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Women in the Antebellum South 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.
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