Unbinding Gentility: Women Making Music in the Nineteenth-Century South (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780252043758)

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2022

Hearing southern women in the pauses of history

Southern women of all classes, races, and walks of life practiced music during and after the Civil War. Candace L. Bailey examines the history of southern women through the lens of these musical pursuits, uncovering the ways that music's transmission, education, circulation, and repertory help us understand its meaning in the women's culture of the time. Bailey pays particular attention to the space between music as an ideal accomplishment--part of how people expected women to perform gentility--and a real practice--what women actually did. At the same time, her ethnographic reading of binder's volumes, letters and diaries, and a wealth of other archival material informs new and vital interpretations of women's place in southern culture.

A fascinating collective portrait of women's artistic and personal lives, Unbinding Gentility challenges entrenched assumptions about nineteenth century music and the experiences of the southern women who made it.

Author: Candace Bailey
ISBN-10: 0252043758
ISBN-13: 9780252043758
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Language: English
Published: 04/13/2021
Pages: 304
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.45lbs
Size: 9.40h x 6.20w x 1.10d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 02/01/2022