Wilma A. Dunaway. Women, Work, and Family in the Antebellum Mountain South. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. xiv + 301 pp. $80.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-521-88619-2.
Reviewed by Deborah L. Bauer (University of Central Florida)
Published on H-Women (April, 2009)
Commissioned by Holly S. Hurlburt (Southern Illinois University Carbondale)
The famous nineteenth-century folk ballad, murdered by Dula just as Dooley had killed the bal‐ "The Legend of Tom Dooley," tells the tale of one lad’s version of Foster, died in January 1866. The Tom Dooley who lamented his fate while en route details surrounding Dula’s motive for killing Foster to his execution for the murder of his lover. The are murky, but apparently, Dula murdered her be‐ historical inspiration for the ballad’s tale comes cause she had infected him with syphilis during the from the true story of one Thomas Dula, a man course of their affair. Records indicate that the his‐ hanged in May 1868 for the murder of Laura Foster torical Foster was beautiful, but she also was an in Wilkes County, North Carolina. While immortal‐ uneducated, poor, sexually promiscuous white ized in the mournful tunes of folk music since the woman who spent the majority of each day of her late nineteenth century, the story of Foster is often adult life working on her father's farm. The stereo‐ obscured by the fate of the erstwhile lover who type of women who lived in antebellum southern stabbed her to death with a knife in the foothills of Appalachia, as represented by Foster, is the exact the Blue Ridge Mountains, a part of the larger Ap‐ image that Wilma A. Dunaway attempts to chal‐ palachian Mountain chain. While many different lenge and dispel in Women, Work, and Family in renditions of the ballad exist, the common theme the Antebellum Mountain South. prevalent in all of the versions is that Dula should Those who turn to the pages of Dunaway's bow his head and cry because he "killed poor Lau‐ monograph in search of validation of the Foster- ra Foster, and you know you're bound to die.”[1] represented stereotype of women who lived in an‐ The history of the Dula-Foster legend perpetuates tebellum southern Appalachia will be sorely disap‐ the folk version of Foster as an innocently beauti‐ pointed. Dunaway's book is a study focused on ful woman, whom Dula killed because he wished to achieving two primary goals. First, she wishes to avoid marrying her after he decided to end their debunk "popular mythology about Appalachian affair. No clearer example of the common stereo‐ women” (p. 3). Second, it is her hope that by work‐ type of a woman living in southern Appalachia ing against the perpetuation of common stereo‐ during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries types about women who lived in the foothills of the can be found than by examining the historical Fos‐ Appalachian Mountains during the colonial and ter, a woman who drastically varied from her antebellum periods, her research helps to end the counterpart in local folklore. The historical Foster, H-Net Reviews
"historical silencing about their racial and ethnic of part 1 of the book from the very theoretical and diversity” (p. 3). statistically supported second part. Her extreme The author's desire to challenge the stereo‐ distaste for the separate spheres concept, one that types so prevalent in literature and historical nar‐ Dunaway identifies as identical to the “Cult of True rative about Appalachian women in the late nine‐ Womanhood” theorized by Barbara Welter in her teenth and early twentieth centuries has necessi‐ 1966 article published in the American Quarterly, tated the use of several different research method‐ is apparent throughout the entire monograph. ologies. Essentially, Dunaway's research can be However, while she believes that the theory is of no categorized as a work of gender studies, as it seeks use in the study of women who lived in antebellum to examine how power relationships within the Appalachia, Dunaway does concede that the communities of southern Appalachia shaped the "death bell for separate spheres" may not have experiences of the women who lived there. Howev‐ sounded in twenty-first-century historiography as er, it also possesses some characteristics of a case it remained "popular with many [other] feminists study in regional history and a historical ethnogra‐ and U.S. women's historians throughout the 1990s" phy. Dunaway does not limit her methodological (p. 5). Taken as a whole, both sections of Dun‐ approach to one historiographical school. She con‐ away's book seek to prove her thesis that many dif‐ ducts her analysis from several different perspec‐ ferent types of women lived in southern Ap‐ tives depending on how the topic being considered palachia during the colonial and antebellum peri‐ afected the women who lived in the region. ods, beyond the classic stereotype represented by Foster. Modern historiography, Dunaway argues, The