Category Archives: southern history

April 19, 2021

Q&A with Candace Bailey, Author of Unbinding Gentility

Posted by Ali Wasielewski
in american history, author commentary, music, new books, Q&A, southern history | Comments Off on Q&A with Candace Bailey, Author of Unbinding Gentility

Candace Bailey, author of Unbinding Gentility: Women Making Music in the Nineteenth-Century South, recently answered some questions about the inspirations behind and discoveries she made while writing her new book. Q: Why did you decide to write this book? In … Continue reading →

August 10, 2016

Fannie Barrier Williams celebrated

Posted by sfast
in African American Studies, american history, author commentary, authors, awards, biography, black studies, gender studies, southern history, women's history | Tagged , | Comments Off on Fannie Barrier Williams celebrated

Progressive Era activist and reformer Fannie Barrier Williams was one of the most prominent educated African American women of her generation. A new effort to honor the woman who was a prominent spokesperson for economic, racial, and gender reforms has centered in Williams’ … Continue reading →

February 4, 2016

Throwbacklist Thursday

Posted by rkcunningham
in american history, public health, southern history | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Throwbacklist Thursday

The Zika virus. It’s making headlines and provoking anxieties. A disease-causing pathogen carried by Aedes mosquitoes—the culprits behind yellow fever, dengue, and chikungunya, among other ills—Zika was isolated in Uganda in the 1940s. Mosquitoes being mosquitoes, and humans having the habit … Continue reading →

January 21, 2016

Throwbacklist Thursday

Posted by rkcunningham
in american history, black studies, southern history, women's history | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Throwbacklist Thursday

A Hard Fight for We: Women’s Transition from Slavery to Freedom in South Carolina, by Leslie A. Schwalm African American women fought bravely and tenaciously for their freedom during the Civil War and after. Focusing on slave women on the … Continue reading →

January 14, 2016

Throwbacklist Thursday

Posted by rkcunningham
in american history, food, Illinois / regional, local authors, southern history | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Throwbacklist Thursday

Drink bothered the Founding Fathers. Not on a personal level, of course. John Adams drank a tankard of hard cider with his breakfast and George Washington went on many a bender. No, they saw boozing as a threat to the good functioning of … Continue reading →

August 17, 2015

Survey Says!: The King Is Dead

Posted by rkcunningham
in music, southern history | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Survey Says!: The King Is Dead

This week marks the anniversary of the death (?) of Elvis Presley, a transformative cultural figure of the twentieth or any other century. If you have memories of that afternoon in 1977, you perhaps recall what you were doing when news of … Continue reading →

July 6, 2015

Daisy Turner’s words

Posted by sfast
in american history, biography, black studies, folklore, poetry, southern history, women's history | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Daisy Turner’s words

Daisy Turner was a woman of many words. The storyteller and poet was a living repository of history. She related the stories of her own family, from the abduction of her ancestors in West Africa to her own upbringing in … Continue reading →

March 24, 2014

Q&A with Free Black Communities and the Underground Railroad author Cheryl LaRoche

Posted by sfast
in american history, author commentary, black studies, new books, religion, southern history | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Q&A with Free Black Communities and the Underground Railroad author Cheryl LaRoche

Cheryl Janifer LaRoche is a lecturer in American studies at the University of Maryland. She answered some questions about her book Free Black Communities and the Underground Railroad: The Geography of Resistance. Q: You write that the Underground Railroad is a … Continue reading →

March 7, 2014

Living with Lynching author to speak at Library of Congress

Posted by sfast
in american history, author events, black studies, literary studies, southern history, women's history | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Living with Lynching author to speak at Library of Congress

How did African Americans survive the period between 1890 and 1930 when mobs lynched members of their communities and proudly circulated pictures of the mutilated corpses?  How did African Americans maintain a dignified sense of self when photographs of lynch … Continue reading →

September 5, 2013

The Beautiful Music All Around Us awarded by ARSC

Posted by sfast
in authors, awards, folklore, music, southern history | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on The Beautiful Music All Around Us awarded by ARSC

Stephen Wade’s book, The Beautiful Music All Around Us: Field Recordings and the American Experience has been awarded Best History in the 2013 The Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) Awards for Excellence category of Best Research in Folk, World, … Continue reading →