Spanning the decades of the 60's, 70's and 80's, the true story of SISTER SOUTHERN BELLE portrays the heartfelt devotion, unwavering loyalty and dogged determination of four Southern Women of God as they set out to provide care, education and inspiration to the unwed mothers of the South Carolina Lowcountry.After the convent ceases funding, 'Quit or Serve' becomes their merry mantra, as our 4 dutifully devoted Women of God, with Him forever as their Copilot, refuse to quit and instead spiritually and spiritedly strive to serve via dedication, hard work, perseverance and persistence.As Sister Southern Belle skips merrily across the page, its most poignantly touching and poetically humorous story will leave you feeling joyously connected to Godly feelings of the heart.
Women of Discriminating Taste examines the role of historically white sororities in the shaping of white womanhood in the twentieth century. As national women’s organizations, sororities have long held power on college campuses and in American life. Yet the groups also have always been conservative in nature and inherently discriminatory, selecting new members on the basis of social class, religion, race, or physical attractiveness. In the early twentieth century, sororities filled a niche on campuses as they purported to prepare college women for “ladyhood.” Sorority training led members to comport themselves as hyperfeminine, heterosocially inclined, traditionally minded women following a model largely premised on the mythical image of the southern lady. Although many sororities were founded at non-southern schools and also maintained membership strongholds in many non-southern states, the groups adhered to a decidedly southern aesthetic—a modernized version of Lost Cause ideology—in their social training to deploy a conservative agenda. Margaret L. Freeman researched sorority archives, sorority-related materials in student organizations, as well as dean of women’s, student affairs, and president’s office records collections for historical data that show how white southerners repeatedly called upon the image of the southern lady to support southern racial hierarchies. Her research also demonstrates how this image could be easily exported for similar uses in other areas of the United States that shared white southerners’ concerns over changing social demographics and racial discord. By revealing national sororities as significant players in the grassroots conservative movement of the twentieth century, Freeman illuminates the history of contemporary sororities’ difficult campus relationships and their continuing legacy of discriminatory behavior and conservative rhetoric.
Maxine had been called a lot of things in her lifetime, but never a Southern Belle! The title simply did not fit with her lifestyle or the history of her people in America. As she sat in a hotel bar in Hong Kong, China surrounded by colleagues from around the world, Maxine was surprised to hear herself described in such a way. She didnt know whether to be insulted that the history of her people was so poorly known that a black woman from the south was referred to as a Belle, or to be amused. She chose to be amused. Maxine sipped her Chardonnay. The wine relaxed her frontal lobe and she laughed out loud. She couldnt help thinking, I am my mothers daughter and she aint no Southern Belle. Back in the states, Maxine settled into the routine of work, family and friends with a new perspective. The China experience had been wonderfully positive and enlightening in ways that gave fresh eyes, ears and meaning to her life. "Southern Belle" details Maxine's quest for meaning in the concept of a 21st Century black southern belle. What she learned would strengthen her faith and bring her closer to the women whose lives had shaped her past, and helped to define who she was today.
Scarlett's Sisters explores the meaning of nineteenth-century southern womanhood from the vantage point of the celebrated fictional character's flesh-and-blood counterparts: young, elite, white women. Anya Jabour demonstrates that southern girls and young women faced a major turning point when the Civil War forced them to assume new roles and responsibilities as independent women. Examining the lives of more than 300 girls and women between ages fifteen and twenty-five, Jabour traces the socialization of southern white ladies from early adolescence through young adulthood. Amidst the upheaval of the Civil War, Jabour shows, elite young women, once reluctant to challenge white supremacy and male dominance, became more rebellious. They adopted the ideology of Confederate independence in shaping a new model of southern womanhood that eschewed dependence on slave labor and male guidance. By tracing the lives of young white women in a society in flux, Jabour reveals how the South's old social order was maintained and a new one created as southern girls and young women learned, questioned, and ultimately changed what it meant to be a southern lady.
