Race and Sexual Politics of Lynching

         Following the Emancipation, freed blacks began to achieve and thrive, much to many white southerners’ dismay. Ida B. Wells’ interest in the cult of lynching in the South was stirred by her friend Thomas Moss’ death by lynch mob. He was a successful grocer that had caused a white grocer’s business profits to decline. This stirred up strong hatred and envy—Southern whites held a lot of entitlement to put the black men and women back into the place they were just years prior. The Ku Klux Klan, along with Jim Crow laws, resulted in a political agenda that supported the exploitation of free black men and women in the South. Wells saw lynching as a tool, used by southern whites, to keep freed black people from gaining back their humanity and hope after decades of slavery, abuse, and dehumanization.

         During slavery in the United States, white men consistently violated black slave women with sexual violence and exploitation. It was another component of “ownership”; the white man had legal right to the slave’s body. Post-emancipation, that exertion of control was continued, not just by rape but also by the lynching of black men. It was a way to maintain dominance over the bodies of freedmen—using fear and intimidation; whites used he-said-she-said finger pointing to justify lynch mobs. The court systems believed the accusers, as the accusers were white, and the assailants were black. They justified lynching and accusations with the notion of the dehumanized, savage black man, pursuing white women. This was during a time where a woman’s purity and domesticity were the social expectation; to even hint that a white woman may have voluntarily entertained a black man’s courtship was scoffed at. Ida B. Wells pointed out the irony in her publications; that while white men raped and impregnated black slave women, sometimes falling in love, they couldn’t imagine an instance in which a white woman would allow that with a black man.

         Ida B. Wells’ campaign against lynching contributed to the mobilization and development of an organized African-American’s women’s movement because the validity and exposure that she gained through her public rhetoric speaking out against the unjust lynching practices of the south gave black women a voice. By sharing her findings of the hundreds of southern lynching deaths, Wells was able to exert her presence and unite black woman across the nation to begin speaking out for African-American rights, justice, and equality.

 ^^ During my reading and search for photos, I found this book. Interesting that this publication would pop up during a search for Ida B. Wells quotes. 

Godey's Lady's Book

The Godey’s Lady’s Book preached the conservative ideals of the 19^th century; wholesomeness and domesticity, purity and reserved personalities and values of women during that time.

It propagated trending fashions, literature, and stories, mainly written by men. While Sarah J. Hale was the female editor of the male-run publication, she performed her role with the most restrained, dignified approach, sure not to go beyond what she honestly felt was the women’s place in the world.

Publisher Louis Godey shared her views, and the magazine exuded this perspective tenfold, through the context and subscriber list. It was a reinforcement of societal norms and behavior, and a guideline to the idea lifestyle for women at that time.

            While it kept women informed on current affairs, it was within the context of the significant of a women’s role to the United States. This was a period of transformation and progression—Godey’s responded to the upheaval by reinforcing a women’s role to provide stability during times of change.  

This reinforcement is evident through the drawings and articles of the publication. Barbara Welter’s Cult of True Womanhood refers to Godey’s Lady’s Book as a primary source when examining the four components of femininity—domesticity, piety, submission, and purity.

            Figure 4.1 embodies those four components—the woman is eagerly awaiting her husband’s return, while tending to their infant, amidst a clean and organized home. It symbolizes the structure that a woman should uphold—a stable environment for children and husband, an orderly home for the husband to return to after a long day at work.

 Figure 4.2 shows a female teacher, working to maintain her maternal values and exhibiting her experience.  She appears to be reflecting, perhaps in prayer, as she reviews books. Figure 4.5 portrays middle-class women going shoe shopping as a form of leisure, instead of necessity. This is an early indicator of the emerging consumer society that would become the staple of the American economy. The clerk is a male and looks over them, handling the transactions. The low-class female employee tends to the shoppers, who are lounging around in the store in luxury—reserved and submissive, pure and pious.