The Plantation Mistress: Woman's World in the Old South

by Catherine Clinton

This pioneering study of the much-mythologized Southern belle offers the first serious look at the lives of white women and their harsh and restricted place in the slave society before the Civil War. Drawing on the diaries, letters, and memoirs of hundreds of planter wives and daughters, Clinton sets before us in vivid detail the daily life of the plantation mistress and her ambiguous intermediary position in the hierarchy between slave and master.

"The Plantation Mistress challenges and reinterprets a host of issues related to the Old South. The result is a book that forces us to rethink some of our basic assumptions about two peculiar institutions -- the slave plantation and the nineteenth-century family. It approaches a familiar subject from a new angle, and as a result, permanently alters our understanding of the Old South and women's place in it.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Civil War, American History, Southern, Womens Studies, Womens

331 pages, Paperback

First published February 12, 1984

About the author

Professor of history at Queen's University, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Specializes in American history, African-American history, the Civil War, and women's history. Previously taught at Brandeis and Harvard universities. Born in 1952, grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. Studied sociology and history at Harvard, earned a master's degree from Sussex and a doctorate from Princeton.

Reviews

[Jeanette · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's good. 3.5 star and it's best aspect is that after reading all this you truly get "the feel" of where the Mistress fit into the system, the family, the law, the larger economic class society, and where/what she did with most of her hours.

And detailing for the levels of physical work! I can certainly understand that being an invalid was often a reality, not some pretentious state. This is especially true of the child-bearing years as large, large families were norm coupled with the reality that 6% of the Mistress population died young from issues related to child birth. So far more children were left without a mother than those who experienced loss of a father. Both remarried often, almost as a duty- but this left men quite often with 2 or 3 marriages in their lifetime.

Some chapters, like the one on divorce, were so very dry, it is like reading stats lists. Catherine Clinton is thorough and introduces her methods and numbers of cases and the years she has centered for examination. Religion, role in providing medicine and food, and the isolation in regard to mobility (not allowed to travel without a chaperon and where do you find these?) quite beyond the legal aspects of dependency, isolated far beyond the levels of wives in the North.

This is worth the read, but it is not easy read. It's not written in the current 2000 plus era of interpretation being pivotal to the material. But she does equate certain assumed outcomes and trends because of the depth of the proofs.

Certainly because of all the issues that were totally centered on her "Mistress" role- the making of clothes, medicine, foodstuffs etc.- NO STORES- all of this is enough to make you choke. It being so endless the work. The lounging and prone figure of some film, literature portrayals is as distant from the reality of plantation life as could be possible. And this could also occur without her husband providing large sums or any sums of income to supplement any shortages. In fact, most of the time she was also by produce or foodstuffs, beyond the crops, supplementing HIS debts.

So many dichotomies of her role and being the communicator in the conflicts between these factors inherent in the slave system and her own immense dependency by law combined, IMHO, to give her a skill for understated and yet immense influence by her well placed input at diplomatic intervals. But it required a strong "face" - sometimes covering the real emotion that differed from her calm and "feminine" imploring. This control was primed by habit of having to use words wisely. In a manner that held most influence! Often a great deal of the time, the most feminine (as it was defined in that era) approach was the one that worked best. IMHO, that had to require some acting skills.

When visiting antebellum plantations in Louisiana last winter, we went to about 7. And just as this author noted, most of the women were used up WAY before the men. One differed and it was called Laura (named after her). This one happened through happenstance to be run by a woman for 3 successive generations. Early death of husband and many of the children through diseases. And that's what made me read this book. Because eventually the last Mistress Laura left the plantation for New Orleans life, and refused her inheritance just because of the isolation and responsibility it required. Her Mother had given her entire life to the running of the sugar cane crews, cooking it down- feeding and managing all those people for medicine/clothes etc. for 30 plus years. And after just a couple of years managing most herself- she did not want to do the same. She married into the city eventually and purposely toward a life lived mostly in France.

Some of these women Clinton writes about were spinsters, despite the title. They (very few) purposely remained unmarried and did so because of the work and position they had observed were put upon any woman as a "wife" role. Some of them did not appeared bothered by the disdain for being not chosen. They also worked and were heavily used (extra women to spin the cotton- that's how the word spinster originated) and yet it left them a "bit" freer than their married sisters.

The chapter that included the "oppression" that these women felt- was truly interesting. Some of them felt that the slaves got clothes before they did? And felt themselves as just a little different. No. They couldn't be sold away and the slave women were far more oppressed. And often a husband could not get a divorce decree, even if he wanted one. (But he could almost surely if it became common knowledge or his wife admitted that a child she bore was not his.)

