The author is a noted historical writer and author of children's books. She recently completed a biography of Harriet Tubman, and specializes in Afro-American history and sociology. In fact, this book came from her master's thesis. She was born in 1952. She graduated from Harvard in 1973 and received her master's degree from the

Clinton's main idea of the book is to shed some light on a category of American women that have largely been overlooked historically. Early in the book, she notes, "relatively little is actually known of women's work in the ante-bellum South." 1 Later, she maintains that Southern women were as oppressed as the slaves that worked in their homes, because southern society was based on a patriarchal culture that allowed males to dominate women, both black and white. She writes, "These women were merely prisoners in disguise." 2 Thus, Clinton is hoping to show with her research and fact-finding that southern women suffered from oppression, not directly because of slavery, but as a result of the culture surrounding them and the need for complete control in a culture that approved of slavery and slave owning. 3

This appears to be a compilation of research into the lives of plantation women, backed up with detailed research and primary documents. Clinton studies the lives of plantation mothers and daughters to come up with a detailed account of their everyday lives. She shows the work they did from dawn to dusk and beyond, and shows that their lives, although more privileged, were not really that much different from the slaves who worked in the fields. They were responsible for feeding and clothing their family, but also the slaves. For example, one woman wrote of the constant battle to knit enough socks for the family and the field workers. She said, "'Those about the house always furnish themselves, as far as the business of knitting goes - they are always furnished with the wool.'" 4 That does not take into account the shearing and spinning of the wool into yarn, which most women also did themselves. It is clear their lives were hard and filled with work.

The strengths of this book include the meticulous research and the details of women's lives that Clinton includes in the book. This is a valuable historical

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Approximate Word count = 1304
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)