The American Nation A History of the United States, Combined Volume (14th Edition)

The Ravaged Land 419

serve on juries. Similarly, black women became more

like white women, devoting themselves to separate

“spheres” where their lives revolved around house-

keeping and child rearing.

ultimate responsibility for providing for women and
children was the master’s.) When blacks became citi-
zens, the men acquired rights and powers denied to
all women, such as the right to hold public office and

Many slaves understood that illiteracy was an implement of bondage: Here a young African American woman in

Mt. Meigs, Alabama, teaches her mother to read.