Degree Name

MA (Master of Arts)

Program

History

Date of Award

8-2014

Committee Chair or Co-Chairs

Steven E. Nash

Committee Members

Tom D. Lee, Victoria N. Meyer

Abstract

Southern concepts of gender influenced Appalachian society throughout the antebellum and Civil War eras. Concepts of masculinity and femininity, including “the cult of true womanhood” and Southern manhood, shifted and broaden throughout the South due to wartime stressors. Appalachians adjusted these gender roles in order to survive chaos and turmoil in their region. The brutal political and community divisions, high rates of desertion, guerilla warfare, and threats of invasion in the mountain regions intensified these concepts of gender. Southern constructions of gender molded the Appalachian experience of war but the high level of conflict strengthened these new roles as a means of survival.

Document Type

Thesis - unrestricted

Copyright

Copyright by the authors.

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