I love this--your article on kitchen design was fire--it's so important that we know those stories, how our lives are engineered by design (I'd put that in italics if I could). It's not just happenstance, there is so much purpose to what gives structure to our lives. Can't wait to read the new article.
It’s no just happenstance! Yes!!! We think these things are eternal formations but they’re man made power structures. (That’s a sneak peek into the new piece! )
First of all, I love your work and everything you do. But, I do want to say that I'm currently getting my degree in southern US history and I can tell you that from my research I believe that most, if not all, white women that are getting married at plantations do it for the architecture and beauty and aren't even remotely thinking about what happened there much less thinking that the southern belle was innocent and her home was too. They are so removed from that and I daresay it hasn't crossed their mind. It should cross their minds but it isn't.
I fully get that by dressing in hoop skirts it is attempting to portray a Southern ideal but all women wore hoop skirts no matter their race/culture. Mammies, prostitutes, poor, rich, etc. It would be like 150 years from now women wearing pantsuits and it being portrayed as a feminist costume when all women of all races/cultures in reality wear them.
Am I wrong about these points? What are your thoughts on my comments? I'm completely open to your feedback on them and being educated. :)
Thank you! I love when you comment! And I do totally think you’re right, they’re not thinking about it!
But I’d argue they’re not thinking about it precisely because the presumed innocence of those spaces, and the women in them, is so ingrained. If the southern belle and her home were seen as accountable for the horrors of chattel slavery, plantation homes would not be wedding venues. I saw this point once made on Twitter : people aren’t getting married at concentration camps because they know they were evil. But people still get married in places built by and for chattel slavery.
Why don’t they know that about plantation houses? Because the innocence of the Belle and the house is so a part of white American culture. And you’re totally right, they should know! They should think about it. The fact they don’t is their own assumed innocence keeping them from accountability.
You’re also right about fashion! But the hoop skirt was just one part of the Southern Belle presentation. The Southern Belle was a part of antebellum southern aristocracy - and was made innocent and fragile and extra-white (all those parasols to keep her pale) in her time and ours.
I do think it’s noteworthy that hoop skirt Halloween costumes are often marketed as Southern Belle costumes. I wonder what it would take for the the hoop skirt to be rescued from the southern belle’s legacy?
So much truth here and thank you for helping me think about it in a different way. That point about concentration camps really hit for me as I had never really thought about that way. Game changer.
Just want to chime in to say that a big part of America's racism problem is that we didn't engage with what happened on the Southern concentration camps/ work farms/ forced labor camps, plantations - whatever you would like to call them. Unlike after World War 2, when not just Germany but the whole world learned what had happened and we collectively committed - with whatever level of earnestness - to "never again," America did not have a public reckoning with our history.
So we're all complicit in this - the folks operating these historic plantations without acknowledging that they were forced labor camps, the people visiting these places and not demanding more accurate history, the brides choosing to be oblivious to the history. You actually have to actively avoid thinking about this stuff now as the US grapples with its racialized history, it is indeed a choice to avoid it.
And you're right on hoop skirts - they were in many ways an emancipating garment, because of the bloomers that went underneath them! And of course Victorian, and universal, not particularly Southern (that's GWIW). But when they got popular with the masses, the rich women stopped wearing them.
Another massively thought provoking, insightful piece.
Ah! Thank you. There’s so much to dive into on this. Hope to keep exploring the idea here with you!
I love this--your article on kitchen design was fire--it's so important that we know those stories, how our lives are engineered by design (I'd put that in italics if I could). It's not just happenstance, there is so much purpose to what gives structure to our lives. Can't wait to read the new article.
It’s no just happenstance! Yes!!! We think these things are eternal formations but they’re man made power structures. (That’s a sneak peek into the new piece! )
hooray--look forward to reading it!
🔥
First of all, I love your work and everything you do. But, I do want to say that I'm currently getting my degree in southern US history and I can tell you that from my research I believe that most, if not all, white women that are getting married at plantations do it for the architecture and beauty and aren't even remotely thinking about what happened there much less thinking that the southern belle was innocent and her home was too. They are so removed from that and I daresay it hasn't crossed their mind. It should cross their minds but it isn't.
I fully get that by dressing in hoop skirts it is attempting to portray a Southern ideal but all women wore hoop skirts no matter their race/culture. Mammies, prostitutes, poor, rich, etc. It would be like 150 years from now women wearing pantsuits and it being portrayed as a feminist costume when all women of all races/cultures in reality wear them.
Am I wrong about these points? What are your thoughts on my comments? I'm completely open to your feedback on them and being educated. :)
Thank you! I love when you comment! And I do totally think you’re right, they’re not thinking about it!
But I’d argue they’re not thinking about it precisely because the presumed innocence of those spaces, and the women in them, is so ingrained. If the southern belle and her home were seen as accountable for the horrors of chattel slavery, plantation homes would not be wedding venues. I saw this point once made on Twitter : people aren’t getting married at concentration camps because they know they were evil. But people still get married in places built by and for chattel slavery.
Why don’t they know that about plantation houses? Because the innocence of the Belle and the house is so a part of white American culture. And you’re totally right, they should know! They should think about it. The fact they don’t is their own assumed innocence keeping them from accountability.
You’re also right about fashion! But the hoop skirt was just one part of the Southern Belle presentation. The Southern Belle was a part of antebellum southern aristocracy - and was made innocent and fragile and extra-white (all those parasols to keep her pale) in her time and ours.
I do think it’s noteworthy that hoop skirt Halloween costumes are often marketed as Southern Belle costumes. I wonder what it would take for the the hoop skirt to be rescued from the southern belle’s legacy?
So much truth here and thank you for helping me think about it in a different way. That point about concentration camps really hit for me as I had never really thought about that way. Game changer.
It was really a huge shift for me also! I wish I remember who I saw tweet it. If I find it, I'll share it here!
Just want to chime in to say that a big part of America's racism problem is that we didn't engage with what happened on the Southern concentration camps/ work farms/ forced labor camps, plantations - whatever you would like to call them. Unlike after World War 2, when not just Germany but the whole world learned what had happened and we collectively committed - with whatever level of earnestness - to "never again," America did not have a public reckoning with our history.
So we're all complicit in this - the folks operating these historic plantations without acknowledging that they were forced labor camps, the people visiting these places and not demanding more accurate history, the brides choosing to be oblivious to the history. You actually have to actively avoid thinking about this stuff now as the US grapples with its racialized history, it is indeed a choice to avoid it.
And you're right on hoop skirts - they were in many ways an emancipating garment, because of the bloomers that went underneath them! And of course Victorian, and universal, not particularly Southern (that's GWIW). But when they got popular with the masses, the rich women stopped wearing them.