A wonderful book about women (slaves and whites) who mixed daily routines in a plantation setting and shared some aspects unique to their gender-birthing, motherhood, and the OldSouth environment... A must read for those with interests in the Old South, gender, African American history, and women's studies... Essential. Choice Born Southern is a useful addition to an admittedly sparse field; Kennedy joins scholars such as Sally McMillen and Marie Jenkes Schwartz in analyzing what birth meant to southern women.
Katy Simpson Smith Register of the Kentucky Historical Society Born Southern is an important book that offers a fresh perspective of childbirth and maternity in the antebellum South; transcends the boundaries of social, cultural, legal, and political history; and highlights the value of close readings of sources.
Anya Jabour H-Childhood, H-Net Reviews This treatment of antebellum southern maternity takes the issue beyond women's history and the often too tight frame of family and community history and places it at the center of southern power relations.
Mary Niall Mitchell Journal of Southern History Historians of the Old South, gender, and family will want to read this book. It could reform our assumptions about regional distinctiveness.
Stephanie Cole American Historical Review Kennedy has written an insightful, scholarly social history of childbearing and motherhood, covering slave and elite white women in the antebellum and Civil War South. She unpacks the multiple meanings of motherhood for women who experienced it and for southerners who used it to defend and uphold a way of life.
Sally G. McMillen Journal of Family History A thoroughly researched and thoughtful look at how communities of women in the Old South helped each other survive an experience few could avoid.
Rosanne Welch Women's Studies Kennedy has surely uncovered a set of concepts that are key to understanding the antebellum Southern society.
Mary Cathryn Cain Canadian Journal of History After reading Born Southern, anyone with an interest in the Old South and the Civil War will have a much stronger "understanding of what it meant to be 'born southern.'"
Kerry M. Cohan Southern Historian A nuanced, balanced, multidirectional study of the pivotal event in many women's lives... Graceful and readable.
Rebecca Sharpless Journal of the Early Republic