Farm women of the twentieth-century South have been portrayed as oppressed; worn out; and isolated. Lu Ann Jones tells quite a different story in Mama Learned Us to Work. Building upon evocative oral histories; she encourages us to understand these women as consumers; producers; and agents of economic and cultural change.As consumers; farm women bargained with peddlers at their backdoors. A key business for many farm women was the "butter and egg trade--small-scale dairying and raising chickens. Their earnings provided a crucial margin of economic safety for many families during the 1920s and 1930s and offered women some independence from their men folks. These innovative women showed that poultry production paid off and laid the foundation for the agribusiness poultry industry that emerged after World War II. Jones also examines the relationships between farm women and home demonstration agents and the effect of government-sponsored rural reform. She discusses the professional culture that developed among white agents as they reconciled new and old ideas about women's roles and shows that black agents; despite prejudice; linked their clients to valuable government resources and gave new meanings to traditions of self-help; mutual aid; and racial uplift.
#200775 in Books Edward Porter Alexander 1998-03-02Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.24 x 1.60 x 6.16l; 2.12 #File Name: 0807847224692 pagesFighting for the Confederacy The Personal Recollections of General Edward Porter Alexander
Review
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Fantastic Book - What a Find!By CD4DCI recently stumbled across two books of memoirs by Gen. Edward Porter Alexander.Fighting for the Confederacy: The Personal Recollections of General Edward Porter AlexanderMilitary Memoirs of A ConfederateIf you haven’t read his "personal" memoir; “Fighting for the Confederacy;†I highly recommend it! I’m finding it fascinating. These memoirs were never published; and were “lost†until discovered and then published in1989. Alexander wrote much of it while away on business in South America; and lonely enough that he had time to sit and write - and write with relish he did. He wrote for his children; who had been nagging him to capture his memories in writing; and he never intended for his personal memoirs to be published. He didn’t have lots of reference material with him; so he drew upon his memory and strongest personal recollections; and felt free to express lots of personal opinions; which make the book a pleasure to read and illuminate the history wonderfully.The act of writing his personal story drew him in. He had been carrying his “assessment†of the different battles in his mind for years (this was 1894); and wanted to focus on the military “chess game†that was being played by the generals on both sides. So after he finished his personal memoirs for his family; he started again and rewrote his memoirs in a more formal; “detached†and analytic manner; this time with the intention of publishing them. This is how the second book (Military Memoirs of a Confederate) came about; and also why the first set of memoirs were never published. They sat in a pile of their family's papers; most subsequent archivists assuming that they were early drafts of the second book; until it was finally realized that they were an entirely separate and earlier personal work.I haven’t read the second book yet - but skimmed it a bit. I decided to read the personal history first — as I thought it would be more interesting; and perhaps I’d then have a lot more context to help me through the second book’s “analysis†of the battles.I’m surprised at how much I “relate†to this man — not only as a person but in the events that he participated in. I find that because I’ve read enough Civil War material over the years; and also have visited places like Harper’s Ferry; Bull Run; Antietam; Richmond; Fredericksburg; (etc etc.); that I’m surprisingly familiar with a lot that he’s writing about. His writing “rings a bell†so to speak - and that is a pretty cool feeling to have considering he is writing about things from 150 years ago.Two quick anecdotes. First; while he expresses zero regret for fighting as hard as he did against the Federal army; he is really very glad that the Confederacy was defeated in the end. His description of why that is almost feels like he's sitting in our seats and looking back at the last 150 years; and his description feels prophetic. Second; he describes how Stonewall Jackson might have ended the war early in 1862; with a crushing victory for the South; but for his religious “trust in the will of the Lord; and follow his commandments†mindset that caused him to avoid fighting on the Sabbath (Sunday). Apparently Jackson eventually got over his hangup about that - but the tremendous opportunity was lost forever. Thank God! ;-)This and many more great anecdotes - including a number about Gen. Robert E. Lee that reveal somewhat more of him - and thus make him more accessible as a real person than some ancient mythically heroic figure - than I'd read about before.Can't recommend this enough.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Insightful NarrativeBy Richard WardFighting for the Confederacy: The Personal Recollections of General Edward Porter Alexander is a unique book insofar as it represents a narrative account of one of the more important figures in the Civil War. Many books have been written by famous generals in which details of various battles are inspected and analyzed but very few offer an insight outside of battle specifics. Porter Alexander's narrative offers insight; some facts are omitted because he did not have access to other records at the time the narrative was written; blanks occur in many places where troop strengths and body counts would normally appear but honest commentary is written about Johnston; Jackson; Lee; Longstreet; and McClellan to name a few; something other books cannot provide. If you enjoy getting a real sense of this conflict it is a book well worth reading.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Well written inputBy Girard HedereauxHe was a smart man whose perceptions and conclusions and opinions mattered a great deal to a lot of historians. Reading Alexander is a must for a growing historian.
