| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 87.3

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 87.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Parlor Ladies and Ebony Drudges: African American Women, Class, and Work in a South Carolina Community. By Kibibi Voloria C. Mack. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1999. xxviii, 233 pp. $34.00, isbn 1-57233-030-9.)

In Parlor Ladies and Ebony Drudges, Kibibi Voloria C. Mack examines the lives of African American women in Orangeburg, South Carolina, from 1880 to 1940, arguing that historians have not paid enough attention to class divisions among black women. A native of Orangeburg, Mack is able to provide a rich portrait of her subjects through extensive oral interviews. Parlor Ladies and Ebony Drudges brings much-needed attention to postbellum black South Carolina women: there is such a dearth of historical literature that Mack relied on one memoir (that of Mamie Garvin Fields) for a comparison with Charleston women. 1

Mack divides the study into three parts, upper-, middle- (further divided into upper-middle- and lower-middle-), and lower-class women. Within each she examines women's work outside and inside the home, including paid and voluntary work. Mack argues that, because their experience varied so greatly and some black women even worked for other black women, class differences prevented a "sisterhood" among black women from developing. Unlike Deborah Gray White, she does not analyze the consequences of those tensions on race uplift or women's rights. . . .

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