Mammy: A Century of Race, Gender, and Southern Memory

Representations of Mammy have had a pervasive influence on the American literary and cultural imagination. This groundbreaking book traces the mammy figure at various historical moments linked to phases in America's racial consciousness. Its comprehensive, integrated approach features color illustrations of varied depictions of the mammy figure from the nineteenth century to the present.

 

"An engaging study of ‘mammy,' the provocative figure of the African American nanny, cook, and housekeeper in white households . . . Wallace-Sanders reveals . . . disturbing innuendos of mammy still relevant today, in particular the elevation in value of raising others' children at the expense of one's own."
---Choice

 

"In this insightful analysis of representations of mammy, Wallace-Sanders skillfully illustrates how this core icon of Black womanhood has figured prominently in upholding hierarchies of race, gender, and class in the United States. Far from being a timeless, natural, benign image of domesticity, the idealized mammy figure was repeatedly reworked to accommodate varying configurations of racial rule. No one reading this book will be able to see Gone
with the Wind in the same way ever again."
---Patricia Hill Collins, University of Maryland

Kimberly Wallace-Sanders is Associate Professor of the Graduate Institute of Liberal Arts and Women's Studies at Emory University. She is editor of Skin Deep, Spirit Strong: The Black Female Body in American Culture.