The Holy Land of Matrimony: The Complex Legacy of the Broomstick Wedding in American History

@article{Parry2016TheHL,
  title={The Holy Land of Matrimony: The Complex Legacy of the Broomstick Wedding in American History},
  author={T. D. Parry},
  journal={American Studies},
  year={2016},
  volume={55},
  pages={106 - 81}
}
Many enslaved people in North America married by jumping the broomstick, but following their emancipation in 1865 most newly freed African Americans discarded the tradition. They believed it held embarrassing reminders of a period when black relationships were widely disrespected.  By the late twentieth century, however, the custom recaptured African American interest, building on the popularity of scholarly literature and popular movements that emphasized the unique cultural traditions of… Expand
View via Publisher
journals.ku.edu

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 122 REFERENCES
The Wedding Complex: Forms of Belonging in Modern American Culture
In The Wedding Complex Elizabeth Freeman explores the significance of the wedding ceremony by asking what the wedding becomes when you separate it from the idea of marriage. Freeman finds that… Expand
Married in Slavery Time: Jumping the Broom in Atlantic Perspective
In 1839 Mary Ashton Rice accepted a position as a schoolteacher on a Virginia plantation. As a Boston native, Rice had not been previously exposed to chattel slavery, but during her three-year tenure… Expand
Bosses and Broomsticks: Ritual and Authority in Antebellum Slave Weddings
IN DECEMBER 1861 A WOMAN WITNESSED A WEDDING THAT TO SOME eyes would have been indistinguishable from the weddings of white slaveholders. The ceremony took place in a plantation church in Camden,… Expand
Shared Traditions: SOUTHERN HISTORY AND FOLK CULTURE
Grounded in Charles Joyner's unique blend of rigorous scholarship and genuine curiosity, these thoughtful and incisive essays by the eminent southern historian and folklorist explore the South's… Expand
Life in Black and White: Family and Community in the Slave South
Life in the old South has always fascinated Americans-whether in the mythical portrayals of the planter elite from fiction such as Gone With the Wind or in historical studies that look inside the… Expand
Slave Breeding: Sex, Violence, and Memory in African American History
A thought-provoking piece of scholarship that sheds light on the complex history of slave breeding in America. Smithers s book will be hotly debated in the profession. Michael L. Ondaatje, University… Expand
Stylin': African American Expressive Culture from Its Beginnings to the Zoot Suit
Stylin': African American Expressive Culture from Its Beginnings to the Zoot Suit. By Shane White and Graham White. (Ithaca, N.Y., and London: Cornell University Press, 1998. Pp. xviii, 301. $30.00,… Expand
The Wedding Complex: Forms of Belonging in Modern American Culture
The Wedding Complex: Forms of Belonging in Modern American Culture. Elizabeth Freeman. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 2002. 288 pp. ISBN 0-822-32989-1. $19.95 (paper). What does it mean when so… Expand
Contesting "The Way the Almighty Wants It": Crafting Memories of Ex-Slaves in the Slave Narrative Collection
BETWEEN 1937 AND 1939, SEVENTEEN STATE BRANCHES OF THE FEDERAL Writers' Project (FWP) interviewed more than two thousand ex-slaves, approximately 2 percent of the total ex-slave population.' Federal… Expand
The World They Made Together: Black and White Values in Eighteenth-Century Virginia
In the recent past, enormous creative energy has gone into the study of American slavery, with major explorations of the extent to which African culture affected the culture of black Americans and… Expand
...
1
2
3
4
5
...