Download or read book Living In Living Out written by Elizabeth Clark-Lewis and published by Smithsonian Institution. This book was released on 2014-08-19 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This oral history portrays the lives of African American women who migrated from the rural South to work as domestic servants in Washington, DC in the early decades of the twentieth century. In Living In, Living Out Elizabeth Clark-Lewis narrates the personal experiences of eighty-one women who worked for wealthy white families. These women describe how they encountered—but never accepted—the master-servant relationship, and recount their struggles to change their status from “live in” servants to daily paid workers who “lived out.” With candor and passion, the women interviewed tell of leaving their families and adjusting to city life “up North,” of being placed as live-in servants, and of the frustrations and indignities they endured as domestics. By networking on the job, at churches, and at penny savers clubs, they found ways to transform their unending servitude into an employer-employee relationship—gaining a new independence that could only be experienced by living outside of their employers' homes. Clark-Lewis points out that their perseverance and courage not only improved their own lot but also transformed work life for succeeding generations of African American women. A series of in-depth vignettes about the later years of these women bears poignant witness to their efforts to carve out lives of fulfillment and dignity.
Download or read book The Maid Narratives written by Katherine Van Wormer and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2012-09-17 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Maid Narratives shares the memories of black domestic workers and the white families they served, uncovering the often intimate relationships between maid and mistress. Based on interviews with over fifty people -- both white and black -- these stories deliver a personal and powerful message about resilience and resistance in the face of oppression in the Jim Crow South. The housekeepers, caretakers, sharecroppers, and cooks who share their experiences in The Maid Narratives ultimately moved away during the Great Migration. Their perspectives as servants who left for better opportunities outside of the South offer an original telling of physical and psychological survival in a racially oppressive caste system: Vinella Byrd, for instance, from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, recalls how a farmer she worked for would not allow her to clean her hands in the family's wash pan. These narratives are complemented by the voices of white women, such as Flora Templeton Stuart, from New Orleans, who remembers her maid fondly but realizes that she knew little about her life. Like Stuart, many of the white narrators remain troubled by the racial norms of the time. Viewed as a whole, the book presents varied, rich, and detailed accounts, often tragic, and sometimes humorous. The Maid Narratives reveals, across racial lines, shared hardships, strong emotional ties, and inspiring strength.
Download or read book Household Workers Unite written by Premilla Nadasen and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2016-09-06 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Telling the stories of African American domestic workers, this book resurrects a little-known history of domestic worker activism in the 1960s and 1970s, offering new perspectives on race, labor, feminism, and organizing. In this groundbreaking history of African American domestic-worker organizing, scholar and activist Premilla Nadasen shatters countless myths and misconceptions about an historically misunderstood workforce. Resurrecting a little-known history of domestic-worker activism from the 1950s to the 1970s, Nadasen shows how these women were a far cry from the stereotyped passive and powerless victims; they were innovative labor organizers who tirelessly organized on buses and streets across the United States to bring dignity and legal recognition to their occupation. Dismissed by mainstream labor as “unorganizable,” African American household workers developed unique strategies for social change and formed unprecedented alliances with activists in both the women’s rights and the black freedom movements. Using storytelling as a form of activism and as means of establishing a collective identity as workers, these women proudly declared, “We refuse to be your mammies, nannies, aunties, uncles, girls, handmaidens any longer.” With compelling personal stories of the leaders and participants on the front lines, Household Workers Unite gives voice to the poor women of color whose dedicated struggle for higher wages, better working conditions, and respect on the job created a sustained political movement that endures today. Winner of the 2016 Sara A. Whaley Book Prize
Download or read book Cooking in Other Women s Kitchens written by Rebecca Sharpless and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2010-10-11 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As African American women left the plantation economy behind, many entered domestic service in southern cities and towns. Cooking was one of the primary jobs they performed, feeding generations of white families and, in the process, profoundly shaping southern foodways and culture. Rebecca Sharpless argues that, in the face of discrimination, long workdays, and low wages, African American cooks worked to assert measures of control over their own lives. As employment opportunities expanded in the twentieth century, most African American women chose to leave cooking for more lucrative and less oppressive manufacturing, clerical, or professional positions. Through letters, autobiography, and oral history, Sharpless evokes African American women's voices from slavery to the open economy, examining their lives at work and at home.
