| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.3

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.3 | The History Cooperative

Giselle Roberts. The Confederate Belle. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. 2003. Pp. xi, 245. $32.50.
Publications about Confederate women have proliferated in recent years, with a number of historians making significant contributions to the literature. Their provocative interpretations have revised accepted beliefs about gender, race, and class in the U.S. South. Now Giselle Roberts has expanded the scope by adding age to her perspective. Her exemplary book examines the lives and roles of young white female Confederates, ages fifteen to twenty-five.	1
The author confines her investigation to the states of Mississippi and Louisiana, which enables her to achieve a coherent study. Through imaginative use of diaries, memoirs, journals, and letters she creates a social, economic, and cultural synthesis of the changing world of elite white young women.	2
The volume consists of seven compact chapters with an introduction and an epilogue. Each chapter contains a nuanced account of a compelling topic. Among the recurring themes are family, slavery, patriarchy, and honor. Each theme receives considerable treatment from the interweaving of the young women's reflections on their socialization and preparation for courtship and marriage, which epitomized the "belle ideal" (p. 15). Although religious training and education occurred, they were always secondary to marriage.	. . .

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