Politics, Women, and Race in Antebellum North Carolina

In honor of Elizabeth Keckly

Women of all races and social classes were caught up in North Carolina’s complex political and slave system during the decades before the Civil War.This seminar focuses on the political culture and social system when an enslaved woman named Elizabeth Keckly (1818–1907) was living at the Burwell School in Hillsborough, N.C. After surviving a brutal assault, she eventually gained her freedom and became the seamstress and friend of Mary Todd Lincoln while the Lincoln family lived at the White House.We will recognize the bicentennial of Keckly’s birth by placing her story within a wider historical context and giving special attention to women who struggled to find autonomy, freedom, and social influence in a hierarchical, often brutal slave society. Join us as we seek to understand issues that united or divided North Carolinians before the Civil War and “influenced our state long after the abolition of slavery.

TOPICS & SPEAKERS
Politics and Gender in North Carolina Before the Civil War
Harry Watson, Atlanta Alumni Distinguished Professor of Southern Culture

White Women in Antebellum North Carolina
Sylvia Hoffert, Professor of History Emerita

Black Women and the Slave System in Antebellum North Carolina
Thavolia Glymph, Professor of History and African & African American Studies, Duke University

Elizabeth Keckly and the Quest for Freedom
Professor Hoffert

The Enduring Legacies of Pre-Civil War North Carolina
A panel discussion with our speakers

TIME
9:15am-5:30pm Saturday, June 9. The tuition is $125 ($115 until May 1st). The optional lunch on Saturday is $15.00.

Discounts are available for UNC students, faculty, & staff. See our UNC Student, Staff, & Faculty Discounted Registration Policy here.

Co-Sponsored by the General Alumni Association.

For information about GAA discounts and other scholarships available to Humanities Program participants, click here.

Register here or call us at 919.962.1544.