Georgia Historical Society

Rebecca Latimer Felton and the Wife's Farm: The Class and Racial Politics of Gender Reform
Author(s): LeeAnn Whites
Source: The Georgia Historical Quarterly, Vol. 76, No. 2, THE DIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN GENDER
AND RACE: WOMEN IN GEORGIA AND THE SOUTH (Summer 1992), pp. 354-372
Published by: Georgia Historical Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40582540
Accessed: 18-10-2015 08:10 UTC

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 Rebecca LatimerFeltonand the Wife'sFarm:
The Class and Racial Politicsof GenderReform
By LeeAnn Whites

wastheannualmeetingoftheGeorgiaAgricultural Society
in thesummerof 1897 on Tybee Island. The meetinghall
was half filledon that sultryAugust afternoonas Rebecca
LatimerFeltontookherplaceon theplatform and commenced
her speech,"Womanon the Farm."The news thatRebecca
Feltonwas speakingspreadquicklyand thehallwas soon filled
tooverflowing withmembersofthesociety and interestedguests
fromthenearbyhotels.By thistimeFeltonhad becomea well-
knownlecturerand politicalfigurein the state.Born into a
planterclass familyin Decatur,Georgiain 1835, she married
Dr. WilliamFelton,a minister, doctorand planter,at the age
ofeighteenand becamethemistress ofa slaveplantation outside
Cartersville,Georgia.Dr. Feltonwas twice elected to the U.S.
Congress in the 1870s and Rebecca gained her firstpolitical
experienceas hiscampaignmanager.She acquireda reputation
for being a toughand argumentative politician,largelyas a
resultofhereditorialsin supportofherhusband'ssmallfarmer
policies.1
By the timeof her Tybee Island speech in 1897, Rebecca
LatimerFeltonhad not onlyestablishedherselfas a forcein
farmerpoliticsin thestate;shehad also,beginning inthe1880s,
turnedher considerablepoliticalenergiestowardthecause of
improvingthe positionof Georgiawomenas well.By theend

»Theliterature
on Felton'spolitical
careerisfairly nodoubtpartly
extensive, because
she eventually
becamethe firstwomanto be appointedto the U.S. Senate.See, for
instance,John E. Talmadge, RebeccaLatimerFelton:Nine Stormy
Decades (Athens, Ga.,
1960);JosephineBone Floyd,"RebeccaLatimerFelton,PoliticalIndependent,"Georgia
Historical 30 (March1946): 14-34,and "RebeccaLatimerFelton,Champion
Quarterly
of Women'sRights,"ibid,,(June1946): 81-104.She also lefta memoirand collection
of herspeeches,Country
Lifein theDaysofMyYouth(Atlanta,1919).

Ms.Whites isassistant ofhistory

professor attheUniversity
ofMissouri-Columbia.

The Georgia Historical Quarterly

Vol. LXXVI, No. 2, Summer1992

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 Felton and Gender Reform 355

ofthatdecade shewasone oftheleadingfiguresin theGeorgia

Woman's ChristianTemperance Union, speaking tirelessly
acrossthestatein supportofthiscause.In thelate 1880s,Felton
also campaignedin supportof highereducationfor women
and withher support,the Industrialand NormalSchool for
womenwas establishedin Milledgeville.In 1891 she came to
thepublicdefenseofGeorgia'swageearningwomen,ina debate
publishedwidelyin the statepress.2
Thus whenRebeccaLatimerFeltonrosetoaddressthelarge
crowdon thatAugustday in 1897,she spokewiththeforceof
morethantwenty years'experiencein farmerpoliticsand more
thana decadeas a militant supporterofvariousgenderreforms.
Especiallythroughher temperancework,she had acquireda
reputationas a dynamicand contentiouspublicspeaker,and
thisundoubtedly contributed to thelargecrowdshe drewthat
day. Her audience was not to be disappointed,as Feltonsetout
withcharacteristic vigortodiscusshertwodeepestpoliticalcom-
mitments at once: the positionof womenin southernsociety
and theeconomicdifficulties facedbythe familyfarm.As the
local presslatercommented, thespeechelicited"markeddem-
onstrations of applause and frequentburstsof laughterat her
sharp salliesand frequentthrustsat the male portionof the
audience. . . [it]couldnotbe termedotherwise thanmasterly."3
Indeed, Feltonmincedno wordswiththe male portionof
her whitefarmeraudience.She laid theeverdecliningstateof

2Fora furtherdiscussionof Felton's espousal of gender causes, see LeeAnn Whites,

"Rebecca Latimer Felton and the Problem of 'Protection'in the New South," forthcom-
ing in Nancy Hewittand Suzanne Lebsock, eds., VisibleWomen(Chicago, 1993) and on
wage earning women, "The DeGraffenried Controversy:Class, Race and Gender in
the New South," Journalof SouthernHistory54 (August 1988): 449-78. Lula Barnes
Ansley discusses her role in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in Historyof
theGeorgiaWoman'sChristianTemperence UnionFromIts Organization, 1883-1907 (Colum-
bus, Ga., 1914). Marjorie Spruill Wheeler discusses her eventual position as a leading
southern suffragistin New Womenof theNew South: The Leadersof theWomanSuffrage
Movementin theSouthernStates(forthcoming,New York, 1993).
sRebecca LatimerFelton,undated newspaper clipping,scrapbook,Rebecca Latimer
Felton Papers, Special Collections, Universityof Georgia Libraries (hereinaftercited
as "Woman on the Farm"). Although Felton's papers contain many versions of the
speech that she made at Tybee Island, I have only been able to locate this particular
version of the speech as it was printed in the local press. After giving the speech at
Tybee, she gave it around the state for farmeraudiences through the auspices of the
Farmer's Institute.See, for example, "Southern Women and Farm Life," n.d., Felton
Papers.