methodological variation used in Dun‐ has tended to marginalize those women who were away’s research can clearly be illustrated by the differentiated by racial, ethnic, and class consider‐ book’s organization as Women, Work, and Family ations. Consequently, one of the author's goals is to in the Antebellum Mountain South is divided into use her research to help "make invisible Appalachi‐ two distinct sections. The first half concentrates an women visible, in all their class, racial, ethnic, on the social characteristics of race, ethnicity, and religious complexities” (p. 4). class, and religion that shaped power relationships in the region. The second half relies heavily on evi‐ The research questions that Dunaway uses to dence derived from economic and demographic guide the proof of her thesis are complicated and data, as Dunaway studies how labor shaped an Ap‐ diverse. She enumerates them in the book's intro‐ palachian woman's roles as wife, mother, and duction in which she asks five questions. First, how housekeeper. Dunaway argues that variations in accurate is the concept of separate spheres as ap‐ the labor experiences of Appalachian women re‐ plied to the lives of nineteenth-century women sulted in work both inside and outside the domes‐ who lived and worked in Appalachia? Second, tic environment of the home. As a result, the expe‐ what were the "racial, ethnic, and class junctures rience of Appalachian women does not conform among women" in the area (p. 10)? Third, how did to the framework popularized by the "spheres of the agricultural economy of the region influence influence" historiographical concept, an idea that women's lives, and how did that influence vary remains popular among scholars of nineteenth- among different groups of women, when women's century women's history.[2] work "conflicted with the elite gender conventions that were embedded in the public statues" (p. 10)? Dunaway’s attempt to disprove the validity of Fourth, what were the consequences for the wom‐ the “spheres of influence” model, as applicable to en and their families when they did not embrace the lives of women who lived in southern Ap‐ traditional models of nineteenth-century social palachia, heavily distinguishes the narrative tone norms regarding gender? And, finally, how did
2 H-Net Reviews family relationships, particularly between moth‐ of southern Appalachia. These territories include ers and their children, change, if they failed to par‐ Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, North Car‐ ticipate in the "cult of true womanhood" (p.11)? olina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and The primary source evidence that Dunaway West Virginia. The chapter considers the immigra‐ uses to answer these questions and support her tion of natives from Ireland, Scotland, Germany, thesis is numerous and diverse. She primarily re‐ England, and Wales to southern Appalachia. As lies on oral histories preserved in archives. The colonists brought Old World prejudices with them largest source of her oral history documentation to their new homes, cultural and religious conflict originates from the Appalachian Oral History slowed the regional assimilation process. For ex‐ Project, and she supplements her research with ample, Scotch-Irish settlers continued to fight Eng‐ other similar sources taken from Civil War veteran lish colonists, while Protestants rallied against Ro‐ questionnaires and slave narratives. By her own man Catholics until the social pressures of outside admission, the use of oral history evidence is more change forced acculturation in the 1820s and prevalent in part 2 of the book, because not as 1830s. many "female voices" have survived to tell their Chapter 2, "Not a Shared Patriarchal Space: own stories (p. 11). She simultaneously considers Imperialism, Racism, and the Cultural Persistence the broader perspective of their racial groupings as of Indigenous Appalachian Women," tells the story examined in part 1. Part 1's focus on providing the of Native American women who lived in the re‐ reader with background information that explains gion, primarily women of the Cherokee Nation. An‐ the formation and perpetuation of social hierar‐ drew Jackson's campaign to remove the Native chies in Appalachia sacrifices individual narrative American tribes from their lands in the Southeast in order to provide a more comprehensive picture during the 1820s and 1830s, described by Dunaway of the region's social framework. Instead, Dun‐ as a type of "ethnic cleansing," is detailed in a away attempts to "fill the gaps" where she can with rather holistic manner with a rather minor treat‐ other sources, when firsthand narratives are not ment of the tribes’ women compared with either necessarily the most appropriate way to illustrate the examination of Euroamerican white women's the larger social organization of antebellum Ap‐ experiences in chapter 1 or the lives of African palachia. slaves and free black women as detailed