The Florida Historical Quarterly

COVER Co-eds from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University await sentencing after being arrested and charged with contempt for picketing in front of a segregated movie theater in Tallahassee in 1963. Photograph courtesy of the Florida State Archives, Tallahassee. The Florida Historical Quarterly Volume LXXVII, Number 4 Spring 1999 The Florida Historical Quarterly (ISSN 0015-4113) is published quarterly by the Flor- ida Historical Society, 1320 Highland Avenue, Melbourne, FL 32935, and is printed by E.O. Painter Printing Co., DeLeon Springs, FL. Second-class postage paid at Tampa, FL, and at additional mailing office. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to the Florida Historical Quarterly, 1320 Highland Avenue, Melbourne, FL 32935. Copyright 1998 by the Florida Historical Society, Melbourne, Florida. THE FLORIDA HISTORICAL QUARTERLY Kari Frederickson, Editor Samuel Proctor, Editor Emeritus Nancy Rauscher, Editorial Assistant Imar DaCunha, Graduate Assistant Katherine Giraulo, Undergraduate Assistant EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Raymond O. Arsenault, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg William S. Coker, University of West Florida David R. Colburn, University of Florida James B. Crooks, University of North Florida Kathleen Deagan, University of Florida Wayne Flynt, Auburn University Michael V. Gannon, University of Florida Maxine D. Jones, Florida State University Harry A. Kersey, Jr., Florida Atlantic University Jane Landers, Vanderbilt University Eugene Lyon, Flagler College John K. Mahon, University of Florida Raymond A. Mohl, University of Alabama at Birmingham Gary R. Mormino, University of South Florida Theda Perdue, University of North Carolina Gerald E. Poyo, St. Mary’s University Joe M. Richardson, Florida State University William W. Rogers, Florida State University Daniel L. Schafer, University of North Florida Correspondence concerning contribution, books for review, and all editorial matters should be addressed to the Editor, Florida Historical Quarterly, Department of History, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816-1350. The Quarterly is interested in articles and documents pertaining to the history of Florida. Sources, style, footnote form, originality of material and interpretation, clarity of thought, and interest of readers are considered. All copy should be dou- ble spaced and about 25 pages or 6,000 words. Footnotes are to be numbered con- secutively in the text. Documentation should conform to The Chicago Manual of Style. THE AUTHOR SHOULD SUBMIT AN ORIGINAL AND A PHOTOCOPY, RETAINING A COPY FOR SECURITY. Authors are also asked to submit articles on a diskette in IBM WordPerfect 5.1. The Florida Historical Society and the editor of the Florida Historical Quarterly accept no responsibility for statements made or opin- ions held by authors. The Quarterly reviews books dealing with all aspects of Florida history. Books to be reviewed should be sent to the editor together with price and information on how they may be ordered. Special Issue Women’s Activism in Twentieth-Century Florida Table Of Contents REVIEW ESSAY FROM THE MARGINS TO THE CENTER: SOUTHERN WOMEN'S ACTIVISM, 1820-1970 Jean Gould Bryant 405 ARTICLES CLUBWOMEN AND CIVIC ACTIVISM: WILLIE LOWRY AND TAMPA'S CLUB MOVEMENT Patricia Dillon 429 RUTH BRYAN OWEN: FLORIDA'S FIRST CONGRESSWOMAN AND LIFETIME ACTIVIST Sally Vickers 445 “WITHOUT COMPROMISE OR FEAR”: FLORIDA’S AFRICAN AMERICAN FEMALE ACTIVISTS Maxine D. Jones 475 “IS THIS WHAT WE CAME TO FLORIDA FOR?“: FLORIDA WOMEN AND THE FIGHT AGAINST AIR POLLUTION IN THE 1960s Scott Hamilton Dewey 503 BOOK REVIEWS . 532 BOOK NOTES . 568 HISTORY NEWS . 572 VOLUME INDEX . 575 BOOK REVIEWS ROSE COTTAGE CHRONICLES: CIVIL WAR LETTERS OF THE BRYANT-STEPHENS FAMILIES OF NORTH FLORIDA, edited by Arch Fredric Blakey, Ann Smith Lainhart, and Winston Bryant Stephens Jr. reviewed by Brian R. Rucker THE SUPREME COURT OF FLORIDA AND ITS PREDECESSOR COURTS, 1821- 1917, Walter W. Manley II, editor and co-author; E. Canter Brown Jr., con- tributing editor and co-author; Eric W. Rise, co-author reviewed by John J. Guthrie Jr. GLADESMEN: GATOR HUNTERS, MOONSHINERS, AND SKIFFERS, by Glen Sim- mons and Laura Ogden reviewed by John J. Guthrie Jr. BIOARCHAEOLOGY OF NATIVE AMERICAN ADAPTATION IN THE SPANISH BOR- DERLANDS, edited by Brenda J. Baker and Lisa Kealhofer reviewed by Dean J. Saitta SLAVERY & THE LAW, edited by Paul Finkelman reviewed by Jonathan Lurie THE DEVIL’S LANE: SEX AND RACE IN THE EARLY SOUTH, edited by Catherine Clinton and Michele Gillespie reviewed by Marcia G. Synnott A HARD FIGHT FOR WE: WOMEN’S TRANSITION FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM IN SOUTH CAROLINA, by Leslie A. Schwalm reviewed by Barbara Krauthamer COME SHOUTING TO ZION: AFRICAN AMERICAN PROTESTANTISM IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH AND