Description
Book SynopsisKennedy's systematic and thoughtful study distinguishes southern approaches to childbirth and motherhood from northern ones, showing how slavery and rural living contributed to a particularly southern experience.
Trade ReviewA must read for those with interests in the Old South, gender, African American history, and women's studies. Choice 2010 A must read for those with interests in the Old South, gender, African American history, and women's studies. Essential. Choice 2010 Born Southern is a useful addition to an admittedly sparse field; Kennedy joins scholars such as Sally McMillen and Marie Jenkes Schwartz in analyzing what birth meant to southern women. -- Katy Simpson Smith Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 2009 Born Southern is an important book that offers a fresh perspective of childbirth and maternity in the antebellum South; transcends the boundaries of social, cultural, legal, and political history; and highlights the value of close readings of sources. -- Anya Jabour H-Net Reviews 2011 This treatment of antebellum southern maternity takes the issue beyond women's history and the often too tight frame of family and community history and places it at the center of southern power relations. -- Mary Niall Mitchell Journal of Southern History 2011
Table of ContentsPreface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: "Strange News" and the Reformation of England
1. Protestant Reform and the Fashion Monster
2. "The mother of a monster, and not of an orderly birth": Women and the Signs of Disorder
3. Forms of Imperfect Union
4. Heedless Women, Headless Monsters, and the Warsof Religion
5. The ranters monster and the "Children of God"
Conclusion: The Signs of the Times
Notes
Bibliography
Index
