Stepping out of the shadows

the long version

The history of Alabama has been told, but most often in terms of white men and their politics and economics. Now a more complex story of the state is emerging from the shadows of history in a new book that investigates the place of women from the perspective of race, class, and gender. The writers reexamine the roles of both black and white women as missionaries during Reconstruction, as reformers and suffrage leaders in the Progressive era, and as members of the state legislature in the 20th century.