The Predicament of Traditional Femininity: A Gender Material Culture Analysis of Civil War Blockade Runners

ECU Author/Contributor (non-ECU co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)

Emily Anne Schwalbe (Creator)

Institution

East Carolina University (ECU )

Web Site: http://www.ecu.edu/lib/

Abstract: This thesis will seek to examine the tension between nineteenth-century Southern gender expectations of upper-class femininity contrasted with the necessities of wartime and determine if this tension is evident in the material record by analyzing the cargo of Confederate blockade runners entering the affluent ports of Wilmington and Charleston. By examining the cargo from blockade runners, as well as analyzing historical records, research will lead to conclusions about what women wanted to buy during the Civil War. It will compare these demands with the new notions of simplicity and sacrifice that theoretically defined the Confederacy, in order to better understand gender expectations during this period.

Additional Information

Publication

Thesis

Language: English

Date: 2016

Keywords

Gender Archaeology, Blockade Runners

Subjects

Material culture--Southern States--History; United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Women; Social status--Southern States--History; Sex role--Southern States--History

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