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356 Georgia Historical Quarterly

southernagriculture squarelyon theirdoorstep:"You, gentle-

men,"shecharged,"havetriedyourprenticehandon thisbusi-
nessfora century or overin Georgia,and yousucceedinspecial
particulars,whileyou blunderalwaysin essentialgeneralities."
Southernfarmerswere always,accordingto Felton,"turning
the pointof view towardthe outsidethe world,"when they
shouldconsider,firstand foremost, theinnerlifeof thefarm.
Making referenceto her nearlyfortyyearsof experiencein
agriculture,Feltonnoted,"It makesa veteranlikemyselfsmile
to hear you prateabout foreigntradeor the tariff, silverand
gold, metallic
conferences and war with Spain as an excuse for
depression in business and low prices."Rather than focusing
all theirenergieson these"specialparticulars,"theseconcerns
of the "outsideworld,"Feltonadvised her audience to turn
theirenergiestowardthe "innerlife"of the farm.The real
problemof southernagriculture was thewayin whichfarmers
wereoverlyorientedtowardmarketproduction, at theexpense
of productionof itemsthatcould be consumeddirectly bythe
farmfamily or bylocalconsumers.It wasthecontinualglutting
of the worldmarketwithcotton,even in the face of the low
pricesit broughtand the solid pricesto be had in domestic
consumption itemslikebacon,lard,good butterand cornthat
bankrupted southern farms,forcingever increasingnumbers
of farmfamiliesto abandon the land and to pack up forthe
cities.4
Indeed,in theirlengthydiscussionsofworldmarkets, tariff
policies,proper fertilizers
and agricultural
techniques, farmers
had misseda critical,perhapsthecriticalfactor,in the success
of farming:the laborof womenon thefamilyfarm.Everyone

4Thisargumentforagricultural diversification
was undoubtedly one to
a familiar
her farmeraudience.It had receivednew vigoras marketpricesfor staplecrops
in the 1880s.For a discussionof organizedfarmerefforts
declinedprecipitously to
promotecrop diversificationand otheragricultural reforms,see RobertMcMath,
PopulistVanguard:A Historyof SouthernFarmers'Alliance(Chapel Hill, 1975), and Law-
rence Goodwyn, The PopulistMoment:A ShortHistoryof theAgrarianRevoltin America
(New York, 1978). Gavin Wright,The PoliticalEconomyof theCottonSouth:Households,
Markets,and Wealthin theNineteenthCentury(New York, 1978); and Steven Hahn, The
RootsofSouthernPopulism:YeomanFarmersand theTransformation oftheGeorgiaUpcountry,
as one
1850-1890(New York,1983) concurwithFelton'sadvocacyof self-sufficiency
to increasingmarketindebtednessforthe yeoman
of the fewpossiblealternatives
farmers South.
in thelatenineteenth-century

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 Felton and Gender Reform 357

Rebecca Latimer Felton,picturedhere withher husband Dr.

William Felton, served as campaign manager for his two
successfulbids forthe U.S. Senate and published numerous
editorials in support of his small farm policies. Photograph
fromJohnΕ '. Talmadge,Rebecca Latimer Felton: Nine Stormy
Decades (Athens,Ga.y1960).

seemed to have missedit,forwhilethe U.S. censusrecorded

of womento otherareas of theeconomy,"a
the contributions
sponge," Feltoncontended, "nevermorecompletely absorbed
thewater,thandid themenofthisnationabsorband appropri-
ate to themselves. . . farmingand the generalagricultureof
theunion."This genderedinequitywas particularly strikingin

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358 Georgia Historical Quarterly

lightof theseemingly endlesscontributions thatwomenmade

to the farmeconomy.Risingwell beforedawn and working
past sunset,farmwomenfrequently worethemselves downto
a "leatherstring"in the serviceof theirfamilies.Despite the
heavydemandsof childrearingand householdlabor,theyfre-
quentlysentwhatlittledomestichelp theycouldcalltheirown,
thatof theiryoungchildren,out to the fieldsto help their
husbands.Theywereevenaccustomedat theend of a longday
to takingtheyoungestbabyoutand workingin thefieldsthem-
selves.5
In exchangeforthesetirelessefforts, womenreceivednext
to nothingin return.Whilefarmerswerefreeto fraternize in
townon Saturdayafternoons, theirwivesfoundthemselves con-
finedtothefarm,withouteventheresourcestoattenda church
serviceon Sunday."How manywomenhaveyouknown,"Felton
queriedheraudience,"whodidn'tgeta good pairofshoesand
decentclothesat theend of theyear- fortwelvemonthsofthe
hardestwork- withouta day's intermission fromJanuaryto
December?"Here Feltonintentionally drewa parallelbetween
the treatmentof slave agriculturallabor in the antebellum
periodand thatof poor whitefarmwomenin thewar'safter-
math.Slaves,at least,had customarily receiveda new set of
clothing once a year.Many farmwomen, accordingto Felton,
couldnotevenexpectthat.Indeed,shearguedthatsuchwomen
foundthemselves ina stateof"actualand peremptorybondage."
Genderrelationswithinthe southernfarmfamilyofferedup
at leastone case in whichtheold adage wasrealized,"The man

5It was in making thisconnectionbetween the position of women on the farmand

the plightof southern farmsin relation to marketforcesthat Felton made an original
contributionto the discussion of agriculturalreform.The role of women and gender
issues in the development of southern agriculturalpoliticshas received scant attention
from southern historians as well. See Julie Roy Jeffrey,"Women in the Southern
Farmers' Alliance: A Reconsideration of the Role and Status of Women in the Late
NineteenthCentury South," in Jean Friedman and William Shade, eds., Our American
Sisters:Womenin AmericanLife and Thought(New York, 1982), 348-71, and Elizabeth
Fox-Genovese, "Women in Nineteenth Century Agriculture,"in Lou Ferleger, ed.,
Agriculture and NationalDevelopment:Viewson theNineteenth Century(Ames, Iowa, 1990).
For a more general discussion of women's roles see Joan Jensen, WithTheseHands:
WomenWorkingon theLand (Westbury,N.Y., 1981) and Rachel Ann Rosenfeld,Farm
Women:Work,Farm and Familyin theUnitedStates(Chapel Hill, 1985).

