Keep the Days
eBook - ePub

Keep the Days

Reading the Civil War Diaries of Southern Women

  1. 228 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Keep the Days

Reading the Civil War Diaries of Southern Women

About this book

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.

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Yes, you can access Keep the Days by Steven M. Stowe in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & American Civil War History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover Page
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Dedication
  5. Contents
  6. Preface: Words of War
  7. Acknowledgments
  8. Cast of Characters: The Diarists
  9. Chapter One: Reading the Diary
  10. Chapter Two: Keeping the Diary
  11. Chapter Three: Wartime
  12. Chapter Four: Men
  13. Chapter Five: Slaves
  14. Chapter Six: Herself
  15. Appendix: A Guide to the Diaries and Diarists
  16. A Note on Reading
  17. Notes
  18. Index