A Hairdresser's Experience in High Life (Hardcover, Annotated edition)


This book offers a firsthand account of work, race, and femininity. Here is the first fully annotated edition of a landmark in early African American literature - Eliza Potter's 1859 autobiography, "A Hairdresser's Experience in High Life". Potter was a freeborn black woman who, as a hairdresser, was in a unique position to hear about, receive confidences from, and observe wealthy white women - and she recorded it all in a revelatory book that delighted Cincinnati's gossip columnists at the time. But more important is Potter's portrait of herself as a wage-earning woman, proud of her work, who earned high pay and accumulated quite a bit of money as one of the nation's earliest 'beauticians' at a time when most black women worked at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. Because her work offered insights into the private lives of elite white women, Potter carved out a literary space that featured a black working woman at the center, rather than at the margins, of the era's transformations in gender, race, and class structure. Xiomara Santamarina provides an insightful introduction to this edition that includes newly discovered information about Potter, discusses the author's strong satirical voice and proud working-class status, and places the narrative in the context of nineteenth-century literature and history.

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Product Description

This book offers a firsthand account of work, race, and femininity. Here is the first fully annotated edition of a landmark in early African American literature - Eliza Potter's 1859 autobiography, "A Hairdresser's Experience in High Life". Potter was a freeborn black woman who, as a hairdresser, was in a unique position to hear about, receive confidences from, and observe wealthy white women - and she recorded it all in a revelatory book that delighted Cincinnati's gossip columnists at the time. But more important is Potter's portrait of herself as a wage-earning woman, proud of her work, who earned high pay and accumulated quite a bit of money as one of the nation's earliest 'beauticians' at a time when most black women worked at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. Because her work offered insights into the private lives of elite white women, Potter carved out a literary space that featured a black working woman at the center, rather than at the margins, of the era's transformations in gender, race, and class structure. Xiomara Santamarina provides an insightful introduction to this edition that includes newly discovered information about Potter, discusses the author's strong satirical voice and proud working-class status, and places the narrative in the context of nineteenth-century literature and history.

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Product Details

General

Imprint

The University of North Carolina Press

Country of origin

United States

Release date

December 2009

Availability

Supplier out of stock. If you add this item to your wish list we will let you know when it becomes available.

First published

November 2009

Authors

Editors

Introduction by

Dimensions

235 x 156 x 23mm (L x W x T)

Format

Hardcover - Cloth over boards

Pages

264

Edition

Annotated edition

ISBN-13

978-0-8078-3335-3

Barcode

9780807833353

Categories

LSN

0-8078-3335-5



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