This collection of six conference papers from the Eighth Annual Chancellor's Symposium in Southern History, held in 1982 at the University of Mississippi, seeks to assess the relationship of southern women in a world complicated by racial and class antagonisms.

Modernization and urbanization in the north made women's culture more nearly autonomous in that region. This led to the development of a greater sense of self-worth and a heightened militancy in northern women. Southern sisters, both black and white, have existed in far more restrictive roles than their northern counterparts.