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 Felton and Gender Reform 359

and his wifeare made one," and Feltonconcluded,"thatone

is theman."6
Men who wentto townon Saturdaysto hold forthabout
the stateof "mycrop,""myhouse,"and "myfarm,"withtheir
fellowfarmerselicitedFelton's particuliarwrath.With the
emancipationof the slaves,only the subordinationof their
womenremainedto sustaintheiroverlyinflatedsense of self.
"If he did not have one slave,"she charged,"he couldn'tthus
spread himselflike a green bay tree,and braylike a son of
thunder."Feltondeclaredherselfto be at a lossto knowwhich
feelingpredominated whenshe consideredthisstateofaffairs,
"disgustfor themasculine tyrants"or "mortificationattheslave-
womenwho accepttheyokewithouta protest."7
While such farmersinsistedupon treatingtheirwivesas
mereextensionsof themselves, or at worst,as somethingakin
totheirfarmanimals,theantidotetosuchmalehubrisappeared
to Feltonto lie in the competingstatusof freelabor. Where,
she queried,would thispuffedup farmerbe on "his"farmif
he had to hirethelaborof a cook,a nurse,a washerwoman and
a seamstressto replacethe contribution of his "I
wife? wishI
had thepower,"she asserted,"to putthemoverthecook stove
and washpot,untiltheywouldbe willingto say'our crop,''our
farm/and Our' everything else."If Feltonreliedupon theanal-
ogytoslavelaborrelationsas a touchstone toindicatethedepths
to whichsomefarmmenhad fallenin theirrelationswithfarm
women,shereliedupon wagelabortodeflatetheirexaggerated
claimsto sole creditforthe farmbyindicatingthesortof con-
ditionswomenmightexpectif theyweretreatedas anyother
wage labor.She offeredtheexampleof a loggingcamp. If the
cook was paid less than the cutters,there would surelybe
trouble.Yet women,Feltonargued,"can cook and do all the

6"Woman on theFarm."Herewesee thatthewifeherself contributes

tothemarket
focus,turningherownand herchildren's labortoherhusband'seffortto producethe
marketcrop.She is "enslaved"to herhusband,whois enslavedto themarket.Felton's
of thesituation
description of southernfarmwomenis largelyconfirmed in theinter-
viewsof MargaretJarman Hagood in MothersoftheSouth:Portraiture
oftheWhiteTenant
Farm Woman(Chapel Hill, 1939).
7 Woman on the rarm.

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360 Georgia Historical Quarterly

domesticdrudgeryforhalfa centuryand nobodythinksshe is

entitledto spend a dollarto please herself."8
Despitetheeconomicdifficulties ofthefamilyfarm,women,
Felton informedher audience, never wenton strikeor de-
mandedhigherwages- or anywagesforthatmatter.The more
conditionsdeteriorated, the hardertheyworked.Clearlythis
behaviorbore a limitedresemblanceto that generatedby
exploitative laborrelations,whetherslaveor free.Indeed, Fel-
ton'spoliticalstrategyin her Tybee Island speech,despiteher
frequentallusionsto the "actualand peremptoralbondageof
farmwomen,"was groundedin theassumptionthatgendered
social relationswere characterized different
by a substantially
dynamicthaneitherslave or freelabor. Afterall, was only
it
becausewhitefarmwomenwerenottheirhusband'sslavesthat
Feltoncouldhopetoshamemenintoa moreequitabletreatment
by the comparison.Similarly, it was onlybecause wage labor
constitutedan increasingly prevalentalternative structurefor
thevaluingof whitefarmwomen'sotherwiseunpaid domestic
labor,thatshe could use itas a goad to drivesouthernfarmers
on towarda bettertreatment of womenon the farm.9
Felton'suse of thesesocialanalogiesalternatively to shame
and togoad themalemembersofherfarmeraudiencereflected
her underlying assumptionthatmen could be expectedto re-
formtheirown behaviorin relationto women,at leastif they
wereproperlyadmonishedor cajoled.Indeed, Feltonassumed
that,unlikethecase of otherformsof socialdomination, there
was no fundamentalantagonismbetweenthe interestsof the
dominantand thenon-dominant in genderrelations.Whatelse
was she doing at Tybee Island in appealing to farmmen to
reformtheirrelationswiththeirwomen?Genderequitycould

Hbid.The relationshipbetween the decline of agricultureand the increased partici-

pation rate of whitefarmerclass women in wage labor, particularlytextileproduction,
is discussed by Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, et. al., Like a Family:The Making of a Southern
CottonMill World(Chapel Hill, 1987).
9For a furtherdiscussion of ways in which the development of wage labor, for
women has served to contextualizewomen's unpaid domesticlabor,see Teresa L. Amott
and Julie A. Matthaei,Race, Genderand Work(Boston, 1991), 291-314; Julie Matthaie,
An EconomicHistoryofWomenin America:Women'sWork,The Sexual DivisionofLaborand
TheDevelopment ofCapitalism(New York, 1983); and Claudia Goldin, Understanding The
GenderGap: An EconomicHistoryofAmericanWomen(New York, 1990), 10-57.

