Emancipation's Diaspora

An Opportunity to Challenge the "Color Line": Gender, Race, Ethnicity, and Women's Labor Activism in Late Nineteenth-Century Cedar Rapids, Iowa

“…78 The women also participated in clubs and societies, the importance of which has been widely documented by historians. 79 The Bystander recorded these activities and, although the city's white-run newspapers rarely covered the activities of black people, the Gazette noted that Emma Oliphant had helped to organize many societies aimed at doing "much good" in the community. 80 Wade, Martin, Oliphant, and other members of the black community regularly attended club and society meetings in each other's homes.…”

Writing African American Migrations

“…She makes excellent use of oral histories and memoirs, including Civil War pension records, and her analysis of the gendered dimension of the migration experience is especially acute. 61 A good example of an intrastate regional study is Louis Kyriakoudes's The Social Origins of the Urban South, which links Nashville, Tennessee, with its migration hinterland, Middle Tennessee. Kyriakoudes examines both black and white migration, notes cyclical and seasonal as well as linear migration patterns, investigates racial and gender differences in migration choices and in work opportunities at origins and destination, and uses oral histories to good effect to examine social and cultural, as well as economic, motives for mobility.…”