 | The Education of the Southern Belle: Higher Education and Student Socialization in the Antebellum South Subjects: Women -- Education (Higher) -- Southern State -- History -- 19th century; Education Higher -- Social aspects -- Southern States -- History -- 19th century; Education Higher -- Southern States -- Curricula -- History -- 19th Century; Iterpersonal relatio; The American South before the Civil War was the site of an unprecedented social experiment in women's education. The South offered women an education explicitly designed to be equivalent to that of men, while maintaining and nurturing the gender conventions epitomized by the ideal of the Southern belle. This groundbreaking work provides us with an intimate picture of the entire social experience of antebellum women's colleges and seminaries in the South, analyzing the impact of these colleges upon the cultural construction of femininity among white Southern women, and their legacy for higher education. Farnham Christie Anne : Christie Ane Farnham is Associate Professor of History at Iowa State University and Founder of The Journal of Women's History. Currently at work on a history of African American women, she is the author of The Education of the Southern Belle: Higher Education in the Antebellum South. |
