Staging migrations toward an American West : from Ida B. Wells to Rhodessa Jones / Marta Effinger-Crichlow.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Effinger-Crichlow, Marta, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

African American women--West (U.S.)--Social conditions.

African American women.

African Americans--Migrations.

African Americans.

African American women entertainers.

Migration, Internal--United States--History--19th century.

Migration, Internal.

African American women--West (U.S.)--History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (291 p.)

Place of Publication:

Boulder, Colorado : University Press of Colorado, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Staging Migrations toward an American West examines how black women's theatrical and everyday performances of migration toward the American West expose the complexities of their struggles for sociopolitical emancipation. While migration is often viewed as merely a physical process, Effinger-Crichlow expands the concept to include a series of symbolic internal journeys within confined and unconfined spaces. Four case studies consider how the featured women-activist Ida B. Wells, singer Sissieretta "Black Patti" Jones, World War II black female defense-industry workers, and performance artist Rhodessa Jones-imagined and experienced the American West geographically and symbolically at different historical moments. Dissecting the varied ways they used migration to survive in the world from the viewpoint of theater and performance theory, Effinger-Crichlow reconceptualizes the migration histories of black women in nineteenth- and twentieth-century America. This interdisciplinary study expands the understanding of the African American struggle for unconstrained movement and full citizenship in the United States and will interest students and scholars of American and African American history, women and gender studies, theater, and performance theory.

Contents:

"Tell my people to go West": Ida B. Wells

"I'd go [wherever] they said 'show' ": Black Patti's Troubadours

"Wherever the opportunity was goin' to be I'd a been gone": black female migrants in World War II's defense industry

"I want to go home": Rhodessa Jones's Medea project: theatre for incarcerated women

Epilogue: Rhodessa Jones's Medea.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781492012634

1492012637

9781607323129

1607323125

OCLC:

891081840