Doctoral Dissertations

Victoria Ott

Date of Award

5-2003

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

History

Major Professor

Stephen V. Ash

Abstract

This dissertation explores the lives of young females of the slaveholding South who grew into womanhood during the Civil War. At an early age they understood their privileged place in the southern social order and their family's reliance on·slave labor. As their parents and other adults debated secession, these young women came to realize the severity of the sectional conflict and its implications for southern society. They played a significant but heretofore unexplored part in the homefront experience during the war. Because of their age and roles as elite daughters in the family, they reacted differently than their mothers and older female kin to the absence of white men and loss of slaves. Their community activities and new :functions in the home were different from those of their mothers, who assumed roles as plantation managers, nurses, and heads of households. By analyzing changes in their education, courtship, family, race relations, and community activities, this study will show how the war shaped a generation of southern females as they were coming of age and how it produced a unique self-image. This selfimage influenced their approach to marriage and motherhood as well as their civic and economic endeavors as they reached adulthood in the postwar period. Forced to grow up in a time of great economic, political, and social change, this generation of young women shared an experience that shaped their identity as they reached adulthood in the postwar era. Their diaries, family papers, and memoirs from the war and postwar period reveal that all young women felt the impact of war in their daily lives. The Civil War transformed their roles within the home and the larger community as well as their relationships with fathers, brothers, and suitors. The end of slavery also had a special meaning to young women as they watched their family "black and white" disintegrate. As they grew into adults in the postwar period, young women carried their experiences with them and forged a distinct identity.

Download
Files over 3MB may be slow to open. For best results, right-click and select "save as..."

Share

COinS