Download or read book Like One of the Family written by Fiona Mills and published by . This book was released on 2016-06 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kathryn Stockett's 2009 best-selling novel The Help and its subsequent 2011 film center on the experiences of African-American domestic workers living in Jackson, Mississippi. Stockett's sanitized portrayal of life in the Deep South where black women were charged with rearing white children while concurrently barred from sharing toilets and common eating areas with their employers simultaneously enthralled and disturbed readers and viewers alike. Notably, it is not the domestics themselves who render their tales but rather Eugenia Phelan, a white, twenty-something Mississippian with whom they hesitantly collaborate, who ultimately "voices" their stories of life during the harrowing early days of the Civil Rights movement in the Deep South. Essentially, these stories are articulated through the voice of a white woman; a fact that becomes even more complex when one acknowledges that this fictional tale of the inner life of black maids working in Jackson, Mississippi, one of the most notorious states in regards to racial atrocities suffered during the mid-twentieth century, is rendered through the words of a white southern writer. Despite the book's positive public reception, its sentimental portrait of the lives of African-American domestic workers is troubling due to its heavy-handed use of dialect and "feel good" message about the admirable interventions of a white protagonist intent on alleviating some suffering while glossing over the vicious attacks on African-Americans during the Civil Rights era. The issue of visibility/invisibility is central in this text. At its most basic level, the text itself has lacked traditional critical visibility, as, currently, there has been a dearth of academic books focusing on this specific novel, although the novel and subsequent film received much attention in national newspapers and magazines, as well as significant critical debate in a wide variety of online venues. This collection considers why such sterilized versions of America's complex racial history resonate so deeply in our contemporary timeframe. Essay topics range from examinations of the laboring black female body to the impact of domestic work on families, both black and white, to explorations of the connections between rhetoric, writing and race. Also included are several comparative pieces that draw connections between Stockett's work and that of 1940s cartoonist Jackie Ormes, as well as filmic comparisons to Imitation of Life (1934 and 1959) and Black Girl (1966) by Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembéne. With a "Preface" by Trudier Harris and the inclusion of several essays previously published in Southern Quarterly and Southern Cultures, this volume represents the first text dedicated solely to Stockett's wildly popular novel and its subsequent film adaptation.
Download or read book Domestic Abuse in the Novels of African American Women written by Heather Duerre Humann and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-05-23 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The literary tradition begun by Zora Neale Hurston in the 1930s has since flourished and taken new directions with a diverse body of fiction by more contemporary African-American women writers. This book examines the treatment of domestic violence in Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Gayl Jones's Corregidora, Gloria Naylor's The Women of Brewster Place and Linden Hills, Alice Walker's The Color Purple, Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye and Love, Terry McMillan's Mama and A Day Late and a Dollar Short, and Octavia Butler's Seed to Harvest. These novels have given voice to oppressed and abused women. The aims of this work are threefold: to examine how female African American novelists portray domestic abuse; to outline how literary depictions of domestic violence are responsive to cultural and historical forces; and to explore the literary tradition of novels that deal with domestic abuse within the African American community.
Download or read book Domestic Violence at the Margins written by Natalie J. Sokoloff and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reprints of the most influential recent work in the field as well as more than a dozen newly commissioned essays explore theoretical issues, current research, service provision, and activism among Latinos, African Americans, Asian Americans, Jewish Americans, and lesbians. The volume rejects simplistic analyses of the role of culture in domestic violence by elucidating the support systems available to battered women within different cultures, while at the same time addressing the distinct problems generated by that culture. Together, the essays pose a compelling challenge to stereotypical images of battered women that are racist, homophobic, and xenophobic.
Download or read book A Domestic Cook Book written by Malinda Russell and published by . This book was released on 1866 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Black Woman s Guide to Overcoming Domestic Violence written by Shavonne J. Moore-Lobban and published by New Harbinger Publications. This book was released on 2022-06-01 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Your journey to healing and wholeness after domestic violence begins here. Domestic violence is about power and control. As a Black woman and a survivor of domestic violence, you have had your power taken away from you against your will. You are not alone, and there are tools you can use to feel whole and in control of your life again. Written by two psychologists and experts in BIPOC mental health, this book will show you how to start healing—mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Grounded in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), this compassionate book addresses the unique struggles faced by Black women who have experienced domestic violence. You’ll find practical and empowering skills to help you understand and heal from trauma, leave harmful situations, and regain a sense of safety and freedom. You’ll also learn how to build a safety net, trust yourself—and others—again, and let go of the shame and guilt resulting from your experience. Finally, you’ll discover ways to reclaim your self-worth, set boundaries in your relationships, and make room for self-care in your day-to-day life. If you’re ready to leave—or have already left—an abusive situation, this book can help you heal from the trauma of domestic violence and discover personal freedom in mind, body, and spirit.
Download or read book Telling Memories Among Southern Women written by Susan Tucker and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2002-04-01 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Telling Memories Among Southern Women, Susan Tucker presents a revealing collection of oral-history narratives that explore the complex, sometimes enigmatic bond between black female domestic workers and their white employers from the turn of the twentieth century to the civil rights revolution of the 1960s. Based on interviews with forty-two women of both races from the Deep South, these narratives express the full range of human emotions and successfully convey the ties that united—and the tensions and conflicts that separated—these two mutually dependent groups of women.