A shocking family scandal has flipped heiress Lily Kincaid's world upside down. But she has her own secret to keep. How can she avoid telling the truth to the father of her unborn baby—sexy, larger-than-life CEO Daniel Addison? Especially when being near Daniel is unavoidable, his touch irresistible… And even if his powerful, old-money family is running interference at every turn. Daniel knows all about boardrooms and bedrooms—but not babies. Still, the wealthy businessman is ready to claim what's his. That includes Lily. The problem is convincing her that his feelings run deeper than just a Southern seduction.
This book rocks! Southern Belle Rocks is a must read by women everywhere. It reflects everything a woman wants to say, but feels the world doesn’t want to know. It opens up emotions and heals wounds. This is a riveting work of ninety percent truth that’s written into a biography, with just a twist to protect the names of the innocent. It is a true story of the life of a Southern Belle who was born in New York City, and moved to North Carolina as a twenty-two- year-old adult. This is a wonderful book about ups and downs, revealing the secrets to true happiness, as well as the pain suffered trying to get there. The versatility of Ashanti Belle shows that she was an urbanite, a socialite, and a country girl to boot. She was a woman who had her life shattered and then put back together in a way that all women must read to see how it is done. This book is for women, no matter the race, creed, ethnicity, age, or educational level. It represents liberation and a celebration of what we often truly feel. Southern Belle Rocks will make you laugh and cry, and will show many women the route to empowering themselves, so they can become whatever they want in spite of the obstacles in their way.
From the end of Reconstruction and into the New South era, more than one thousand white southern women attended one of the Seven Sister colleges: Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, Mount Holyoke, Bryn Mawr, Radcliffe, and Barnard. Joan Marie Johnson looks at how such educations—in the North, at some of the country’s best schools—influenced southern women to challenge their traditional gender roles and become active in woman suffrage and other social reforms of the Progressive Era South. Attending one of the Seven Sister colleges, Johnson argues, could transform a southern woman indoctrinated in notions of domesticity and dependence into someone with newfound confidence and leadership skills. Many southern students at northern schools imported the values they imbibed at college, returning home to found schools of their own, women’s clubs, and woman suffrage associations. At the same time, during college and after graduation, southern women maintained a complicated relationship to home, nurturing their regional identity and remaining loyal to the ideals of the Confederacy. Johnson explores why students sought a classical liberal arts education, how they prepared for entrance examinations, and how they felt as southerners on northern campuses. She draws on personal writings, information gleaned from college publications and records, and data on the women’s decisions about marriage, work, children, and other life-altering concerns. In their time, the women studied in this book would eventually make up a disproportionately high percentage of the elite southern female leadership. This collective biography highlights the important part they played in forging new roles for women, especially in social reform, education, and suffrage.
We Smoked Our Sister: Stories from a childhood carries the reader back to the wonderful days of the 1960’s; a time of excitement in the growth of America. The life of a rural family in Chunchula, Alabama, a suburb of Mobile County is portrayed between these pages. Though it was a time of financial hardships, the family was held together by a loving mother and father, who worked hard and raised their children to be disciplined/focused, productive, motivated, and successful as werll as creating a love for learning and the importance of family and heritage taught through stories passed down from family ancestry, as well as stories created by the Seymour children who lived these stories. Family life was like a work of art. Also, this book looks at a part of family life and the methods used to discipline children in the south. A picture of a rich life comes through to the reader, which could describe the simple everyday lives of any family in the south. The south has such rich undiscovered family history. The reader will not be able to put it down; it totally involves you in the life of the Seymour family and the siblings with their wonderfully hilarious antics. The reader will be able to picture a time in America when life was totally different. We long for those days again, where there was peace, harmony and caring among the citizens. So take a journey though the sixties and relive the days that are so precious to many southern families. This book contains stories that are timeless in beauty and wonderfully intriguing.
