Entering the Fray: Gender, Politics, and Culture in the New South. Ed. by Jonathan Daniel Wells and Sheila R. Phipps. (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2010. x, 238 pp. $44.95, ISBN 978-0-8262-1863-6.)

Abstract

This latest collection of essays stemming from the Southern Association for Women Historians' 2006 Seventh Southern Conference on Women's History focuses on gender and politics in the post-Civil War period. Like earlier volumes in the series, it offers the latest in southern women's history. The editors have chosen essays well, and this outstanding collection is a must-read. Building on the now-established historiography, most of the authors of these articles focus on people, places, and events that, while unknown to many, elucidate larger themes integral to southern women's history. Regina D. Sullivan tells the story of Lottie Moon, a Baptist missionary to China in the 1880s, whose life story is well known to Baptists who still praise (and raise funds around) her dedication to the missionary cause, though she previously has not been the subject of women's history. Sullivan reveals that there is more to the story. Not only did Moon disobey her superiors and move to a remote part of China to evangelicize both men and women, but she also helped launch the Woman's Missionary Union. Sullivan argues that the truth has been suppressed by a conservative church leadership bent on trying to limit women's power within the church.