Much of the material unearthed by this book is ugly, states historiographer Patricia Morton who exposes profoundly dehumanizing constructions of reality embedded in American scholarship as it has attempted to render the history of the Afro-American woman. Focusing on the scholarly literature of fact rather than on fictional or popular portrayals, Disfigured Images explores the telling--and frequent mis-telling--of the story of black women during a century of American historiography beginning in the late nineteenth century and extending to the present. Morton finds that during this period,...

Much of the material unearthed by this book is ugly, states historiographer Patricia Morton who exposes profoundly dehumanizing constructions of reality embedded in American scholarship as it has attempted to render the history of the Afro-American woman. Focusing on the scholarly literature of fact rather than on fictional or popular portrayals, Disfigured Images explores the telling--and frequent mis-telling--of the story of black women during a century of American historiography beginning in the late nineteenth century and extending to the present. Morton finds that during this period,...

"Discovering the Women in Slavery" is a collection of fourteen original essays on women's experiences of slavery in America, researched and written from gender- and women-focused perspectives. The essays discuss not only slave women, but also plantation and slaveholding mistresses and free women of color, in contexts ranging from the colonial era to the Civil War South. Intended for wide readership, this book is especially designed to bring attention to the new questions and findings about American slavery that are engendered by today's exploration of the experience and roles of the women...