Cooking in Other Women's Kitchens: Domestic Workers in the South, 1865-1960 by Rebecca SharplessCall Number: Ebook
As Black women left the plantation economy behind, many entered domestic service in southern cities and towns. Cooking was one of the primary jobs they performed, feeding generations of white families and, in the process, profoundly shaping southern foodways and culture. Rebecca Sharpless argues that, in the face of discrimination, long workdays, and low wages, Black cooks worked to assert measures of control over their own lives. As employment opportunities expanded in the 20th century, most Black women chose to leave cooking for more lucrative and less oppressive manufacturing, clerical, or professional positions. Through letters, autobiography, and oral history, Sharpless evokes Black women's voices from slavery to the open economy, examining their lives at work and at home.