The Plantation Household Revisited: Elizabeth Fox-Genovese’s Contribution to Southern History

BERTRAM WYATT-BROWN University of Florida, Emeritus The Plantation Household Revisited: Elizabeth Fox-Genovese’s Contribution to Southern History ELIZABETH FOX-GENOVESE’S WORK IN SOUTHERN HISTORY PLACES HER IN the highest ranks of the field. At the same time, she was a most generous scholar. Despite not having seen her in a number of years but knowing that she and her husband were equipped with a huge library in regional materials, I was bold enough to call long distance from Baltimore to have her assistance. I was writing a review of Michael O’Brien’s two-volume Conjectures of Order for Robert Silvers at the New York Review of Books.1 Sure enough, Betsey could retrieve the information but, she said, “it’s in the basement, and it takes me a while to get there and back.” Sometime later she called me with the answer I had asked for. I now realize that her illness was the cause of the delay. It was very thoughtless of me to put her through the ordeal. She had complied with my request, no matter the physical difficulty it required. I also recall a very memorable occasion at the St. George Tucker Society in Augusta, Georgia, in 2003. Before the assembly, Jeffrey Anderson, one of my most accomplished PhD students, was offering his exposition as that year’s recipient of the Melvin Bradford Prize for best Southern Studies dissertation on his topic, “Conjure in American History.” Betsey was in the audience and raised the first question. After prodigious research, Jeff had proposed in his text that traditional African spirituality evolved from its origins in the slave quarters into a thriving commercial and public realm where it still persists. She announced that she foundhisthesishighlydoubtfulbutcouchedhercritiquein objective rather than personal terms. With considerable aplomb, given the stature of his critic, Jeff in reply cited detailed archaeological evidence that demonstratedhowconjurersquicklysetupofficesfortheirmagicalwork almost immediately after emancipation. I remember her words. “Well, you have convinced me that you are right, and I am wrong.” Betsey was 1 No doubt for good reasons, Silvers rejected the drafts sent, but the essay review later appeared in Historically Speaking. 592 Bertram Wyatt-Brown not particularly noted for conceding debating points, but Jeff had held his ground. For her part, she had graciously yielded. As already suggested, in the course of a most productive career, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese published studies whose relevance continues to engage the academy. Many of them were and still are controversial and provocative, an approach she seemed to relish. Yet none of the others, in my opinion, is more engaging, authoritative, and original than her study, Within the Plantation Household. This is not to slight the monumental character of Eugene D. Genovese and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese’schef-d’oeuvre,TheMindoftheMasterClass.It,together with the further volumes in the “Mind of the Master Class” series, is the academic climax to their many years devoted to exploring Southern themes. But that rich and valuable study was, after all, a mutually supportive venture. In contrast, Within the Plantation Household belonged to Betsey alone, though with undoubtedly constructive criticism from her husband. Not only was she among the first to explore with deep thoroughness the world of elite women and their female slaves and the indispensable economic work they performed, but she did so with a truly remarkable literary sensitivity. To be sure, in Fox-Genovese’s study we find less concern with proslavery theology and evangelical piety than in the couple’s subsequent investigation, The Mind of the Master Class, which carried the point into the subtitle: History and Faith. That latter-day transition is consistent with their own spiritual history away from Marxist historical materialism toward the benefits of grace. Yet despite this relative neglect of religious elements, which Southern culture has made central over the last one hundred fifty years, Within the Plantation Household must be considered one of the classics in Southern history. That field has been crowded over the years with remarkable practitioners from C. Vann Woodward and David Potter to Carl Degler, George Fredrickson, Mills Thornton, and Drew Gilpin Faust. Fox-Genovese belongs in that imposing pantheon. Her talent in re-creating a past that disappeared long ago...