University of Mississippi eGrove Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 2012 The Queen of the Household: Mothers, Other Mothers, and Female Genealogy on the Plantation in Postslavery Women's Fiction Correna Catlett Merricks Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd Part of the American Literature Commons Recommended Citation Merricks, Correna Catlett, "The Queen of the Household: Mothers, Other Mothers, and Female Genealogy on the Plantation in Postslavery Women's Fiction" (2012). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 196. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/196 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. “THE QUEEN OF THE HOUSEHOLD”: MOTHERS, “OTHER” MOTHERS, AND FEMALE GENEALOGY ON THE PLANTATION IN POSTSLAVERY WOMEN’S FICTION A Dissertation presented in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English at The University of Mississippi by CORRENA CATLETT MERRICKS August 2012 Copyright Correna Catlett Merricks 2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT In many ways, the plantation defined the U.S. South because it was the primary site of production, and therefore income, for prominent southerners. In addition to being a site of production, the plantation created a complex series of connected relationships that was imagined by the plantocracy