NEW hardcover

Divided Houses: Gender and the Civil War Clinton, Catherine and Silber, Nina

Product DescriptionNo American needs to be told that the Civil War brought the United States to a critical juncture in its history The war changed forever the face of the nation, the nature of American politics, the status of AfricanAmericans, and the daily lives of millions of people Yet few of us understand how the war transformed gender roles and attitudes toward sexuality among American citizensDivided Houses is the first book to address this sorely neglected topic, showing how the themes of gender, class, race, and sexuality interacted to forge the beginnings of a new societyIn this unique volume, historians Catherine Clinton and Nina Silber bring together a wide spectrum of critical viewpointsall written by eminent scholarsto show how gender became a prism through which the political tensions of antebellum America were filtered and focused For example, Divided Houses demonstrates that the abolitionist movement was strongly allied with nineteenthcentury feminism, and shows how the ensuing debates over sectionalism and, eventually, secession, were often couched in terms of gender Northerners and Southerners alike frequently ridiculed each other as effeminate: slaveowners were characterized by Yankees as idle and useless aristocrats, enfeebled by their peculiar institution; northerners were belittled as moneygrubbers who lacked the masculine courage of their southern counterpartsThrough the course of the book, many fascinating subjects are explored, such as the new manly responsibilities both black and white men had thrust upon them as soldiers; the effect of the war on Southern womens daily actions on the homefront; the essential part Northern women played as nurses and spies; the wars impact on marriage and divorce; womens roles in the guerilla fighting; even the wartime dialogue on interracial sex There is also a rare look at how gender affected the experience of freedom for AfricanAmerican children, a discussion of how Harriet Beecher Stowe attempted to distract both her readers and herself from the ravages of war through the writing of romantic fiction, and a consideration of the changing relations between black men and a white society which, during the war, at last forced to confront their manhood In addition, an incisive introduction by Pulitzer Prizewinning historian James McPherson helps place these various subjects in an overall historical contextNowhere else are such topics considered in a single, accessible volume Divided Houses sheds new light on the entire Civil War experiencefrom its causes to its legacyand shows how gender shaped both the actions and attitudes of those who participated in this watershed event in the history of AmericaFrom Publishers WeeklyIn these 18 essays, historians and other academics examine not just gender and its part in the Civil War, but the effects of race and class too The oftdiscussed separate sphere of women in that period is shown to have been a privilege only of upperclass white women, and a close reading of Harriet Beecher Stowes portrait of Sojourner Truth explains how Stowes view of Truth as a regal and noble character, even while portraying her as a naive, semiliterate creature, reflected used the expectations of her own upperclass, white, educated social circle to represent Truth as a regal and noble character, even while portraying her as a naive, semiliterate creature Most of these essays, though, follow a distinct pattern The writers take up interesting topics the role of women spies, changes in divorce patterns following the war and open them to further exploration by quoting extensively from fascinating primary sources such as diaries and court records, but then fail to draw meaningful conclusions An admirably comprehensive bibliography is obviously meant to stimulate further research, and fortunately, as Clinton Plantation Mistress states in her openended discussion of black womens status after the w