Tara Revisited: Women, War, & the Plantation Legend

Letters, diaries, slave narratives, and southern literature retrace the steps of the women of the American South in this historical volume. Filled with photographs, Tara Revisited present the facts and fiction behind such southern icons as Scarlett O'Hara, Mrs. Butterworth, Clara Barton, and others who were plantation mistresses, slaves, city dwellers, and even soldiers. Clinton brings to life the joy and suffering of women in both black and white communities, beginning with antebellum society, continuing through the Reconstruction era, and ending with the present day. The final chapter, "The Road to Tara," discusses the Southern Belle, the Southern Mammy, and the implications of our fascination with those figures from a past which may or may not have existed only in our minds and our movies.