Closer to Freedom: Enslaved Women and Everyday Resistance in the Plantation South

Review This slim volume makes a substantial and often ingenious contribution to slavery studies and to women's and southern history. Taking pleasure seriously, studying space without getting trapped in the 'public versus private' debate, finding new information in much-mined sources, and complicating our knowledge of enslaved women's resistance are valuable in themselves. They are also potent hints at what Camp and those who follow her lead will accomplish in the coming years.--American Historical ReviewVery readable yet analytically sophisticated. . . . Camp seamlessly integrates a wide array of sources . . . into an engaging book that does more than recount women's experiences as slaves in the plantation South. . . . An excellent study of bondwomen and a penetrating look at the rival geographies created by enslaved people."-Journal of Southern HistoryThrough the lens of geography, Camp successfully introduces a new language to describe and interpret everyday resistance among enslaved women and men. Scholars interested in a different approach to this important topic will find Closer to Freedom refreshing.--Civil War HistoryWonderfully evocative. . . . A provocative book full of astonishing, sometimes unforgettable moments.--Virginia MagazineThe book is well written throughout, and Camp really does seem to get inside the minds of enslaved women. . . . This is a promising first book and an interesting and innovative addition to the historiography of the lives of the enslaved.--Georgia Historical QuarterlyAn appealing and creative approach to understanding everyday slave resistance.--Southern HistorianThe author's attention to a 'spatial history of American slavery' reveals contests over physical space as a hitherto unappreciated dimension of the everyday politics of plantation life. This book skillfully brings into view clandestine pockets--ephemeral but resilient--in which slave women, in particular, struggled to sustain a 'rival geography' in which powers of mastery could be held at bay.--Julie Saville, University of ChicagoStephanie Camp's brilliant study draws upon numerous fields of scholarship--feminist theory, anthropology, sociology--to produce an innovative reinterpretation of enslaved women in the plantation South. Sensitive, bold, and imaginative, Closer to Freedom is the first book to place black women at the center of everyday resistance to bondage.--Douglas R. Egerton, Le Moyne College This elegant and often profound monograph casts a fresh eye on the daily acts of self-preservation and disguised defiance that historians of slavery have called 'everyday resistance.' . . . Illuminating both the texture of enslaved women's lives and the concept of everyday resistance, Closer to Freedom is both a welcome teaching text and an accessible study for general readers.--North Carolina Historical ReviewDeepens our understanding of resistance as both an individual and collective endeavor. [Camp] argues forcefully. . . . Intriguing and interesting.--The Journal of Interdisciplinary HistoryCamp's creative and elegant work reinforces the interconnectedness of North and South, slave and free, in the lives of enslaved people.--SignsCamp has written a provocative book full of astonishing, sometimes unforgettable moments. Moreover, she has raised important questions about the way slave women resisted their owners. Ultimately no one will be able to answer the questions that Camp asks without coming to grips with the world she describes.--Virginia Magazine of History and Biography Product Description Recent scholarship on slavery has explored the lives of enslaved people beyond the watchful eye of their masters. Building on this work and the study of space, social relations, gender, and power in the Old South, Stephanie Camp examines the everyday containment and movement of enslaved men and, especially, enslaved women. In her investigation of the movement of bodies, objects, and information, Camp extends our recognition