Author Talk - Enduring Voices: Women of the Tennessee Valley, 1861-1865

Women of the Tennessee Valley came to understand too quickly their men had gone off to fight a war leaving them behind with the youngsters and babies, the disabled, the very old, and the enslaved workers to fend for themselves as best they could.The genteel female became the overseer and gave financial decisions. The middle-class woman took in sewing and laundry while tending to the garden, selling any leftover supplies, or even sometimes selling herself. The very poor who always worked alongside her husband now toiled by herself.
Added to this, women tended the sick or wounded and buried their dead. Amid all there was isolation, loneliness, and dread of what they knew not. It took courage to endure. Tired almost to death, some few women and girls found brief moments to sit and record the day as they saw and felt the invasion of their homeland. These journals and diaries spoke of difficult times, and today their enduring voices still speak.

Copies of the book will be available for purchase ($30) and can be signed by the author.

Hosted by HMCPL Special Collections and the Huntsville-Madison County Historical Society