Voices From the Century Before: The Odyssey of a Nineteenth Century Kentucky Family

by Mary Clay Berry

The story of the Clay and Field families of nineteenth-century Kentucky is drawn from a treasury of letters written between 1845 and 1870 and considers everyday life in the era and the challenges of the Civil War. Tour.

512 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Heather Wood · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a wonderful original source of life and views before, during, and after the Civil War. After spending 500 pages with the Clays and Fields, I'm sorry to say goodbye to them. I thoroughly enjoyed everything I learned from them. The family tree at the beginning was super helpful since there were so many names and so many of them were repeated across generations.

Content warning, slavery and racism. Sometimes it was hard to read about the way these slaveowners thought of and treated their slaves. Still, I was glad for the chance to let them speak for themselves and hear their views firsthand.

Four stars because I didn't always love the editing of the letters or the added anecdotes that didn't always seem to fit. There were many helpful notes and edits, but sometimes others detracted from the overall experience.

I'm so glad I found this book. I learned a lot.

[Tanya Hurst · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an amazing book. The use of the letters to tell the history of this section of the Clay family was so enjoyable and interesting, I'm almost sad to have finished it. I definitely recommend it. It's well worth your time.

[Alex Luken · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my very favorite books. Trunks of letters were found in Mary Clay's family home, an amalgamation of letters from the Field family to and from the Clay family. The letters were donated to the University of Kentucky, and over the course of two decades were matched to each other in chronological order. The result is the day-to-day communications between two closely related family, akin to tape recording phone conversations today. The communications paint a picture of what life was really like on a prosperous middle class southern farm, far different than the grand belle image conveyed by sterotypes.

How the family functioned and the consistency of human nature is a reminder that people two hundred years ago were not very different than people today.