Latest / Comps List Radio / Episode 16: Elizabeth Fox Genovese, "Within the Plantation Household, 1988
Transcript
- Robert Ferguson: From H Pool World Headquarters on the World Wide Web, this is Comps List Radio with Marie Totten and Robert Ferguson. Marie, ⁓ we are fully in t it's officially fall. Most part, yep. Yeah. I mean yes, officially it is fall. Officially full. For for our friends up in the Midwest and the Northeast, maybe that means something more than for us who are currently ⁓ you know, where the the temperatures are still rather warm and balmy. Although it is technically football season, the SEC's and conference play. And ⁓ I know for a for a Razorbacks fan like you that you're trying to forget about it. It's almost like it it isn't happening. Yes, yeah. It's been rough. It has been rough. Yeah. And I'm afraid there's no end in sight. No, no. Baseball season is coming eventually. That's I count down. I count the days. And you know, and and with Calapari and the basketball team. Well, ⁓ you know, they're just around the corner. Right. ⁓ as a Georgia Bulldogs fan, I will not lay into what happened on the weekend ⁓ there in Fayetteville. Right. ⁓ but anyway You could I I you know what? We scored. You did? We scored You know, it's ⁓ th th there's there's something there's something meaner about really not commenting on it and just allowing it to move on. ⁓ a little. Yeah. So ⁓ anyway, ⁓ we're talking Southern things because we're gonna do another Southern book. after last week we sort of left the listeners with this no and viewers I guess with this ⁓ kind of a little bit of w like a cliffhanger because we didn't actually know what book we were gonna do next. And we did mention earlier in the episode that we thought it would be a really good idea to do Elizabeth Fox Genovese at some point. And so we thought no time like the present. Yep. We're in the Genovesean mood and so let's do a full episode on Elizabeth Fox Genovese. Marie, are you a and ⁓ s specifically ⁓ her most famous book, which I know Marie's gonna get into here in a second as she gives her biography. So ⁓ Marie, are you able to tell us tell us a little bit about Elizabeth Fox, Chitavesi? Yes, yes, and she is just as interesting as her husband. So we'll go through some of this. ⁓ less well known I've found, but much ⁓ just as interesting. So she's was born Elizabeth Ann Fox in May of nineteen forty-one in Boston. Her father, Edward Whiting Fox, was a Cornell historian of modern Europe. And so she's got that academic background already. ⁓ her mother's brother was a real estate magnate as well. So she's got some of those connections. ⁓ she studied my French is awful, so I'm not even going to try, but she studied in Paris. She got her bachelor's at Bryn Mawr in Pennsylvania. So a very famous all women's college, ⁓ one of the first, if not the first, to offer a doctoral program for women there. So, you know, cutting edge, academic-wise. She studied French and history. She got her master's in at Harvard in 1966 and then her PhD at Harvard in 1974. And one of the things I found most interesting about her is that she started as a French historian and she studied physiocracy. So this 18th century French the economic theory that the value of a country comes from its land and agriculture. So I did learn something about economic theory while I was doing this research. It's very interesting. It's very interesting. The pivot to Southern women's history, which of course is what we'll be talking about today. ⁓ came later in the late 70s and early 80s and into this book that we're going to be discussing. She married Eugene Genevaci in 1969. he was about 11 years older than her, but the seem the two seem to have a connection based on what I read from the very beginning. They co-authored several books together. They started an academic ⁓ journal together, The Marxist Perspectives. So it didn't last long, but it was one of their collaborations. She taught at the University of Rochester. Then she taught for a while in Paris. She taught at SUMY ⁓ SUNY and Bingham Binghampton. Binghamton. And then eventually Bingham okay, I'll let you do that. Binghamton. And then eventually she joined Emory in 1986. And it was there that she founded the Institute for Women's Studies. And she launched the first PhD program in women's studies in the United States. So a full pivot by 1986 there. and she was there until the early 1990s. I have 91 here. ⁓ I think she was still advising in 92, though. in 1995, like ⁓ Eugene Genovese, she converted to Catholicism. She actually converted before he did. And in some of the quotes that I read about her decision to convert to Catholicism. Because she was an ardent feminist early in her career, just an outspoken feminist. And she by 1995 she said that she was uncomfortable with moral relativism and the disillusion and she was disillusioned with academic secular feminism. And so her she began to turn against feminism in the 1990s, although she always said that. ⁓ her Catholicism, her conservative Catholicism and feminism were not incompatible, that they did ⁓ that they could work together and that she still considered herself a feminist, just not in the 1990s strain. ⁓ in 2003, President George Bush awarded her the National Humanities Medal. And then she died in 2007 from MS, which she had suffered from for about 15 years. She was about 65 years old when she died. And I thought this was interesting, but Eugene Genevese wrote a memoir of their marriage called Miss Betsy, A Memoir of Marriage, and he published it in 2009. And so the just to show, you know, they had quite the ⁓ quite the connection there. She was the author of many books. She co-authored ⁓ three books, one that was published after her death, but that she worked on with Eugene Geneavese. So again, the two collaborated quite a bit. won multiple awards, not only for the book ⁓ we're gonna be talking about, but for other books as well. And ⁓ Woodward really liked within a plantation, within the plantation household, or he liked part of it, and said that I've got a quote here from it, or said that she looked at, assembled, analyzed more neglected testimony from plantation mistresses and their servants from any prior study. So a pretty warm reception from a leading figure