Conference “(Hi)stories of American Women: Writings and Rewritings”

This conference was organized by Professor Anne Stefani (Université Toulouse Le Mirail, CAS) and was presented by the study group on North America GENA (CAS), with the association of the English Department, the DEMA, the Institut des Amériques, the IPEAT, Dickinson College and the Consulate of the United States. This multidisciplinary conference focused on the representations of women in America and on the evolution of these representations in American society and culture (in literature, art,..

African American Womanhood: A Study of Women’s Life Writings (1861-1910s)

This article shows the diversity of African American women’s life experiences through the study of the life narratives of seven women who belonged to different social milieus, had distinct regional identities and dissimilar occupations. Drawing on their correspondence, diaries, and autobiographies, this article explores these women’s economic circumstances, their views on men, marriage, their roles as women, wives, and mothers, and the condition of being a woman of color between 1861 and the late 1910s—a period of dramatic change in the history of the United States, particularly regarding the question of women’s rights. Covering the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Progressive Era, and up to the beginning of World War I, this work examines the way these women expressed their self-identities

La migration noire américaine. Le récit de vie de Jane Edna Hunter (1882-1971)

Cet article présente et commente de courts extraits traduits de l’autobiographie de Jane Edna Hunter (1882-1971) intitulée A Nickel and A Prayer, publiée en 1940. Il analyse le témoignage de cette infirmière devenue travailleuse sociale, en se concentrant tout particulièrement sur son expérience en tant que migrante à Cleveland au début des années 1900. Cet article examine la manière dont Hunter a vécu le fait de quitter son Sud natal et de s’installer dans un grand centre urbain du Nord au moment de la Grande Migration noire américaine. Il met également en lumière la manière dont l’expérience de la migration a bouleversé la vie de cette jeune femme, la poussant, dès 1911, à s’investir dans le travail associatif et caritatif en faveur des jeunes migrantes africaines-américaines.This article presents and comments on a series of excerpts taken from Jane Edna Hunter’s autobiography entitled A Nickel and A Prayer, published in 1940. It analyzes the testimony of this woman – who started her career as a nurse and became an important African American social worker in Cleveland – and focuses more particularly on her experience as a migrant in Cleveland in the early 1900s. The article examines the way Hunter experienced leaving the South – her native region – and settling in a Northern urban center during the Great Migration. It also sheds light on the way migration dramatically changed the life of this young woman, and pushed her, as early as in 1911, to dedicate her life and energy to helping young African American women migrants