Mississippi Women

by Swain, Martha H.; Payne, Elizabeth Anne; Spruill, Marjorie Julian; Ditto, Susan; Scott, Anne Firor

• ISBN13: 9780820325026
• ISBN10: 0820325023
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-11-01
• Publisher: Univ of Georgia Pr

Summary

This collection of seventeen fascinating biographies, produced by the Mississippi Women's History Project, is an important step toward gaining the state's women their deserved place in its written record. The women whose absorbing life stories are told here range from Felicite Girodeau of old Natchez, who was both a person of color and a slaveholder, to Vera Mae Pigee, who "mothered" the civil rights movement in the Mississippi Delta. Some of the women are well known, others were prominent in their time but have since faded into obscurity, and a few have never received the attention they deserve.Readers may already know such figures as writer and photographer Eudora Welty, civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, and poet and educator Margaret Walker Alexander. Others are probably less familiar: the microbiologist Elizabeth Lee Hazen, the black businesswoman and civic leader Sadye Wier, the flapper feminist Minnie Brewer, or the jurist Burnita Shelton Matthews. All the featured women, whether suffrage pioneers, champions for higher education for women, or luminaries in art and literature, shared similar experiences in their struggles for success. From Winnie Davis, daughter of the Confederacy's president, to Hazel Brannon Smith, a journalist and antilynching crusader, they had in common the pains and privileges that were part of womanhood in their times.As multifaceted as the state they helped to build, the women portrayed in this engaging volume will interest and inspire Mississippians of all ages. Scholars will find here a valuable resource that adds nuance and texture to southern and women's history.

Author Biography

Martha H. Swain is Cornaro Professor of History Emerita at Texas Woman's University. Elizabeth Anne Payne is Professor of History at the University of Mississippi. Marjorie Julian Spruill is Associate Provost for Strategic Planning and Research Professor of History at Vanderbilt University.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. xi
Preface	p. xv
Confronting Challenges	p. 1
Felicite Girodeau (1791-1860): Racial and Religious Identity in Antebellum Natchez	p. 4
Winnie Davis (1864-1898): The Challenges of Daughterhood	p. 21
Nellie Nugent Somerville (1863-1952): Mississippi Reformer, Suffragist, and Politician	p. 39
Belle Kearney (1863-1939): Mississippi Gentlewoman and Slaveholder's Daughter	p. 59
Pauline Van de Graaf Orr (1861-1955): Feminist Education in Mississippi	p. 72
Becoming Professionals	p. 95
Kate Freeman Clark (1875-1957): An Artist and a Lady	p. 98
Blanche Colton Williams (1879-1944): Mentor of Southern Women's Literature	p. 113
Elizabeth Lee Hazen (1885-1975): A Mississippi Microbiologist's Quest for a Cure	p. 131
Burnita Shelton Matthews (1894-1988): The Struggle for Women's Rights	p. 144
Minnie Brewer (1898-1978): The Life and Times of a Flapper Feminist	p. 160
Eudora Welty (1909-2001): En Route to A Curtain of Green	p. 181
Extending Rights	p. 197
Sadye Wier (1905-1995): A Life of Independence and Service	p. 200
Hazel Brannon Smith (1914-1994): Journalist under Siege	p. 220
Margaret Walker Alexander (1915-1998): Voicing Form	p. 235
Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977): A New Voice in American Democracy	p. 249
Mae Bertha Carter (1923-1999) School Desegregation in a Delta Town	p. 268
Vera Mae Pigee (1925-): Mothering the Movement	p. 281
For Further Research	p. 299
List of Contributors	p. 307
Index	p. 311
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