in the field. And I think as we're gonna see, I mean, you don't have the scholarship surrounding slavery today without the Genevacies, without both of them. And of course, we'll get into the book momentarily. But quite the ideological transformation, just like Eugene Genevese, she undergoes during her career that transformation. And I think that Last ⁓ podcast we talked about how some of that conservative undercurrent is there in Genevace's work. I think it's here too. I think Fox Genevese also has that kind of, I mean, she's a Marxist when she's writing this, like ⁓ like Genevacey, but the un the conservative undertone, you you can see it. In a few places. And I think we'll bring that up. But I thought that was intro an interesting connection between the two books as well. Yeah. ⁓ you know, one of the things that I've realized now that in my middle aged dotage is that ideology and temperament are different things. Yes. And that there are people of every ideology with different t with different temper you know, with different temperaments. And sometimes they overlap and sometimes they don't. And when I say that, you know, there's there's sort of a conservative temperament that some radicals have, that ideologically they're radical, but they have a conservative temperament. And ⁓ at some point, sometimes that becomes in at some point that can can become incoherent or it doesn't become incoherent. And the same is true, there's some conservatives with a very radical temperament. And ⁓ sometimes that becomes coherent and sometimes that becomes incoherent too. ⁓ you know, in ⁓ the last episode when we were talking about Genovese, there were those who ⁓ became conservatives ⁓ who began as radicals and became as conservatives. I I actually would think people like Burnham never adopted a conservative temperament. They always had a radical temperament. They just shifted their beliefs. But in the case of the Genovesis, you can see when you're reading their Marxism, that even though when they were young and they kind of had this like radical, like you know, iconoclastic perspective, very quickly they had a conservative temperament. And beneath the Marxism is a conservative temperament in both of them. And you can it's probably why they got along with marriage so well. Similar temperaments, right? Yes. Yes, I would imagine so. ⁓ I I really ⁓ I think that's really interesting, you know, and and Marie, your your comment on this this having that those conservative undertones. Reading the within the plantation household, this really feels like In some ways a better version of roll Jordan Roll. I think so. I think that was the purpose. Yeah. To improve upon Royal Jordan Roll. They complement each other so well. So well. But there are a few things that she pushes back against in this book that make it. I mean, it is years later, too. So she's got a better evidence base. I mean, it is time has passed between the two. You've got new scholarship. But the the way she pushes back against Royal Jordan roll just I mean it makes the both books better. And Genna Vasey said later in his life that she convinced him with her arguments in this book, in within a the plantation plot ⁓ household. So she was very persuasive with this. Yeah, this book stands on its own. And it doesn't have to be connected to or compared to Royal Jordan Roll. Absolutely not. ⁓ I I am just So I I think we can ⁓ we're gonna we'll probably come back to Roll Jordan Roll towards the end 'cause I think y you kinda have to, but it also does stand on its own. So I want to give it its own air. But ⁓ I in in her chapter where she talks about women's involvement, ⁓ slave women's involvement in slave rebellions, I really think is the dagger into the paternalism thesis. And she makes it very clear that just because there was no collective, obvious collective struggle against slavery, it's because there couldn't be. Right. But there was individual struggle all the time. And if there was paternalism, it wasn't necessarily because of some shared love. There may have been. She doesn't say that that that doesn't that that that that didn't exist. Right. But she said it's because both sides could kill each other. Right. And each side had something to fear from the other side. And if you were gonna live together, you just kinda had to come to some compromise to prevent that from happening. Right. The slave owners knew the female cooks could poison them. Or they you know, they had farm implements and sometimes they used them as weapons on overseers. And so there was this reserve violent threat that the enslaved people had. And of course the enslaved people had to be afraid of the power of the law. Yes. That the other side had. And I think that she outlines that brilliantly. And I think it puts to really puts to rest the paternalism notion. Right. For explaining why people are able to coexist. People are coexist because of mutually assured destruction, might be a better way of putting it. Yeah. Yeah. That would work. Anyway, ⁓ Marie, when was the last time you'd read this book? I'd never read it all the way through. So in a graduate seminar that I was in, we divided books. So we, you know, groups read a certain book and I was in a class where a group read this book and we had a great discussion over it. So I had the foundation down and then going back to it now was wonderful. I had a renewed so I had the the basics enough to go to the book for this. ⁓ and and opening those pages and reading her work. I mean, it's it's well written. It's interesting. She's got the analytical side. She's got the narrative in there. She's got the case studies. I mean, it it just works very well. Yeah. Does. What about you? When is the when had you read it? I I read it in a grad seminar. Yeah. and ⁓ I I don't know that I appreciated it as much. I certainly didn't appreciate it as much when I read it. I I don't remember it being particularly po popular in the grad seminar. And ⁓ so that's just my recollection of it. It was a while ago now. ⁓ but again coming coming reading it again as as a more mature scholar, I you know, I think I liked the book when I read it, but You know, I kind of remembered it being kind of criticized. And coming back and rereading it, I I I'm I don't remember the specific