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Middle-Class African American Marriages between the Two World Wars
UNC Press Books
December 2010
On Sale: November 25, 2010
240 pages ISBN: 0807834343 EAN: 9780807834343 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
The so-called New Negroes of the period between World Wars I
and II embodied a new sense of racial pride and upward
mobility for the race. Many of them thought that
relationships between spouses could be a crucial factor in
realizing this dream. But there was little agreement about
how spousal relationships should actually function in an
ideal New Negro marriage. Shedding light on an often-overlooked aspect of African
American social history, Anastasia Curwood explores the
public and private negotiations over gender relationships
inside marriage that consumed upwardly mobile black
Americans between 1918 and 1942. Curwood uses private
correspondence between spouses, including her own
grandparents, and public writings from leading figures of
the era to investigate African Americans' deepest hopes
within their private lives. She follows changes and
conflicts in African American marital ideals--and
demonstrates how those ideals sometimes clashed with
reality. In the process, Curwood shows how New Negro
marriages are an especially rich site for assessing the
interactions of racial, class, and gender identities. The so-called New Negroes of the period between World Wars I
and II embodied a new sense of racial pride and upward
mobility for the race. Many of them thought that
relationships between spouses could be a crucial factor in
realizing this dream. But there was little agreement about
how spousal relationships should actually function in an
ideal New Negro marriage. Shedding light on an
often-overlooked aspect of African American social history,
Anastasia Curwood explores the public and private
negotiations over gender relationships inside marriage that
consumed upwardly mobile black Americans between 1918 and
1942. Curwood uses private correspondence between spouses,
including her own grandparents, and public writings from
leading figures of the era to investigate African Americans'
deepest hopes within their private lives. She follows
changes and conflicts in African American marital
ideals--and demonstrates how those ideals sometimes clashed
with reality. In the process, Curwood shows how New Negro
marriages are an especially rich site for assessing the
interactions of racial, class, and gender identities.
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