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vii acknowledgments At times it seemed to me that this study of the life course might take my entire lifetime to complete. Fortunately, many wonderful individuals and institutions aided me along this sojourn, making the research, writing, and publication of this volume enjoyable and enriching. The ideas and energy at the core of this study originated from coursework in Steve Stowe’s classes as well as research performed for two of his books. From helping me to conceptualize this study to one last pass of the epilogue, Steve has contributed immeasurably to this book. My dissertation committee and several other faculty members at Indiana University also stimulated my thinking about this project within and outside of the classroom: Wendy Gamber, Michael Grossberg, Sarah Knott, Stephen Stein, and Robert Orsi. I also benefited enormously from the informal discussions of my research and writing with staff members at the Journal of American History. In between article manuscripts and book reviews, the editors—including Joanne Meyerowitz, David Nord, and David Thelen—and the entire editorial staff graciously supported my research absences. Thanks to hospitable archivists, trips to repositories across the South were always enjoyable. I single out Elizabeth Dunn at Duke University ’s Special Collections in Durham, North Carolina; Brian Cuthrell and Henry Fulmer at the South Caroliniana Library in Columbia, South Carolina ; the staff of the Southern Historical Collection in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; James Holmberg at the Filson Historical Society in Louisville, Kentucky; the staff of the University of Kentucky’s Special Collections in Lexington; Bill Sumners at the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives in Nashville, Tennessee; and Wayne Moore at the Tennessee State Library and Archives, also in Nashville. Because travel grants made several of those trips possible, I thank Duke University’s Special Collections Women’s Studies Travel Grant, the North Caroliniana Society , Indiana University’s Department of History, and a Filson Fellowship from the Filson Historical Society. After I completed my dissertation, the Virginia Historical Society provided a timely Mellon Fellowship, which provided access to a treasure trove of additional manuscripts, and Frances Pollard generously shared her insights into the manuscript collections housed there. viii Acknowledgments Over many cups of coffee and many breakfasts at Bloomington’s Village Deli, my good friends and fellow graduate students helped me transform a loose collection of ideas into chapter drafts. John Dichtl, Patrick Ettinger, Lynn Pohl, Paul Schadewald, and Steve Warren merit special mention because they repeatedly pushed me to clarify my ideas and my prose. As the project moved from dissertation to book manuscript, I had the great fortune of receiving feedback from a host of skilled scholars at conference panels and elsewhere, including Phillip Hamilton, Christine Heyrman, Cheryl Junk, Nelson Lankford, Janet Moore Lindman, Paul Murphy, Ami Pflugrad-Jackisch, Beth Barton Schweiger, Randy Sparks, Monica Tetzlaff, and Charles Reagan Wilson. At the North Carolina Historical Review , Anne Miller did a fabulous job of editing my article, “Reconsidering the Boundaries of Maternal Authority in the Evangelical Household: The Davis Family of Antebellum Murfreesboro,” which appeared in the April 2006 issue and appears here as a portion of chapter 4, courtesy of the North Carolina Office of Archives and History, Historical Publications Section. The anonymous referees for the University of Georgia Press also provided valuable encouragement and critiques of the manuscript. Nancy Grayson and the entire staff of the press have also worked diligently to shepherd this manuscript through the production process. At the copyediting stage, I had the great fortune of working with Ellen Goldlust-Gingrich, who further sharpened my ideas and prose. ThemostprobingcriticismcamefrommyBallStateUniversitycolleague, Jim Connolly, who vetted the entire manuscript, giving me valuable direction and insight at a critical juncture. All of my colleagues have graciously supported me during my time at Ball State, but Nicole Etcheson, Carolyn Malone, Kevin Smith, Gail Terry, and Chris Thompson have been unflagging in their enthusiasm for this book. My department chairs—Dick Aquila , Bruce Geelhoed, and Dan Goffman—have also repeatedly aided this project in ways great and small. My graduate students from a colloquium on antebellum America during the fall 2007 semester demonstrated that the teacher-scholar model aids the instructor as much as the students. One graduate student in particular, Chris Werling, kindly aided me during the spring 2007 term, tracking down biographical information on most of the major families in this study. And former student James Appleby offered an insightful layperson’s reading of the manuscript. Perhaps even more than most...

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