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Author:

Pittman, Coretta M., author.

Title:

Literacy in a long blues note : Black women's literature and music in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries / Coretta M. Pittman.

Publisher:

University Press of Mississippi,

Copyright Date:

2022

Description:

xxix, 191 pages ; 24 cm.

Subject:

African American women authors--Criticism and interpretation.
Women blues musicians--Criticism and interpretation.
Music by African American women composers--History and criticism.
American literature--History and criticism.--History and criticism.
Race in literature--History and criticism.
Blues (Music)--History and criticism.
African American women authors.
American literature--African American authors.
Blues (Music)
Race in literature.
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Literary criticism.
Literary criticism.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 179-186) and index.

Contents:

Preface: The shifting tides: transformational, transactional, and specular literacy practices -- Literacy, the woman's era, and the literary imagination: Anna Julia Cooper and Victoria Earle Matthews -- Literacy and education: Katherine D. C. Tillman and Pauline E. Hopkins -- Literacy in the new negro era: Angelina Weld Grimké and the classic blues pioneers Mamie Smith, Lucille Hegamin, and Alberta Hunter -- Literacy, literature, and classic blues: Jessie Redmon Fauset and Gertrude "Ma" Rainey -- Literacy, the folk, and classic blues: Zora Neale Hurston and Victoria Spivey -- Coda: Spectacular women.

Summary:

"Literacy in a Long Blues Note: Black Women's Literature and Music in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries traces the evolution of Black women's literacy practices from 1892 to 1934. A dynamic chronological study, the book explores how Black women public intellectuals, creative writers, and classic blues singers sometimes utilize singular but other times overlapping forms of literacies to engage in debates on race. The book begins with Anna J. Cooper's philosophy on race literature as one method for social advancement. From there, author Coretta M. Pittman discusses women from the Woman's and New Negro Eras, including but not limited to Angelina Weld Grimké, Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, and Zora Neale Hurston. The volume closes with an exploration of Victoria Spivey's blues philosophy. The women examined in this book employ forms of transformational, transactional, or specular literacy to challenge systems of racial oppression. However, Literacy in a Long Blues Note argues against prevalent myths that a singular vision for racial uplift dominated the public sphere in the latter decade of the nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth century. Instead, by including Black women from various social classes and ideological positions, Pittman reveals alternative visions. Contrary to more moderate predecessors of the Woman's Era and contemporaries in the New Negro Era, classic blues singers like Mamie Smith advanced new solutions against racism. Early twentieth-century writer Angelina Weld Grimké criticized traditional methods for racial advancement as Jim Crow laws tightened restrictions against Black progress. Ultimately, the volume details the agency and literacy practices of these influential women"-- Provided by publisher.

Series:

Margaret Walker Alexander series in African American studies

ISBN:

1496843045
9781496843043
1496843037
9781496843036

OCLC:

(OCoLC)1316775822

LCCN:

2022031547

Locations:

OVUX522 -- University of Iowa Libraries (Iowa City)