What a Woman Ought to Be and to Do: Black Professional Women Workers during the Jim Crow Era

Women in Culture and Society

by Stephanie J. Shaw

Stephanie J. Shaw takes us into the inner world of American black professional women during the Jim Crow era. This is a story of struggle and empowerment, of the strength of a group of women who worked against daunting odds to improve the world for themselves and their people. Shaw's remarkable research into the lives of social workers, librarians, nurses, and teachers from the 1870s through the 1950s allows us to hear these women's voices for the first time. The women tell us, in their own words, about their families, their values, their expectations. We learn of the forces and factors that made them exceptional, and of the choices and commitments that made them leaders in their communities.

What a Woman Ought to Be and to Do brings to life a world in which African-American families, communities, and schools worked to encourage the self-confidence, individual initiative, and social responsibility of girls. Shaw shows us how, in a society that denied black women full professional status, these girls embraced and in turn defined an ideal of "socially responsible individualism" that balanced private and public sphere responsibilities. A collective portrait of character shaped in the toughest circumstances, this book is more than a study of the socialization of these women as children and the organization of their work as adults. It is also a study of leadership—of how African American communities gave their daughters the power to succeed in and change a hostile world.

Genres: History, Feminism

364 pages, Paperback

First published May 15, 1996

Reviews

[Amy Cummings · Rating 4 out of 5]

Something I read recently brought this book, which I read as part of my African-American Urban History class in college, to mind. The fact that it is non-fiction and STILL comes to my mind after all these years is evidence of how the book affected me at the time. I still have a hard time imagining how difficult the lives of these ladies must have been. The stories in the book are both inspiring and pitiful, heartbreaking and heartwarming, despairing and hopeful.

Of all my college courses, this one probably had the most impact on how I view the world. The reading list included The Invisible Man, Down on the Killing Floor, essays by W.E.B. DuBois, notes and observations Thomas Jefferson made of his slaves. The one that stood out to me was along the lines of " They must enjoy hard labor in the sun, for their skin never burns and they never complain, in fact, they seem built for that express purpose". Interesting class, to say the least, the class discussions were fabulous.

I didn't grow up in an urban area or around many minorities, so the entire subject was rather foreign to me. I hope it will give me insight and sensitivity as I raise my biracial son.