Summary Of Cooking In Other Women's Kitchens

Even though it was easy for women to obtain jobs in the field of domestic work or laundresses, they faced heavier exploitation; considering, that with these jobs women often had no time to care for their families. Leading a life in extreme poverty, these women had no choice, but to search for other opportunities to keep their families, and themselves, alive. At some point African American women even had to sacrifice their prides, in order to earn breadline wages to survive.

This paper discusses the experiences of African American Women under slavery during the Slave Trade, their exploitation, the secrecy, the variety of tasks and positions of slave women, slave and ex-slave narratives, and significant contributions to history. Also, this paper presents the hardships African American women faced and the challenges they overcame to become equal with men in today’s society. Slavery was a destructive experience for African Americans especially women. Black women suffered doubly during the slave era.

From emancipation, leading all the way to the 20th century, African American women struggled to find better opportunities outside of their agricultural laborer and domestic servant roles. In Cooking in Other Women’s Kitchens: Domestic Workers in the South, 1865-1960, author Rebecca Sharpless illustrates how African American women in the American South used domestic work, such as cooking, as a stepping stone from their old lives to the start of their new ones. Throughout the text, Sharpless is set out to focus on the way African American women used cooking to bridge slavery and them finding their own employment, explore how these women could function in a world of low wages, demanding work, and omnipresent racial strife, and refute stereotypes about these cooks. With the use of cookbooks, interviews, autobiographies, and letters from the women, Sharpless guides readers to examine the personal lives and cooking profession of these African American women and their ambition to support themselves and their families.

Though traditional history books paint the workers in the United States as all male, the women were very much a part of the labor force. However, the way in which labor affected gender roles very much differed. In some examples, work broke down gender roles. In the rice fields, both male and female African slaves were forced to work side by side. This is interesting because in rice-producing countries of Africa, women were the sole producers of rice. On the other hand, the British had seen agriculture as a man’s work, and women typically only worked in the fields during

Labor of Love states that a majority of a black woman’s work was molded by her family obligations, yet were vitally diverse from such experienced by white people, regardless of social class and wealth. The updated version reviews such advances and others in the labors and family lives of African American women with a more critical perspective and understanding.

One of the more striking developments of the Reconstruction Era (1863-1877) was the integration of emancipated black men and women into the labor forces of Southern States. This transition period proved to be difficult for the largely agricultural economies as elite whites had to adjust to a more independent lifestyle, working class whites became poorer and blacks remained poor despite their freed status and ability to earn wages for their work. In Thavolia Glymph’s ‘A Makeshift Kind of Life’: Free Women and Free Homes, she examines the working class black women and the conditions they found themselves in. Two of her most prominent arguments found between pages 177 and 185 is that black women were still made to accept less than ideal and that white women struggled to cope with both their worsening living standards and black women’s independence. This paper examines both of those arguments.

In the 19th century, men and women are being expressed as issues in the era. In Celia A, Slave, the author McLaurin is giving us readers the idea of how men and women dies of innocence from trying to get their issues noticed and heard, such as the slave Celia. Celia A, Slave, is an excellent frame of work of remarkable events that happens in the American History. Celia is purchased by Robert Newsom in 1850. Young Celia only fourteen at time came from Audrain County to her new home, Callaway County. Now, Celia is the property of Robert Newsom; she is training to be a cook in the Newsom’s household. Unfortunately, Celia duties are more than just a cook. McLaurin is unknown if Celia was a slave before being the property of Robert Newsom. “The

“Cutting Into the Meatpacking Line: Workers and Change in the Rural Midwest” book, by Deborah Fink, focuses mainly on showing what was happening in the meatpacking’s industry in the rural Midwest of Iowa. It shows that the key factors in the creation the history of the rural working class depended on the different experiences that gender, ethnic and racial minorities faced during the working years in the meatpacking. It shows the painful process of struggling for recognition of the employees ' rights that women, ethnic and racial minorities faced when they were entering into the meatpacking workforce. Fink wrote her book to inform the reader about what was happening in the meatpacking industry of Iowa the old days, and how women, ethnic and racial minorities faced a lot of segregation, discrimination, harassment, and unequal wages.

