Louisa May Alcott On Race, Sex, And Slavery [Paperback]

Louisa May Alcott (Author), Sarah Elbert (Editor, Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 17, 1997

Louisa May Alcott championed women's causes in gothic tales of interracial romance and in newspaper articles published during the Civil War. Drawn from her service as a nurse in a Union hospital as well as from her radical abolitionist activities, these writings allow Alcott to comment boldly on unstable racial identities, interracial sex and marriage, armed slave rebellion, war, and the links between the bondage of slaves and the conditions of white womanhood. A comprehensive introduction situates Alcott and her family within the network of antebellum reformers and unmasks her personal and literary struggles with the boundaries of race, sex, and class.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Alcott (1832-88) came from a family of ardent social reformers that was part of a larger circle that included Emerson, Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller. In her excellent introduction, which comprises nearly one-third of this thin volume, Elbert (history and women's studies, SUNY at Binghamton) describes the inspirational but often threadbare childhood of Louisa, one of four daughters of Bronson and Abigail Alcott, as well as her emerging reformist sensibilities and her work as an abolitionist and Union nurse. Alcott's abolitionist writings, gathered here for the first time, comprise five pieces, the most powerful being a tale entitled "My Contraband," about two brothers, one a slave, the other his master. While not on a par with Alcott's major novels, this is a noteworthy?if at times overly didactic?collection by an author who was clearly ahead of her time. Highly recommended.?Diane Gardner Premo, SILS, SUNY at Buffalo
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Highly recommended." --Choice

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Northeastern (April 17, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555533078
• ISBN-13: 978-1555533076
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,534,133 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Louisa May Alcott was both an abolitionist and a feminist. She is best known for Little Women (1868), a semi-autobiographical account of her childhood years with her sisters in Concord, Massachusetts. Alcott, unlike Jo, never married: "... because I have fallen in love with so many pretty girls and never once the least bit with any man." She was an advocate of women's suffrage and was the first woman to register to vote in Concord, Massachusetts.