Southern women

“ No men better than those of the South know what it owes to southern women and shall those men stand in the way of freedom for the women who gave everything to retain for our country the very best of southern traditions—shall they plead in vain for the freedom of their daughters? What is true of the women of the South is true of the women of the North.... ”

“ When we look back over its past history; when we see the land barren, the desolation everywhere; when we see the homes left destitute and the women prostrate by the graves of their dead; when we realize that the men were nearly all swept away—we know that the power which kept the South steadfast, which held the homes together, which cherished the traditions, which made the South what it is today was the loyalty, the patriotism, the unconquerable courage and the devotion of Southern women in that hour of darkness and despair. ”

“ They never mounted platforms to speak nor pulpits to preach, and yet their influence and inspiration gave Southern pulpits and platforms a world-wide fame. Their highest ambition was to be president of home. They were Southern women everywhere, at home and abroad, in church and on the streets, in parlor and kitchen, when they rode, when they walked. Gentle, but brave; modest, but independent. Seeking no recognition, the true Southern woman found it already won by her worth; courting no attention, at every turn it met her, to do willing homage to her native grace and genuine womanhood. ”

“ I compare their intellects to a rich tropical plant, which blossoms gorgeously and early, but rarely fruitens. The Southern women are, for the most part, a capable but undeveloped race of beings. With their precocity, like the exuberance of their vegetation, and with their quick, impassioned feelings, like their storm-freighted air, always bearing latent lightning in its bosom, they might become a something rich, rare, and admirable; but, never bringing thought up to the point of reflection; never learning self-control, nor the necessity of holding passion in abeyance ”

“ In the days of "reconstruction," when men were awe stricken, not knowing whither to look or what to do, these women stood with resolute trust in God, giving words of encouragement to the sterner sex; and became, as it were, the strong vine entwined around the sturdy tree when shaken by the storm. These Southern women were the only portion of our people who never surrendered. They are today the purest type of Anglo-Saxon womanhood on the face of the earth. ”

“ I say, I do not wonder at the Southern women so much. I pity them infinitely. Just think what they have been educated to believe, and then say if there is not something sadly splendid in the very spirit of endurance, of defiance, of sacrifice, however wrong and mistaken, they have shown. I pity them profoundly, for they are drinking to the lees the cup of suffering, of deprivation, of humiliation, of bitter loss, and stern retribution. ”

“ The shadow of a mutual sorrow drew Southern women in sympathy and tenderness toward weeping Northern mothers and wives. True men who have bravely fought out their differences cherish no animosities—though still unconvinced. ”

“ For years Southern women had been written down as soulless ciphers or weakling wives, dragged by reckless husbands into an unholy cause. Text books of so-called history, teeming with such falsehoods, have been thrust even into Southern schools. ”

“ There is little or no organized opposition in my part of the country but there are many thousands of fine, thoughtful, forward-looking southern women banded together seeking the removal of this last badge of incompetency. For them there is no North or South but one great nation, the interest of whose women is the same. We realize that we are not different or better, we southern women, than the women in Montana, Illinois, Maine or Massachusetts but are just human beings as they are. ”

“ Read the humble tribute of this book to the memory of Southern women of 1861-1865. They were your countrywomen. Their virtues are the glory of all America. We have tried to help you and the world to know them better. We have all come forth from the ashes now. We are rejoicing in a prosperous South and a prosperous North. Our women nobly did their part in the war and nobly have they helped to rebuild the South, not only for our children, but for your sons and your daughters. Our sunny 313 South belongs to the whole country. Our noble women and their children love their whole country. ”

“ And all this was due solely to the unconquerable cheerfulness of the Southern women. The men came home moody, worn out, discouraged, and but for the influence of woman’s cheerfulness the Southern States might have fallen into a lethargy from which they could not have recovered for generations. Such prosperity as they have since achieved is largely due to the courage and spirit of their noble women.
SALLIE DURHAM [From Life In Dixie, pages 304-308, by Mary A. H. Gay.] ”

“ Had it not been for the new spirit of action born of the necessity of the times in the character of Southern women to inspire Southern men with hope and courage, desolation would still be over the South. ”

“ Those who know the story of Southern womanhood in those terrible days must give to it all honor and admiration; but these must not be granted as exclusively its right, without due sense of the sufficient patriotism and courage displayed by Northern womanhood at the call of country. Each gave all that she had to give; each proved that her patriotism was not a mere name.
If among the women of the South there was more fervent enthusiasm than among those of the North, there was also deeper hatred of the enemies of their cause. ”

“ Southern women often marry a man knowing that he is the father of many little slaves. They do not trouble themselves about it. ”

“ We southern women feel that the time has come to lay once and for all this old, old ghost that stalks through the halls of Congress. It is a phantom as applied to woman suffrage. In fifteen States south of the Mason and Dixon line there are over a million more white women than negro men and women combined. There are only two States in which the negro race predominates, South Carolina and Mississippi. ”

“ That the South could not be conquered, that it must attain its independence, that God fought its battles, formed the creed of every Southern woman, and even when the end was in sight to the vision of Lee and Johnston, still fighting desperately as their duty rather than in any hope, the women refused to believe in such a possibility. ”

