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OverviewThis book offers a firsthand account of work, race, and femininity. Here is the first fully annotated edition of a landmark in early African American literature - Eliza Potter's 1859 autobiography, ""A Hairdresser's Experience in High Life"". Potter was a freeborn black woman who, as a hairdresser, was in a unique position to hear about, receive confidences from, and observe wealthy white women - and she recorded it all in a revelatory book that delighted Cincinnati's gossip columnists at the time. But more important is Potter's portrait of herself as a wage-earning woman, proud of her work, who earned high pay and accumulated quite a bit of money as one of the nation's earliest 'beauticians' at a time when most black women worked at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. Because her work offered insights into the private lives of elite white women, Potter carved out a literary space that featured a black working woman at the center, rather than at the margins, of the era's transformations in gender, race, and class structure. Xiomara Santamarina provides an insightful introduction to this edition that includes newly discovered information about Potter, discusses the author's strong satirical voice and proud working-class status, and places the narrative in the context of nineteenth-century literature and history. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Xiomara Santamarina , Xiomara Santamarina , Xiomara SantamarinaPublisher: The University of North Carolina Press Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press Edition: New edition Dimensions: Width: 15.60cm , Height: 2.30cm , Length: 23.50cm Weight: 0.499kg ISBN: 9780807833353ISBN 10: 0807833355 Pages: 256 Publication Date: 30 November 2009 Audience: General/trade , General Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Out of Print Availability: In Print Limited stock is available. It will be ordered for you and shipped pending supplier's limited stock. Table of ContentsReviewsInsightful. . . . Santamarina's editorial work recovers Potter's autobiography and uncovers assumptions about the world from which that text arose.--Choice Insightful. . . . Santamarina's editorial work recovers Potter's autobiography and uncovers assumptions about the world from which that text arose. <br>-- Choice Insightful. . . . Santamarina's editorial work recovers Potter's autobiography and uncovers assumptions about the world from which that text arose.--Choice <p/> Author InformationXIOMARA SANTAMARINA is associate professor of English at the University of Michigan. She is author of Belabored Professions: Autobiography and Black Women's Labor (UNC Press) and several essays on early African American literature. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |