| Margaret
(Peggy) Gibbons Wilson was Associate Director and Director
of Academic Programs at the Center for Labor Research
& Studies at Florida International University until
November 8, 2006. She held a B.A. in History and an M.A.T.
from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in History
from the University of Southern California. Her publications
include two books: The American Woman in Transition: The
Urban Influence, 1870-1920 (Greenwood Press, 1979), and
Floridians at Work: Yesterday and Today (Mercer University
Press, 1989). She also edited the Proceedings from "Florida's
Labor History: A Symposium" held in November of 1989.
Dr. Wilson published numerous articles and research papers
and received several grants from the Florida Humanities
Council. Her most recent publication was Power, Politics,
and the Union Woman, Labor Studies Journal, Vol. 23, No.
1, Spring 1998. Dr. Wilson edited Labor Studies Forum,
the national newsletter of the University and College
Labor Education Association, 1987-2001 and also served
as a board member (1987-1996, 2001-2006) and Chair (1996-2001)
of the editorial board of Labor Studies Journal.
Dr.
Wilson oversaw the development of a credit curriculum
in Labor Studies at FIU which included a B.A. in Liberal
Studies with a Concentration in Labor Studies, a Certificate
in Labor Studies, a Professional Certificate in Labor
Studies and Labor Relations, and a Graduate Professional
Certificate in Conflict Resolution. In addition to directing
the credit program, she was also actively involved with
coordinating and teaching in non-credit programs including
an on-going Workplace Issues Certificate as well as
statewide and regional union women's schools and tripartite
programs for the U.S. Department of Labor. Dr. Wilson
also made numerous invited presentations including a
week-long humanities related program hosted by the Florida
Center for Teachers.
|
A
Maryland Bride in the Deep South: The Civil War Diary
of Priscilla Bond, Edited, with an Introduction
by
Kimberly
Harrison, Ph.D.
Department of English, FIU
A
young newlywed from Baltimore endures the “strange
land” of south Louisiana
”They
say I’m a Yankee—but if wanting peace is Yankee—then
I am one. I am tired of Disunion of husband & wife.”
In
1858, nineteen-year-old Priscilla “Mittie”
Munnikhuysen began a new diary that saw her marry, leave
her family in the genteel Protestant seaboard culture
of Chesapeake Bay, and take up residence with her wealthy
husband, Howard Bond, in the frontier plantation society
of Catholic south Louisiana. By 1865, Priscilla Bond
had witnessed trials and disillusionments enough to
fill a two-volume journal: her father-in-law’s
brutality toward his slaves; her husband’s alleged
ambush of Union soldiers and subsequent flight from
home; the retaliatory burning of the family’s sugar
plantation in Houma; and the losses, horrors, and daily
depredations of war.
Published
here for the first time, with extensive notes and a
critical introduction by Kimberly Harrison, Bond’s
intimate writings illuminate the Civil War’s impact
on women, families, and individual identities. Occasionally
Bond records her experiences for the benefit of later
readers, but more often she uses her diary to carve
a space and time for self-reflection, self-instruction,
and self-persuasion. Nineteenth-century women’s
lives were defined by their relation to others—as
wife, mother, daughter, and sister—and keeping
a diary allowed Bond to claim time for herself. It served
as a rhetorical tool that helped motivate her to conform
to contemporary standards of “true womanhood,”
adapt to a harsh new environment, and survive the collapse
of a civilization.
Harrison’s
interpretive commentary enables readers to appreciate
the context within which Bond writes even as entries
about everything from marital anguish to in-law difficulties
to religious struggles to failing health bring Priscilla
Bond uniquely and movingly to life. Her diary, deftly
cross-referenced with numerous letters, adds a valuable
and enriching layer of complexity to the larger story
of the Civil War home front.
A
native of Louisiana, Kimberly Harrison is an assistant
professor of English and the director of undergraduate
writing at Florida International University.
Published
with the assistance of the V. Ray Cardozier Fund
ISBN:
0-8071-3143-1 cloth
ISBN13: 978-0-8071-3143-5
Published 2006
408 pages, 3 Halftones, 2 Maps, 6 x 9, $45.00
|
