| A Literate South: Reading Before Emancipation Contributor(s): Schweiger, Beth Barton (Author) |
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ISBN: 030011253X ISBN-13: 9780300112535 Publisher: Yale University Press OUR PRICE: $38.61 Product Type: Hardcover Published: June 2019 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | Books & Reading - History | United States - 19th Century - History | United States - State & Local - South (al,ar,fl,ga,ky,la,ms,nc,sc,tn,va,wv) |
| Dewey: 302.224 |
| LCCN: 2018961530 |
| Physical Information: 1.1" H x 6.1" W x 9.3" (1.25 lbs) 288 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 19th Century - Cultural Region - South |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: A provocative examination of literacy in the American South before emancipation, countering the long-standing stereotype of the South's oral tradition Schweiger complicates our understanding of literacy in the American South in the decades just prior to the Civil War by showing that rural people had access to a remarkable variety of things to read. Drawing on the writings of four young women who lived in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Schweiger shows how free and enslaved people learned to read, and that they wrote and spoke poems, songs, stories, and religious doctrines that were circulated by speech and in print. The assumption that slavery and reading are incompatible--which has its origins in the eighteenth century--has obscured the rich literate tradition at the heart of Southern and American culture. |