of a category. We can talk about freight women and slave women, but we can talk about occupied an occupier, women on the borders during the war. Different communities of women can appropriate and redefine what femininity and what womanhood means in a particular context. I think a lot of the scholarship that has emerged recently helps us look at those efforts to redefine it to a particular context. So some issues might be the same, mourning, education, resisting or now resisting, all kinds of things might play out differently when we look at different discrete communities. During the war, women had to take the mans place when they went away, and that was acceptable. Again, and a chapter in my new book, i talk about the impermissible patriots, women who actually were spies, who disguised themselves as men. That was crossing over. But it is true that women sometimes take on these roles when war gives them these roles. They were patriotic, hill road. They fulfilled the dictates of southern womanhood. No, they didnt. They pulled back. One of the more important things was that southern manhood was trapped in trying to reassert power and authority in the wake of war, and womens femininity was caught on the tightrope of trying to restore their nation, but also maintain their own identity. All sorts of great stuff coming out to you, we have been talking about those physically disabled vets who come home, and how that starts a new conversation about what kind of relationships they have. Brian miller was talking about that yesterday. And the work on whether or not we see reconciliation, whether we sort of overlooked lingering resentment. She finds among womens groups very different experiences in the postwar era. There is a lot of great stuff to answer the question, and many different ways. Thanks for your question. Peter . I have two questions. First, i am surprised we have not mentioned the great africanamerican historian w. E. B. Dubois at his book, which talked about work. They are voices you should all be familiar with. I would like for you to reflect in a very concrete way, what did the problem of labor mean for freed africanamerican women and white women . My next question, one of my favorite books on reconstruction, hannah rosens book, which i believe catherine mentioned, terror in the heart of freedom, about Sexual Violence against African American women. Could you all comment on the motivations behind that violence, and could you explain to us how that Sexual Violence connected to the politics of reconstruction . Its a big question. It was very concerned about the way in which the problem of slavery is always free is a labor question. Very juneat something 3 in his language. I can it dress it does address. T the problem of the 20th century is the color line. The idea that we needed to think therefore, we needed to think about the means of reproduction as well as the means of reduction, especially in the wake of reconstruction, and that ties into your issue about reconstruction, that the sexual violation of africanamerican women was, i have argued, central part of mastery, a central part of slaveholding. It does not mean that every master was taking advantage of his role as having total power over the body of all of his slaves, but it doesnt mean it was manipulated. Wehave evidence, and emphasize this. It was not emphasized in a lot of the slavery scholarship. He often did not take seriously the victimization of women. Was a carrotthere rather than a stick element to the sexual tension that went on between black and white, between enslaved and free. During reconstruction, white manhood was certainly challenged by the fact that mastery was being taken away by the federal government, by the x slaves themselves, by their ability of mobility, that they could move, that they could change status. A lot of the time is fraught with the kind of violence which seems extremely symbolic. We know about lynching. Fromso know about evidence the volumes of kkk hearings that there was sexual violation, that sexualas symbolic of a gun, that the use of a confederate veteran was used to insert in a woman as a means of terrorism. We want to talk about the symbolism, and the symbolism was the confederacy fought on many levels, and one of them was saying that the protection of white womanhood was its significant and Important Mission during the that,truction, and to do you had to demonize africanamerican men. You had to terrorize africanamerican women, and you back upet white women on the pedestal, even if they did not want to go, push them back up on it, and you build a fence around them to protect them, and that is one of my formulas. Maybe my colleagues have Different Things they want to contribute. Looking back at these clan hearings, when i use these books in my class, i always have to add a disclaimer on the book ,ecause it is a troubling book and you have to warn them about this triggering their own emotional reactions to Sexual Violence in their own lives. What i like about what you have done with these hearings is students always ask why women of color would put themselves through that. Why would they go in front of these congressmen and relive that moment when they were raped , and part of that is coming from where they are in their life. The point that hannah rosen that it was book is. N important moment for them it is referred to as the recruiting of allies, the telling stories of their victimization allowed them to, you know, move toward recovery get other people in their community to stand beside and tell their story. Its a very powerful way to think about that sort of moment sort ofing back, not rejecting the victimization but starting to turn the corner toward recovery. , these hearings influence congressmen. It was those testimonies by victims of the clan that pushed conversation in washington to pass the Civil Rights Act. Moments owerful powerful recovery moments and moments in which women are able to recreate reclaim just a bit of agency. I forgot with the other question was. He is interested in labor. Im sorry. Something else that amy stanley does in her book is look at whichhere were moments in freed women sue for divorce from times,usbands, and many it is over questions of labor, contract, oneage was married and