Miriam Thaggert, "Riding Jane Crow: African American Women on the American Railroad" (U Illinois Press, 2022)

New Books in African American Studies · Aug 8, 2022 · 37m

Miriam Thaggert illuminates the stories of African American women as passengers and as workers on the nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century railroad. As Jim Crow laws became more prevalent and forced Black Americans to "ride Jim Crow" on the rails, the train compartment became a contested space of leisure and work. Riding Jane Crow: African American Women on the American Railroad (U Illinois Press, 2022) examines four instances of Black female railroad travel: the travel narratives of Black female intellectuals such as Anna Julia Cooper and Mary Church Terrell; Black middle-class women who…