The Color of Democracy in Women's Regional Writing

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments As David McWhirter knows all too well, I am rarely at a loss for words, but I find it difficult to express adequately my gratitude to him for his ongoing encouragement and eagerness to share his wisdom. With my own growing experience comes the knowledge of how fortunate I am to have him as a model of what it means to be a scholar, a teacher, and a colleague. I am also the happy beneficiary of the advice and support of other cherished mentors in the graduate program at Texas A&M University, most especially Pamela Matthews and Janis Stout, and of the expertise Elizabeth West lent to this project in its earliest stages.The Center for Humanities Research (now the Glasscock Center for the Humanities) and the Women’s Studies Program at Texas A&M provided me with fellowships during my years as a graduate student, and I am thankful for both the material bene- fits and the ego boosting that came with such support. Since completing my graduate studies, I have been lucky to work with several colleagues at Oklahoma State and Wichita State Universities whose encouragement of me as a novice was and is essential,as are the needed inspiration and distractions my students consistently provide. Michael McCamley, Sam Robertson, and my dear Esther Lopez provided both distractions and understanding, astutely knowing when I most needed which. Heidi Ardizzone’s willingness to correspond with me about her research on the Rhinelander family proved indispensable to my analysis of Wharton and the Harlem Renaissance. This project benefited from the sage advice of readers for Studies in the Novel, Western American Literature, and especially from The University of Alabama Press,consummate professionals,who made the publication process as painless as it can be. A portion of chapter 2 was published in Studies in the Novel 38.1 (Spring 2006), 74–94, and an earlier version of chapter 5 was published x Acknowledgments in Western American Literature 41.4 (Winter 2007), 393–417. I am grateful to both journals for their permission to reprint this material. I’d also like to thank those family members who provided me with encouragement as I completed this project. My humble thanks go to the Grif- fith clan and its various subsidiaries, a family whose ability to change and (quite literally) grow is an adventure, and to my husband’s family, especially Mary Ryder, whose sympathy knows no bounds. And finally, my thanks to Ross, who was there long before this book or the very idea of it entered my head, and who will be there after other books (hopefully) follow it. You are what endures. The Color of Democracy in Women’s Regional Writing ...