It was a terrible dichotomy and horrible system that required a whole core message of intermittent pretending all around, IMHO.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 or a bit higher.

It should be noted that Clinton's book was written before the thorough work of Annette Gordon-Reed, so her discussion, brief as it is, about Sally Hemings does not take a definative stance.

Clinton does a very good job of not white-washing the role that the plantation mistress played in slavery, but also presenting a true view of what their life was like. You should read this with Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War because it does raise questions about how we view the South in terms of reenacting. Questions that is, in addition to the very big one of "why do you want to be a slave owner?".

[I Be Reading · Rating 4 out of 5]

More like a 4.5. I found this book very informative. Most importantly, I appreciated that the author made it clear throughout the entire book that plantation mistresses/slaveowning women were just as responsible for the horrors of slavery as the male planters/slaveowners. However, their experiences were very different from that of white men so although I personally have little to no sympathy for them as a collective, it was interesting to learn about that.

I would recommend it for anyone who has an interest in Civil War era history, women's history, or American slavery.

[ClaraBelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Plot: “The Southern woman is imprisoned by myth and lies.”
As a result, this scholarly nonfiction book erases Scarlett O’Hara as the epitome of a southern woman . This book tells the true, unrelenting story about the woman’s world and palace in the American South before and during the American Civil War. It uncovers the pains, lives, love, scandals, expectations, motherhoods, opinions, and moral dilemmas every southern belle faced as a married, single, divorced, or widowed woman.
Warning: The author is a bit of a feminist. It offended me, as I’m a Christian. She says that women were sexually and economically abused by not being able to have careers, and by having no access to birth control. She claims this is why they had many children.
While I will admit it’s sad that women couldn’t keep their dowry, own property, have minor careers, or escape a abusive marriage, I don’t think they were unhappy or abused, except in some cases.
Secondly, the author has some chapters that glorify the sexual scandal of slave owners having sex with and/or siring children by their slave women. She also sensationalizes the fact that some southerners(both men and women), had very flamboyant, open adulterous affairs and fornications, including Nancy Randolph Harris, the sister-in-law of Patsy Jefferson. Nancy had an affair with her brother in law which resulted in pregnancy, childbirth and infanticide.
Rating: 3.5 stars
Read: twice; July 2016 and August 2019
Recommend: for older teens

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

As Catherine Clinton states in this fascinating insight into plantation life, "the plantation mistress continues to be a prisoner of myth", as much bound and constrained by history as she was in life. Whilst the life of a plantation wife was and remains in no way comparable to slavery, as Clinton makes all too clear, white planter women in the Old South were in their own way restricted, hemmed in, constrained. Their life was very far from the Gone with the Wind stereotype of graceful belles and leisurely ladies, flirting and dancing and charming their way through life.

The Old South was very much an authoritarian, patriarchal society, built on old-fashioned notions of honour and propriety, and women were prisoner to this far more than men were. There were codes of conduct and behaviour governing what the plantation mistress said and did, what she wore, who she saw, where she went. A plantation mistress was bound to the land, forbidden to travel without a male chaperone, often isolated by distance from friends and family, relegated to the management responsibilities of running often large and complicated agricultural businesses with little or no training, with no rights or restitution under the law. The white woman was as much as the property of her husband, father or brother, as the slaves were. It was a gilded cage, to be sure, but a cage nonetheless.

[Leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

An informed, if slightly dry, look at the lives of privileged women in the Old South. Clinton's focus is on the wealthy wives of plantation owners, but it is of course inevitable that some details of slave life should come into the spotlight as well.

Although I liked this book a good deal, in the beginning I had some qualms. I thought the author's decision to label plantation mistresses 'slave of slaves' in chapter three was a little questionable. Though she does prove that mistresses were working women and not the lily-white lazies of legend, that makes them more comparable with modern working women. Certainly they suffered none of the deprivations of actual slavery, since their work as wives and mistresses afforded them protection, family, and physical comforts, to name a few.

Instances like that made me suspect that Clinton may be something of a southern sympathizer, but later in the book things seemed more balanced. For example, in Chapter 9, Clinton says that

"With no means to escape from their lonely plantation exile, southern women suffered from a lack of freedom that was, in a certain sense, analogous to that of slaves."

In what 'sense' white women's loneliness matched the reality of slavery, Clinton doesn't explain, and indeed she points out in the same chapter that plantation slaves were part of a community that the white woman was denied (albeit partially by her own choice -- southern mistresses were locked in a gilded cage of their own making, the bars being forged of their internalized racism and cruelty). And in the very next chapter Clinton seems to negate our sympathy for the plantation mistress, stating that,

...even after the Civil War, southern women continued to think that they were the victims of oppression, rather than the victimizers themselves."