in chap‐ Somewhat interestingly, part 1, "Racial, Ethnic, ter 3 (p. 71). and Class Disjunctures among Appalachian Wom‐ The experience of black Appalachian women en," is viewed by the author as mere "background as considered in chapter 3, "Not a Shared Sister‐ information" to the crux of her analysis, presented hood of Subordination: Racism, Slavery, and Resis‐ in the monograph’s second part, "Structural and tance by Black Appalachian Females," remained Social Contradictions between Women's Produc‐ heavily influenced, according to Dunaway, by the tive and Reproductive Labors." The first three conflict between poor white farmers and African chapters of part 1 detail the experiences of the slaves and freedmen and freedwomen who three main social groups to which southern Ap‐ worked small plots of land in Appalachia. As com‐ palachian women belonged during the eighteenth pared to the same agricultural pursuits that and nineteenth centuries, as characterized by worked to reinforce a separation of the races on Dunaway. Chapter 1, "No Gendered Sisterhood: Eth‐ the opulent plantations of Virginia's tobacco fields, nic and Religious Conflict among Euroamerican South Carolina's rice farms, and Georgia's cotton Women," details the experience of white women kingdom, local overseers in southern Appalachia who immigrated to the colonies, and later states, had to structure a work environment “in which
3 H-Net Reviews blacks and poor whites were pitted against each rate Spheres and Women's Nonagricultural Labor." other” to keep the groups as segregated as possible It is in these chapters that Dunaway most ardently (p. 81). calls into question the validity of the "separate The last chapter of part 1, chapter 4, "Not Even spheres" doctrine, whether through her examina‐ Sisters among Their Own Kind: The Centrality of tion of women who worked in the fields with their Class Divisions among Appalachian Women," fi‐ husbands or through her consideration of women nally examines how all three groups began to in‐ who engaged in textile production via the "putting teract as determined by their socioeconomic class. out system," manufacturing, domestic service, and Dunaway's theme of division, prevalent in the first many other nonagricultural jobs. part of the book, almost makes it seem as if she is Chapter 7, "Family as Privilege: Public Regula‐ trying too hard to prove that there was no regional tion of Nonpatriarchal Households," and chapter 8, notion of a shared "sisterhood," that each group "Motherhood as Privilege: Patriarchal Interven‐ acted completely independent of and in isolation tions into Women's Reproductive Labors," are the from the others. While Dunaway argues that they clearest examples in her research where Dunaway shared a commonality in resisting a patriarchal considers traditional issues of gender and sexuali‐ societal framework that shaped power relations in ty in her study of marriage, family, and sex in the the region, she contends that any commonality lives of antebellum Appalachian women. Accord‐ ends with that display of resistance. Ironically, it ing to Dunaway, Appalachian women faced a diffi‐ appears that the isolation and independence of cult task when trying to extricate their personal each group from the other that she works so hard from their public lives as the patriarchal social to illustrate as fact is heartily disproved by her dis‐ framework in which they lived continually placed cussion of labor and family in part 2. private concerns within the public realm. Chapter The second part of Dunaway's study, "Struc‐ 7's examination of how different types of mar‐ tural and Social Contradictions between Women's riage, including forms of common law, prevailed Productive and Reproductive Labors," presents the in southern Appalachia, directly relates to her main points of her thesis in a discussion of the var‐ commentary in chapter 8 on the sexual exploita‐ ious labor experiences that all women of Ap‐ tion of the region’s women. Dunaway's considera‐ palachia shared during the antebellum period. tion in chapter 8 of sexual exploitation among the Through her examination of how women engaged Appalachian population, in the common form of in both agricultural and nonagricultural types of extramarital affairs with both willing and unwill‐ labor, Dunaway attempts to prove that Appalachi‐ ing partners, is interesting given the fact that the an women repeatedly challenged the "separate antebellum notion of personal honor for most spheres” stricture. While she does acknowledge white men and women directly related to their that "females were subordinate to men legally, po‐ family's social status and place in polite society. litically, and economically, there was no clear male Dunaway touches on other traditional issues public sphere when it came to the female labors of gender and sexuality within these chapters, con‐ that were essential to family survival” (p. 129). As a sidering how the interpersonal relationships wom‐ result, Appalachian women resisted traditional en shared with men in the course of sexual intima‐ nineteenth-century forms of patriarchy within the cy, via fornication or rape; maternal relations with context of their varied labor experiences. To dis‐ children; and the termination of those interper‐ cuss this point, chapter 5, "The Myth of Male Farm‐ sonal relationships as the result of divorce or sepa‐ ing and Women's Agricultural Labor," works very ration shaped their daily lives. Through her discus‐ much in tandem with chapter 6, "the Myth of Sepa‐ sion in part 2 of how labor and issues of gender
