Focusing on Petersburg, Virginia, Professor Lebsock is able to demonstrate and explain how the status of women could change for the better in an antifeminist environment. She weaves the experiences of individual women together with general social trends, to show, for example, how women's lives were changing in response to the economy and the institutions of property ownership and slavery.

By looking at what the Petersburg women did and thought and comparing their behavior with that of men, Lebsock discovers that they placed high value on economic security, on the personal, on the religious, and on the interests of other women. In a society committed to materialism, male dominance, and the maintenance of slavery, their influence was subversive. They operated from an alternative value system, indeed a distinct female culture.

Winner of the Bancroft Prize

About the Author
Suzanne Lebsock is a recipient of a MacArthur fellowship and professor of history at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Her work winning The Free Women of Petersburg received the Bancroft Prize. She lives in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Reviews
"This is one of those rare books which breaks new ground. Southern urban women, black and white, in the antebellum years were different from their plantation counterparts, but Suzanne Lebsock is the first historian to find a way to examine their life experience in illuminating detail." -- Anne Firor Scott, Duke University


Awards
Winner of Bancroft Prize 1985.



Book Information
ISBN 9780393952643
Author Suzanne Lebsock
Format Paperback
Page Count 350
Imprint WW Norton & Co
Publisher WW Norton & Co
Weight(grams) 434g
Dimensions(mm) 208mm * 140mm * 28mm