Cooking in Other Women's Kitchens: Domestic Workers in the South,1865-1960

As African American women left the plantation economy behind, many entered domestic service in southern cities and towns. Cooking was one of the primary jobs they performed, feeding generations of white families and, in the process, profoundly shaping southern foodways and culture. Rebecca Sharpless argues that, in the face of discrimination, long workdays, and low wages, African American cooks worked to assert measures of control over their own lives. As employment opportunities expanded in the twentieth century, most African American women chose to leave cooking for more lucrative and less oppressive manufacturing, clerical, or professional positions. Through letters, autobiography, and oral history, Sharpless evokes African American women's voices from slavery to the open economy, examining their lives at work and at home.

Author: Rebecca Sharpless
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Published: 02/01/2013
Pages: 304
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.00w x 0.90d
ISBN13: 9781469606866
ISBN10: 1469606860
BISAC Categories:
- History | United States | State & Local | South (AL,AR,FL,GA,KY,LA,MS,
- History | United States | 19th Century
- History | United States | 20th Century