“ For there arises unbidden, unavoidably, in the minds of such women the ugly question, whose daughter is she, and whose mistress is she to be? For in the girl's veins may flow the proudest blood of the South. And this possibility, aye, probability, so shameful to both races, no one in the South knows better than the Southern white woman. What happens? The most natural thing in the world, but not the wisest. The hatred, the suspicion, the fear of these women find expression in scorn, in active ill-will, not only toward that particular girl, but toward her whole class as well. ”

“ Unlike the North, the South recognized its unpayable debt to its women, perhaps because the evidences of that debt were so much more patent than where these were confined to the direction and fostering of public sentiment. The Southern chronicler of that woeful time gladly acknowledged how the women, by their enthusiastic encouragement and their gallant loyalty, encouraged the men and kept them to their duty if only from shame of their displaying less constancy than the sex which was termed the weaker. ”

“ In the Revolution the women were often more stalwart than the men, urging husbands and fathers not to give in in order to save their property and bearing cheerfully hardship and banishment. In all the Southern colonies there were keen gentlewomen that took up tracts of land and cleared and cultivated their estates. Southern women were not outdone by the business women of the North."233
In the old Dutch times in New York, possibly women touched closer to equality with men than in any other colony or at any other time. ”

“ What then, in presence of these facts, must we think of the slanderous tongues that would dare asperse the character of southern females—that would endeavor to blacken that almost spotless purity of heart, which I hope will forever remain the proud characteristic of southern women? Ignorance does not excuse such calumniators. ”

“ We have heard so much of the bitter resentment of the Southern ladies that the tale becomes stale by frequent repetition. But when inquiring into the feelings of the people, this element must not be omitted. There are certainly a good many sensible women in the South who have arrived at a just appreciation of the circumstances with which they are surrounded. ”

“ Her observation showed her Southern culture, for whatever supremacy the North may have over the South, Southern ladies are far in advance of those of the North in the art of dress. A Southern lady seldom commits an incongruity, or fails to dress according to age, weather, and the occasion. I do not think any one of any social standing would have gone among wounded men, with the idea of rendering any assistance, tricked out in finery, as hundreds, if not thousands, of respectable Northern women did. ”

“ Instances may be cited where the women of a country battling for its rights and liberties have sustained themselves under the hardest fate and made great sacrifices for the cause they loved and the men they honored and respected, but I challenge comparison in any period of the world’s history with the sufferings, anxieties, fidelities, and firmness of the fair, delicate women of the South during the struggle for Southern independence and since its disastrous determination. ”

“ This is all they can do for you, you must work out your own deliverance with fear and trembling, and with the direction and blessing of God, you can do it. Northern women may labor to produce a correct public opinion at the North, but if Southern women sit down in listless indifference and criminal idleness, public opinion cannot be rectified and purified at the South. It is manifest to every reflecting mind, that slavery must be abolished ”

“ But there is a large number of Southern women who are as vindictive and defiant as ever, and whose temper does not permit them to lay their tongue under any restraint. You can see them in every hotel, and they will treat you to the most ridiculous exhibitions whenever an occasion offers. A day or two ago a Union officer, yielding to an impulse of politeness, handed a dish of pickles to a Southern lady at the dinner table of a hotel in this city. ”

“ S But it was after the war, when the contemplation of ruined homes and broad desolation was thrust upon the South, that the real test came. The men met the awful responsibility and their hideous trials with amazing courage, and to the glory of the Southern woman be it said that the women became equal sharers in courage and in work. They have never faltered and never shown any weariness. Those left penniless, who were once wealthy, took up whatever work came to hand. ”

“ The spirit of the Southern women is well known to have been as vigorous and determined as that of their brothers, and the sacrifices which they were compelled to make were much more severe and general than at the North. ”

“ The southern ladies in general are delicately formed, with pale complexions, a languid gracefulness of manner, and a certain aristocratic bearing, acquired only by the early habit of commanding those who are deemed immeasurably inferior. ”

“ In fact, so little was written by Southern women, high or low, of the colonial period that it is practically impossible to state anything positive about their intellectual training. It is a safe conjecture, however, that the schooling of the average woman in the South was not equal to that of the average women of Massachusetts, but was probably fully equal to that of the Dutch women of New York. And yet we must not think that efforts in education in the southern colonies were lacking. ”

“ It is not uncommon to find in this generation Southern young women who add to sincerity, openness and frankness of manner; to the charm born of the wish to please, the graces of cultivation; who know French like their native tongue, who are well acquainted with the French and German literatures, who are well read in the English classics—though perhaps guiltless of much familiarity with our modern American literature. But taking the South at large, the schools for either sex are far behind those of the North both in discipline and range. ”

“ To educate their unfortunate charges; to teach them the Christian virtues and to inspire in them the moral sentiments manifest in their own lives, these young women braved dangers whose record reads more like fiction than fact. They became social outlaws in the South. The peculiar sensitiveness of the southern white men for women, never shed its protecting influence about them. ”

“ The Southern states have produced and are producing many prominent women in all the great fields of activity. They have won a wide reputation for hard, conscientious, intelligent work. In the social scheme of the New South there are no Amelia Sedleys or Dora Spenlows. ”