South Carolina Women

by Spruill, Marjorie Julian

• ISBN13: 9780820329383
• ISBN10: 082032938X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-01-01
• Publisher: Univ of Georgia Pr

Summary

The biographical essays in this volume provide new insights into the various ways that South Carolina women asserted themselves in their state and illuminate the tension between tradition and change that defined the South from the Civil War through the Progressive Era. As old rulesincluding gender conventions that severely constrained southern womenwere dramatically bent if not broken, these women carved out new roles for themselves and others.The volume begins with a profile of Laura Towne and Ellen Murray, who founded the Penn School on St. Helena Island for former slaves. Subsequent essays look at such women as the five Rollin sisters, members of a prominent black family who became passionate advocates for women's rights during Reconstruction; writer Josephine Pinckney, who helped preserve African American spirituals and explored conflicts between the New and Old South in her essays and novels; and Dr. Matilda Evans, the first African American woman licensed to practice medicine in the state. Intractable racial attitudes often caused women to follow separate but parallel paths, as with Louisa B. Poppenheim and Marion B. Wilkinson. Poppenheim, who was white, and Wilkinson, who was black, were both driving forces in the women's club movement. Both saw clubs as a way not only to help women and children but also to showcase these positive changes to the wider nation. Yet the two women worked separately, as did the white and black state federations of women's clubs.Often mixing deference with daring, these women helped shape their society through such avenues as education, religion, politics, community organizing, history, the arts, science, and medicine. Women in the mid- and late twentieth century would build on their accomplishments.

Author Biography

Marjorie Julian Spruill is a professor of history at the University of South Carolina. Valinda W. Littlefield is an assistant professor of history at the University of South Carolina. Joan Marie Johnson is a lecturer at Northeastern Illinois University.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xvii
Introduction	p. 1
Laura Towne and Ellen Murray: Northern Expatriates and the Foundations of Black Education in South Carolina, 1862-1908	p. 12
Martha Fell Schofield and Elizabeth Evelyn Wright: Women Founders of South Carolina African American Schools	p. 31
The Rollin Sisters: Black Women in Reconstruction South Carolina	p. 50
Sarah Morgan Dawson: A New Southern Woman in Postwar Charleston	p. 68
Sallie Chapin: The Woman's Christian Temperance Union and Reconciliation after the Civil War	p. 87
Louisa B. Poppenheim and Marion B. Wilkinson: The Parallel Lives of Black and White Clubwomen	p. 105
Lucy Dugas Tillman: Child Custody, Motherhood, and the Power of a Populist Demagogue	p. 128
Eulalie Salley and Emma Dunovant: A Complementary Pair of Suffragists	p. 144
Anita Pollitzer: A South Carolina Advocate for Equal Rights	p. 166
Irene Goldsmith Kohn: An Assimilated "New South" Daughter and Jewish Women's Activism in Early Twentieth-Century South Carolina	p. 190
Susan Pringle Frost: Historic Preservation in Charleston and Gendered Identity in the Emerging New South	p. 215
Josephine Pinckney: Literary Interpreter of the Modern South	p. 234
Alice Ravenel Huger Smith and Elizabeth O'Neill Verner: Champions of the Charleston Renaissance	p. 249
Matilda Evans: Health Care Activism of a Black Woman Physician	p. 266
Notes on Contributors	p. 293
Index	p. 297
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