Women's History Commons^™

Their Country: Black Women, Three Chords, And The Truth, Dmetri J. Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Country music has long overlooked and at times outright erased the contributions of people of African descent. The past and present contributions of Black women are particularly ignored. Country music— a racially contested space centered in Nashville, Tennessee— is imbued with themes referencing the “good ole days” that were dangerous times for anyone who was not White, male, cisgender, and heterosexual. The genre has only become slightly more welcoming to those who are not part of the dominant class. And yet, there are Black women who feel called to use country music as their storytelling medium. My research shows …

‘Following The Line Of Least Resistance’: African American Women In Domestic Work, 1899–1940, Taylor Simsovic

Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History

This paper examines the challenges faced by African American women employed in domestic service between 1899 and 1940, with a focus on how race, class, and gender intersected to shape their experiences. Specifically, the study investigates how these women continued to perform reproductive labor as they migrated from the South to Northern states during the Great Migration. Drawing on a range of primary and secondary sources, the analysis argues that Black women's persistent employment in undervalued labor within white American homes was driven by the mutually constitutive systems of capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy. These systems channeled Black women into …