criticisms, but I I think ⁓ they were probably overplayed. Yeah. And there are certainly criticism with this. I mean, she obviously uses more of the voices of the mistresses, the plantation mistresses. Some of the language that she uses, especially in a more recent grad seminar, would be outdated. You know, using the term ladies instead of enslavers or mistresses to talk about women who are slaveholders. using the word trifling to talk about sexual assault is something that there was pushback on, I know. But one of the things that made me appreciate this book more now is knowing all of the scholarship that followed. So I've engaged much more with the scholarship that's followed and been spawned from this work. Than with this work itself. And I think that's probably what our graduate students who are listening will will understand when we talk about this book is that she's gonna influence work not just on slavery but all the way through to Jim Crow. I mean, so you Glinda Gilmore writes Gender in Jim Crow, and this is one of the foundational texts that she uses. Yeah. And so just the expansive influence. I mean, she this is Southern women's history from the perspective of the household, from the perspective And the voices of women for the first time really that we have in this book. And so that is, I think, what our graduate students really should take away. If if any of the books that we've looked at, this is one of the most significant. I mean, Southern women's history is spawned partially. I mean, there are others, but she's really pushing back against those ⁓ those earlier books. Yeah. ⁓ but from Elizabeth Fox Genevacey. You cannot overstate her importance. Yeah, and I think this is something that, you know, I wish I'd kinda had a better handle on when I was a graduate student is look for the forest, don't look for the trees. Right. You know, every book has got problems. And if it was written more than fifteen years ago, it's gonna have problems. You're you're gonna see trees you don't like. But you you've gotta kinda be able to move past it and focus on what really matters in this book. And ⁓ it's not a book about sexual assault. Right, no. It's it it's not. It's not a book about ⁓ you know, it it's it's not a book, you know, again, some of it the language is date, just straight up dated. Some of them, you know, you're right, some things she moves past and she probably could have afforded, you know, she couldn't have moved past. But she was trying to get it broader, bigger points. And eventually you're you're you're you're limited by how many pages you have. Yes. So Marie, what what is her point? So she's talking about first let me start with this idea of the sisterhood thesis. So this is what she's pushing back against. She's pushing back against this earlier idea that ⁓ plantation mistresses and enslaved women were connected by their genders, that they were common cause, they were all victims of paternalism, and that their genders again connected them in a way that class and a race couldn't divide them. So she says no. That is not true. That plantation mistresses were not only working within the paternalistic system, they were supporting it. And they and she just starts the book with that, with that ideology from the voices of people of women at the time, defending the patriarchal system and knowing that in order to be southern, they argue, they have to be part of that patriarchal system. So she starts with that idea that just the sisterhood thesis, it doesn't work for her. And I think that's been proven since that race and class absolutely trumped gender in this relationship between these different groups of women. But the biggest part of what she does is she centers this in the household itself. And she is saying, so in the north, you have this idea developing that women are connected through the domestic sphere and women are individualistic and that things are happening within the domestic sphere that are completely separated. from what's happening in the rest of the the region, if you will. In the South, she says, no, the domestic sphere is where political, social, events, decisions, economic decisions take place. It's all within this household. And plantation mistresses are an absolutely essential part to the running of this household economy, to the politics of the household. So There's no, she's arguing there's no single experience in being a woman. So that idea that that gender unification is not there, there's no single experience in the pre-Civil War South, because that's what she's looking at is the antibalamera, of course. She says that the plantation was built on the plantation was a business built on slavery, and race and class split women apart just as much as being a woman might have brought them together. So again, that race and class Trump gender in this. ⁓ and I think that's her I mean her thesis in a nutshell there and what she's kind of responding to in the historiography. Yeah. I think one of the really important things that, you know, all everything there that you know that that she touches on that is the separate spheres. Yes. Notion. Right. The the household. And to her, the household is different from the family. Yes. She makes you know, the household is a unit that includes the enslavers and enslaved. Yes. That's how they conceived of it. Can could exceed it can conceive of extended family. It could conceive of somebody who was just there for a few temporarily. Household in sort of the Roman sense. The classical sense. Right? Not the nuclear family but the household. Right. And that the household is not exclusively it's not like a you know the it's not like in the again in the North East and the bourgeois culture of the North East where it was this notion of the the women controlled the domestic sphere. There is no separate domestic sphere. Right. It's all ⁓ even if women are expected to play a s very specific gender role but it's not anywhere near as separate or private as it is in the Northeast, I think. I think that's what she's arguing, yes. Yeah. ⁓ one of the other things that I think was is really interesting, this is just this goes beyond women's history into southern more southern history, is she makes an a an interesting comment that I probably would have looked