“[A] stunning, deeply researched, and gracefully written social history.”
 — Leslie Schwalm, University of Iowa

“. . . Kennedy . . . has written a detailed, nuanced study of the lives of women—white and black, free and unfree—in Colonial and antebellum Charleston. . . . [She] draws upon the now expansive body of scholarship on Southern women's history and the history of slavery and concentrates on the unique urban setting of Charleston to illuminate new dimensions of women's history. . . . Recommended.”
 — Choice

“This study of women in antebellum Charleston, South Carolina, examines the roles of women in an urban slave society. Kennedy takes up issues of gender, race, condition (slave or free), and class and examines the ways each contributed to conveying and replicating power. “[A] stunning, deeply researched, and gracefully written social history.” —Leslie Schwalm, University of Iowa”