So how sympathetic the author is to the plight of these women is hard to say. The earlier parts of the book focus mainly on the personal struggles of the plantation mistress, which gives the reader the feeling that Clinton is putting them back on the holy pedestal that southern women have occupied for the last 200 years. Yet the last several chapters undo all of that and acknowledge the struggles of others. No surprise, I enjoyed the last part most.

All in all, well worth reading.

(It's also worth noting that this book is relatively old, and the section in chapter 11 on the Thomas Jefferson/Sally Hemings controversy is out of date, so it's possible some of the author's other conclusions might be a bit behind the times as well).

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since the publication of The Plantation Mistress in 1982, scholars have turned their attention to the women of the Old South. While much of Clinton’s argument has been refined or debunked, the books central argument holds merit. Contrary to popular imagination, the plantation mistress did not lead a life of leisure. In many ways her life was circumscribed as a direct result of the patriarchal slave society. Clinton is at her best when she discusses the varying ways planter society created and enforced gender roles for white men and women. Unfortunately Clinton often attempts to liken the plight of the plantation mistress to that of the enslaved people of the south. Indeed, white women were dominated by white men but they were also complicit in upholding the slave system. Fortunately scholars like Thavolia Glymph have greatly contributed to the field by making clear that plantation mistresses were no less inclined to violence than planters.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a fascinating study about the prescriptive roles of women in the antebellum South. I purchased it as part of the research for a historical novel I'm writing, and it has proven invaluable already.

While this is a scholarly work, it is far from dry and pedantic. The author employs excerpts from correspondence (letter writing was practically de riguer during this time period) but also plantation records to provide a look at the challenges faced by plantation mistresses. Their lives were far from the indolent, party-filled circuit we are given to expect from films like Gone With the Wind.

If this subject matter is of interest to you, I highly recommend the book.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was interesting and well written, but denigrated by other scholars for "reading second-wave feminism back onto the early nineteenth century" and playing fast and loose with the historical evidence. "The Plantation Mistress" a great primer to the subject of Southern women and antebellum gender roles, but its best service is as an impetus for other historians to address the topic. tl;dr It's a good read for laypeople who know nothing about Southern history, but those who seek more in-depth study should look elsewhere.

[Kelsey · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was forced upon me in the wonderful world of college! It's a book full of historical facts on the women of the Plantation age, and it's dreadfully boring. The only good thing I can say about this book is that it broadened my knowledge of how bad women had it in that day and age... Which is the point I suppose. If you're the scholarly type then you will love this. I however, do not enjoy books like this.

[Mary Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eyeopener. The plantation mistress was Scarlett AFTER her hands got rough and Rhett was no longer impressed. It does seem like the mistress' daughters had it made UNTIL they got married. Then they were little more than slaves themselves.

[Vanessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was assigned for a class and it was really interesting. My copy is still bursting with post-it notes!

[Joanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Plantation Mistress" remains a classic. The mothers of Scarlett didn't have it easy. No wonder she learned to say, "I'll think about that tomorrow."

[Marla · Rating 4 out of 5]

I already like the writing style and have only just started.
Recommended by PhD student/park ranger in Fredericksburg.

[Marilyn Lagier · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had picked this book up at a thrift shop; it sounded interesting. It is non-fiction, copyrighted 1982. Using historical documents the author explored the life of women in the south during the ante-bellum period, extending from about 1780s to 1840s. It was really quite interesting to read of the lives of women who lived and "ran" the household on plantations--for the most part their lives were very solitary, lonely. They could not travel without chaperones so rarely got into the nearest town or city. Their friends were few and far between; books were coveted items. Their lives revolved around taking care of the household, the slaves, their children, their husbands. The author explored the family dynamics, sex lives, attitudes toward slavery, their siblings, friends. It was a completely male-dominated society and women had no other role other than to cater to the lives of their men. Interestingly, and it caused me to review the copyright date, the author stated there was no conclusive evidence that Thomas Jefferson slept with Sally Hemmings, a slave. However, in the time since the book's publication, it has been proven that Jefferson did, indeed, have children by Sally Hemmings.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Plantation Mistress is a work on, what else?, the ante-bellum South of the early- to mid-1800s. This book was recommended by the docent of a Charleston plantation; by reading this book one learns that, contrary to being Scarlett O'Hara, the overwhelming, vast majority of Southern women wished to be Scarlett. Make no mistake, there were wonderfully wealthy women in the Old South who sat on their porch drinking mint juleps and gossiping the afternoon away. Most women, however, were more likely to be found nursing a sick child or up to the elbows in pickling brine or checking the cellar stores or, or, or. Where a woman would not be found, however, is basically anywhere other than home: travel for women was greatly restricted, to the extent that many describe feeling trapped, especially when the husband was traveling and the children (if there were any) were away at school. In those cases, the plantation mistress, often far removed from her family and sometimes as young as 16 or 17, might be the only white woman for miles around, leaving her in state of utter isolation. The result of this isolation is a treasure trove of personal letters to husbands, mothers, sisters, and friends; this book is all the richer for the generous portions of these letters that pepper the pages.