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 Felton and Gender Reform 361

Felton asked farmers where they would be if they had to hire a cook, a nurse, a
washerwoman,and a seamstressto replace the contributionsof theirwives.PorteCrayon
inkand washdrawing fromPorteCrayon,The Old South Illustrated,ed. byCecilEby(Chapel
Hill, N.C., 1959).

apparentlybe createdsimplyby elicitingthe good willof the

male membersof the audiencealone. Farmmen,Feltoncon-
tended,shouldsimplydiscardtheold adage: "A dog,a woman
and a walnuttree:themoreyoubeatthemthebettertheybe,"
and replaceit witha due recognitionof theindispensiblecon-
tribution thattheirwivesmade to the farm.10
Good will,however,was a slipperyconcept.It was,afterall,
not simplya questionof becoming"better"or morevirtuous
men,an improvedversionof whattheyalreadywere.Rather,
Feltonwas appealingto themto become "different" men al-
together. For howcould theypossiblycometoreallyvaluetheir
wives'dedicationto the innerlifeof the farmas long as they
themselvesidentifiedfirstwiththeirmarketcrops and their
ownpublicposition?Onlywhenfarmmenrecognizeddomestic
life as primaryin the constructionof theirownsense of self
worth,in theirownunderstanding ofwhatconstituted thebasis

'""Woman on the Farm."

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362 Georgia Historical Quarterly

of theirmanhood,onlythenwouldtheytrulybe able to value

itintheirwives.As Feltonexplained,whateveryfarmerneeded
to realizein orderto achievean improvedstatusfortheirwives
was thatthe "bestcrop a manever raisedin all his lifewas a
cropofgood,obedientchildren."11 Once he realizedthelimited
significance of marketcropsand of thepublicarenain hisown
life,thenhe wouldhave littletroubleappreciating thevalueof
his wife'scontribution.
Notonlywasgood willon thepartofmena slipperyconcept
in Felton'sintellectualvocabulary,so washerunderstanding of
femalesubordination. Indeed, in Felton'saccount,whitefarm
womenwereas consumedbytheirattachment to their
primary
crop,children,as theywerebythedominationof men and by
men'spursuitof themarket.So whenthefarmerwas in town,
"braying likea sonofthunder"about"his"cropand "his"farm,
what,queriedFelton,actually keptthewifeat home?It was,she
argued,as mucha resultof herattachment to thechildrenand
thehousehold,as itwastheconsequenceofherhusband'sdomi-
nationof publicspace and the familypurse strings.How else
was one to understandthe behaviorof thosewomenwho re-
spondedonlywitha redoubledenergythe moreeconomically
hard pressedthe man becameon "his"farm,the moretotally
absorbedhe becameby"his"troubledattachment tothemarket.
Whatwere thosehard workingfarmwomendoing reducing
themselves to a "leatherstring,"if not attempting to makeup
the gap betweenwhattheirhusbandshad been able to wring
frommarketagricultureand what theyneeded to keep the
domesticestablishment afloat?One welded,even "married,"
farmwomento theother.
Feltonactuallyhad no desireto"liberate"womenfrommar-
riageto the"innerlife"ofthefamilyfarm.Insteadshe sawthis
weld as providingthebasisnotonlyforthe reformof gender
relations,butfortheemancipation of thesouthernfarmerand
southernagriculturefromwhathad become,in the postwar
era, itsthralldomto the market.Whateverindependencewas
possibleforbothmenand womenappeared to Feltonto lie in
thepromotionof a commonrecognition of theirmutualsubor-

nIbid.(Italics mine.)

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 Felton and Gender Reform 363

dinationto the interestsof the "innerlife"of the farm.12 Six

years earlier in 1891, Felton had a
proposed program to the
GeorgiaAgricultural Societythatwas calculatedto do just that
byturningfarmproductiondirectly towardtheinterests of the
familyand awayfromthedemandsof themarket.In a petition
"SouthernChivalry:The Wife'sFarm- theHusband's
entitled,
Pledge!" Felton had appealed to what she describedas the
"crowninggloryof the civilizationof our Southland,"the
"chivalric"treatment of our "fairwomen."13 Pointingto white
southernmen'slong-standing claimtotheshelterand protection
of theirwomen,she had argued thatthis"chivalric"tradition
could then,in the contextof the farmcrisis,be mostfittingly
illustrated in the economicas wellas the socialsphereof life.
The petitionhad asked thatfarmersset aside a portionof the
farmas the "Wife'sFarm." It would constitute, accordingto
Felton,a concretemanifestation of thefarmer'srecognition of
his wife'sjoint and equal contribution to the farmenterprise.
Having establishedthis"Wife'sFarm,"the farmershould
thenjoin whatFeltoncalledthe"BeforeBreakfast Club."While
his wifewas in the house cookinghis breakfast,the farmer
should,in a sortof directlabor exchange,be out workingher
fields.The crop producedon the"Wife'sFarm"was to belong
solelytothewife.AndhereFeltonhad assumedthattheproduc-
tionof the farmwouldreflectthe domesticattachment of the
wifeand thecropsproducedwouldbe forhomeconsumption
ratherthanformarketproduction.As a consequence,farmers
wouldbe empoweredto confrontthe "vexedquestionof com-
mercialindependence"as theywouldfinally findan alternative
basis forproductionto replacetheirown endlessand increas-
inglytroubledpursuitof the market.At the same timethey

12This"domestic reform" politics was not particular to Felton but was the basic
approach of the leading women's reformorganization of the South in the 1880s, the
Woman's Christian Temperance Union. The firstcommitmentof the union was to
work to make men more responsible to the interestsof theirfamilies,not to "liberate"
women fromtheirdomesticposition.See Ansley,HistoryoftheGeorgiaWoman'sChristian
Temperance Union,and more generally,Ruth Bordin, Womenand Temperance:The Quest
forPowerand Liberty, 1873-1900 (Philadelphia, 1981), and Barbara Leslie Epstein, The
Politicsof Domesticity:
Women,Evangelismand Temperancein Nineteenth CenturyAmenca
(Middletown,Conn., 1981).
13RebeccaLatimer Felton, "Southern Chivalry: The Wife's Farm- The Husband's
Pledge!" Felton Papers.

