Women Writers and Journalists in the Nineteenth-Century South

Examines women writers in the nineteenth-century South, offering new insights into women and gender roles.

Jonathan Daniel Wells (Author)

9781107012660, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 24 October 2011

256 pages
24 x 16.2 x 2.3 cm, 0.51 kg

'Wells offers valuable insight on the question of why the South, a region typically associated with conservative ideals, accepted women participating in these traditionally male activities … Wells offers a strongly documented study that informs readers of significant contributions women made to the South's intellectual life. He illustrates how, by simply writing and publishing journals, newspapers, and magazines, Southern women pushed the boundaries of what many Southerners considered acceptable for women.' Edward McInnis, Ohio Valley History

The first study to focus on white and black women journalists and writers both before and after the Civil War, this book offers fresh insight into Southern intellectual life, the fight for women's rights and gender ideology. Based on new research into Southern magazines and newspapers, this book seeks to shift scholarly attention away from novelists and toward the rich and diverse periodical culture of the South between 1820 and 1900. Magazines were of central importance to the literary culture of the South because the region lacked the publishing centers that could produce large numbers of books. As editors, contributors, correspondents and reporters in the nineteenth century, Southern women entered traditionally male bastions when they embarked on careers in journalism. In so doing, they opened the door to calls for greater political and social equality at the turn of the twentieth century.

1. Introduction
Part I. Foundations: 2. Reading, literary magazines, and the debate over gender equality
3. Education, gender, and community in the nineteenth-century South
Part II. Women Journalists and Writers in the Old South: 4. Periodicals and literary culture
5. Female authors and magazine writing
6. Antebellum women editors and journalists
Part III. Women Journalists and Writers in the New South: 7. New South periodicals and a new literary culture
8. Writing a new South for women
9. Postwar women and professional journalism.

Subject Areas: Gender studies: women [JFSJ1], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], History of the Americas [HBJK]