No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

The matter of formal education for women in the antebellum South raises many questions, especially for the frontier state of Texas. Were there schools for young women in antebellum Texas? If so, did these schools emphasize academic or ornamental subjects? Did only women from wealthy families attend? This study answered these questions by examining educational opportunities in five antebellum Texas counties. Utilizing newspapers, probate records, tax records, and the federal census, it identified schools for girls in all of the counties and found that those schools offered academic as well as ornamental subjects. Almost all of the girls who attended those schools came from privileged families. Schools were available for young women in antebellum Texas, but generally only those from wealthy families were able to attend.

Visitors to Antebellum New Orleans rarely failed to comment on the highly visible population of free persons of color, particularly the women. Light, but not white, the women who collectively became known as Quadroons enjoyed a degree of affluence and liberty largely unknown outside of Southeastern Louisiana. The Quadroons of New Orleans, however, suffered from neglect and misrepresentation in nineteenth and twentieth-century accounts. Historians of slavery and southern black women, for example, have written at length on the sexual experiences of black women and white men. Most of the research, however, centers on the institutionalized rape, victimization, and exploitation of black women at the hands of white males. Even late into the twentieth century, scholars largely failed to distinguish the experiences of free women of color from those of enslaved women with little nuance in regard to economic, educational, and cultural differences. All women of color -- whether free or enslaved -- continued to be viewed through the lens of slavery. Studies that examine free women of color were rare and those focusing exclusively on them alone were virtually nonexistent. As a result, the actual experiences of free women of color in the Gulf States passed unnoticed for generations. In the event that the Quadroons of New Orleans were mentioned at all, it was normally within the context of the mythologized balls or in scandalous tales where they played the role of mistress to white men, subsequently resulting in a one dimensional character that lived expressly for the enjoyment of white males. Due to the relative silence of their own voices, approaching the topic of New Orleans’ Quadroons at length is difficult at best. But by placing these women within a wider pan-Atlantic framework and using extant legal records, the various African, Caribbean, French, and Spanish cultural threads emerge that contributed to the colorful cultural tapestry of Antebellum New Orleans. These influences enabled such practices as placage and by extension, the development of an intellectual, wealthy, vibrant Creole community of color headed by women.

Not available / text

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This thesis is a study of how people in the nine counties of central Indiana learned, appreciated, and performed music from 1800 to 1840. A concluding proposal for a public history application of this research is included.

No description available.