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364 Georgia Historical Quarterly

wouldsimultaneously promotethe"contentment and happiness

of thehousehold,"as a morebalancedrelationship betweenthe
interestsof the familyand the demandsof the marketwould
be theultimateoutcomeof an agricultural systemgroundedin
genderequity. Felton contended thatprogressivegenderre-
form,theempowerment ofthe"female"or the"domestic"prin-
ciple (and Felton assumed thattheywereone and thesame)on
the part of men would createthe onlysound basis fortheir
emancipationfromdependencyon the market.Indeed, the
emancipation ofthefarmerfromhissubordination to themar-
ket, in Felton'sconstruction,was actuallydependenton hisown
to
willingness emancipate his wife.Notonlyshouldfemalegen-
der rolesprovidethe model formen,but men shouldunder-
standthatgenderrelationswereat therootof theirclassprob-
lems,thatgenderwas in thatsensea causal factorin economic
development.
This programwasunanimously adoptedbytheGeorgiaAg-
riculturalSocietyin 1891 and Rebecca LatimerFelton was
electedas presidentof theprogram.Local chapterswereto be
established ineverycountyinthestate.RebeccaFelton'sassump-
tionthatmencouldbe reliedupon toreformtheirownbehavior
was apparentlynot withoutsome foundation.Unfortunately,
despiteitsauspiciousbeginningin 1891,the programproved
to be short-lived. "Politics,"Feltontold her Tybee audience,
weresoon"consuming thenationand so thewomen'scase went
by default."14Here she made referenceto the Populistmove-
ment thatarose in the earlynineties.Relyingupon men'stradi-
tionalsourcesof publicpower,thePopulistsattemptedto free
the farmerfromhis burdenof debt by usingvotesto create
government supportsforstaplecrop production.This effort
failed, and in itsdemiseFeltonsaw the furtherdeterioration
of thefarmer'sabilityeven to maintain,muchless to promote,
a moreconstructive relationshipbetweentheneedsofhisfamily
and thedemandsof the market.15

H"Woman on the Farm."

15Atthis point in her Tybee Island speech, Felton asked the farmers who had
participatedin the program to stand up. She claimed to have such a farm,as did her
neighbors. As late as 1903, she received a letter thanking her for establishingthe
program. Ela James Sims to Rebecca Latimer Felton,June 14, 1903, Felton Papers.

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 Felton and Gender Reform 365

The agricultural crisisofthe1890swasparticularly devastat-

ing to Feltonbecauseitremindedherso forcefully of herown
experience as a young mistressof a slave plantationin north
a
Georgiafully generation earlier.At that time whitesouthern
men made the fatefuldecisionto secede fromthe Union in
responseto the mountingnorthernoppositionto slavery.In
doingso theysetin motiona seriesof eventsthatexposed the
"innerlife"oftheplantation mistress toan exploitative relation-
ship withthe market,in manycases for the firsttime. For
RebeccaFeltonthis"exposure"beganwiththenecessity ofstrip-
ping her household in order tosupport thewar effort,
suffering
througheconomicshortages,and ultimately leavingher home
altogetheras a refugee.By thewar'send, she had lostbothof
herchildrento poorlivingconditions, herplantation wasrazed
by passingtroops and her family'sprimary source of wealth,
itsslaveproperty, was no more.
At leastin retrospect, Feltonthoughtthatplanter-class men
should have compromisedwiththe North and agreed to a
gradual and compensated emancipation.She saw this as the
domestically responsiblecourse,foralthoughitwouldhavere-
quireda lossoftheplanters'exaltedplacein theworld,itwould
have servedto protecttheirfamiliesagainstdomesticloss. In-
stead of takingthiscourse,however,whitesouthernmen re-
spondedbybecomingevermoremilitantly committed to what
they viewed as their perogatives as "free men." Indeed, accord-
to
ing Felton, the more the sectional crisisintensified, themore
planter-class men, like southern farmers a generationlater,
puffed up about "my" crop, "my" plantation, and "my"slaves.16
And whatof the plantationmistressherself?Althoughin
theyearsafterthewar,RebeccaLatimerFeltonbecameincreas-
inglyoutspokenabout the failureof "statesmanship" on the
part of planters,at the timeshe had been notablysilent."I
could not,"she wrotein her recollections, "fightagainstmy
kindredin a strugglethatmeantlifeand deathtothem."17 And
beyondloyalty to her kin, there was the undeniable factthatas
much as the single-minded pursuitof the marketand slave

Life in theDays ofMy Youth,94.

16Felton,Country
l7Ibid.,86-87.

