Edited by Wilma King

The triumphs and tragedies of a Massachusetts woman struggling to live in rural Louisiana at the time of the Civil War

6 x 9, 300 pages
paper, $19.95t
ISBN 978-1-57003-188-5
Women's Diaries and Letters of the South
Carol Bleser, series editor

ABOUT THE BOOK

The wife of a physician, mother of ten children, and mistress of five slaves, Tryphena Blanche Holder Fox fought the hardship and isolation of her adopted home by maintaining a lively correspondence with family and friends in Massachusetts. Her revealing letters offer a candid look at middle-class southern life and detail how Fox quickly accepted the customs, prejudices, and politics of "this strange land," even choosing to support the Confederacy while her brother fought for the Union.

ABOUT THE EDITOR

Wilma King is Strickland Professor of African American History at the University of Missouri-Columbia. She holds a Ph.D. in American history from Indiana University.

REVIEWS

"Fox's letters are valuable because they provide the reader with a firsthand account of the life of a woman who was not the wife of a planter, but a woman of modest means who faced the common problems of birth, illness, and death in the Civil War era."
—Journal of Southern History

"Seldom does a collection of correspondence provide the rich and varied commentary found in the letters of Tryphena Blanche Holder Fox."—Louisiana History