past when I first read it as a grad student, but especially coming after Genevese, ⁓ her husband. She, you know, says that, you know, the Southern society Southern slave society is unique. It's distinct. Mm-hmm. There there's really been no other society like it. Right. And, you know, obviously there's Tidewater society, there's cotton belt slave society, there's various different forms of it. But she argues like it is unique and they were making it as they go along, which we obviously know that they were making a society, but you can't just compare it to the Caribbean. You can't just compare it to any other slave society in history. It's actually really unique. Maybe more distinct than any other slave society is from each other. And so that makes southern history you know, trying to adopt theoretical notions from other slave societies becomes a challenge. Mm-hmm. Because of how distinct it is in the South. Doesn't mean you can't do it. But I think that's kind of a shot against some Marxists, maybe like her husband, saying that it's ⁓ you know, that there are these sort of universal, immutable facts through time that can be applied as an analytical lens for this. ⁓ okay, Marie. ⁓ what Where do you see you know, sh she's obviously, you know, she's criticized for ⁓ using so many ⁓ white sources here. But what are what are some of the things that come out of those sources that you see in this? Yeah, so starting with the idea of like what defines the household before we talk about the sources, so she's just specifically looking at Women who were part of families who own 20 or more enslaved people. And so just to kind of set the baseline there, she's not looking at poor white women. She's not looking at women who work alongside their slaves throughout their lives. And so just taking that off the table, she's looking at these elite women. And she's looking at their diaries, ⁓ pictures, letters, like all of these sources that existed that she's finding in the archives. She's she for enslaved women, she looks at the WPA narratives as well. She looks at the incidents in the life of the slave girl, the Harriet Jacobs autobiography. And so she's bringing all of these sources together to create this separate life between the plantation mistresses and enslaved women. And she's saying, even though, and this is part of what gets some criticism, she's saying that even though they lived in the same household, that they're part of the same household, they did have different experiences. And I think that comes through really well in the way she chose her sources and the people that she, the women that she chose to ⁓ talk about ⁓ throughout the book. And she sh the way she sets it up is she has a few case studies here, and ⁓ the majority of those women are ⁓ elite white mis plantation mistresses. And through their stories, you can see multiple things. So you can see like Louisa McCord, who she starts with, believes that. ⁓ she's the one who argues about paternalism, that women, southern women support paternalism, that they are part of this system, that they benefit from this system. And so you've got somebody with that ideology like Louisa McCord. You've got another one of these case studies where the woman talks about enslaved women from I mean Woodward thought for sure that she was talking and w when Woodward wrote about her. Sh he thought she was talking about enslaved people from You know, she felt sorry for them. She didn't like the institution of slavery necessarily. ⁓ Fox Genevacey says, No, there are issues with her. And let I've got her name. Let me get her name here before I forget. So we can make sure that she is cited properly. I'm sorry about that. No problem. Well, I mean, one of the things that I think definitely comes across is that the I I think there was this notion of, you know, ⁓ of trying to put white ⁓ plantation mistresses into like the Grim K box or into like the Mary Chest or into like the Mary Chestnut. Mary Chestnut is who I'm talking about, yes. Right. Yes, exactly. So Woodward wrote about Mary Chestnut as like this behind the scenes kind of secret abolitionist. And Fox Genovese says, no, there's more going on in her personal life. then ⁓ Woodward is accepting here and it's those personal feelings and kind of that personal anger, like she couldn't have children, she has other issues. And so she's talking about those issues and he is taking that to mean something that Fox Genevacy does not see in the in the sources that she looks at. So yeah, Mary Chestnut is one of the women ⁓ that she looks at. Sarah Gell is a Sarah Ann Hainsworth. Gail is another one of these women that she looks at. And then of course Harriet Jacobs is her main ⁓ source for enslaved women. Although she uses the WPA narratives to kind of construct what would be a basic lifestyle or basic worries or from the enslaved perspective in this. Yeah. You know, the the I I think her most interesting on the white but the few the Sarah Gail Hainsworth i is interesting. If nothing else because she's from the interior. Right, right. Right. The Alabama frontier. Right. There's very few examples of this that we have. You know, Mary Chestnut's Charleston, Louisa McCord is Charleston, the Grim K's Charleston, I think. I think South South Carolina for sure. South Carolina for sure. ⁓ you know, maybe maybe somewhere up the Congory or something like that or or Goose Creek, but b essentially based out of Charleston. Right. ⁓ or you know, ⁓ Pierce and Kemble. Sea Islands. These are these are these are you know, ⁓ was it Fanny Lou Kemble's that her name? Why am I drawing a blank on her name? Fanny Lou, yeah, yeah, that's it. And and you know, and the ⁓ and Pierce's wife or Price's wife. Why am I drawing a blank? Maybe it's the same moment. Anyway, I'm sorry if I if I'm if I'm getting these people confused. I'm not an ex th this is where I'm not an expert. I know a little bit, but I'm not an expert. But they are from this Charleston milieu. Right. Right? ⁓ which is a very cosmopolitan, educated, ⁓ incredibly elite milieu. Arguably the one of the richest places on earth. Might be one rich it might be the richest place on earth. At that point, yeah. At that point, right. And so the Sarah Gale character, you know, Sarah Gale is so interesting