Dolen Perkins-Valdez' best-selling novel,Wench, is the first literary work used in this course. The students will read an excerpt from this book in which four slave women enter Dayton, OH, for the first time unaccompanied by their white owners. This section was assigned along with a chapter in Yael Sternhell's study of how movement helps explain the ways in which the Civil War changes the course of U.S. history. Using both readings, we will also ponder what new things can be learned when we focus on the movements of nineteenth century Southerners including African American women in and away from the countryside.
