Description
Book SynopsisOne of the most extensive studies of class in 19th-century African American literature to date,
Dividing Lines unveils how black fiction writers represented the uneasy relationship between class differences, racial solidarity, and the quest for civil rights in black communities. The book argues that the signs of class anxiety are embedded in postbellum fiction.
Trade Review“Delineates the great pains Frances E. W. Harper, Sutton Griggs, PaulLaurence Dunbar, Pauline Hopkins, and Charles Chesnutt took to describeclass divisions within black communities . . . a picture of contestation overthe very meaning of class emerges in
Dividing Lines, as Williams showseach author prescribing a different term around which she or he believessocial classes ought to be organized.” -
American Literature