because she lives in Tuscaloosa. Right. Right. Which is a very different experience. You know, her husband is elected governor, you know, she goes to Tuscaloosa, but she thought, you know, she kinda lives half time in Tuscaloosa and lives and ⁓ is eventually ⁓ killed by dental surgery. Yeah. ⁓ And she writes so much about being lonely. And she writes about the responsibilities when her husband is gone. And it is com you are right to bring this up that it is different than we look than the other ⁓ women that she's looking at here. It is such a different experience on the frontier, but she still notices those set that same relationship and those same distinctions, those class distinctions. between and race racial distinctions between enslaved women in her household and and herself. Yeah. it's the the the you know the similarities are greater than the differences. And it it is a useful way of making sure that we aren't just we aren't just Charleston. It's not just because Charleston has such a like a has such a a a a a ⁓ you know has captured our imagination here because so many of the most interesting sources, let's be honest, so many of most interesting sources from in that genre are gonna come out of Charleston. They're the best educated women, they're the ⁓ there's the most and so much is happening there. You have all these debates going on. Right. You have I mean Louisa McCord is part of the political kind of intelligentsia. Yeah. Is the word out Charleston. There's an intellig there's an intelligentsia there ⁓ that is that that that that's if you know if if there's a woman who's writing in De Beau's review, they're gonna be from Charleston. Right. Right. or at least have some connection to Charleston. And so a few just ⁓ there's only a couple of characters even in this book who who aren't connected to to to South Carolina in that way, but ⁓ the Sarah Gail Hainsworth is ⁓ w one of the more and she's who leads she's who the ⁓ Fox Genovese opens the book with. In fact, the introduction in many ways is is a biography of Sarah Hainsworth. and in that biography the way that Fox Genovese tells it is both sympathetic. And also very critical. and she handles that well throughout. I mean, being both sympathetic and critical. And she gets some pushback from reviewers in the late eighties and early nineties because they say she is too sympathetic because those are the sources she's seeing. She's leaning into these women's lives too much. But that's the story she's trying to tell us. Right. And these are people and people are complicated. And I think she shows that very well. I don't think I didn't get that the that she's too sympathetic. I got that she understood that these are women and that these are people. On b on both cases. In both cases. I mean I I reading this book, I mean and again this is it's a sympathy maybe you know you're not supposed to get, right? Maybe that's people are like, Well you're gonna go sip with you're supposed to get it's like but if you've got some eighteen year old girl an eighteen year old girl who's married into a family and taken a long way away from her house and then expected to manage A household that has enslaved people in it? Right. That's a big ask. Yes. Yes. And she is she dies in her early 30s, maybe at 30. She's very young. Yeah, 30. Yeah. Younger than a Very young. Younger than she had six children already at that point. Yeah. And and like you said, running a household. So she really does encapsulate this idea. And I mean, she I think she was from South Carolina, but she was, you're right, like fifteen, sixteen, definitely a teenager when she married into ⁓ the family and moved to Alabama. So the majority of her life is spent on the Alabama frontier. And that's where she sees sl you know, slavery firsthand, her responsibility as a plantation mistress firsthand. Yeah, she's born in South Carolina, but as a kid. Like a kind of like a young kid, her family goes out to Alabama. And she's got these great memories of like riding side saddle on the horse and being doted on by these soldiers. Right. And they stayed at one of the big forts in Georgia, you know, and she has this great mem you know, this exciting memories of this great adventure when she was a child, right? Right. and she also and but traveling with her were was the household. Right. Including the enslaved people. And she develops this very an interesting and and this is the thing that I think that j Fox Genevese draws out better than her husband in this. Is Sarah has this incredible attachment to a couple of enslaved people that she had to sell for whatever reason when she was married. And in some ways it becomes her life's work or one of her life's fixations is to buy them back. And that that that Mike is the name of the enslaved person and the Mike and his family back. And Fox Generation sort of says, Well You know, what accounts for this? And her conclusion is that Mike and his family reminded her of her parents. And it brought her back to her happier childhood. And wouldn't it be nice if they were just familiar characters from her childhood. It's like bringing back members of the family from the child from her childhood. Right. That idealism, almost naivety in a way. It's naivete. These are girls. Right. Most of these people who we're talking about, whether they're enslaved people or they're enslaved women or enslaving women. Are girls. Life expectancy just made it that way. Right. Hard li hard life. The South again, you know, for people who are not Southern historians, you have to realize how short your life expectancy was in the South at this time. Yes. It it was not extended. The Northeast has one of the longest life expectancies in the world at this time. In the South, at least among what you would call the settled world. One of the shortest. It's violent, it's hot, there's snakes, there's all sorts of diseases everywhere. There's yellow fever. Right. There's splinters that turn into lock jaw and kill you somehow. Right, right. No, there's not the there's no medical care or what medical care is there is is very limited. Right. And so, ⁓ and you know, these women are being married at a young age. Again, whether they're enslaved or and I'm I'm I'm kind of you know, I guess drawing the I I'm I'm inadvertently