Cooking in other women's kitchens : domestic workers in the South, 1865-1960 / Rebecca Sharpless.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sharpless, Rebecca.

Series:

John Hope Franklin series in African American history and culture.

The John Hope Franklin series in African American history and culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

African American women household employees--Southern States--History.

African American women household employees.

Women cooks--Southern States--Social conditions.

Women cooks.

African American women--Southern States--Social conditions.

African American women.

Southern States--Race relations--History.

Southern States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (304 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, c2010.

Summary:

As African American women left slavery and the plantation economy behind, many entered domestic service in southern cities and towns. Cooking was one of the primary jobs they performed in white employers' homes, feeding generations of white families and, in the process, profoundly shaping southern foodways and culture. Rebecca Sharpless argues that, in the face of discrimination, long workdays, and low wages, African American cooks worked to assert measures of control over their own lives and to maintain spaces for their own families despite the demands of employers and the restriction

Contents:

Contents; PREFACE; INTRODUCTION; 1 I Done Decided I'd Get Me a Cook Job: Becoming a Cook; 2 From Collards to Puff Pastry: The Food; 3 Long Hours and Little Pay: Compensation and Workers' Resistance; 4 Creating a Homeplace: Shelter, Food, Clothing, and a Little Fun; 5 Mama Leaps off the Pancake Box: Cooks and Their Families; 6 Gendering Jim Crow: Relationships with Employers; 7 If I Ever Catch You in a White Woman's Kitchen, I'll Kill You: Expanding Opportunities and the Decline of Domestic Work; Acknowledgments; Appendix: Cook's Wages, 1901-1960; Notes; Bibliography; Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781469611020

1469611023

9780807899496

0807899496

OCLC:

676697396