• Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Keep the Days: Reading the Civil War Diaries of Southern Women

Keep the Days: Reading the Civil War Diaries of Southern Women

Hardcover

Series: Civil War America

Civil War Period (1850-1877)Women's Studies

ISBN10: 1469640953
ISBN13: 9781469640952
Publisher: Univ Of North Carolina Pr
Published: May 7 2018
Pages: 228
Weight: 1.17
Height: 0.69 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.21
Language: English
Americans wrote fiercely during the Civil War. War surprised, devastated, and opened up imagination, taking hold of Americans' words as well as their homes and families. The personal diary--wildly ragged yet rooted in day following day--was one place Americans wrote their war. Diaries, then, have become one of the best-known, most-used sources for exploring the life of the mind in a war-torn place and time. Delving into several familiar wartime diaries kept by women of the southern slave-owning class, Steven Stowe recaptures their motivations to keep the days close even as war tore apart the brutal system of slavery that had benefited them. Whether the diarists recorded thoughts about themselves, their opinions about men, or their observations about slavery, race, and warfare, Stowe shows how these women, by writing the immediate moment, found meaning in a changing world.

In studying the inner lives of these unsympathetic characters, Stowe also explores the importance--and the limits--of historical empathy as a condition for knowing the past, demonstrating how these plain, first-draft texts can offer new ways to make sense of the world in which these Confederate women lived.

1 different editions

Also available

Also in

Civil War Period (1850-1877)