“Celia, A Slave” written by Melton McLaurin paints a full story of an African slave named Celia in the period of 1850s. She was bought by Robert Newsom, her white master, to serve his sexual relationship. She was put into trial after killing her master in an attempt to stop him from sexual advance and then burned his body in the fireplace. This incident appalled residents in Callaway County and Missouri in a historical period when the neighboring Kansas Territory deeply involved into a furious dispute over if Kansas became a slave state or free-slave state. In a series of non-stop events, Celia’s story became emblematic of the centrifugal conditions that ripped the antebellum America apart because her life helps us understand women’s rights in the slavery society and a conflict between proslavery and antislavery activities.

Ellison, the author, writes; "I downed the acid drink, proud to have resisted the pork chops and grits. It was a an act of discipline" (178). It is vital to note that several of the foods mentioned-- especially grits-- have already been recognized as racially-charged. In addition to this, the fact remains that African Americans of this time were generally not of high economic standing, and thus had to prepare foods that fit their means. This idea of low-income or typically “black” food continues throughout the novel. While in a majority African American neighborhood, Harlem, the narrator observes the following scene; "...Withering fruits and vegetables. I could smell the stench of decaying cabbage. A watermelon huckster stood in the shade beside his truck, holding up a long slice of orange-meated melon, crying his wares with hoarse appeals to nostalgia, memories of childhood, green shade and summer coolness." (460). This scene that the unnamed narrator is describing to the audience fits under the description of a common concept known as a “food desert”. That is, the area is so incredibly impoverished that individuals living in the area have a very little amount of nutritional options. The people residing in Harlem are too poor to even afford fresh cabbage, much less more substantial foods, such as meat or bread. In another scene, during a riot, the foods that are stolen

During the antebellum South, many Africans, who were forced migrants brought to America, were there to work for white-owners of tobacco and cotton plantations, manual labor as America expanded west, and as supplemental support of their owner’s families. Harriet Jacobs’s slave narrative supports the definition of slavery (in the South), discrimination (in the North), sexual gender as being influential to a slave’s role, the significant role of family support, and how the gender differences viewed and responded to life circumstances.

Many had to work on farms and ranches with terrible working conditions and unfair compensation. Anne talks in the book of how her mother had to work many stressful and tiring jobs to help support their family. Anne had found several jobs working at restaurants, cleaning the house, and babysitting for white families. She worked many long hours and received very poor pay. African Americans also lived a poor life because they were scared of being killed because of the color of their skin. The blacks were not able to live their lives without the idea of being killed in the back of their minds. This gives proof to the idea that the lives of African Americans who live in the South were terrible and

The essay "In Search of Our Mother's Gardens" by contemporary American novelist Alice Walker is one that, like a flashbulb, burns an afterimage in my mind. It is an essay primarily written to inform the reader about the history of African American women in America and how their vibrant, creative spirit managed to survive in a dismal world filled with many oppressive hardships. This piece can be read, understood, and manage to conjure up many emotions within the hearts and minds of just about any audience that reads it. However, Walker targets African American women in today's society in an effort to make them understand their heritage and appreciate what their mothers and grandmothers endured to

Slavery had an immense impact on African American families, as the familial dynamic of the African American family was in many ways responsible for the stereotypes surrounding black families in the present moment. Not only were families the sole property of their slave owner, but there were laws restricting their rights and privileges. However, despite the fact that the African American slave family existed in a perpetually tumultuous state, there were cohesive slave families, but they faced many struggles and challenges. In particular, black women were faced with incredible hardships with regard to sustaining the familial structure. This paper explores aspects of the African American family structure during slavery, considering the effect that slavery had on black women. The legacy of slavery in the present moment is also considered, in addition to whether slavery continues to exist.

     Amy Tan's The Kitchen God's Wife is the story of a relationship between a mother and daughter that is much more than it seems. This touchingly beautiful narrative not only tells a story, but deals with many of the issues that we have discussed in Women Writers this semester. Tan addresses the issues of the inequality given women in other cultures, different cultures' expectations of women, abortion, friendship, generation gaps between mothers and daughters, mother-daughter relationships, and the strength of women in the face of adversity. Tan even sets the feminist mood with the title of the book, which refers to a woman in Chinese Mythology who cared for a selfish man who became a