making the sisterhood thesis here. I'm not intending to, but I'm just saying that the characters that you're encountering here are all incredibly young. Right. You know, maybe not Louisa McCord during the Civil War and Mary Chestnut during the Civil War, but for the primarily, especially in their childbearing especially women in their childbearing years here, we're dealing with women in their early twenties. And ⁓ And they are within this patriarchal system. They are within the patriarchal system. And I I guess this is just me as a as an almost forty year old guy who just can't help it but say, My God, these are all kids. Yes. They do just they are just so young. They're bloody kids. And it's sometimes it strikes you when you read something how young everybody is that you're reading about as a historian. Because I get you know, in your head you you imagine them as being older than you. Right. Right. They're historical figures. Why aren't they older than you? Right. You know, why aren't they older than us? Yeah. Sometimes you read a book when it strikes you in the head that they're fifteen years younger than you currently are. Right. And this is one of those books. Right. Absolutely. One of the chapters is called ⁓ The Imaginative World. of the plantation women, of the plantation mistress. And I think this is a this is one of those chapters and this is one of those concepts that I think has has con continued, I think, very effectively in the slavery studies literature. Just that the women who are at the center of this, especially the white women that are at the center of this, Create an imaginative world. And they fit their shuttle, the women who are serving them into that imaginary world. Almost as a defense mechanism, maybe. But part of it's born of loneliness. Right. They're the companions. Yeah. And it's both a consequence of them being twenty two and younger. Right. I hate to keep coming back to that, but it is a striking. It's true. It is. Yes, it is. Especially in these positions. It's like you know, it's like when you're reading military history and you have to remember that everybody that you're reading about is like nineteen years old. Right. Right. In this case there's and and ⁓ you know, I don't know about you, but when I was twenty one I I didn't like being alone for long periods of time. Now that I'm almost forty, it's it's all I crave. It's a little different. Right. Right. But ⁓ But yeah, it is and it's such an important stage in life. And the lesson that these women are learning early on, where they are they are meant to be responsible for the household. And like we said earlier, the household is the political and economic center of southern life. And these women are at the center of that. And enslaved women are right there at the center of it as well. Precisely. And so and they're they are all very young and figuring this out as they go and seeing examples from the men in their lives that either they cannot follow themselves, like either bringing themselves to or physically follow themselves. Or they're seeing examples that they do try to emulate that are going to either backfire or create these more loneliness in a way. Yeah. ⁓ you know, one of the the the book follows the life does I think does a relatively good job of kind of following the life trajectory of what you could kind of expect if you're on the one hand, if you're a plantation mistress, and on the other hand, if you're an enslaved woman. And ⁓ you know, again, th this is one of the th this is this might actually be ⁓ this might actually be the first book that I think really goes into like, especially if you're a s enslaved woman. I mean I know there's been a lot of literature that's followed from this. But this might be the first one that really kind of says, Hey, okay, you're three years old, what can you expect? Right. Right. You're five years old, what can you expect? You know, what is the dynamics of that slave of the slave community from the women's perspective look like? Right. Right. And how little agency there is. How little agency there is. You know, again, I think there's this notion that there was kind of prevalent is that ⁓ until they were ten years old, they were sort of free to do what they wanted. Right. And there's and and and part of that was the paternalism the the notion this notion of paternalism that They wanted to make southern slave society look more idyllic than northern industrial society, where kids were being put to work at a young age. And so this was their way of saying, actually, we're more moral than you. Right. But in fact, you've got young girls who basically by the age of five are being put to work. Now they're not being put to work in fields, but they're being put to work as like looking after infants. Right. Or playmates, even. Or playmates. Yes. But I mean even then, you know, they're the or or fanning the mistress. Right. Yes. Or like a Yes. They're learning that dynamic at a very, very early age. And and I thought that it was interesting that there was this one guy, some planter somewhere, who wrote some article, ⁓ and Fak Shinavesi touches on that he he and he got criticized for it because he said we shouldn't you know, he's like, I'd rather have my five year old slaves out in the field. rather than looking after ki r rather than doing sort of the normal enslaved kid jobs. And he's getting criticized for it. He's like, ⁓ you're a brutal, you're a monster And he said, Well, he's like the problem is these five year old girls like keep accidentally maiming the kids. dropping them, neglecting them. And I think about it, like if I've I've got a five year old daughter. She thinks she can look after my two year old boy. Right. And she can, with a considerable degree of supervision. Right. in a house with modern conveniences. Mm-hmm. and not to mention the animosity that develops when you're five and you're like, I want to be doing anything else, but I have to look after this kid. Right. And in some cases, you've been sold away from your family. You don't have the relations there. And one of the things Fox Genevese does such a good job at that I think this is where she pushes back against Genevase, is saying, ⁓ because he talks about the family unit. The enslaved family being a unit and being important. And she says, well, masters and mistresses decided who was, I mean, they decided who married who. They got to choose families. They got to break up families at will. And so you have these little children who are tasked with this huge responsibility, who may themselves at that young age feel animosity towards the people that are directing them to do something. And instead of any kind of self-reflection in the article that you mentioned. It is a put the blame on the five year olds. It is not the system in any way that is the problem. