Cooking in Other Women's Kitchens - (The John Hope Franklin African American History and Culture) by Rebecca Sharpless (Paperback)

About the Book

Cooking in Other Women s Kitchens: Domestic Workers in the South,1865-1960"

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

"[An] excellent new history of African American cooks in the U.S. South . . . . Sharpless's book offers a valuable model for labor historians, as it portrays work and life as inextricably linked but not mutually definitive." -- American Historical Review

"A fascinating examination of black women's domestic employment as they transitioned from being slaves to being free laborers." -- The North Carolina Historical Review

"A fresh and engaging read." -- Journal of Southern History

"Sharpless offers an in-depth and complete portrait of African American cooks and the nature of their work and lives in this period. The cooks' voices are very compelling, and Sharpless does a good job of letting them largely speak for themselves." -- Oral History Forum

"Sharpless' book is wonderfully detailed, and provides voice for the often overlooked African-American domestic. . . . Highly recommended." -- Labour/Le Travail

"Skillfully researched, lucidly written, and thoughtful. . . . This book appears at a crucial moment, presenting a beautifully crafted historical narrative that contextualizes Kathryn Stockett's The Help. . . . Highly recommended." -- CHOICE

"Thanks to Professor Sharpless for allowing these cooks to make real the travails and triumphs they endured. May her volume continue to break down the stereotypes that plague us to this day." -- Gastronomica

"The robust descriptions of cooks' day-to-day tasks, their relationships with employers, and personal lives enrich the literature on domestic workers by drawing attention to specializations within the domestic-work labor market." -- Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

"Using plantation account books, memoirs from servants, Federal Writers' Project narratives, cookbooks, and census records, Sharpless excavates the experiences of the black domestic working class in the South." -- Journal of African American History

"Well written, painstakingly researched, and carefully situated in the scholarly literature about foodways . . . . A rich and much needed addition." -- Florida Historical Quarterly