Download or read book Between Women written by Judith Rollins and published by Temple University Press. This book was released on 1985 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between Women is the result of forty in-depth interviews, interviews enhanced by the author's own experience as a domestic worker for ten employers in the greater Boston area. The reader is quickly drawn into the world of domestic workers as the author allows the women to speak for themselves whenever possible. Clearly relevant to labor studies, women's studies and black studies, at its essence this book is a study of the social psychology of relationships of domination. Yet, while focusing on these relationships, the author never loses sight of the larger social structure and how it affects and is affected by employer-domestic dyads. The opening chapter provides an overview of domestic service in the Western tradition, most notably a detailed history of servitude in the South and northeastern United States, with brief attention to a few non-Western locales. Then, what follows is a description of the conditions of work--the physical labor, hours, compensation, and problems--with the focus on the women and the major dynamics of their relationships. Unlike many works on domination, this book gives as much attention to the effects on the minds and lives of the employers as it does to the effects on the domestics. And it is this exploration, in particular--of the demands, reactions, preferences and perceptions of employers--that reveals how this labor arrangement functions ideologically as well as materially to support the class, gender and racial hierarchies of this country. Author note: Judith Rollins is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Simmons College in Boston.
Download or read book The Help written by Kathryn Stockett and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Original publication and copyright date: 2009.
Download or read book Maid as Muse written by Aife Murray and published by UPNE. This book was released on 2009 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A startlingly original work establishing the impact of domestic servants on the life and writings of Emily Dickinson
Download or read book Domestic Revolutions written by Steven Mintz and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1989-04-03 with total page 603 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of how the concept of “family” has been transformed over the last three centuries in the U.S., from its function as primary social unit to today’s still-evolving model. Based on a wide reading of letters, diaries and other contemporary documents, Mintz, an historian, and Kellogg, an anthropologist, examine the changing definition of “family” in the United States over the course of the last three centuries, beginning with the modified European model of the earliest settlers. From there they survey the changes in the families of whites (working class, immigrants, and middle class) and blacks (slave and free) since the Colonial years, and identify four deep changes in family structure and ideology: the democratic family, the companionate family, the family of the 1950s, and lastly, the family of the '80s, vulnerable to societal changes but still holding together.
Download or read book Domestic Work written by Natasha Trethewey and published by . This book was released on 2000-08 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this debut collection, Natasha Trethewey draws moving domestic portraits of families, past and present, caught in the act of earning a living and managing their households. Small moments taken from a labour-filled day reveal the equally hard emotional work of memory and forgetting, and the extraordinary difficulty of trying to live with or without someone.
Download or read book Thursdays and Every Other Sunday Off written by Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2018-12-18 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Observations from the lives of African American domestic workers—back in print Thursdays and Every Other Sunday Off is an exploration of the lives of African American domestic workers in cities throughout the United States during the mid-twentieth century. With dry wit and honesty, Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor relates the testimonies of maids, cooks, child care workers, and others as they discuss their relationships with their employers and their experiences on the job. She connects this work with popular culture, presenting Aunt Jemima, Mammies, Uncle Ben, and other charged figures through the eyes of domestic workers as opposed to their employers, and remembers her own family history (her mother and grandmother were domestic workers after migrating to Philadelphia from South Carolina). Interspersed with musings and interviews are historical references, quotations, and personal anecdotes that make this account all the more intimate, heartbreaking, and relevant.
Download or read book To Joy My Freedom written by Tera W. Hunter and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1997-05-20 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the Civil War drew to a close, newly emancipated black women workers made their way to Atlanta—the economic hub of the newly emerging urban and industrial south—in order to build an independent and free life on the rubble of their enslaved past. In an original and dramatic work of scholarship, Tera Hunter traces their lives in the postbellum era and reveals the centrality of their labors to the African-American struggle for freedom and justice. Household laborers and washerwomen were constrained by their employers’ domestic worlds but constructed their own world of work, play, negotiation, resistance, and community organization. Hunter follows African-American working women from their newfound optimism and hope at the end of the Civil War to their struggles as free domestic laborers in the homes of their former masters. We witness their drive as they build neighborhoods and networks and their energy as they enjoy leisure hours in dance halls and clubs. We learn of their militance and the way they resisted efforts to keep them economically depressed and medically victimized. Finally, we understand the despair and defeat provoked by Jim Crow laws and segregation and how they spurred large numbers of black laboring women to migrate north. Hunter weaves a rich and diverse tapestry of the culture and experience of black women workers in the post–Civil War south. Through anecdote and data, analysis and interpretation, she manages to penetrate African-American life and labor and to reveal the centrality of women at the inception—and at the heart—of the new south.
