What do you think?
Rate this book
Life in Black and White: Family and Community in the Slave South
Life in the old South has always fascinated Americans--whether in the mythical portrayals of the planter elite from fiction such as Gone With the Wind or in historical studies that look inside the slave cabin. Now Brenda E. Stevenson presents a reality far more gripping than popular legend, even as she challenges the conventional wisdom of academic historians. Life in Black and White provides a panoramic portrait of family and community life in and around Loudoun County, Virginia--weaving the fascinating personal stories of planters and slaves, of free blacks and poor-to-middling whites, into a powerful portrait of southern society from the mid-eighteenth century to the Civil War.
Loudoun County and its vicinity encapsulated the full sweep of southern life. Here the region's most illustrious families--the Lees, Masons, Carters, Monroes, and Peytons--helped forge southern traditions and attitudes that became characteristic of the entire region while mingling with yeoman farmers of German, Scotch-Irish, and Irish descent, and free black families who lived alongside abolitionist Quakers and thousands of slaves. Stevenson brilliantly recounts their stories as she builds the complex picture of their intertwined lives, revealing how their combined histories guaranteed Loudon's role in important state, regional, and national events and controversies. Both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, for example, were hidden at a local plantation during the War of 1812. James Monroe wrote his famous "Doctrine" at his Loudon estate. The area also was the birthplace of celebrated fugitive slave Daniel Dangerfield, the home of John Janney, chairman of the
Virginia secession convention, a center for Underground Railroad activities, and the location of John Brown's infamous 1859 raid at Harpers Ferry.
In exploring the central role of the family, Brenda Stevenson offers a wealth of we look into the lives of upper class women, who bore the oppressive weight of marriage and motherhood as practiced in the South and the equally burdensome roles of their husbands whose honor was tied to their ability to support and lead regardless of their personal preference; the yeoman farm family's struggle for respectability; and the marginal economic existence of free blacks and its undermining influence on their family life.
Most important, Stevenson breaks new ground in her depiction of slave family life. Following the lead of historian Herbert Gutman, most scholars have accepted the idea that, like white, slaves embraced the nuclear family, both as a living reality and an ideal. Stevenson destroys this notion, showing that the harsh realities of slavery, even for those who belonged to such attentive masters as George Washington, allowed little possibility of a nuclear family. Far more important were extended kin networks and female headed households.
Meticulously researched, insightful, and moving, Life in Black and White offers our most detailed portrait yet of the reality of southern life. It forever changes our understanding of family and race relations during the reign of the peculiar institution in the American South.
Loudoun County and its vicinity encapsulated the full sweep of southern life. Here the region's most illustrious families--the Lees, Masons, Carters, Monroes, and Peytons--helped forge southern traditions and attitudes that became characteristic of the entire region while mingling with yeoman farmers of German, Scotch-Irish, and Irish descent, and free black families who lived alongside abolitionist Quakers and thousands of slaves. Stevenson brilliantly recounts their stories as she builds the complex picture of their intertwined lives, revealing how their combined histories guaranteed Loudon's role in important state, regional, and national events and controversies. Both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, for example, were hidden at a local plantation during the War of 1812. James Monroe wrote his famous "Doctrine" at his Loudon estate. The area also was the birthplace of celebrated fugitive slave Daniel Dangerfield, the home of John Janney, chairman of the
Virginia secession convention, a center for Underground Railroad activities, and the location of John Brown's infamous 1859 raid at Harpers Ferry.
In exploring the central role of the family, Brenda Stevenson offers a wealth of we look into the lives of upper class women, who bore the oppressive weight of marriage and motherhood as practiced in the South and the equally burdensome roles of their husbands whose honor was tied to their ability to support and lead regardless of their personal preference; the yeoman farm family's struggle for respectability; and the marginal economic existence of free blacks and its undermining influence on their family life.
Most important, Stevenson breaks new ground in her depiction of slave family life. Following the lead of historian Herbert Gutman, most scholars have accepted the idea that, like white, slaves embraced the nuclear family, both as a living reality and an ideal. Stevenson destroys this notion, showing that the harsh realities of slavery, even for those who belonged to such attentive masters as George Washington, allowed little possibility of a nuclear family. Far more important were extended kin networks and female headed households.
Meticulously researched, insightful, and moving, Life in Black and White offers our most detailed portrait yet of the reality of southern life. It forever changes our understanding of family and race relations during the reign of the peculiar institution in the American South.
496 pages, Paperback
First published May 2, 1996
6 people are currently reading
125 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 8, 2014
This is a book of two halves, and not just in the most obvious sense. It's an interesting look at the twin concepts of family and community in the pre-Civil War slave South, focusing on Loudoun County in Virginia, looking at the issues not just across race lines but across gender and class as well, and how those varied combinations of gender and class had the potential to create similarities as well as divisions across the race line.
It focuses most heavily on the white planter class, and this is where the book of two halves aspect comes in - because where it focuses on rich white Southerners it draws heavily on written and oral testimony, documentary material in the form of letters, diaries, publications, newspaper articles, where it serves to bring the issues into focus through the words of the participants. The sections focuses on the 'middling' and poor white classes are much less thorough, for the same reason as the latter half of the book, dealing with slaves and free blacks, which relies much more on statistics, census returns, auction records and wills, and this is sadly where the narrative loses pace and the individuals involved lose clarity.