4 H-Net Reviews and sexuality shaped Appalachian women’s lives, placed on the author will grate on the reader in Dunaway once again tries to show that the experi‐ several places. Perhaps the most noticeable exam‐ ences of women remained separated and that they ple of where readers will turn the page and be dis‐ shared no commonalities. It is in this pursuit that appointed at what they find, or not find, will occur Dunaway fails to comment on sexuality and moth‐ at the end of the book. While Dunaway crafted an erhood--the greatest shared experience of all wom‐ excellent introduction to her research, and each en regardless of race, ethnicity, or class instead of chapter begins with a concise introduction and considering how those common experiences sim‐ concludes with a summarized conclusion, the ply may have varied among each group. reader will find no final commentary at the con‐ While there are many fine qualities of Dun‐ clusion of the book. Dunaway's narrative ends away's research that make it new and exciting for abruptly with her discussion of motherhood in those who study gender history in the South before chapter 8, and it almost seems as if an editorial 1860, the approach that she takes on several issues faux pas was created by omitting a brief, final result in overall weaknesses that detract from the commentary. Readers who are satisfied by an epi‐ uniqueness of her work. Perhaps the greatest logue or parting words from authors will be disap‐ weakness is her failure to complete a thorough pointed as the final pages of the narrative simply treatment of the research subject within the limit‐ end, leaving many readers unsettled and dissatis‐ ed pages of the monograph. The number of pages fed. available in which Dunaway could present her ar‐ It is also worth noting that colonial historians gument, due to editorial constraint, leaves certain who consult Dunaway’s research, hoping to see a portions of the research not thoroughly treated. discussion on the evolution of the experience of Dunaway acknowledges this shortcoming: "to pub‐ Appalachian women during the early seventeenth lish all the information about contextual back‐ century, will be sadly disappointed. While several ground, sources, methods, and quantitative evi‐ descriptions of the research describe it as treating dence would require far more space than is afford‐ the material chronologically between 1700 and ed to me here” (p. 14). To rectify this anticipated 1860, the colonial era receives very little attention. weakness, Dunaway created one of the study’s The experiences of Cherokee women during the most unique and satisfying characteristics when first decades of the eighteenth century are touched she developed a companion Web site to her book. on, but the story of Euroamericans, African slaves, The Web site, which can be accessed free of charge, and freedwomen are not discussed until after the should be explored by anyone who wishes to learn years of the American Revolution. Instead, Dun‐ more about topics only briefly touched on in her away’s treatment of those women is confined pri‐ monograph, including definitions of Appalachia, marily to the first decade of the early Republic in the legacy of Social Darwinism in Appalachian the 1790s. Although the Proclamation of 1763 offi‐ scholarship, and a more fully developed commen‐ cially limited British colonization efforts to lands tary on the most widely perpetuated stereotypes of located east of the Appalachian Mountains, men Appalachian women during the antebellum peri‐ and women did immigrate to lands located west of od.[3] the line. Treatment of the experiences of women Although Dunaway includes a significant who illegally immigrated to the western side of Ap‐ number of maps, charts of statistical data, and il‐ palachia during the first half of the eighteenth cen‐ lustrations to support her narrative, and the book tury, and whose actions inflamed colonial tensions does contain an extensive series of notes and a between Great Britain and her North American thorough bibliography, the editorial constraints colonists, remain absent and, at the same time, seemingly necessary to the author’s larger re‐
