A01=Rebecca Sharpless
african american domestic workers in the south
Author_Rebecca Sharpless
Category=JBSF1
Category=JBSL
Category=NHK
Category=NHTB
domestic work in the south
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
history of african american domestic workers
history of domestic work in the south
women domestic workers in the south
Product details
- ISBN 9781469606866
- Weight: 456g
- Dimensions: 152 x 231mm
- Publication Date: 01 Feb 2013
- Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
As African American women left the plantation economy behind, many entered domestic service in southern cities and towns. Cooking was one of the primary jobs they performed, feeding generations of white families and, in the process, profoundly shaping southern foodways and culture. Rebecca Sharpless argues that, in the face of discrimination, long workdays, and low wages, African American cooks worked to assert measures of control over their own lives. As employment opportunities expanded in the twentieth century, most African American women chose to leave cooking for more lucrative and less oppressive manufacturing, clerical, or professional positions. Through letters, autobiography, and oral history, Sharpless evokes African American women's voices from slavery to the open economy, examining their lives at work and at home.
Rebecca Sharpless is associate professor of history at Texas Christian University, USA. She is author of Fertile Ground, Narrow Choices: Women on Texas Cotton Farms.
