Within the field of history, perspective is vital; it influences what or who is remembered, how it is transcribed, and how it is analyzed. Addressing the concept of perspective, Linda Kerber and Jane Sherron De Hart, editors of the 1991 edition Women’s America: Refocusing the Past, outline Gerda Lerner’s four steps of women’s history writing, and then proceed to illustrate a brief history of American women and the perceptions that surround them. In particular, they focus on the erasure of their history, invisible labor, and the undervaluation of women’s work. Judith Carney, in her essay “The African Women Who Preceded Uncle Ben: Black Rice in Carolina,” echoes many of the tenants set forth by the introduction, but also goes beyond to tackle
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The parboiling method used by the company to extend the shelf-life of rice was developed not by the male sharecroppers, but by women of the rice-producing regions of Africa. However, African slave women’s influence of rice cultivation stretches far beyond preservation techniques. The very practice of rice production was brought to the New World by female African slaves. Planters had originally thought to produce sugar in the Carolina colony, but after observing African slaves grow rice for their own subsistence, they harvested the knowledge of the women to build rice plantations. As described by Carney, the women of Africa had long been the sole producers of rice in Africa, and their extensive knowledge of “seed selection, sowing, hoeing, and rice processing” made the …show more content…
They discuss the middle-class housewife’s impact on the national economy, through frugality and work in the home. “[W]ives in laboring-class households throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century” made it possible to for their family to survive on insupportable incomes, which in turn allowed the businesses that employed the husband’s to “stay afloat in an undercapitalized and volatile economy.” While Kerber and De Hart focus almost solely on white, middle class women, Carney’s essay applies the underappreciation and erasure of women’s work and economical influence to African American women in slavery. In the big picture, Carney points out that “… the very success of rice transfer to the low-country region resulted in one of the most profitable economies of the Americas.” Through the exploitation of slave women from the rice-producing areas of Africa, an entire economy was built in the Carolina colony, yet the female slaves’ influence was completely underrated and all the profits went to the white plantation owners. Without the female African slaves’ knowledge of rice, it is unlikely that rice would have ever been grown in the Carolina colony. On the smaller economic scale, Carney also notes pounding, or the milling of rice, in which female African slaves were extremely important. The very skilled process of pounding actually
The parboiling method used by the company to extend the shelf-life of rice was developed not by the male sharecroppers, but by women of the rice-producing regions of Africa. However, African slave women’s influence of rice cultivation stretches far beyond preservation techniques. The very practice of rice production was brought to the New World by female African slaves. Planters had originally thought to produce sugar in the Carolina colony, but after observing African slaves grow rice for their own subsistence, they harvested the knowledge of the women to build rice plantations. As described by Carney, the women of Africa had long been the sole producers of rice in Africa, and their extensive knowledge of “seed selection, sowing, hoeing, and rice processing” made the …show more content…
They discuss the middle-class housewife’s impact on the national economy, through frugality and work in the home. “[W]ives in laboring-class households throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century” made it possible to for their family to survive on insupportable incomes, which in turn allowed the businesses that employed the husband’s to “stay afloat in an undercapitalized and volatile economy.” While Kerber and De Hart focus almost solely on white, middle class women, Carney’s essay applies the underappreciation and erasure of women’s work and economical influence to African American women in slavery. In the big picture, Carney points out that “… the very success of rice transfer to the low-country region resulted in one of the most profitable economies of the Americas.” Through the exploitation of slave women from the rice-producing areas of Africa, an entire economy was built in the Carolina colony, yet the female slaves’ influence was completely underrated and all the profits went to the white plantation owners. Without the female African slaves’ knowledge of rice, it is unlikely that rice would have ever been grown in the Carolina colony. On the smaller economic scale, Carney also notes pounding, or the milling of rice, in which female African slaves were extremely important. The very skilled process of pounding actually