DOC Women; Work; and Worship in Lincoln's Country: The Dumville Family Letters by From University of Illinois Press in History

Review

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Interesting and informativeBy CustomerIt was a very interesting book. Gives you insight into what life was like in the 1850 and 60's for ordinary people.3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Letters for Today From Earlier Illinois.By William CongerHere's a sharp-focus; up-close view of 19C American rural town life -- and the beginnings of a modern consciousness in women -- made real in nearly one hundred intimate letters; most of them written and exchanged among the sisters of the hardscrabble Dumville family in southern Illinois in the decade before and durring the Civil War. The original letters; now in the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield; Illinois; have been expertly arranged by the editors who preserve the the letters' phonetic folk spellings and ungrammatical syntax. Happily; that preserves the authentic voices; workaday tenacity; and deep religious faith of the Dumville family; best exemplified by the youngest daughter; Hephizbah; the most verbal and self-reflective Dumville sister. Although the editors' scholarly historical overviews -- there's an essay and exhaustive end notes for each chapter -- provide enlightened contextualization; the letters themselves expose the peculiar aura of another era when day to day resolve and gradual success were shadowed by grimly commonplace death from seemingly random and trivial illness; accidents; and overwork. For the Dumvilles and their neighbors a fervent religious faith was the best -- and usually the only -- medicine. Yet the letters also reveal a growing self-confidence and desire to engage the emerging technology of the world beyond the isolated towns where the Dumvilles lived. Hephizbah yearned and worked for her own education and even feminist equality. Over a decade her writing improves -- along with her increased participation in political life -- to the point where her storytelling charm and wit convey a modern intelligence. The editors; with deep knowledge and sensitivity; have given us a new and timely view of the struggles; ultimate optimism and enduring religious faith of ordinary rural people in a tumultuous era in American history. These are letters for today and for any fresh examination of America's small town past.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Fascinating and meticulously edited view into another worldBy Chris AngusAn amazing and seldom seen window into the lives of one family of women living in the pre and post Civil War Midwest. Ann Dumville and her three daughters; Jemima; Hephzibah and Elizabeth; immigrants from England; were poor and hardworking; but they also exhibited; for the period; an extraordinarily spirited group of women who refused to lose touch with one another despite hardship and separation.Their letters record views on religion; schooling; politics; women's suffrage; polygamy; the Indian outrages; the Lincoln-Douglas debates; technological innovation; slavery; the Know Nothings; the war and even a locally felt earthquake. Though the women struggled to educate themselves and remained poor throughout their lives; they stayed engaged with their society and held strong views on many issues. Ann was an abolitionist; a stance that got her expelled from the Methodist church; showing an amazing strength of character given her strong religious ties to the church; which was the center of their world and community. I have rarely experienced a more profound immersion into another age than I received from this book. The authors' chapter introductions are superbly crafted to provide the reader with the background against which the letters were written; including insights into the war; politics; family life; diseases and more.