Georgia Women

Their Lives and Times

Ann Chirhart, Betty Wood

• Publisher: University of Georgia Press
• Print ISBN: 9780820333373, 9780820333366
• eBook ISBN: 9780820339009
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

This first of two volumes extends from the founding of the colony of Georgia in 1733 up to the Progressive era. From the beginning, Georgia women were instrumental in shaping the state, yet most histories minimize their contributions. The essays in this volume include women of many ethnicities and classes who played an important role in Georgia's history.

Though sources for understanding the lives of women in Georgia during the colonial period are scarce, the early essays profile Mary Musgrove, an important player in the relations between the Creek nation and the British Crown, and the loyalist Elizabeth Johnston, who left Georgia for Nova Scotia in 1806. Another essay examines the near-mythical quality of the American Revolution-era accounts of "Georgia's War Woman," Nancy Hart. The later essays are multifaceted in their examination of the way different women experienced Georgia's antebellum social and political life, the tumult of the Civil War, and the lingering consequences of both the conflict itself and Emancipation. After the war, both necessity and opportunity changed women's lives, as educated white women like Eliza Andrews established or taught in schools and as African American women like Lucy Craft Laney, who later founded the Haines Institute, attended school for the first time. Georgia Women also profiles reform-minded women like Mary Latimer McLendon, Rebecca Latimer Felton, Mildred Rutherford, Nellie Peters Black, and Martha Berry, who worked tirelessly for causes ranging from temperance to suffrage to education. The stories of the women portrayed in this volume provide valuable glimpses into the lives and experiences of all Georgia women during the first century and a half of the state's existence.

Historical figures include:Mary MusgroveNancy HartElizabeth Lichtenstein JohnstonEllen CraftFanny KembleFrances Butler LeighSusie King TaylorEliza Frances AndrewsAmanda America DicksonMary Ann Harris GayRebecca Latimer FeltonMary Latimer McLendonMildred Lewis RutherfordNellie Peters BlackLucy Craft LaneyMartha BerryCorra HarrisJuliette Gordon Low

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Mary Musgrove (ca. 1700–1765) Maligned Mediator or Mischievous Malefactor?
• Nancy Hart (ca. 1735–ca. 1830) “Too Good Not to Tell Again”
• Elizabeth Lichtenstein Johnston (1764–1848) “Shot Round the World but Not Heard”
• Ellen Craft (ca. 1826–1891) The Fugitive Who Fled as a Planter
• Fanny Kemble (1809–1893) and Frances Butler Leigh (1838–1910) Becoming Georgian
• Susie King Taylor (1848–1912) “I Gave My Services Willingly”
• Eliza Frances Andrews (1840–1931) “I Will Have to Say ‘Damn!’ Yet, Before I Am Done with Them”
• Amanda America Dickson (1849–1893) A Wealthy Lady of Color in Nineteenth-Century Georgia
• Mary Gay (1829–1918) Sin, Self, and Survival in the Post–Civil War South
• Rebecca Latimer Felton (1835–1930) The Problem of Protection in the New South
• Mary Latimer McLendon (1840–1921) “Mother of Suffrage Work in Georgia”
• Mildred Lewis Rutherford (1851–1928) The Redefinition of New South White Womanhood
• Nellie Peters Black (1851–1919) Georgia’s Pioneer Club Woman
• Lucy Craft Laney (1855–1933) and Martha Berry (1866–1942) Lighting Fires of Knowledge
• Corra Harris (1869–1935) The Storyteller as Folk Preacher
• Juliette Gordon Low (1860–1927) Late-Blooming Daisy
• Selected Bibliography
• List of Contributors
• Index