{"id":27,"date":"2014-06-06T04:21:39","date_gmt":"2014-06-06T04:21:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/skinnerfamilypapers.com\/?page_id=27"},"modified":"2015-04-26T17:05:08","modified_gmt":"2015-04-26T17:05:08","slug":"antebellum","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/skinnerfamilypapers.com\/?page_id=27","title":{"rendered":"Antebellum"},"content":{"rendered":"

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“The Spirit Bird,” poetry by J. N. Maffit, music by O. Shaw, 1842, inscribed to Eliza Fisk Harwood by “A Friend,” courtesy Elizabeth Matheson.<\/p><\/div>\n

Three thirteen-year-olds<\/strong> tell their coming-of-age stories in compelling detail. They left a part of themselves behind for us. If we can imagine ourselves inside the conventions of their time and suspend our own contemporary bias, we will discover the common threads of humanity that run from their time to ours, as well as the differences that time has imposed.<\/p>\n

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On the Carpet<\/div><\/div><\/strong><\/p>\n

The term, on the carpet,<\/em> meant, \u201cunder consideration or discussion,\u201d and, in Penelope Skinner\u2019s world, it specifically referred to a belle\u2019s status as unattached and marriageable. Penelope\u2019s letters paint an unusually clear and vivid portrait of the lives of elite young women of the Upper South in the late 1830s.<\/p>\n

As this sparkling correspondence opens, thirteen-year-old Penelope (1818-1841) and her younger brother Trim (1820-1862) are semi-orphans exiled to distant boarding schools from the malarial climate of their plantation home in Edenton, North Carolina. They are partners in solitude, close companions, a single indivisible family unit. Outspoken and independent, Pen shares her innermost thoughts with her brother as she recounts her life as a belle \u201con the carpet.\u201d From an exhilarating whirl of parties and beaux, Pen\u2019s life descends over a period of three years into \u201cthe blues prodigious bad.\u201d After thirty offers and three failed highly publicized engagements, her search for a husband turns desperate; she considers eloping out West with a penniless young doctor. When she finally marries at twenty-one, she undergoes an almost immediate transformation into a virtuous matron \u2013 pious, demure, obedient. Her account of her pregnancy in 1840 is unique for this period of women\u2019s writing.<\/p>\n

The lives of young white southern women who came of age in the 1830s and 1840s are not well represented in published primary sources. Penelope Skinner\u2019s fresh voice fills that gap and sheds new light on the complex social, familial, and romantic elements of antebellum courtship; the precarious nature of marriage negotiations; and the sheer exhausting frustration of being both pawn and agent while \u201con the carpet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read a sample letter<\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0or purchase the ebook from\u00a0Kindle<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0iBooks<\/span><\/a> or\u00a0Kobo<\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

\"Carpet<\/a><\/p>\n

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Albemarle Son<\/div><\/div><\/strong><\/p>\n

In these vividly written letters we follow Tristrim Lowther Skinner of Edenton, North Carolina, from the age of thirteen in boarding schools in North Carolina and Philadelphia, through two years at the College of William and Mary where he studied under the brightest minds of the South, to his practical education in the \u201clean decade\u201d of the 1840s when he learned the \u201cmysterious art of farming.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Tristrim Lowther Skinner c.1850, courtesy Rev. H. Warren Blakeman.<\/p><\/div>\n

Guided by his father throughout \u2013 conducting business in the North and assuming state legislative responsibilities befitting his class \u2013 Tristrim evolved into a well-versed, honorable, Southern planter. He ignored his father\u2019s attempts to steer him in the direction of several wealthy marriage prospects and \u2013 at the age of twenty-eight \u2013 married for love. \u00a0 These eloquent documents provide an unusually detailed portrait of a future Confederate officer.<\/p>\n

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Read a sample letter<\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0or purchase the ebook from<\/span> Kindle<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0iBooks<\/span><\/a>\u00a0or<\/span> Kobo<\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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\"Albemarle<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Belles of Williamsburg<\/strong><\/div><\/div><\/strong><\/p>\n
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“The Wedding,” New York Public Library Digital Collection, 835589.<\/p><\/div>\n

After the Twelfth Night Party in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1841 \u2013 thirteen years old and brimming with hopeful exuberance \u2013 Eliza Fisk Harwood wrote her close friend, \u201cTrim\u201d Skinner of Edenton, North Carolina, that she had danced so long she wore holes into her new satin shoes and hose. Their subsequent correspondence charts Eliza\u2019s education, coming of age, courtships and engagement, and Tristrim\u2019s practical education in the management of the Skinner family\u2019s farms. At the age of twenty-one \u2013 ten years after Trim had made her a secret promise and sealed it with a ring \u2013 Eliza married him and left her childhood home to become a Carolina plantation mistress.<\/p>\n

Her detailed letters are a popular masterpiece of social commentary\u2013 perhaps the only such record of Williamsburg college life during the 1840s and the earliest surviving record of a teenaged girl’s life in Victorian America. More importantly, the Harwood-Skinner correspondence sheds new light on the complex social, familial, and romantic elements of antebellum courtship in a decade not well represented among available primary sources. Eloquent and considered, the letters are a pleasure to read and would appeal to students, historians, and non-academics interested in the South and its history.<\/p>\n

Read a sample letter<\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0or purchase the ebook<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

\"Belles<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"3book<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three thirteen-year-olds tell their coming-of-age stories in compelling detail. They left a part of themselves behind for us. If we can imagine ourselves inside the conventions of their time and suspend our own contemporary bias, we will discover the common … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":317,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"spay_email":""},"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P4M6TH-r","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skinnerfamilypapers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/27"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skinnerfamilypapers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skinnerfamilypapers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skinnerfamilypapers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skinnerfamilypapers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27"}],"version-history":[{"count":81,"href":"https:\/\/skinnerfamilypapers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/27\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3336,"href":"https:\/\/skinnerfamilypapers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/27\/revisions\/3336"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skinnerfamilypapers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skinnerfamilypapers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}