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. But but I I I but I I I just laugh because he identifies what is obviously going to be a major problem with this whole s with this whole system. Comes up with the worst solution possible. Right. But everybody's like, Well of course this isn't a problem, and I'm like No that would be a problem. He's right about that. Yeah. That would be a problem. Yes. Yes. ⁓ I th th the key point and you know that comes is that ⁓ The again I I I I feel like in this entire work it just breaks down the paternalism thesis. Yes. It doesn't mean that coexistence isn't possible and genuine affection isn't possible. Right. But that ⁓ and again part of the paternalism theory, you know, breaks down when I just put it's it's a nineteen year old. Right. Just straight up. It's a nineteen year old. How can you expect them to be paternalistic? They're nineteen. Right? ⁓ you know, again, it's one thing if in your head you imagine everybody's in their fifties or their sixties. But when you're reminded of the fact that actually The planter's twenty seven. The mistress is seventeen or eighteen. Yep. there there's not going to be paternalism because even even among the best meaning of these people, if you're an eighteen or you're a nineteen year old girl, you don't have the ability to even manage this in a benevolent way. Right. You're you're going to alternate between indulgence and mu and cruelty. Right. Right. And we see that. We see that. Yes. And and and again, there's no good way. I'm not saying there's a good there's no obviously no good way to do this. Right, right, exactly. I'm not saying that there yes is any other possibility here. But just the notion that there were these like that there was this like patter familius Roman which I mean I'm sure they and those households I can only imagine the cruelty that occurred in antiquity. Right. But that there is somehow some ideal way of running this. Right. It it it's broke it breaks down because it's going to be some combination of trying to buy favor and cruelty when that doesn't work. Because they're 17 to 30. Exactly. Exactly. And they had like you're talking about the way that Sarah Gell remembered her life, her her childhood. It's idyllic. They remember it almost the the gone with the wind style lifestyle that we got in the nineteen thirties. That that lost cause narrative. That's what they're thinking about their childhoods. And then they're thrust in this position of responsibility, of isolation. And exactly what you said, it's either gonna be indulgence or cruelty. And that's what we see throughout this is there are times they feel bad. There are times like she wants to reunite the fan that enslaved family, but she's not gonna put herself at risk of pushback or of of pain or sorrow in order to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean I think she she pushes her husband a few times and and he says we don't have the money. Just says straight up you don't realize how many how many expenses I've got and we just don't have the money. and ⁓ she's like, Okay, well, don't have the money, we don't have the money. also I I've got a splinter and I might die. Right. Yeah. ⁓ it just I it's it's you know, th th the one thing that is you know, consistent across both Genovese's work is just the true monstrosity of the system. i it might be possible to disagree over the monstrosity of the individuals in the system, especially specific individuals, because I mean I think that there were attempts by enslavers to attempt to be the best of what they thought they were. But the reality is the system there's no possibility of that. These women were not in it together. They were not equal victims to the i even if you could make an argument that mistresses were victims of the system, not even close to the same way. And and and I don't mean to I I I don't mean to maybe imply that because it it just it it's it's not the same. ⁓ because one had the ability to command the power of law and to beat with impunity and destroy with impunity and maim and torture with impunity. Yes. Even encouraged. In some cases. Well, and sometimes they would say, Well, I'm not gonna do it myself, but that's why we have we have this public institution that could do it for me. Right. It it's just the I d i it it the cruelty of the system is just so astonishing. Yeah. And they both do talk about that well in both books. Even if they don't name it explicitly, just the sources that they use and they discuss, like the narrative itself, you can you get that from the narrative. They don't leave those things out. No. This is not a a lost cause type apologetic. piece of work just like Roll Jordan Roll is not. They're explicit about the institution and the evils of the institution, even as they see these individuals as complicated people. Yeah. And and I just I just think it's good hi one of the things I like that it's such good history is because I do think it is valuable for the writer because it makes you even more uncomfortable as a reader. It does, yes. Right. It makes you even more uncomfortable if you're put in their shoes for a second. the bad guy's shoes for you know, it's not just a hero narrative, it's not just a morality play. Right. It's like you actually feel like you're put in the shoes of the slave owner. Of the enslaver. And ⁓ that makes you more uncomfortable. Right. Right. It's not just this grand story of resistance. That is uncomfortable, but perhaps in some way is comforting. Right. Right. We understand that. We know that slavery is an evil institution. We accept that today. We understand that resistance makes us hopeful in a way for the characters that we read about. Right. But it is, it is uncomfortable