Work, Family, and Faith: Rural Southern Women in the Twentieth Century

by Melissa Walker (Editor)

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the majority of rural southerners were dependent on agriculture and eked out a living as tenants on land owned by someone else. Women took on multiple duties, from child rearing to labor in the fields, to help meet their own goals of independence, well-being, and family persistence on the land. Over the course of the century, however, women found their lives and their work transformed. Government intervention, the Great Depression, and industrial job opportunities created by the two world wars and the development of Sun Belt industries lured or pushed tens of thousands of black and white rural southerners off the land.

As the American South changed around them, becoming more urban and industrialized, some women struggled to help their families survive in the increasingly large-scale and commercial agricultural economy, while other women eagerly seized opportunities to engage in rural reform, get better educations, and work at off-farm jobs. Whether they moved to the cities or stayed on the farms, most of these women continued to struggle against poverty and relied on tradition and inner strength to get by.

This well-researched, sharply focused, and keenly insightful collection of essays takes readers across the twentieth-century South, from rural roadside stands to tobacco fields to Sloss-Sheffield Steel’s “Sloss Quarters” in Birmingham. Covering the full scope of southern rural women’s varied lives, this book will be of particular value to anyone interested in sociology, women’s studies, or southern history.

Genres: History

312 pages, Hardcover

First published February 7, 2006

Reviews

[Sara Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

My great-aunt Cecil Brown (aka "Shepherdess of the Hills") is one of the incredible women featured in this book. She died before I was born, but the stories about her life are a particularly colorful part of our family lore.

She brought the Salvation Army to the Great Smoky Mountains of Western North Carolina in 1935, back when the Appalachian hollers were very isolated and inaccessible. She was raised there (as was I), had a strong personality (an understatement), and wanted to elevate her people spiritually and culturally while still respecting & preserving their 'Appalachian-ness.' Her ministry was accepted and lauded by her fellow mountaineers in a time when female preachers were generally not accepted. There are people today living in Haywood County, NC who testify about the impact she had on their lives.

Earlier, missionaries had tried to evangelize in the area, but failed in part because there were no roads. My aunt rode horseback through the mountains by herself w/ a pistol, through places that even brave men wouldn't go. She conducted funerals & marriages, and was a 'one-stop-shop' kind of pastor to her people. She rescued abused children (before DFCS), and even started a children’s shelter and school. She never married—although she once loved a man who died tragically young, I’m told—and instead, she devoted her life to her mission. She died from illness when she was 52.

My father was especially close to her, and he was able to validate the information recorded in this book. The section on her was well-researched and superbly done. I found it very edifying, and I think I would’ve been inspired even if she were not my relative. I plan to read the other accounts of Southern rural women as well, but I certainly recommend the section on my great-aunt, Cecil Brown, entitled, "Shepherdess of the Hills: The Salvation Army Mountain Ministry of Cecil Brown."