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366 Georgia Historical Quarterly

ownershipcreatedthe orientationof southernagricultureto

productionfor the market,therebyempoweringthe "male"
principle, theeconomicsuccessitgeneratedforthosefortunate
enough own slavelaborwas in theeconomicinterestof the
to
entireplanterclass.Planter-class womenbenefited fromtheown-
ership of slave labor. The plantationmistresses'domesticdo-
main was constructed, afterall, fromthe labor of black"ser-
vants."18
Indeed,thebruntofthe"masculinization" ofsouthernslave
economywas notbornebyelitewhitewomenat all,butrather
by slaves.For it was in the mannerin whichthe planterclass
wasempoweredto ownthereproductive capacityoftheirslaves
thatwe findtherealsuppressionofdomesticlifein theantebel-
lum South.Plantationwomenexperiencedthisdominationof
thedomesticlifeof theirslavesbythemarketinterests of their
class,only as a sortof echo effect.
They resented thewaythat
slavery within theplantation household empowered white men
toengageinsexualrelationswithblackwomen.Slaveownership
enabledplanter-class mento,as Feltonputit,"defythemarriage
law of thestate"and keep "twohouseholdson thesameplanta-
tion,one whiteand the othercolored,and bothwomenwere
afraidto makepublicoutcry.Therein,"concludedFelton,"lay
the curseof slavery" - at leastas faras theplantationmistress
was concerned.19
Nonetheless,the success of the planters'marketcrops
bought the acquiescenceof the most powerfulof southern
18SeeElizabeth Fox-Genovese,WithinthePlantationHousehold:Blackand WhiteWomen
oftheOld South(Chapel Hill, 1988) and Nell Irvin Painter,"An Educated WhiteWoman
in the Eras of Slavery,War and Reconstruction,"her introductionto VirginiaIngraham
Burr,ed., TheSecretEye: TheJournalofElla Gertrude ClantonThomas,1848-1889 (Chapel
Hill, 1990) for a furtherdiscussion of the manner in which whitewomen's control of
black women's domesticlabor created the groundworkfor theirpositionas mistressof
the plantation,both during and after slavery.Felton's own response was on the one
hand to resent the way that men of the planter class were empowered in gendered
termsbythe institutionof slavery,whileusing her own privilegedclass and race position
in relation to her slaves to aggrandize her own domestic position. Thus she militantly
refusedto see the integrityof any familyunit on the plantation,except as an extension
of her own. To illustratejust how happy this "family"was, she told a storyrepeatedly
of her mammy,who was sold in order that she mightlive withher husband, since his
owner was unwillingto sell him to the Feltons. In Felton's account, "mammy"returned
-
shortlyto her, withthe plea thatshe buy her back an indication,according to Felton,
of mammy'spriorities - firstto Felton's familyand then to her own husband. Rebecca
Latimer Felton, "Southern Womanhood In Wartimes,"Felton Papers.
19Felton,Country Life in theDays ofMy Youth,93.

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 Felton and Gender Reform 367

womenas surelyas itboughtthechildrenoftheleastpowerful.

The verysameplanterwhoviolatedhismarriagevowsand kept
"twohouseholdson the same plantation"was also, as another
planter-class womanwrote,"thefountainfromwhomall bles-
sings flow."20In theCivilWar'saftermath, however,thebenefits
of whitemaledominationwithintheplanter-class werethrown
seriously out of balancethrough the death of themen, wartime
destruction of the plantations,and the loss of wealthin slave
ownership. And itwasthisdeclineinthepersonaland economic
powerof theplanter-class malethatlaunchedFeltonand other
womenintopoliticalcareersas genderreformers in thepostbel-
lum period.21
Feltonworkedtirelessly formanycauses,all aimed at con-
structing somenewbalancewithinwhitegenderrelationseither
byempowering whitewomento protectthemselves in themar-
ketplace,convincing whitemen to reform theirbehavior,or by
usingthepowerof thestateto intercedeon behalfof thewhite
womenand children.All her efforts, however,to createsuch
substitutes forthelostpatriarchal "protection" oftheantebellum
periodprovedin theface of the continued decline of southern
-
in thepostwarera to be onlythat substitutes and
agriculture
poor ones at that.Althoughwage labor among white women
increased,it was neversufficient to createa viablealternative
tounpaidfamilial laborforfarmwomen.Andwiththeapparent
failureof programslike the "Wife'sFarm" to create gender
equity,thepossibility forthecreationofa "self-sufficient" white
womanhoodappeared evermoreremoteto Felton.22
In one finaleffortto promotegenderequityin her Tybee
Island speech,Feltonturnedher attentionfromthedemiseof
the"Wife'sFarm"tothepossibility ofat leastsavingtheyounger
generation of white farm girlsfrom the fateof theirmothers.
She encouragedherTybeeaudiencetoworkforimprovededu-

20C.Vann Woodward, ed., MaryChesnut'sCivil War (New Haven, 1981), 169.

21AnneFiror Scott,The SouthernLady: FromPedestaltoPolitics,1830-1930 (Chicago,
1970) traces the relationshipbetween southern white men's defeat in the Civil War
and the emergence of whitewomen onto the public arena in the postwar era.
22Feltonwent so far as to assert in this speech that poor white farm women were
so debilitatedby the difficultiesof theirsituationthat theyhad come to make up over
75 percent of the state's insane asylum population. In other farmspeeches she simply
argued that theywere literallyworkingthemselvesto death. "Woman on the Farm."

