Hidden histories of women in the New South

As women's history has embraced the contributions of multiculturalism, crucial intersections between gender and race, ideology and identity, and work and life have converged to enrich the mainstream of American history. The parameters that once defined women's history have broadened from the experiences of just a few white middle-class women to include those of women from all walks of life. Representing some of the best and most recent scholarly work in the field, the subjects of these essays reflect the diversity of southern women's lives. Women in prisons, in mental institutions, in labor unions; women activists for temperance, suffrage, birth control, and civil rights; women at home and in public life: all add their individual histories to help reshape the terrain of the American past. Southern women's history continues to make pathbreaking strides, and students of women's history, southern history, ethnic studies, sociology, and psychology will find this volume's contributions invaluable.