BRITISH CARIBBEAN TO 1830, by , Sylvia, R. Frey and Betty Wood reviewed by Cynthia Lynn Lyerly MASTERED BY THE CLOCK: TIME, SLAVERY, AND FREEDOM IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH, by Mark M. Smith reviewed by Alexis McCrossen MANIFEST DESTINY AND EMPIRE: AMERICAN ANTEBELLUM EXPANSIONISM, by Robert W. Johannsen, John M. Belohlavek, Thomas R. Hietala, Samuel W. Haynes, and Robert E . May, edited by Sam W. Haynes and Christopher Morris reviewed by William Earl Weeks PENITENTIARIES, REFORMATORIES, AND CHAIN GANGS: SOCIAL THEORY AND THE HISTORY OF PUNISHMENT IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA, by Mark Colvin reviewed by Henry Kamerling “ONE HELL OF A GAMBLE”: KHRUSHCHEV, CASTRO AND KENNEDY, 1958- 1964. by Aleksankr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali reviewed by Frank DeBenedictis WORKERS’ CONTROL IN LATIN AMERICA, 1930-1979, Edited by Jonathan C. Brown reviewed by Victor M. Uribe THE QUIET VOICES: SOUTHERN RABBIS AND BLACK CIVIL RIGHTS, 1880s TO 1990s edited by Mark K. Bauman and Berkley Kalin reviewed by Mark I. Greenberg GHOST DANCING ON THE CRACKER CIRCUIT: THE CULTURE OF FESTIVALS IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH, by Rodger Lyle Brown reviewed by Robert E. Snyder ALL OVER BUT THE SHOUTIN’, by Rick Bragg reviewed by William W. Rogers REGION, RACE, AND CITIES: INTERPRETING THE URBAN SOUTH, by David Goldfield reviewed by Stan Deaton REVIEW ESSAY From the Margins to the Center: Southern Women’s Activism, 1820-1970 by JEAN GOULD BRYANT n 1988, participants in the First Southern Conference on IWomen’s History lamented the neglect of southern women’s history. Despite the rich research possibilities suggested by Gerda Lerner’s 1967 biography of the Grimké sisters of South Carolina and her documentary history, Black Women in White America (1972), and by Anne Firor Scott’s The Southern Lady: From Pedestal to Politics, 1830-1930 (1970), only a small fraction of the new scholarship on women’s history dealt with the South.1 Women’s historians focused largely on women in the North, while southern historians exam- ined race, but not gender, and African American historians gener- ally ignored black women in their analyses. The 1988 conference, however, marked a significant turning point. In the last decade, research in southern women’s history has exploded, and the field has taken its place as a central component of women’s history, southern history, and African American history. Among the most exciting developments in the field is the increas- ing attention paid to the public activities of southern women. Stud- ies of female activism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have illuminated similarities as well as differences between the South and the North and enhanced our understanding of the com- plex interrelationships among race, class, and gender. They have Jean Gould Bryant is assistant professor and director of the Women’s Studies Program at Florida State University. 1. Jacqueline Dowd Hall, “Partial Truths: Writing Southern Women’s History,” in Virginia Bernhard et al., eds., Southern Women: Histories and Identities (Columbia, 1992), especially 11-15, 19, 22; Gerda Lerner, The Grimké Sisters from South Caro- lina: Pioneers for Women’s Rights and Abolition (Boston, 1967); Gerda Lerner, ed., Black Women in White America: A Documentary History (New York, 1972); Anne Firor Scott, The Southern Lady: From Pedestal to Politics, 1830-1930 (Chicago, 1970). [405] 406 FLORIDA HISTORICAL QUARTERLY also shed new light on the nature of southern Progressivism and suggested new analyses of political behavior that enrich political history. Equally important, they have shown that southern women were active players, not merely observers or pawns, in the unfold- ing drama of history. It has been widely assumed that, with rare exceptions such as the expatriate Grimké sisters, antebellum southern women es- chewed the reform causes that mobilized thousands of northern women in the antebellum decades. Tantalizing pieces of evidence from a number of communities, however, suggest otherwise. Driven by the same religious and moral fervor that motivated northerners, southern women engaged in benevolent, missionary, and educational work to aid the deserving poor. By the 1830s women of Charleston, Baltimore, Richmond, Fredericksburg and Petersburg, Raleigh, Wilmington, Nashville, New Orleans, and other communities had organized benevolent societies to distrib- ute Bibles to the poor, run Sunday schools for disadvantaged children, and coordinate aid for orphans, elderly widows, and distressed women. Baltimore and Wilmington women operated charity schools for girls, Nashville women ran a school for orphans and a house of industry for women, and Charleston’s elite worked with lepers, nursed the poor, and attempted to rescue children from houses of prostitution. By the 1850s the women

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