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368 Georgia Historical Quarterly

cationalopportunitiesfortheirdaughters.Evenherethepossi-
bilityfor improvedconditionsappeared doubtfulto Felton.
"Wakeup,menofGeorgia,"shefinally toldherTybeeaudience,
"to thecrisisnowupon you!"She urgedthemto considerthat
theirdaughterswould,afterall,be the"comingmothersofthe
whiterace. ... In the sightof heaven,I bringthisnote of
warningand entreatyto you.Whatmeansall thislynchingon
our borders?You neverheard of it in yearspastand gone. If
youhaveone obligationin lifebeforeand beyondeveryother,"
she concluded,"itis yourdutyto motherhood."23
Here Feltonmadereference tothreelynchings ofblackmen
thathad occurredin thestatea weekpriortoherspeech,osten-
siblyfortherapeofwhitewomen.Andinso doing,shedisplaced
thebasisforthereformofwhitefarmwomen'sconditionsfrom
a strugglewiththeirown men ontoa conflict withanonymous
black men. The basic problemof domesticlife thatshe had
hithertoanalyzed in termsof the inequitabletreatmentof
womenwas suddenlytransformed intothe threatof external
racial violence.Even her analysisof the declineof southern
agriculture suddenlyveeredawayfromherearlierfocuson the
peculiarregionalweld of class and genderrelationsbetween
thewhitefarmfamilyand themarket,and reappearedin what
she perceivedas the menacingfigureof the predatoryblack
male. "I knowof no evil,"she asserted,"whichmoreunsettles
farmvaluesand drivesfarmersto townsand otheroccupations
thanthislurkingdred of outrageupon theirhelplessones- in
theirhomesand highways."24

23Ibid.The lynchingportionof Felton'sspeech has been discussed byJoel Williamson,

TheCrucibleofRace: Black-White Relationsin theAmerican
SouthSinceEmancipation (Oxford,
1984), 124-30. See also Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, RevoltAgainstChivalry: JesseDaniel Ames
and theWomen'sCampaignAgainstLynching(New York, 1974) for a discussion of how
lynchingblack men was relatedto the suppressionof whitewomen in thelate nineteenth-
centurySouth.
24"Woman on the Farm." For a furtherdiscussion of this
tragicfusionbetween the
failure of "protection"for white women and race reaction in early twentieth-century
Georgia, see Nancy MacLean, "The Leo Frank Case Reconsidered: Gender and Sexual
Politics in the Making of Reactionary Populism,"Journalof AmericanHütory78 (De-
cember 1991): 917-48, and "White Women and Klan Violence in the 1920s: Agency,
Complicityand the Politicsof Women's History,"Genderand History3 (Autumn 1991):
287-303. In the case of North Carolina, see Anastatia Sims, "Protectingthe 'White
Goddess of Democracy': White Supremacy and the Southern Lady in North Carolina,"
paper delivered at the Second Southern Conference on Women's History,Chapel Hill,
June 1991.

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 Felton and Gender Reform 369

This shiftfromprogressivegenderreformto reactionary

race politicson Felton'spartindicatesthatdespiteherlengthy
criticism of farmmen'streatment of womenand her sincere
effortsto "reconstruct" whitemanhoodthroughreformslike
the "Wife'sFarm,"she ultimately could not bringherselfto
breakwiththebenefitsof whitemale"protection" in 1897,any
morethanshecouldin 1861.Fromthisperspective, theproblem
forwhitewomenwasthatratherthansuffering fromtoo much
"manhood"in the southernsocial order,theywere suffering
fromthe factthattherewas notenoughto go around."Not,"
as Feltonput it,"manhoodenoughin thenationto put a shel-
teringarm about innocenceand virtue."If whitemen could
notreformtheirideasoftheirproperplaceand establisha new,
more equitable"manliness"in relationto theirwomen,they
could, perhaps,stillestablishit by assertingtheirsupremacy
overblackmen.In thecase oftheallegedrape ofwhitewomen
by blackmen,thefailureof whitemanhoodthatcould notbe
addressedthrougha moreequitabletreatment ofwhitewomen
could be assuaged,ifonlysymbolically, througha suppression
of blackmanhood.And so FeltontoldherTybeeaudience,"If
it needs lynchingto protectwoman'sdearestpossession... I
saylynch'a thousandtimesa weekif necessary."25
This turnon Felton'spartto a genderpoliticsgroundedin
whitesupremacyindicatedher own fearsof the hopelessness
for a gender politicsgroundedin economic,or class,equity
withwhitemen. Indeed Felton'spoliticalvisionwas ultimately
groundedwheremostwhitewomen'slaborwasstilllocated,on
the familyfarm,subordinated,undervalued,and dependent
stillupon thegood gracesof whitemen.The closerwhitefarm
womencameto beingnothingbuttheirhusband's"slaves,"the

25"Womanon the Farm." Needless to say,thisspeech elicitededitorialréponse from

all over the country,the analysisof whichtends to break down along race and regional
lines- the southernwhitepress affirmingher speech, the New England and the south-
ern black press condemning her. By far the most famous replycame fromA.L. Manly,
a black newspaper editor in Wilmington,N.C., who asserted thatit was not a question
of rape at all, but of whitewomen preferringblack men. In some waysManlyconcurred
withFelton's assessmentof whitemen. He pointed out in his editorial that Felton was
right,white men were notoriouslycareless about their women, leaving them without
sufficient"protection."As a resultof thiseditorial,Manly was forced to flee town,his
press was burned and a race riot ensued. See H. Leon Prather,We Have Takena City:
The Wilmington Racial Massacreand Coup of 1898 (Rutherford,N.C., 1984).

