Scholars of southern Appalachia have largely focused their research on men, particularly white men. While there have been a few important studies of Appalachian women, no one book has offered a broad overview across time and place. With this collection, editors Connie Park Rice and Marie Tedesco redress this imbalance, telling the stories of these women and calling attention to the varied backgrounds of those who call the mountains home.

The essays of Women of the Mountain South debunk the entrenched stereotype of Appalachian women as poor and white, and shine a long-overdue spotlight on women too often neglected in the history of the region. Each author focuses on a particular individual or group, but together they illustrate the diversity of women who live in the region and the depth of their life experiences. The Mountain South has been home to Native American, African American, Latina, and white women, both rich and poor. Civil rights and gay rights advocates, environmental and labor activists, prostitutes, and coal miners—all have lived in the place called the Mountain South and enriched its history and culture.

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: A Tapestry of Voices
  Women’s History in the Mountain South
  Connie Park Rice

• Part One: Identity and Women of the Mountain South
• One: Women in Cherokee Society
  Status, Race, and Power from the Colonial Period to Removal
  Marie Tedesco
• Two: Mothers’ Day v. Mother’s Day
  The Jarvis Women and the Meaning of Motherhood
  Katharine Lane Antolini
• Three: Female Stereotypes and the Creation of Appalachia, 1870–1940
  Deborah L. Blackwell
• Four: Women on a Mission
  Southern Appalachia’s “Benevolent Workers” on Film
  John C. Inscoe
• Five: Embodying Appalachia
  Progress, Pride, and Beauty Pageantry, 1930s to the Present
  Karen W. Tice
• Documents
  • Moravian Lebenslauf (Memoir or Life’s Journey)
  • Petition for Divorce
  • Women of the Mountains
    Rev. Edgar Tufts
  • Rebel in the Mosque: Going Where I Know I Belong
    Asra Q. Nomani
  • An Undocumented Mexican Mother of a High School Dropout in East Tennessee
    Maria Alejandra Lopez
• Questions for Discussion

• Part Two: Women and Work in Appalachia
• Six: Challenging the Myth of Separate Spheres
  Women’s Work in the Antebellum Mountain South
  Wilma A. Dunaway
• Seven: Cyprians and Courtesans, Murder and Mayhem
  Prostitution in Wheeling during the Civil War
  Barbara J. Howe
• Eight: Professionalizing “Mountain Work” in Appalachia
  Women in the Conference of Southern Mountain Workers
  Penny Messinger
• Nine: “‘Two fer’ the Money”?
  African American Women in the Appalachian Coalfields
  Carletta A. Bush
• Ten: Flopping Tin and Punching Metal
  A Survey of Women Steelworkers in West Virginia, 1890–1970
  Louis C. Martin
• Documents
  • The Indenture of Mary Hollens
  • The Testimony of Mrs. Maggie Waters
  • A Working Woman Speaks
  • The Pikeville Methodist Hospital Strike
  • Poetry from the Coal Mining Women’s Support Team News
• Questions for Discussion

• Part Three: Women and Activism in the Mountain South
• Eleven: In the Footsteps of Mother Jones, Mothers of the Miners
  Florence Reece, Molly Jackson, and Sarah Ogan Gunning
  Donovan Ackley III
• Twelve: “She Now Cries Out”
  Linda Neville and the Limitations of Venereal Disease Control Policies in Kentucky
  Evelyn Ashley Sorrell
• Thirteen: Garrison, Drewry, Meadows, and Bateman
  Race, Class, and Activism in the Mountain State
  Lois Lucas
• Fourteen: Ethel New v. Atlantic Greyhound
  Fighting for Social Justice in Appalachia
  Jan Voogd
• Fifteen: “Remembering the Past, Working for the Future”
  West Virginia Women Fight for Environmental Heritage and Economic Justice in the Age of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining
  Joyce M. Barry
• Documents
  • The Petition of Margaret Lee
  • The Fight for Suffrage
  • Abortion in the Mountain South
  • Helen Louise Gibson Compton: Founder and Proprietor of The Shamrock
    Carol Burch-Brown
  • At the Intersection of Cancer Survivorship, Gender, Family, and Place in Southern Central Appalachia: A Case Study
    Kelly A. Dorgan, Kathryn L. Duvall, and Sadie P. Hutson
• Questions for Discussion

• Epilogue: Reflections on the Concept of Place in the Study of Women in the Mountain South
  A Roundtable Discussion with the Authors
• Contributors
• Index