Colored amazons : crime, violence, and Black women in the City of Brotherly Love, 1880-1910 Kali N. Gross

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gross, Kali N., 1972-

Series:

Politics, history, and culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

African American criminals--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--History.

African American criminals.

Female offenders--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--History.

Female offenders.

Crime and race--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--History.

Crime and race.

Discrimination in criminal justice administration--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--History.

Discrimination in criminal justice administration.

African American women--Public opinion--History.

African American women.

African American women--Social conditions.

Physical Description:

xii, 260 p. : ill., map, ports. ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Durham [N.C.] : Duke University Press, 2006.

Summary:

"Colored Amazons is a groundbreaking historical analysis of the crimes, prosecution, and incarceration of black women in Philadelphia at the turn of the twentieth century. Kali N. Gross reconstructs black women's crimes and their representations in popular press accounts and within the discourses of urban and penal reform. Most importantly, she considers what these crimes signified about the experiences, ambitions, and frustrations of the marginalized women who committed them. Gross argues that the perpetrators and the state jointly constructed black female crime. For some women, crime functioned as a means to attain personal and social autonomy.

For the state, black female crime and its representations effectively galvanized and justified a host of urban reform initiatives that reaffirmed white, middle-class authority."--BOOK JACKET.

Contents:

Notes from the author : crime and Black women's history

Of law and virtue : Black women in slavery, freedom, and early criminal justice

Service savors of slavery : labor, autonomy, and turn-of-the-century urban crime

Tricking the tricks : violence and vice among Black female criminals

Roughneck women, pale representations, and dark crimes : Black female criminals and popular culture

Deviant by design : race, degeneracy, and the science of penology

Conclusion: "She was born in this prison" : Black female crime, past and present.

Notes:

"A John Hope Franklin Center book"--P. [i].

Includes bibliographical references (p. [231]-249) and index.

Local Notes:

The Balch Ethnic Studies Collection.

Other Format:

Online version: Gross, Kali N., 1972- Colored amazons.

ISBN:

0822337614 (cloth : alk. paper)

9780822337614 (cloth : alk. paper)

0822337991 (pbk. : alk. paper)

9780822337997 (pbk. : alk. paper)

OCLC:

63171033