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370 Georgia Historical Quarterly

While Feltoncalled on farmersto ac-

knowledge more fully the crucial
economiccontribution of theirwives,
her gender politicsremained firmly
rootedin her moreconstantthemeof
whitewomen'sneedfor"manly"protec-
tionfromtheracialthreatsof thepost-
war era. PhotographofFeltonfromJames
WomenofGeorgia
B. Niven,ed., Prominent
(Atlanta,n.d.).

moreFeltonlookedto themannerin whichtheircommonrace

privilegewiththeirmencould serveto protectthemfromsuch
a fate.If the solutionto thecrisisof farmlifecould notlie in
a changein whitefarmmen'sconceptionof thebasisof their
manhoodor in theirabilityto improvethesocialand economic
standingof theirwives,thenitwouldhave to lie in theirability
to denyblackmen'sclaimsto a "manhood"comparableto their
own.Whentheyhad been slaves,blackmenhad enhancedthe
powerand extentof white"manhood"and thereforecontrib-
utedto thewhiteman'sabilityto "protect"whitewomen.After
emancipation thepossibility
of an independentblackmanhood
workedto theoppositeend.
The "deficiency" of postbellumwhitemanhoodwas there-
foreengenderedby the factthatin thewakeof emancipation
blackmenwereno longerin their"proper"place on theplan-
tation."WhenI recollectthatthecrimeofrapeon whitewomen
wasalmostunknownamongnegroslavesbeforethewar,"Felton
contended,"I ask myself, whyhas thecrimeassumedsuchpro-
portions in the yearsfollowingthe war?"The answerto this

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 Felton and Gender Reform 371

questionwas not in the firstinstance,as mightbe imagined,a

questionof the uncontrolledsexualityof black men. For al-
thoughFelton,like so manyotherwhiteracists,fulminated
aboutthe"beastiality"of theblackman,whatshe reallyfeared
was notthemyth of theblackmanas beast,butratherthereality
of theblackman,empoweredlikeanyother.26
In fact,Feltonwas less exercisedby the dangersof black
malesexualitythanshe wasbythefactthatduringReconstruc-
tion,black men had been grantedthatultimatehallmarkof
"freemanhood,"therightto vote.Indeed,Feltondrewa direct
connection betweenthesupposedrape ofwhitewomenand the
exerciseof the franchiseby blackmen. "As long as politicians
take the colored man into yourembraceson electionday to
controlhis vote,"she wrote,"and . . . makehimthinkthathe
is a manand a brother... so longwilllynching prevailbecause
thecausesof it growand increase."27 Voting,accordingto Fel-
ton,promoted"socialequality"and "familiarity" at the polls.
In thiscontext,sheactuallymadeitsoundas thoughtheproblem
was thatblack men were meetingwhitewomenat the ballot
box. Of course,thiswas hardlythecase as votingwas an exclu-
sivelymale endeavor. Nevertheless,Felton was not entirely
wrongin seeing the black male franchiseas the root of her
dilemma.Forintheactofvoting,theblackmanwasempowered
like the whiteman,empoweredamongotherthings,to relate
to whitewomenas whitemen did- or so Feltonfeared.28
Accordingto Felton,thebettereducated,themoreeconom-
icallyindependent,the more politically empoweredthe black

26"Womanon the Farm."Feltondiscussesthequestionof theblackman and the

voterepeatedly in herspeechesand in hernewspaperrebuttals tohercritics.
See "The
Race Problemin theUnitedStates,""Lynching and itsCauses,"and "Mrs.Feltonvs.
Manly,"FeltonPapers. ·
""Womanon theFarm."
28ThefactthatFeltonfearedthepossibility of sexualrelationsbetweenblackmen
and whitewomenwas occasionally alludedto in her writings.Take forinstanceher
rebuttalto theBostonTranscnpfscritiqueof herTybeeIslandspeech.In themidstof
discussingtheallegedrapeofwhitewomenbyblackmen,sheargued,"It istheyounger
classofnegroesthathaveenjoyedthetutelageoftheBostonTranscript anditsadmirers,
and whohavepreachedsocialand politicalequalityas a 'manand brother'totheyoung
and ignorantcoloredmen,and whoseapparentaspirationseemsto be to level all
distinctionsbetweentheAfricanand theAnglo-saxon races,notonlyin Massachusetts,
butin Georgia - to makethisamalgamation and unitycomplete."Here she seemsto
slidefromrape to interracial
sex. "Mrs.Felton'sReply,"FeltonPapers.

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372 Georgia Historical Quarterly

man became,the more likelyhe was to committhe "rape" of

whitewomen.In otherspeecheson the subjectshe even went
so faras tocontendthattherewasa directrelationship between
increasesin thepostwarbudgetforthecommonschooleduca-
tionofblackchildrenand risingcrimerates.29 Indeed,thesame
reformsthatFeltonadvocatedto empowerwhitewomen- im-
provedaccessto highereducation,expandedemployment op-
and
portunities, by the earlytwentieth century, eventhe vote -
she advocatedtakingawayfromblackpeople,especiallyblack
men. Indeed, it was no accidentthatFelton,who wenton to
becomeone of Georgia'smostprominent advocatesof thevote
forwhitewomen,was also one of the state'smostoutspoken
racists.No more than that,as C. Vann Woodwardput it in
OriginsoftheNewSouth,Progressivism emergedin the region
"forwhitesonly."30
Of courseone couldarguethatFelton'sracistgenderpolitics
weresimplyherownidiosyncratic problem,or thattheyconsti-
tuteda displacement of theoppressionof whitemale domina-
tiononto the categoryof race. Eitherwayone could thereby
avoidtheconclusionthattherewasanything inherently orneces-
sarilyracistabout white women'sefforts for gender reform in
the late nineteenth-century South. In the same fashion,late
nineteenth-century farmers mighthave argued thattherewas
nothingessentially genderedabouttheirclasspolitics.Ofcourse
it was Feltonherselfwho so brilliantlydeconstructed themale
farmer'sclaimtothepristineautonomyofclassin heradvocacy
of the"Wife'sFarm."At leastin retrospect, we shouldperhaps
also recognizethatjust as whitemaleclassprivilegewasinextric-
ablyfusedto genderin the late nineteenth-century South,so
toowaswhitefemalegenderprivilege intricablyfusedto race.

29Felton,"The Race Problem in the United States."

30C. Vann Woodward, Originsof theNew South: 1877-1913 (Baton Rouge, 1951).
- For Whites Only."
Woodward's titlefor chapter 14 is "Progressivism

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