[Sophia Crawford · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was highly informative and it set a precedent for the current historiography surrounding white aristocratic women of the Antebellum South and holds the title of placing them as key actors in the continuation and expansion of the institution of slavery. While it is highly informative, as someone studying the Civil War Era, I found the blanket characterizations of the 'North' as industrialized and the 'South' as laid back and strictly agricultural to be not 100% truthful. In fact, cities such as Mobile, Macon, Savannah, Charleston, Richmond, New Orleans, and others were very industrialized and produced much of what would come to supply the Confederate armies. The comparison to white elite women being kept on their plantations and away from the outside world (due to societal structures and gendered expectations) as being the same as the institution of slavery was not a good point of comparison either.

[Bookwormgyrl · Rating 5 out of 5]

BBQs, Bonnets, and Beaus were not the life of Southern Women in the Antebellum South. These women’s lives were set in the gender roles of their society. They were expected to do everything for the household wives, mothers, nurses (to family and slaves),clothes makers, children’s education, and morality of the entire family. Southern Antebellum women were a dichotomy of their times and I judge them not. 5.0 bookworms.

[Irina · Rating 5 out of 5]

We just recently returned from a trip to the South and some of the family names in "The Plantation Mistress" looked familiar - Grimke, Telfair. Visiting the old mansions in Charleston and Savannah where the women mentioned in this book had once lived was very special. What were their lives like? This is a very good and thorough study.

[Eugenia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting enough. I thought the last chapter to be just weird. The author talks about 70s movies and how they illustrate plantation stereotypes as they relate to sexual behavior.... who cares ? The middle of the book was far more interesting.

[Carrie]

This has been sitting as my currently reading for over 5 years. It was my emergency book that I kept in the car (that’s a thing, right?). I’m not sure where it’s gone off to... I can say I was enjoying it up until I abandoned and then misplaced it. These things happen.

[Robyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an eye opening book. Southern women have been portrayed by Hollywood of having an easy life. Not so according to this book.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slave plantations & the institution of the "Old South" family. Antebellum Southern Women generally "little freer than their slaves" - a contention supported through letter and diary entries.

[Mellanie C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eye-opening.

[Everett F. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good and interesting book, though her description of child abuse is admittedly a product of the early 1980s and reads strangely today.

[Terrence Spurlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great facts, true feelings, and details on white women in the south during slavery and what their role was in society.

[Katy Lovejoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

cool to see this side of history

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

I normally do not read a lot of fiction,unless it is based on an era of history I am interested in. I purchased this book after viewing an old plantation home in the south. I found it so far from the fiction, that books show, and movies describe, it was amazing. Gone was the world of Tara ,with the beautiful Scarlett, and her dances, and neighbors. the truth was much like seen ,after the war. Wives worked very hard, and had little enjoyment ,or even close neighbors. They held the full responsibility of those who worked the farm. She supplied the clothing, food,nursing,and helped her husband in all ways. It was far from glamorous. She also provided as many children as her husband requested. This caused many young to middle age ladies to die way to young. Fevers were rampant, for many plantations were in marshes. The loss of life, including children happened way to often. The relationship between the wife and her most trusted slaves were born of a friendship of necessity. This was not taken for granted. This book opened my eyes. I am sure there were very wealthy land owners as well,but these did not run their plantations,nor inhabit them for long periods of time. Then true plantation mistress was a farmer's wife on a grand scale of hard work, and a lonely life.

[Christie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I look forward to rereading Catherine Clinton's book, "The Plantation Mistress." It flows like a novel yet is so full of interesting facts that I know I do not remember everything that is important to help in understanding American women. women of the south during the antebellum era were trapped in a chauvinistic world yet contributed to our society in enduring ways. They were the unacknowledged managers of the southern agricultural economy. Raising families and managing plantations yet not being allowed to fully enjoy the fruits of their labors because they were raised to be little more then servants in a land of slavery. This is an era of women's history that should be studied so that young women of today will value the freedoms that our grandmothers worked for.

[Tanya · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book because the life of the southern women was told through letters that still exist from that time in history. I was especially intrigued by the ideas of slavery often being different from their plantation owning husbands. I also was very touched by their real fear of childbirth in those days and how they had very little support system and lived rather lonely, hard working, difficult lives. Didn't sound much like the "Gone With the Wind" southern belles we always hear about!!