Elite Women's Rituals of Cultural Authority in the Confederate Capital
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Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports 2014 "A Debt of Honor": Elite Women's Rituals of Cultural Authority in the Confederate Capital Ashley Whitehead Luskey Follow this and additional works at: https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd Recommended Citation Luskey, Ashley Whitehead, ""A Debt of Honor": Elite Women's Rituals of Cultural Authority in the Confederate Capital" (2014). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 6124. https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/6124 This Dissertation is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by the The Research Repository @ WVU with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Dissertation in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. 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For more information, please contact [email protected]. “A Debt of Honor”: Elite Women’s Rituals of Cultural Authority in the Confederate Capital Ashley Whitehead Luskey Dissertation submitted to the Eberly College of Arts & Sciences at West Virginia University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History Jason Phillips, Ph.D., Chair Peter Carmichael, Ph.D. Aaron Sheehan-Dean, Ph.D. Krystal Frazier, Ph.D. Elizabeth Fones-Wolf, Ph.D. Department of History Morgantown, West Virginia 2014 Keywords: Civil War, Confederacy, southern women, ritual, social order, culture, class, gender, power, Richmond, Virginia Copyright 2014, Ashley Whitehead Luskey ABSTRACT “A Debt of Honor”: Elite Women’s Rituals of Cultural Authority in the Confederate Capital Ashley Whitehead Luskey This dissertation analyzes the carefully crafted cultural rituals and social interactions of elite women in Richmond, Virginia in order to understand how those women sought to reaffirm their contested claims to ladyship and impose “proper” social and moral order over an increasingly disordered Confederate capital during the Civil War. As the capital of the Confederacy, Richmond stood for four years as the heart and heartbeat of the Confederate nation and thus as a conspicuous model for southern society. Throughout those four years, Richmond found itself continuously barraged by an influx of soldiers, refugees, prostitutes, scam artists, impoverished soldiers’ wives, and both free and enslaved African-Americans who sought shelter, employment, self-betterment, and mere survival. However, with this influx came a rise in vice, crime, and dangerous social unrest. Through forceful projections of their unique class and gender identity, and through both direct and symbolic negotiations with their subordinates and peers for power during house visits, exclusive parlor parties, promenades, theater-going, presidential receptions, “starvation parties,” and holiday celebrations, Richmond’s “capital elite” (the wives and daughters of politicians, generals, and wealthy civic leaders) sought to reaffirm their threatened cultural authority and stabilize the city’s precarious social order during four years of civil war and unprecedented social unrest. Such rituals provide a fascinating lens into the evolving worldviews, social perceptions, and self-consciousness of the leading ladies of the Confederate capital. In several instances, some of those perceptions of self and social responsibility resulted in charitable aid and patriotic acts that contributed to the physical and emotional health of the Confederacy in valuable ways. Such was especially true during the early part of the war, when the ladies maintained a strong presence in both public and private social settings. However, in other instances, certain worldviews created mental blind spots that prevented the ladies from fully understanding the needs and frustrations of their subordinates. Those blind spots frequently resulted in behavior that ultimately alienated many of the ladies from the very individuals whose deference they so desperately sought to gain. Such alienation, combined with the numerous and mounting stresses that the war continued to place on the civilian population, sewed additional seeds of social unrest and disaffection for the ruling class amongst the public masses. Thus, over the course of the war, the ladies turned increasingly inward and began to place a greater emphasis on more intimate and exclusive social rituals. However, despite such reverses, the leading ladies continued to cling to their rituals with a remarkable perseverance and tenacity of purpose until the very end of the war (and some, even beyond that time), revealing the cherished, influential, and foundation role that such rituals played in the minds, lives, and identities of the female capital elite. Generally speaking, this valuable portal into these women’s minds reveals how individuals have relied on unofficial and often informal social interactions as rituals through which they have sought both to reaffirm their own contested power and to affect broader social change upon society as a whole. Specifically, it brings us ever closer to understanding the complexities of gender roles in the Civil War South, the evolving mental frameworks that governed the lives and actions of this influential group of female actors, the changing power dynamics that shaped social relationships and the functioning of the Confederate capital, and the leading ladies’ responses to both the civil and civic wars that engulfed society and transformed their lives from 1861-1865. Table of Contents Introduction: Richmond and Ritual in the Civil War Era ……… 1 Richmond Reborn: A Brief Overview of the Capital City in Transition ……… 21 Chapter 1- Keeping up Appearances: House Visits and the Establishment of Richmond’s Capital Elite ………. 28 Chapter 2- The Unbearable Heaviness of Being: Elite Parties, the Defense of Ladyship, and the Maintenance of Morale in the Confederate Capital……….. 75 Chapter 3- Performing Ladyship, Sorting Society: The Promenade, Public Receptions, and Theater-Going ……….. 120 Chapter 4- “To Whom Much is Given, Much is to be Required”: Ladies’ Charity in Confederate Richmond ………… 172 Chapter 5- The Perils of Compassion: Public Disaffection and the Championing of Personal Charity………… 218 Chapter 6- “They Came to the Rescue as They Had Often Done Before”: Holiday Ritual and the “Last Confederate Christmas of 1864”………. 255 Conclusion- “Pleading for Greater Light”: Women and the Written Reconstruction of Richmond in the Postwar Era ……….. 304 Bibliography ………… 319 Acknowledgments The roots of this dissertation extend back nearly ten years to a History class taught by Professor James Whittenburg that I took during my sophomore year of college at the College of William & Mary. I still remember the exact moment when I began to fall in love with this topic, while standing in the bedroom of Varina Davis during a tour of the White House of the Confederacy, in Richmond, Virginia on a class trip to the former Confederate capital. Utterly fascinated by Varina’s complexities and contradictions as a leading lady of Richmond, I knew immediately that I had to pursue a study of the “inner world” of Varina Davis, and I excitedly set out to discern the exact nature of society’s expectations of her as the Confederacy’s First Lady. This intrigue ultimately led to a senior honor’s thesis on the topic, directed by Professor Whittenburg. As is true for many of my personal and professional pursuits thus far in the field of History, I am indebted to Dr. Whittenburg for his help and inspiration, and for leading me to the genesis of this project. I am eternally grateful for the undying support, encouragement, advice, and the friendship of both him and his wonderful wife, Dr. Carolyn Whittenburg, who have been like second parents to me ever since I first set foot on the campus of William and Mary. As I continued through graduate school at West Virginia University, my research on Varina Davis matured and expanded into the larger project that has become the focus of my dissertation. This dissertation could not have been written without the fabulous education and continuous intellectual challenge that I received from my many amazing professors in the History department at West Virginia University, especially Dr. Peter Carmichael, Dr. Brian Luskey, Dr. Aaron Sheehan-Dean, as well as Dr. John Ernest from the English department. I am also incredibly grateful for the enormous support and helpful critique of my additional committee members, Dr. Jason Phillips, Dr. Kimberly Welch, and Dr. Krystal Frazier who have been a tremendous help in shaping this project and providing me with the inspiration and encouragement to keep forging on during some of the most challenging days of researching, writing, and revising. Due to a series of unexpected events, the make-up of my committee has changed a remarkable four times since its creation in 2013. My current committee has been wonderful in adapting to those changes and in helping to make the transition between committees as smooth as possible. I want to thank Aaron and Jason, particularly, for graciously stepping in (at different times) to serve as chair of my committee immediately upon their arrivals at WVU, and also Aaron