by Drew Gilpin Faust
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Product Description
When Confederate men marched off to battle, southern women struggled with the new responsibilities of directing farms and plantations, providing for families, and supervising increasingly restive slaves. Drew Faust offers a compelling picture of the more than half-million women who belonged to the slaveholding families of the Confederacy during this period of acute crisis, when every part of these women's lives became vexed and uncertain. Faust chronicles the clash of the old and the new within a group that was at once the beneficiary and the victim of the social order of the Old South.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Academic, fragmented, only a useful starting point, 2008-08-07
In the preface, Faust wonders if after years of acadmic writing she will be able to produce a work for other audiences. The answer is no. She manages to take interesting information and compelling quotes from original sources and kill their effect with the dizzyingly dull conventions of academic-speak. I gave this book two stars instead of one because after taking aspirin for the headache it induced, I had to admit that I had learned something, even if it was only a few broad generalities. The book also will serve as a location guide for her original source material, so there is a little value in that, too. Hence, two stars.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 Mothers of Invention offers homefront insight into the Civil War, 2008-05-17
The tales of women in the slaveholding south are told in Faust's Mothers of Invention. The insecurities, fears and hopes of the southern women are brought to light and the book gives a behind the scenes look at the Civil War. Instead of the usual "on the surface" view Faust shows the real feelings and events that women deal with when their men are sent to battle. The reader is left with strong feelings, both good and bad, about Civil War era society and but most importantly a glimpse into history through primary source documents. Another good book for the classroom!
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 An Interesting Read, 2008-05-17
We so often think of the violence and suffering on the battle fields during the Civil War, we neglect to think of the women of the South who did suffer too. While you may find these 500 women a bit misguided in their beliefs, the reader can see the evolution and sometimes the devolution of these women as the letters go deeper into the war. Women who once lived a priviledged lives are confronting the fact that they do not know how to provide breakfast for their families, a chore their now disappeared slaves performed daily. Questions of the existance of God, whose side is he on arise. Ideas of White racial supremacy is forgotten when these women write their letters of pain while wearing dresses made of old furniture fabric.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
The Secret Lives of Southern Women, 2008-04-29
Drew Gilpin Faust strings together the letters and diaries of 500 Southern women to tell their story during the Civil War. At a period in history when women's lives were somewhat overlooked, Faust allows these women to have their voices heard. Through these letters and diaries readers are able to understand the viewpoints and opinions from women at the time. Faust does a great job of letting the women speak through their own writing and throughout the book readers can see how the opinions on the war are not the same for every woman. I would absolutely use this book as a tool to gain insight into the heads of women at a time when their husbands, sons and brothers were fighting and dying in a war that some women did not even agree with. Faust is very descriptive and has great sources in the book. Definitely worth it!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Southern Elite White Women's World Turned Upside Down, 2008-03-28
Mothers of Invention is a book by Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust (historian), who was appointed President of Harvard University in February 2007. This book is an excellent adjunct to any college level class on the Civil War period. Faust researched the letters, diaries and journals of 500 elite southern white women, to determine the impact of the Civil War on them and their families. Her research shows how they were affected by the war, as well as how they impacted the attitudes of their men, particularly the soldiers. It also discusses the positive and negative aspects of how they affected the Confederate States of America.
You should read this book both for its new contributions to the history of the Civil War, as well as the unique revelations. Even though most Confederate women were supportive of the Civil War when it started, this book shows that pre-war elites had been placed on so high a pedestal that they were totally unprepared to do even routine things, such as cooking and sewing. When the slave masters and overseers left the plantation for the battlefield, the elites were abandoned to run large plantations, utilizing slaves who were, at best, apathetic towards their leadership, and at worst, openly rebellious. As the war continued, the situation of the women worsened because of deaths, food and clothing shortages, inflation, runaway and recalitrant slaves, and Yankee incursions into the South. After four years of war, the elite women came to hate the war as much as the soldiers who fought and died in large numbers.
Once you read this outstanding book, you will understand how poorly prepared the South was to fight a Civil War that lasted more than a year. You will understand why elite southern white women grew to hate this war, that changed the lives of women forever. Women learned that they were capable of doing jobs from which they had previously been excluded. The only problem with this book is that makes you want to do even more research into related issues.
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