Deeds, wills, divorce decrees, and other evidence of the public lives of nineteenth-century women belie the long-held beliefs of their public invisibility. Angela Boswell's "Her Act and Deed: Women's Lives in a Rural Southern County, 1837-1873" follows the threads of Southern women's lives as they weave through the public records of one Texas county during the middle of the nineteenth century. Her unique approach to exploring women's roles in a South that spanned the frontier, antebellum, Civil War, and Reconstruction eras illuminates the truths of the feminine world of those periods, and her...

Winner of the Liz Carpenter Award for Research in the History of Women, Texas State Historical Association, 2017.

Women in Civil War Texas is the first book dedicated to the unique experiences of Texas women during this time. It connects Texas women's lives to southern women's history and shares the diversity of experiences of women in Texas during the Civil War.

Contributors explore Texas women and their vocal support for secession, coping with their husbands' wartime absences, the importance of letter-writing, and how pro-Union sentiment caused serious difficulties for...