Janet Allured – författare

Highlighting the contributions of Methodist women in advocating for progressive reform from 1900 to the present   This book tells the stories of nine southern Methodist women, who, inspired by their faith, carried forward the spirit of progressivism. They fought for racial equality, challenged white male supremacy, and addressed class oppression. The white and Black women featured here responded to local human rights violations with compassion, advocating for expanded and more diverse private and public services in the United States. Motivated by a modernist interpretation of the Gospel authorized by the tenets of Methodism, these women expanded notions of southern identity and womanhood. Their actions supported the Black freedom struggle and promoted women’s rights, gaining momentum after the 1939 rise of the Women’s Society of Christian Service—the largest Protestant women’s organization in the country. Grounded in research from church archives and interviews, this book shows how Methodist traditions provided spiritual, theological, and doctrinal support for social justice work among laywomen and female clergy. With Methodism as a case in point, this book expands the historical narrative of twentieth-century reform movements to include the South’s progressive religious traditions.Contributors: Chelsea Elizabeth Hodge | Fran Wescott | Janet Lynn Allured | Randall M. Miller | Jeanette Stokes | M. Kathryn Armistead | Stanley Harrold | Rachel Sauls | Helen R. Neinast | Jennifer Copeland | Katie W. Powell A volume in the series Southern Dissent, edited by Stanley Harrold and Randall M. Miller

Scholars of second-wave feminism often center their research on northern thought and political activity and usually overlook the vibrant pockets of activism that existed elsewhere. In Remapping Second-Wave Feminism, Janet Allured attempts to reshape the national narrative by focusing on the grassroots women’s movement in the South, particularly in Louisiana.This book delves into unexplored origins of the feminist movement. While acknowledging the ways that the fight for African American civil rights produced the women’s liberation movement in the South—and subsequently in the North—Allured also locates other wellsprings of the movement that were particularly important to southern change-seekers, especially preexisting women’s organizations such as the League of Women Voters and the YWCA. Also, for many southern feminists, being part of a faith tradition that emphasized social justice reform is what ultimately propelled them into working for gender equality. Allured highlights key figures in Louisiana; divisions based on regional, sexual, and ideological differences; access to abortion; lawsuits that had national implications that emanated from southern women; and the fight against sexual assault and domestic violence. Through detailed archival and oral history research, she has forged a new path, making this a foundational work for the field. Remapping Second-Wave Feminism will amend how we reflexively view feminism as a northern phenomenon, giving proper due to the southern contribution.

Scholars of second-wave feminism often center their research on northern thought and political activity and usually overlook the vibrant pockets of activism that existed elsewhere. In Remapping Second-Wave Feminism, Janet Allured attempts to reshape the national narrative by focusing on the grassroots women’s movement in the South, particularly in Louisiana.This book delves into unexplored origins of the feminist movement. While acknowledging the ways that the fight for African American civil rights produced the women’s liberation movement in the South—and subsequently in the North—Allured also locates other wellsprings of the movement that were particularly important to southern change-seekers, especially preexisting women’s organizations such as the League of Women Voters and the YWCA. Also, for many southern feminists, being part of a faith tradition that emphasized social justice reform is what ultimately propelled them into working for gender equality. Allured highlights key figures in Louisiana; divisions based on regional, sexual, and ideological differences; access to abortion; lawsuits that had national implications that emanated from southern women; and the fight against sexual assault and domestic violence. Through detailed archival and oral history research, she has forged a new path, making this a foundational work for the field. Remapping Second-Wave Feminism will amend how we reflexively view feminism as a northern phenomenon, giving proper due to the southern contribution.

In 1937, at the invitation of Myrtle Lawrence, a white sharecropper and organizer for the biracial Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union (STFU), two Vassar graduates visited St. Francis County, Arkansas, to document the lives of sharecroppers and tenant farmers. Louise Boyle, photographer, and Priscilla Robertson, scribe, lived with the Lawrences for ten days and photographed the Lawrence family in their sharecropper shack, at STFU meetings, and in their jobs as cotton pickers. The pair took side trips to document two cooperative farming communities in the Mississippi delta, Dyess and the Delta Cooperative Farm. Unlike the famous photographs that emanated from the New Deal’s Farm Security Administration, Louise Boyle was not a government employee. Far from being a propagandist for the New Deal, Boyle’s images demonstrate a social conscience aimed at raising public awareness of the catastrophic effects of New Deal farm programs on Black and white sharecroppers and tenant farmers. In the eighty images reproduced here, Boyle represented Arkansas sharecroppers as dynamic, multifaceted, eager for upward mobility, and curious about the outside world. Boyle and Robertson created a body of work based on a woman-centered feminist ethic that forms the core of this book. Authors Elizabeth Payne and Janet Allured use STFU records, letters of and interviews with the three women, correspondence and interviews with STFU organizers, and newspaper accounts to provide the context and interpretation for Myrtle Lawrence’s stint as an agricultural labor organizer and Boyle’s remarkable photography.

Showcasing the colorful, even raucous, political, social, and unique cultural qualities of Louisiana history, this new collection of essays features the finest and latest scholarship. Includes readings featuring  recent scholarship that expand on traditional historical accountsIncludes material on every region of LouisianaCovers  a wide range of fields, including social, environmental, and economic historyDetailed, focused material on different areas in Louisiana history, including women’s history as well as the state’s diverse ethnic populations