It was an interesting read, but I have to see I felt there was little new here. That rich white male Southerners were at the top of the heap and black female slaves and free blacks at the bottom is hardly a surprise. That whites tended to go in for nuclear families and slave and free blacks families relied on extended kin networks...again, not a surprise. Focusing on one specific county narrows the focus and enables the reader to trace patterns across generations in one place and often through one family, and that certainly lends a certain immediacy to the narrative. But as I said, this isn't ground-breaking scholarship and anyone halfway familiar with the antebellum South will discover little new here.
It focuses most heavily on the white planter class, and this is where the book of two halves aspect comes in - because where it focuses on rich white Southerners it draws heavily on written and oral testimony, documentary material in the form of letters, diaries, publications, newspaper articles, where it serves to bring the issues into focus through the words of the participants. The sections focuses on the 'middling' and poor white classes are much less thorough, for the same reason as the latter half of the book, dealing with slaves and free blacks, which relies much more on statistics, census returns, auction records and wills, and this is sadly where the narrative loses pace and the individuals involved lose clarity.
It was an interesting read, but I have to see I felt there was little new here. That rich white male Southerners were at the top of the heap and black female slaves and free blacks at the bottom is hardly a surprise. That whites tended to go in for nuclear families and slave and free blacks families relied on extended kin networks...again, not a surprise. Focusing on one specific county narrows the focus and enables the reader to trace patterns across generations in one place and often through one family, and that certainly lends a certain immediacy to the narrative. But as I said, this isn't ground-breaking scholarship and anyone halfway familiar with the antebellum South will discover little new here.
February 11, 2025
This is a socio-cultural comparative history of antebellum society as seen through the prism of Loudoun County, VA. Stevenson analyses and compares four cohorts in the development of her thesis: white aristocrats, white yeomen/artisans, free Blacks, and enslaved Blacks. She argues that there is no evidence to suggest that nuclear families were the slaves’ sociocultural ideal. She presents adequate evidence that nuclear families were not normative in Loudoun County slave society; however, her argument about their preferred familial structure was unpersuasive. The fact that the majority of Loudoun County free black families were patriarchal and nuclear seems to undermine her argument.
The book's merit is as a case study of the interaction between her four cohorts in Loudoun County. She has an impressive bibliography of primary sources that inform a well crafted narrative, punctuating her points with anecdotal examples. Also of historical significance is the local reaction to John Brown’s raid on nearby Harper’s Ferry. Since Loudoun County was adjacent to Harper’s Ferry, her account of the aftermath of the insurrection provides texture to impact of that event in the South.
While I enjoyed the read and the book has merits, it is also riddled with flaws. There is a “Captain Obvious” aspect to Part I: her description of white society in 18th-century Loudoun County is virtually indistinguishable from how a county in 20th-century Georgia might be described. She commits presentism with editorial comments on gender conventions and ideology (38-39) and in describing the marriage of Robert and Betty Conrad. As a socio-cultural history, there is a dearth of religion in the book. This is particularly noticeable in the chapters on slave society.
The book's merit is as a case study of the interaction between her four cohorts in Loudoun County. She has an impressive bibliography of primary sources that inform a well crafted narrative, punctuating her points with anecdotal examples. Also of historical significance is the local reaction to John Brown’s raid on nearby Harper’s Ferry. Since Loudoun County was adjacent to Harper’s Ferry, her account of the aftermath of the insurrection provides texture to impact of that event in the South.
While I enjoyed the read and the book has merits, it is also riddled with flaws. There is a “Captain Obvious” aspect to Part I: her description of white society in 18th-century Loudoun County is virtually indistinguishable from how a county in 20th-century Georgia might be described. She commits presentism with editorial comments on gender conventions and ideology (38-39) and in describing the marriage of Robert and Betty Conrad. As a socio-cultural history, there is a dearth of religion in the book. This is particularly noticeable in the chapters on slave society.
May 11, 2024
like closer to 3.5 in actuality. i think this book was an incredibly strong and worthwhile documentary endeavor especially for the temporal period it was published in. it attempts a lot for the scope of 400 pages -- a full and nuanced attempt to document and analyze the lives of black and white individuals and their family nuances. i wonder, perhaps, if that large scope limited the ability for the text to do the most full and most critical work. i struggle with the archival scope presented in the text, especially when sat directly alongside each other, because it so glaringly illustrates the lacks in the archive around black community frameworks. as such, it felt sometimes in reading it that she was doing such a GREAT job at nuancing and working through white communal frameworks and comparatively such a like mediocre job around nuancing black communal frameworks. i also think the text needed some play in linguistic specificity as sometimes the language around the enslaved and the enslavers felt ...off. just without any care for them as individuals. i wonder, though, if perhaps that is part and parcel of both the temporal period and the field of academic texts in history. overall i think this was again a fine and worthwhile attempt and did such critical work for the field.
February 12, 2010
Very interesting to see the difference in life in the Southern United States.
April 29, 2012
Easy to read, enjoyable. This was a required book for my history class. In conjunction with my other books, this one has been a treasure trove!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews