Invisible Founders

How Two Centuries of African American Families Transformed a Plantation into a College
1. Auflage 2019
ISBN: 978-1-78920-231-1
Verlag: Berghahn Books

Buch, Englisch, 232 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 496 g

Literal and metaphorical excavations at Sweet Briar College reveal how African American labor enabled the transformation of Sweet Briar Plantation into a private women’s college in 1906. This volume tells the story of the invisible founders of a college founded by and for white women. Despite being built and maintained by African American families, the college did not integrate its student body for sixty years after it opened. In the process, Invisible Founders challenges our ideas of what a college “founder” is, restoring African American narratives to their deserved and central place in the story of a single institution — one that serves as a microcosm of the American South.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Rainville, Lynn

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte Regionalgeschichte der USA: Einzelne Staaten, Städte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1. Invisible Workers

Chapter 2. Family Origins, 1685–1810

Chapter 3. Virginian Slavery, 1811–1830

Chapter 4. Survival Strategies, 1831–1857

Chapter 5. Families Divided, 1858–1865

Chapter 6. Freedom Communities, 1866–1883

Chapter 7. Mourning the Dead, 1884–1900

Chapter 8. Forgotten Founders, 1901–2001

Chapter 9. Commemorating Founders

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Rainville, Lynn
Lynn Rainville is the Dean of Sweet Briar College. For over two decades she has studied the lives of exceptional, yet overlooked, Americans. This work has been supported by numerous grants and she has written five books (on Mesopotamian houses, African American cemeteries, Sweet Briar College, and Virginia’s role in World War I). She directs the Tusculum Institute for local history and historic preservation at Sweet Briar College.