The Real and the Ideal: Margaret Junkin Preston and Woman's Increasing Role in the Culture of the South, 1820--1897
Klein, Stacey Jean
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/84760
Description
Title
The Real and the Ideal: Margaret Junkin Preston and Woman's Increasing Role in the Culture of the South, 1820--1897
Author(s)
Klein, Stacey Jean
Issue Date
2000
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Johannsen, Robert W.
Department of Study
History
Discipline
History
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Women's Studies
Language
eng
Abstract
"This study uses the life of Margaret Junkin Preston to examine changes in woman's place in the South during the nineteenth century. In particular, it analyzes women's increasing participation in the cultural life of the South. It concludes that Confederate nationalism provided southern women with the opportunity to expand their place during the Civil War, and that these women maintained their new boundaries after defeat. Preston, who spent the first twenty-eight years of her life in the North, became the sister-in-law of ""Stonewall"" Jackson and the good friend of Paul Hamilton Hayne. Most importantly, she developed into one of the best-known southern writers of the nineteenth century. She did so by redefining both the concept of womanhood and the purpose of her writing. Preston concluded that women could be accepted as publishing authors in the South only if they continued to perform their traditional household duties, and if their writing served the public. This combination of the ""real"" and the ""ideal"" was both liberating and oppressive, but it nevertheless represented an expansion of southern woman's place."
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