Poor Whites in the Civil War
by Anne Kearney Patton, Elizabeth Nance, Elisa and Lauren Sitarz
Dr. Ott, a history professor at Birmingham Southern College, talked to Rho Kappa members on February 28, 2017. At Birmingham Southern she teaches about 19th Century American History, U.S. women, the South, the Civil War and Reconstruction. Her dad worked as a history professor at the University of North Alabama, which directly influenced her avid interest for history. In 2008, Dr. Ott published Confederate Daughters: Coming of Age during the Civil War, which analyzed sources from mostly well-off Southerners. After she published her manuscript she realized she only focused on well-off Southerners, just a small group of women coming of age during the Civil War. Right now she is working on a manuscript about how poor white families helped shape Alabama’s social, economic, and political culture both before and during the Civil War.
She discussed the stereotypes against Southerners. Stereotypes are based off some truth, but for the South they only represented a small group of actual Southerners. Southerners were either stereotyped as wealthy slave owners or shoeless rednecks, but they failed to realize the South’s emphasize on strong family values.
Left to Right: Anne Kearney Patton, Elizabeth Nance, Dr.Ott, Elisa and Lauren Sitarz