Description: Amelia Akehurst Lines's diaries and letters provide an extraordinarily rich record of the attitudes and values of an "average" American woman of the mid-nineteenth century. Lines was a young New York schoolteacher whose ambition drove her to seek new opportunities in rural Georgia.
Brief description: THOMAS G. DYER (1943-2013) was University Professor Emeritus and Vice President for Instruction Emeritus at the University of Georgia. He is the author or editor of numerous books, including Secret Yankees: The Union Circle in Confederate Atlanta and The University of Georgia: A Bicentennial History, 1785-1985 (Georgia).
Review Quotes:
The publication of To Raise Myself a Little rescues from obscurity materials that shed light on a particularly interesting nook in American history. Together these writings provide a complex portrait of the work life, marital history, health problems, religious views, and social attitudes of an aspiring middle-class American woman of the mid-nineteenth century.
--American Journal of Education