The book convinces because of its rigorous scholarship [and] permanently revises the accepted history of the Jim Crow period."Kirkus Reviews"
ÝA¨n eloquent book about the 'best' that we can hold up against political vampires in our own time.
"Nation"
Gilmore's finely crafted, engrossing book puts women at the center of its inquiry.
"Washington Post Book World"
This is an accessible, informative addition to an increasingly important area of study.
"Publishers Weekly"
"Gilmore's finely crafted, engrossing book puts women at the center of its inquiry.
"Washington Post Book World""
"This is an accessible, informative addition to an increasingly important area of study.
"Publishers Weekly""
[A]n eloquent book about the 'best' that we can hold up against political vampires in our own time.
"Nation"
An exquisitely written and conceived book about turn-of-the-century North Carolina.
"New Republic"
Review
A powerful and eloquent book, one that will alter our understanding of a pivotal era in the history of the American South.--Edward L. Ayers, University of Virginia
Glenda Gilmore's stunning new book, Gender and Jim Crow, . . . turn[s] history on its head . . . with African-American women at the center. . . . Grasping the story requires a fundamental redefinition of politics and political action. . . . Women's history just doesn't look the same after reading Gilmore's work. Nor does political history. . . . Gender and Jim Crow is an eloquent book about the 'best' that we can hold up against political vampires in our own time.--Nation
A sophisticated analysis of race relations in the New South that places gender at the center stage and handles class with a deft touch. . . . Elegantly written, carefully argued, and well researched, this book is a model for future work in the field.--North Carolina Historical Review
An exquisitely written and conceived book. . . . One mark of a good historian is the capacity to surprise, and Gilmore confounds our expectations from the outset by casting Jim Crow not as the logical culmination of the benighted situation of black people in the post-Reconstruction era--the popular view of the subject--but as a catastrophic occurrence in a potent field of democratic progress in the late 1880s and early 1890s.--Christine Stansell, New Republic
Gender and Jim Crow demands that attention be paid to the pivotal role of middle-class African American women in the making of southern politics.--Elsa Barkley Brown, University of Michigan
Gilmore's varied examples provide a powerful portrait of the depth and scope of black political activity during this difficult period, as well as the relentlessness of the white supremacy movement, and offer further insight into the origins of the modern civil rights movement. . . . Gilmore presents her research with clarity and vigor. . . . The book convinces because of its rigorous scholarship [and] permanently revises the accepted history of the Jim Crow period.--Kirkus Reviews
Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore sets out in this book to reinterpret turn-of-the-century southern politics from the perspective of middle-class black women activists. She succeeds brilliantly. The book not only reclaims the long-buried stories of a group of richly compelling characters; it also redefines what should count as 'politics' in southern history and suggests a research agenda that could engage a generation of students.--American Historical Review
Glenda Gilmore's Gender and Jim Crow is one of the most intellectually exciting books I have read in some time; its contributions to scholarship are numerous and profound. She both makes vivid and compelling the lived experience of an important, largely elite and female, segment of the black world and provides new insights into the interactions between electoral and non-electoral politics, between politics and culture, between men's and women's lifeworlds--in short a veritable redefinition of 'the political.' This is a compelling rereading of southern history in the late nineteenth century.--Thomas C. Holt, University of Chicago
Gilmore's book is not only carefully researched and executed but also gracefully written. It should be required reading for anyone interested in southern history, political history, or studies of race and gender.--Journal of Southwest Georgia History
[Gilmore] uses gender, race, and class to bring to the foreground a variety of dimensions of political participation that are virtually invisible in traditional renderings, and she presents a view of Southern history that is remarkable. . . . [Gender and Jim Crow] brings new meaning and insight to a long-standing account of politics. It sets a different pace from a regional perspective--and, by extension--from a national perspective as well, of who we are now and, indeed, who we were then.--The Historian
In this stunning reclamation of some largely bypassed aspects of Southern history, Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore casts a vivid light on the nexus of race, gender and power in North Carolina from the late 19th century through the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment (which gave women the vote) in 1920. Gilmore's finely crafted, engrossing book puts women at the center of its inquiry.--Washington Post Book World
An exquisitely written and conceived book about turn-of-the-century North Carolina.--New Republic
A wonderful analysis of the roles of race, class, and gender in Southern politics prior to the 1900s, but also includes African American disenfranchisement and the woman suffrage movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. . . . Gilmore skillfully infuses the important roles both African-American and white women played.--Journal of Women's History
This is an accessible, informative addition to an increasingly important area of study.--Publishers Weekly
Gender and Jim Crow is nothing short of a masterpiece of Southern history. Rarely has political history been hewn so artfully from the timbers of ordinary lives. . . . Every Tar Heel should be proud that one of our own daughters wrote this eloquent and important book.--Raleigh News & Observer
From the Inside Flap
Gilmore sets out . . . to reinterpret turn-of-the-century southern politics from the perspective of middle-class black women activists. She succeeds brilliantly. The book not only reclaims the long-buried stories of a group of richly compelling characters; it also redefines what should count as 'politics' in southern history.American Historical Review
From the Back Cover
Exploring the pivotal and interconnected roles played by gender and race in North Carolina politics from the period immediately preceding the disfranchisement of black men in 1900 to the time black and white women gained the vote in 1920, Glenda Gilmore chronicles black women's political strategies, their feminism, and their efforts to forge political ties with white women.
About the Author
Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore, a seventh-generation North Carolinian, is Peter V. and C. Vann Woodward Professor of History at Yale University.