to sit with these women. Yeah. Because you do see they're young. You do see they have these issues surrounding their own lives. And you do connect to them in some way, even if not personally, you can see, okay, I understand this person a little bit better. And that is uncomfortable to sit with, but I think it's a very important part of the book. It's a very important part of the book. And it it it it kind of occupies this like liminal space, which I think is so good between, you know, the old hero narratives, the old Lost Cause hero narratives. That these people were trem you know, that these slave owners were tremendous paternalists were tremendous and not not and I don't mean that in the way that Genovese uses the term, but ⁓ that Eugene Genovese uses the term. But, you know, more in the UB Phillips maybe not even UB Phillips, but earlier mol mold of ⁓ and then on the the other side, which is we're gonna ignore their perspectives and just from and and and that's a valuable perspective, don't get me wrong. Right? To have the to to to to tell the story of enslavement from the slave cabin. Right? It's a very important part of the story, very useful part of the story. But this occupies a limital space between those two things. Yes. Yes. There's no comfort. It makes both important. There's no comfort here. No, no, there is not. There's no comfort here. And you know, this is sort of I think, you know, we talked in the last episode a little bit about the the slave community school. that ⁓ you know Fox Jet of Ace is contributing to here in a way that Eugene isn't. Right. But Fox, but Elizabeth is contributing to it. ⁓ you know at some point we're not gonna do it next week because we can't do slavery three weeks in a row. ⁓ but we should do John Blasing game. Yes. At some point. ⁓ that would be beneficial, yes. You know, or maybe yeah. In fact I've got two down the road we should do John Blassing game and we should do Eric Williams. ⁓ Dell. That sounds good. Yeah. ⁓ we could do Du Bois as well, but I again I think the reason we've kind of avoided Du Bois is because I think a lot of people are really familiar with him. Right. But we could do we could do him too, and looping all of that in. but anyway, ⁓ the the sort of one of the criticisms that I think comes out of the later ⁓ slave community school is that like it's slavery without the big house. And like you just can't tell that story without what's happening in the big house. Exactly. Exactly. It's the household itself. And the household encompasses both. Right. It doesn't mean, you know, you can do a better job of emphasizing more what's happening among the k slave community rather than Fox Genovese. But you they're both important to our understanding. Right. Right. And ⁓ anyway, ⁓ somehow we're almost at an hour, Marie. Yeah, that went by fast. I feel like we barely we barely scratched the surface. It's just one of those books, like I know we showed ⁓ it's just one of those books that you do just barely have to scratch the surface. But again, she influences most of the scholarship that comes after her in this regard. After this book. Every author is going to have to respond to this household idea. They're not going to be able to overlook the household within Southern society any longer. So you do have later authors who emphasize the enslaved perspective versus the mistress perspective, the way that Fox Genevacy is criticized for. But like I said at the beginning, I don't think that's the book she was writing. I think she was using the sources that she had and she was trying to create these narratives. And I think, okay, that's a fair criticism, but you can only criticize the book the author meant to write. Yeah. And women have picked that up. And not just women, but ⁓ scholars of women's history have picked that up and gone farther with that. Right. And we see just tremendous scholarship follow this book. I mean, you have to respond to Fox Genevace. You have to respond to this book if you're writing about Southern womanhood from the antebellum era through Jim Crow. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ and and you know, again the the you can th there's some legitimate criti you know, we're we're antici you know, w we've heard criticisms over the years, Marie and I, we don't have any specific criticisms in mind. We I wanna be very clear here. We're we're we're generalizing based on things we've heard over the years. ⁓ exactly. So we're responding to what is in some sense a straw man. ⁓ But ⁓ it so I wanna wanna be fair there. And there's again lots of legitimate sincere criticisms that th th that that should be acknowledged. But ⁓ it's whatever her source base, she did a tremendous job with it. Yes. Yes. Opened up avenues for study that you know, these roads that had been untraveled before. Yeah. And ⁓ we're all it's a better profession for it. Yes. All right, well we're basically at an hour and this seems like an okay place to stop. Marie, do you have any final thoughts? I think if I went too far into I mean we could talk about we could go on for another hour about this book. So I do think that we've summarized everything. We've given everyone enough of an overview. I think that this is a book worth looking at. I think it's a book worth checking out. And again to our graduate students who are listening. If you haven't read this book, it's probably not going to be on your comps list, but women who follow her will be. Yeah. You will see the influence of this book on in books on your comps list. Yeah. And I mean you mentioned Glenda Gilmore earlier and she's writing about the Jim Crow period. Not the ⁓ not the antibellum period, but I mean you can just you it's so clear the connection between the two. Right. And Yeah. Well, anyway, Marie, ⁓ that was fun. And ⁓ looking forward to the next one. And this one again is truly a surprise because ⁓ I don't know what we're gonna do next. And ⁓ it i I can tell you this, it will not be a Genovese. No, we've we've done it. We've we hit ⁓ both. We've exhausted the Genovese, so it'll be somebody else. ⁓ and it ⁓ it won't be the South either. So I'll Yes, we'll move away from the South for a while. Not forever. We are southern historians, but for a while. Yes. All right. ⁓ Marie, take care. You too. ⁓