ones earnings became the property of ones husband, and it created tension among newly freed people, and some of them would then wind up in court because they suddenly that there was this sort of expectations that husbands owned the fruit of their labor. Level,rt of microcosmic those questions play out among free peoples families. In other words, you traded one master for another. Right. I would just add to judys comments about testifying that an additional way to read it might be that it demonstrates emancipation and freedom absolutely demands a recognition andutonomy of ones body that the federal government is to protect that autonomy against this terroristic violence. More happyghtly note, im daniel. Are there any good works that discuss the role of southern women . And Voting Rights . That is a happy note, yes. Marjorie wheeler has a book dealing with this issue. Its complicated during this time, to say the least, during reconstruction. The normal womens rights Suffrage Movement is split into. State versus federal feminism gets roiled during that time. 30 years later when they are meeting, reunited, the National Association of womens suffrage decides to meet outside d. C. , they are going to meet in atlanta, and Richard Douglas who had been in the original meaning pushing the vote for women at seneca falls was pushed off the platform because, indeed, the argument of some of these southern feminists pushing for an agenda of getting the vote out was for white women only, so have a southern white womens vote that could combat the growing africanamerican vote. It is a long and complicated not onlybut i think does marjorie do a good job, but there are several other books. Were to daniel go . If you could repeat your full tostion, im sergey ask you do that, or if somebody else could tell me what it was. It was are there any good studies of the intersection between southern women, beat it white or black, and the push for Voting Rights. Oh, yes. And africanamerican, rosslyn template and has written a very definitive book generally, but she does deal with the southern wing. I think there is something theres still a lot of work to be done sort of on postwar suffrage. I know that sounds crazy. We probably think we have got it all, but theres still a lot of good work, i think, left to be done in that regard. A book called the myth of is seems to, which be could potentially be a game changer. I think it was published in 2014 or 2013, but she talks about how elizabethtwar era, cady stanton and Susan B Anthony the of rush in to control history because they are writing their history of suffrage sort of prematurely in the 1870s and they rush in at that moment to create this uniform narrative and make seneca falls sort of the origin they sort of shrink down what is really grassroots and very varied, they we of shrink it down to were there and everybody should be following us, but there is a much richer story to be told about suffrage even before the war but after the war as well that i think is overlooked when we focus on that one narrative teedo, you know giants. Giants. I have lots of information, and im rephrasing my question standing online because some of it was answered, which is good. The definition of what is a takingn woman im everybody, and that is not apparent in the structure of the title, but my question i will cut right to the chase and i have not read hannah rosens book because sitting with all of you is really an experience because not only do you know the name of the book you remember who wrote it. At my age, that is an accomplishment. Im wondering if there are any records or anything has been wereen about children who the product of slavery slave rape. I understand how legitimacy was defined in those days, but is there anything that was done on that work . Think nell painter wrote a Cost Accounting i think so. Im going to stick with that. Later on, i might find out im incorrect. An essay was written years ago about we have not yet accounted for the psychological consequences of slavery, and she talks a lot about rate, and others have referred to it as how does a mother negotiate childoes a mother of a tell that child and what does she not tell that child when the child asks questions, and how do notmanage being a mother giving children information that makes them feel unsafe or unloved or whatever, and she refers to sort of the longterm psychological consequences that we really have not the short answer to your question is im nothing really are with anything like that, but there had been occasionally these calls for us as scholars to take these things into account. Have inheritance claims. She also talks about what it means for children to grow up in violent. I would know because of modern social science, we can tell you about the psychological effects on children, but we have not taken that and looked at those children who grew up, the people who grew up as schoolchildren, as slaves, and what they became as adults, how they dealt with these kinds of dishes, so it think those are important questions. But i think they have been addressed and a lot of family biographies. A new generation, neither black nor white is a wonderful literary study, and he sent me about 25 years ago why is it historians do not deal with this do. The literary scholars the literature is so rich with it. Have really done this, and i can promise you by tonight, i will be able to give you a list, but unfortunately, i and told that our time is short. You can also email me. Morrison. Right, but fiction. And it is there and it is important, but im sorry, our time is running short, and we are happy to take your individual questions for the rest of the time. Thank you so much. Lets thank the panelists. Thank you so much. [applause] saturday, september 24, join American History tv here on. Span3 we will be live at 10 00 a. M. Eastern from the National Museum of African American history and culture. President obama is expected to join the openings era money would be smith tony and newest museum the Opening Ceremony for the smithsonians newest museum on the national mall. The president august 1966 is a 26minute report on the activities of president johnson. The film includes scenes from luci baines johnsons wedding and a trip to england for president