Disfigured Images: The Historical Assault on Afro-American Women

(Hardback)

Available Formats

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Focusing on the scholarly "literature of fact" rather than on fictional or popular portrayals, "Disfigured Images" explores the telling - and frequent mis-telling - of the story of black women during a century of American historiography beginning in the late 19th century and extending to the present. Morton argues that during this period, a large body of scholarly literature was generated that presented little fact and much fiction about black women's history. The book's ten chapters take a look at the black woman's "prefabricated" past. Contemporary revisionist studies with their goals of discovering and articulating the real nature of the slave woman's experience and role are thoroughly examined in the conclusion. "Disfigured Images" complements current work by recognizing in its findings a long-needed refutation of a caricatured, mythical version of black women's history. Morton's introduction presents an overview of her subject emphasizing the mythical, ingrained nature of the black woman's image in historiography as a "natural and permanent slave". The succeeding chapters use historical and social science works as primary sources to explore such issues as the foundations of sexism-racism, the writing of W.E.B. DuBois, 20th century notions of black women, current black and women's studies, new and old images of motherhood, and more. The conclusion investigates how and why recent American historiographical scholarship has banished to old myths by presenting a more accurate history of black women.

Reviews

Morton is a major figure in the revisionist history of African American women. Morton thoroughly reviews the depiction of black women in historical writing and in the literature of the other social sciences, from the 19th century to the present. She finds a mostly negative portrait, e.g., sexual promiscuity, poor mothering, matriarchal pathology, and emasculating dominance of African American males. The partial exception to the negative image is the stereotyped white portrait of the tough, jolly, warm black Mammy so popular in the movies and on pancake boxes. Sexism is mixed with racism in the black woman's portrait. The list of authors, white and black, accepting these stereotyped images in whole or in part reads like a who's who of American social science: Robert Park, Daniel Moynihan, Nathan Glazer, Eugene Genovese, E. Franklin Frazier, Charles Johnson, Kenneth Stampp, Stanley Elkins, Thomas Pettigrew, and Abraham Kardiner. Morton presents a detailed analysis of how, and to a lesser extent why, these negative images of African American women have predominated in social science articles and books, almost all of which have been written by men. Concluding chapters deal with new research on black Americans and the women of Africa. Selected bibliography. All levels.-Choice
"Morton is a major figure in the revisionist history of African American women. Morton thoroughly reviews the depiction of black women in historical writing and in the literature of the other social sciences, from the 19th century to the present. She finds a mostly negative portrait, e.g., sexual promiscuity, poor mothering, matriarchal pathology, and emasculating dominance of African American males. The partial exception to the negative image is the stereotyped white portrait of the tough, jolly, warm black Mammy so popular in the movies and on pancake boxes. Sexism is mixed with racism in the black woman's portrait. The list of authors, white and black, accepting these stereotyped images in whole or in part reads like a who's who of American social science: Robert Park, Daniel Moynihan, Nathan Glazer, Eugene Genovese, E. Franklin Frazier, Charles Johnson, Kenneth Stampp, Stanley Elkins, Thomas Pettigrew, and Abraham Kardiner. Morton presents a detailed analysis of how, and to a lesser extent why, these negative images of African American women have predominated in social science articles and books, almost all of which have been written by men. Concluding chapters deal with new research on black Americans and the women of Africa. Selected bibliography. All levels."-Choice

Author Bio

PATRICIA MORTON is Associate Professor in the History Department at Trent University, Ontario, Canada. Her previously published journal articles include, among others: From Invisible Man to 'New People': The Recent Discovery of the American Mulatto, The New Police Historiography, 'My Ol' Black Mammy' in American Historiography, and Southern Women.