Virginia Women - (Southern Women: Their Lives and Times) by Cynthia A Kierner & Sandra Gioia Treadway (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Virginia Women is the first of two volumes exploring the history of Virginia women through the lives of exemplary and remarkable individuals. This collection of seventeen essays, written by established and emerging scholars, recovers the stories and voices of a diverse group of women, from the seventeenth century through the Civil War era. Placing their subjects in their larger historical contexts, the authors show how the experiences of Virginia women varied by race, class, age, and marital status, and also across both space and time.

Some essays examine the lives of well-known women--such as First Lady Dolley Madison--from a new perspective. Others introduce readers to relatively obscure historical figures: the convicted witch Grace Sherwood; the colonial printer Clementina Rind; Harriet Hemings, the enslaved daughter of Thomas Jefferson. Essays on the frontier heroine Mary Draper Ingles and the Civil War spy Elizabeth Van Lew examine the real women behind the legends. Altogether, the essays in this collection offer readers an engaging and personal window onto the experiences of women in the Old Dominion.

Review Quotes

Each essay is skillfully written and demonstrates how the imaginative use of sometime obscure original sources can bring life to often voiceless women who lived on the margins of society and how even well-known women can be explored in new and creative ways--Joyce L. Broussard "The Journal of Southern Literature"

This volume is particularly interesting because it examines nineteen women in seventeen essays during a time when sources for most of these women are difficult to find. Collectively, these authors do a wonderful job of gathering available records and reconstructing the social and political culture structures surrounding their lives to provide readers with new perspectives on historical narratives.-- "Virginia Magazine"

About the Author

Cynthia A. Kierner (Editor)
CYNTHIA A. KIERNER is a professor of history at George Mason University.

Sandra Gioia Treadway (Editor)
SANDRA GIOIA TREADWAY is the director of the Library of Virginia.