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The Resource Wayward lives, beautiful experiments : intimate histories of social upheaval, Saidiya Hartman

Wayward lives, beautiful experiments : intimate histories of social upheaval, Saidiya Hartman

Creator
Author
Summary
"A breathtaking exploration of the lives of young black women in the early twentieth century. In Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, Saidiya Hartman examines the revolution of black intimate life that unfolded in Philadelphia and New York at the beginning of the twentieth century. Free love, common-law and transient marriages, serial partners, cohabitation outside of wedlock, queer relations, and single motherhood were among the sweeping changes that altered the character of everyday life and challenged traditional Victorian beliefs about courtship, love, and marriage. Hartman narrates the story of this radical social transformation against the grain of the prevailing century-old argument about the crisis of the black family. In wrestling with the question of what a free life is, many young black women created forms of intimacy and kinship that were indifferent to the dictates of respectability and outside the bounds of law. They cleaved to and cast off lovers, exchanged sex to subsist, and revised the meaning of marriage. Longing and desire fueled their experiments in how to live. They refused to labor like slaves or to accept degrading conditions of work. Beautifully written and deeply researched, Wayward Lives recreates the experience of young urban black women who desired an existence qualitatively different than the one that had been scripted for them--domestic service, second-class citizenship, and respectable poverty--and whose intimate revolution was apprehended as crime and pathology. For the first time, young black women are credited with shaping a cultural movement that transformed the urban landscape. Through a melding of history and literary imagination, Wayward Lives recovers their radical aspirations and insurgent desires." -- Publisher's description
Language
eng
Work
Publication
Edition
First edition
Extent
xxi, 441 pages
Contents
  • A note on method
  • Cast of characters
  • She makes an errant path through the city. The terrible beauty of the slum
  • A minor figure
  • An unloved woman
  • An intimate history of slavery and freedom
  • Manual for general housework
  • An atlas of the wayward
  • A chronicle of need and want
  • In a moment of tenderness the future seems possible
  • The sexual geography of the Black Belt. 1900. The tenderloin. 242 West 41st street
  • 1909. 601 West 61st street. A new colony of colored people, or Malindy in Little Africa
  • Mistah beauty, the autobiography of an ex-colored woman, select scenes from a film never cast by Oscar Micheaux Harlem, 1920s
  • Family albums, aborted future: a disillusioned wife becomes an artist, 1890 Seventh avenue
  • Beautiful experiments. Revolution in a minor key
  • Wayward: a short entry on the possible
  • The anarchy of colored girls assembled in a riotous manner
  • The arrested life of Eva Perkins
  • Riot and refrain
  • The socialist delivers a lecture on free love
  • The beauty of the chorus
  • The chorus opens the way
Isbn
9780393285673
Instance
Label
Wayward lives, beautiful experiments : intimate histories of social upheaval
Title
Wayward lives, beautiful experiments
Title remainder
intimate histories of social upheaval
Statement of responsibility
Saidiya Hartman
Creator
Author
Subject
Genre
Language
eng
Summary
"A breathtaking exploration of the lives of young black women in the early twentieth century. In Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, Saidiya Hartman examines the revolution of black intimate life that unfolded in Philadelphia and New York at the beginning of the twentieth century. Free love, common-law and transient marriages, serial partners, cohabitation outside of wedlock, queer relations, and single motherhood were among the sweeping changes that altered the character of everyday life and challenged traditional Victorian beliefs about courtship, love, and marriage. Hartman narrates the story of this radical social transformation against the grain of the prevailing century-old argument about the crisis of the black family. In wrestling with the question of what a free life is, many young black women created forms of intimacy and kinship that were indifferent to the dictates of respectability and outside the bounds of law. They cleaved to and cast off lovers, exchanged sex to subsist, and revised the meaning of marriage. Longing and desire fueled their experiments in how to live. They refused to labor like slaves or to accept degrading conditions of work. Beautifully written and deeply researched, Wayward Lives recreates the experience of young urban black women who desired an existence qualitatively different than the one that had been scripted for them--domestic service, second-class citizenship, and respectable poverty--and whose intimate revolution was apprehended as crime and pathology. For the first time, young black women are credited with shaping a cultural movement that transformed the urban landscape. Through a melding of history and literary imagination, Wayward Lives recovers their radical aspirations and insurgent desires." -- Publisher's description
