Beyond the Household

Cynthia A. Kierner is Professor of History at George Mason University. She is the author of Traders and Gentlefolk: The Livingstons of New York, 1675–1790, also from Cornell; Scandal at Bizarre: Rumor and Reputation in Jefferson's America; Revolutionary America; and Southern Women in Revolution, 1776–1800: Personal and Political Narratives.

A richly textured study.- Christie Anne Farnham, Iowa State University (The Journal of American History) Historians of southern women have always had to confront the image of the 'southern lady' that permeates the field of American history like recalcitrant mildew. No matter how often they assert the existence of real women whose lives were nothing like that of the mythic lady, her shadowy self continues to reappear—despite the repainting provided by countless scholars and their detailed studies of southern women. Cynthia A Kierner synthesizes much of this recent scholarship to provide a useful and accessible study of real women and their lives in those areas with the largest populations, the most complex societies, many of the oldest settlements, the best-kept historical collections, and the most readily available sources: Virginia and the Carolinas.(American Historical Review) Kierner debunks the myth of the delicate flower of Southern womanhood.(Publishers Weekly) Students and scholars of women's history will appreciate the important connections Kierner makes between southern and northern women and the impact of social and intellectual changes in southern women's lives.- Diane C. Vecchio, Furman University (The North Carolina Historical Review) Subtle and sophisticated.... it bridges a gap between some of the best new scholarship on women in the colonial period and on women in the nineteenth century.(Virginia Libraries) This study will be a useful resource for general courses on southern history. The richest new material appears in its chapters on women's wartime political correspondence and their postwar participation in public celebrations.(Choice)