Description: The material lives of rural upcountry women improved dramatically by midcentury--yet in becoming middle class, Walker concludes, the women found their experiences both broadened and circumscribed.
Brief description: Melissa Walker is an associate professor of history at Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Review Quotes: An engaging study . . . For upcountry southern women, the years 1919-1941 were indicative of the economic, political, and social chaos existing throughout segregated America . . . Walker capably demonstrates how families were forced by the limitations of race and class to choose situations that provided little or no real opportunity, but she also brilliantly illustrates how some rural people were able to adapt to change.
--Valerie Grim, Journal of American History