Claiming Union Widowhood: Race, Respectability, and Poverty in the Post-Emancipation South

In Claiming Union Widowhood, Brandi Clay Brimmer analyzes the US pension system from the perspective of poor black women during and after the Civil War. Reconstructing the grassroots pension network in New Bern, North Carolina, through a broad range of historical sources, she outlines how the mothers, wives, and widows of black Union soldiers struggled to claim pensions in the face of evidentiary obstacles and personal scrutiny. Brimmer exposes and examines the numerous attempts by the federal government to exclude black women from receiving the federal pensions that they had been promised. Her analyses illustrate the complexities of social policy and law administration and the interconnectedness of race, gender, and class formation. Expanding on previous analyses of pension records, Brimmer offers an interpretive framework of emancipation and the freedom narrative that places black women at the forefront of demands for black citizenship.

Author: Brandi Clay Brimmer
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 12/18/2020
Pages: 320
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.67d
ISBN13: 9781478011323
ISBN10: 1478011327
BISAC Categories:
- History | United States | Civil War Period (1850-1877)
- Social Science | Ethnic Studies | American | African American & Black Studies
- Social Science | Gender Studies

About the Author
Brandi Clay Brimmer is Associate Professor of History at Spelman College.