Peter W. Bardaglio says, in reaction to Cashin's book, cites Carol Gilligan's work on female psychology, and he says

"Cashin's striking illustrations of the breakdown in communication
between the sexes regarding the westward move raises serious doubts about the
extent to which the companionate ideal of marriage penetrated the antebellum
planter class. Indeed, Cashin maintains that migration to the Old Southwest
intensified the patriarchal character of family life and compelled women to be
even more dependent on men."

http://www.jstor.org.libproxy.furman.edu/stable/2209810

Meanwhile, Andrew Cayton rips Cashin a new one in his review: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3788416, as not really a study of frontier life, "exaggerating the cohesiveness of seaboard families" "as well as the isolation of frontier life," her lack of attention to non-planter migrants, her "rigid dichotomy" when describing male versus female behavior, her lack of attention to religion (especially men's role) and her failure to see that disintegrating relationships might have been the cause rather than the result of the migration decision.


posted by Lloyd at 12:31 PM

Short, Friday afternoon brain addled summary:

Cashin argues for socially disorganized migration driven by desire of independent males to escape the dominance of fathers and to achieve acquisitive capitalist success, carrying with it a disruption of female extended family ties.

Censor argues (mostly in light of Oakes) for a mixed experience of success and failure among migrants, with implications for family linkage

Billingsly argues for centrality of kinship preservation strategies

Sonya Solomon argues for divergence of kinship-preserving versus capital enhancement farm households in modern midwest

Baptist argues for migration as male empire-building and kinship network expansion
posted by Lloyd at 12:20 PM

Reviewed work(s): Language and Political Meaning in Revolutionary America by John R. Howe
posted by Lloyd at 3:47 PM

A north-side view of slavery: The refugee: or, The narratives of fugitive (Google Books) Contains multiple references to Indiana, Natchez, and other imbook relevant things. The narratives are ambivalent about Indiana, mentioning rights lost and restricted, the Fugitive slave law, but also some prosperity. The Natchez accounts are gut-wrenching.
posted by Lloyd at 8:59 PM