The Plantation Mistress: Woman's World in the Old South

by Catherine Clinton

Book Overview

This pioneering study of the much-mythologized Southern belle offers the first serious look at the lives of white women and their harsh and restricted place in the slave society before the Civil War. Drawing on the diaries, letters, and memoirs of hundreds of planter wives and daughters, Clinton sets before us in vivid detail the daily life of the plantation mistress and her ambiguous intermediary position in the hierarchy between slave and master...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394722531
• ISBN13: 9780394722535
• Release Date: February 1984
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

The Revealed Myth of the Plantation Mistress

This book is a resaerch report... and is written in that format! There are many interesting details in it.. that are all well documented. This is a book club selection for our book club as we are having a luncheon at an old plantation this week. I did not realize it was a research report until I had the book and began reading it... I greatly enjoyed learning a lot, but I probably would not have kept reading it except for the book club commitment because of the format and it is really outside my research areas of interest. This book was written by a good researcher who does not live in the south. As a result she seems to have developed an objective view. She has used many resources and all are cited to develop the ideas. This is an important research paper about history where there are many myths... and very little has been written about the real life of women at that time. Usually books show the glorified life of a Plantation Mistress. People always think of the lady of a large plantation as having a life of leisure and supportive care - which is not true. A Plantation Mistress actually lived a hard life with many responsibilities, usually arriving in this management situation without any training or experience. This is not a leisurely read... but a revelation of a Plantation Mistress' life. I am glad I did read this book in retrospect..particularly as a southern woman living in the south, it has increased my undestanding of what has gone before.

An honest description of the role of plantation mistresses

I think the negative reviewers who discredit the book for being biased are, in fact, displaying their own prejudices. I have searched through the available literature on this subject, which is incredibly sparse, and this is the first book I have found that even attempted to portray these women's lives with any detail or realism. The author researched this topic as thoroughly as possible and obviously strives to present a balanced view. I cannot understand the complaint that the author jumps from one time period to another, as I found the book very easy to follow. I suspect that many readers are buying this book expecting a romantic fantasy of plantation life. If you really want to know what life was like for a plantation misress - read this book.

The Scarlett Myth Unveiled

Catherine Clinton successfully parts the heavy drapes of Tara to reveal the truth behind the Scarlett myth created from the chimera of charming belles and courtly balls in the antebellum south. In The Plantation Mistress, the author skillfully reconstructs the realities facing a restricted and repressed class of women who have been historically eulogized by Hollywood and the popular press for over 150 years. The premise is simple: the leisure status of the planter's lady is a fairy tale told to spruce up the Lost Cause image. "The planter's wife was in charge not merely of the mansion but the entire spectrum of domestic operations throughout the estate, from food and clothing to the physical and spiritual care of both her white family and her husband's slaves." (Pg. 18)With a writing style that effectively holds the reader captive, Ms Clinton also douses the romantic candle glow in the bedchamber to shine a more accurate spotlight on the relationships of men and women in this complex and euphemistic society. By artfully weaving contemporary observations such as -- "John Bernard, a British traveler, commented concerning southern women: `The one thing I did not approve of was the juvenile period at which they bloomed and decayed." Pg. 61 -- into the narrative, the author sculpts a dimensional profile of both gender and marital dynamics. Ms Clinton demonstrates that the view from a `lady's pedestal' was tainted by a dark cloud of ennui and the dismal fog of slavery. A rich trove of letters, diaries and plantation records supports Ms. Clinton's scholarly conclusions without interfering in the textual flow. She also manages the pace of the material with a precision that unfolds each element eloquently and efficiently. I could not put this enlightening book down, as it is more than a treatment of women in the south. It is also a compendium of thought provoking issues, which encompass the horror of slavery as well as the inequality for women in the North. The highest compliment that I can pay is that The Plantation Mistress did not sate my curiosity, but instead expanded my curiosity to search more thoroughly the intriguing directions pointed out by Ms. Clinton. However, I am positive that the next time I watch Scarlett threaten Miz Ellen's portieres, I will applaud her tenacity for taking charge of her life instead of thinking `the green dress is coming'. The Plantation Mistress in fact convinces me that an energetic, intelligent woman like Scarlett had few options in the old South for achieving any goal except by using subterfuge and manipulation. After reading The Plantation Mistress I want to compliment Scarlett for her determination, instead of slapping her for being a selfish brat.

A study dispelling the myths of the plantation mistress

The author gives a fascinating insight into the world of the plantation mistress, which has been a subject of much romantic myth. She dispells this by quoting correspondence from women of the time, and summarising the dilemmas and problems faced by these ladies. She effectively dispells the notion that women of the Old South led idle, glamorous lives and shows, in eloquent style, the exhausting, often isolated existence they led. I believe this book is a wonderful introduction to the lives of women of the Old South and has increased my interest in other related areas, such as the lives of Black slave women.

A realistic view of the southern plantation mistress.

An excellent and eye-opening book about the real lives the southern plantation women led. Far from the life of leisure, women were really prisoners of the southern male system of presenting a gracious, though false view, of the plantation home life. The romantic view of the plantation mistress is thoroughly dispelled in this book! The author's presentation is backed with statistics and correspondence of that period. The author's style of writing takes you from beginning to end effortlessly in a spellbinding manner. Her writing is superb! If you are a woman, after completing this book you can't help but breathe a sigh of relief that you weren't born to lead the life of a plantation mistress!