Daughters of Canaan: A Saga of Southern Women

This is a subject the author knows better than any other could possibly know. The book gives evidence of thorough research and personal involvement. As a former student of Dr. Wolfe, I was able to experience first-hand the history of Tennessee brought to life. Daughters of Canaan fortunately focuses on real southern women and their tribulations and triumphs. If you can't meet Dr. Wolfe in the classroom, this book is the next best thing to being there.

A good introduction to/outline of the history of women in the South, crossing racial and class lines in the telling. This book proved to be concise and readable; I finished it in less than a week. As an under-30 Mississippian, my education in women's history is much of my own making, so the forty-eight pages of endnotes were comforting to me, suggesting that the book has been well-researched. I would recommend it to the literate general reader as a springboard into further reading (I plan to find a book with more in-depth coverage of African American women's history ASAP). The most fascinating surprise of it was the discussion of labor movements and YWCA work in the 1920s and 1930s.