5 H-Net Reviews search goals. Perhaps, as Dunaway hinted in her differed very much from the unique life experi‐ discussion on source materials in her introduction enced by women in Appalachian settlements. to part 1, such a discussion remains absent as the By no means are these critiques of Dunaway's requisite primary source material is scarce. How‐ methodology and her conclusions a devaluation of ever, the few pages devoted to explaining how and her contribution to the larger historiography of why colonists immigrated to the mountains of gender in the antebellum South. In consideration southern Appalachia renders Dunaway's research, of the fact that no other historian has attempted to as a whole, thoroughly antebellum in chronologi‐ treat the experiences of the disparate groups of cal coverage, and the descriptor “1700-1860” is mis‐ women who lived in southern Appalachia before leading. 1860, most likely because of the complexity of the In short, the common themes of race, ethnici‐ task regarding theoretical considerations and the ty, class, and religion as they define the three social dearth of primary source materials, the author has groups of Euroamerican, Native American, and done a great service. Other scholars will be able to African slave and freed black women distinguish use Dunaway’s research as a model to create other the experiences of women who lived in southern regional studies that consider the experiences of Appalachia before 1860. Dunaway works hard to the women who lived there. Dunaway writes clear‐ challenge the popular historiographical notion of ly and explains well her research methodology separate spheres in her consideration of how resis‐ that shows how and why she came to her conclu‐ tance to patriarchy and the pursuit of labor pre‐ sions. However, her repeated statements challeng‐ vented Appalachian women from being confined ing and disproving various notions and myths sur‐ to the domestic sphere during the late eighteenth rounding the women of antebellum Appalachia and early nineteenth centuries. Although she at‐ sometimes cloud the very narrative that she strove tempts to challenge common myths and historio‐ to create by employing a research methodology graphical assumptions as she argues that women that would allow the women themselves to tell in southern Appalachian were the exception to the their own story. Such an adamant defense of Dun‐ rule, and does so quite successfully in a number of away’s research subjects still has resulted in a well- places, Dunaway discounts any shared experience crafted study that will no doubt offer a starting by the three groups of women as if they lived in a point for many other scholars who wish to consid‐ relatively self-contained environment. While the er issues of gender within a specific region, espe‐ author does successfully demonstrate that Ap‐ cially the antebellum South. palachian women were not confined to the domes‐ Notes tic sphere of the home by the variety of their labor [1]. For more on the historical Foster, see John experiences, it remains uncertain if such an argu‐ Foster West, The Ballad of Tom Dula: The Docu‐ ment is unique to southern Appalachia. For exam‐ mented Story behind the Murder of Laura Foster ple, historians of western frontier women have ar‐ and the Trials and Execution of Tom Dula gued that necessity also eased the notion of sepa‐ (Durham: Moore Publishing Company, 1970; rate spheres on homesteads and in western min‐ Boone: Parkway Publications, 2002), 79-81. The cir‐ ing towns after the gold rush of 1849. However, cumstance of Foster’s murder at the hands of Dula Dunaway does show that the experience of Ap‐ is controversial. For a discussion of the complicat‐ palachian women, compared to their southern ed relationship between Foster, Dula, and other counterparts in cities like Baltimore, Washington, Wilkes County residents, see ibid., 186-202. Charleston, and Savannah, and in the tidewater, [2]. The idea that American society was or‐ dered according to "spheres of influence," in which
6 H-Net Reviews males existed in the public sphere, while females remained confined to the private sphere in order to deal with domestic issues, has been widely de‐ bated by social and feminist historians since the theory was first posed in the 1960s. See Barbara Welter, “The Cult of True Womanhood, 1820-1860,” American Quarterly 18, no. 2, pt .1 (Summer 1966): 151-174; and Linda K. Kerber, "Separate Spheres, Fe‐ male Worlds, Woman's Place: The Rhetoric of Women's History," Journal of American History 75, no. 1 (June 1988): 9-39. [3]. Wilma A. Dunaway, "Online Archive for Women, Work, and Family in the Antebellum Mountain South," Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/facul‐ ty_archives/appalachian_women/index.htm (ac‐ cessed February 2, 2009).
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while ing (p. 11) (pp. 10-11) and ir
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Citation: Deborah L. Bauer. Review of Dunaway, Wilma A. Women, Work, and Family in the Antebellum Mountain South. H-Women, H-Net Reviews. April, 2009.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=22990
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