Cataloging source
DLC
http://library.link/vocab/creatorName
Hartman, Saidiya V.,
Illustrations
illustrations
Index
index present
Literary form
non fiction
Nature of contents
bibliography
http://library.link/vocab/subjectName
  • African American young women
  • African American young women
  • African American young women
  • Single women
  • Single women
  • Urban women
  • Urban women
  • Sex customs
  • Prostitution
  • Man-woman relationships
  • Man-woman relationships
  • Prostitution
  • Sex customs
  • Single women
  • Urban women
  • United States
Label
Wayward lives, beautiful experiments : intimate histories of social upheaval, Saidiya Hartman
Instantiates
Publication
Copyright
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 355-418) and index
Carrier category
volume
Carrier category code
  • nc
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Content category
text
Content type code
  • txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Contents
A note on method -- Cast of characters -- She makes an errant path through the city. The terrible beauty of the slum -- A minor figure -- An unloved woman -- An intimate history of slavery and freedom -- Manual for general housework -- An atlas of the wayward -- A chronicle of need and want -- In a moment of tenderness the future seems possible -- The sexual geography of the Black Belt. 1900. The tenderloin. 242 West 41st street -- 1909. 601 West 61st street. A new colony of colored people, or Malindy in Little Africa -- Mistah beauty, the autobiography of an ex-colored woman, select scenes from a film never cast by Oscar Micheaux Harlem, 1920s -- Family albums, aborted future: a disillusioned wife becomes an artist, 1890 Seventh avenue -- Beautiful experiments. Revolution in a minor key -- Wayward: a short entry on the possible -- The anarchy of colored girls assembled in a riotous manner -- The arrested life of Eva Perkins -- Riot and refrain -- The socialist delivers a lecture on free love -- The beauty of the chorus -- The chorus opens the way
Control code
1037810804
Dimensions
25 cm
Edition
First edition
Extent
xxi, 441 pages
Isbn
9780393285673
Lccn
2018043118
Media category
unmediated
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
  • n
Other physical details
illustrations
System control number
(OCoLC)1037810804
Label
Wayward lives, beautiful experiments : intimate histories of social upheaval, Saidiya Hartman
Publication
Copyright
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 355-418) and index
Carrier category
volume
Carrier category code
  • nc
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Content category
text
Content type code
  • txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Contents
A note on method -- Cast of characters -- She makes an errant path through the city. The terrible beauty of the slum -- A minor figure -- An unloved woman -- An intimate history of slavery and freedom -- Manual for general housework -- An atlas of the wayward -- A chronicle of need and want -- In a moment of tenderness the future seems possible -- The sexual geography of the Black Belt. 1900. The tenderloin. 242 West 41st street -- 1909. 601 West 61st street. A new colony of colored people, or Malindy in Little Africa -- Mistah beauty, the autobiography of an ex-colored woman, select scenes from a film never cast by Oscar Micheaux Harlem, 1920s -- Family albums, aborted future: a disillusioned wife becomes an artist, 1890 Seventh avenue -- Beautiful experiments. Revolution in a minor key -- Wayward: a short entry on the possible -- The anarchy of colored girls assembled in a riotous manner -- The arrested life of Eva Perkins -- Riot and refrain -- The socialist delivers a lecture on free love -- The beauty of the chorus -- The chorus opens the way
Control code
1037810804
Dimensions
25 cm
Edition
First edition
Extent
xxi, 441 pages
Isbn
9780393285673
Lccn
2018043118
Media category
unmediated
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
  • n
Other physical details
illustrations
System control number
(OCoLC)1037810804

Subject

Genre

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