Author: Maryjean Wall Publisher: University Press of Kentucky ISBN: 0813147085 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 232
Book Description
Belle Brezing made a major career move when she stepped off the streets of Lexington, Kentucky, and into Jennie Hill's bawdy house -- an upscale brothel run out of a former residence of Mary Todd Lincoln. At nineteen, Brezing was already infamous as a youth steeped in death, sex, drugs, and scandal. But it was in Miss Hill's "respectable" establishment that she began to acquire the skills, manners, and business contacts that allowed her to ascend to power and influence as an internationally known madam. In this revealing book, Maryjean Wall offers a tantalizing true story of vice and power in the Gilded Age South, as told through the life and times of the notorious Miss Belle. After years on the streets and working for Hill, Belle Brezing borrowed enough money to set up her own establishment -- her wealth and fame growing alongside the booming popularity of horse racing. Soon, her houses were known internationally, and powerful patrons from the industrial cities of the Northeast courted her in the lavish parlors of her gilt-and-mirror mansion. Secrecy was a moral code in the sequestered demimonde of prostitution in Victorian America, so little has been written about the Southern madam credited with inspiring the character Belle Watling in Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind. Following Brezing from her birth amid the ruins of the Civil War to the height of her scarlet fame and beyond, Wall uses her story to explore a wider world of sex, business, politics, and power. The result is a scintillating tale that is as enthralling as any fiction.
Author: Sara Havens Publisher: Lulu.com ISBN: 1105119130 Category : Humor Languages : en Pages : 179
Book Description
Sara Havens is The Bar Belle for LEO Weekly and writes about everything from the Louisville, Ky., nightlife and hangover cures to the latest in bars, cocktails and watered-down American swill. A personality-driven column that runs every other week in LEO, The Bar Belle was created in 2006, which is, ironically, the year Sara's mother stopped reading the paper. The Bar Belle was named Best Column (for a circulation under 50,000) at the 2011 AltWeekly Awards. This book features 100 of her best columns from 2006-2010.
Author: Stuart W. Sanders Publisher: University Press of Kentucky ISBN: 081317872X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 161
Book Description
In March 1856, a dead body washed onto the shore of the Mississippi River. Nothing out of the ordinary. In those days, people fished corpses from the river with alarming frequency. But this body, with its arms and legs tied to a chair, struck an especially eerie chord. The body belonged to a man who had been a passenger on the luxurious steamboat known as the Ohio Belle, and he was the son of a southern planter. Who had bound and pitched this wealthy man into the river? Why? As reports of the killing spread, one newspaper shuddered, "The details are truly awful and well calculated to cause a thrill of horror." Drawing on eyewitness accounts, Murder on the Ohio Belle uncovers the mysterious circumstances behind the bloodshed. A northern vessel captured by secessionists, sailing the border between slave and free states at the edge of the frontier, the Ohio Belle navigated the confluence of nineteenth-century America's greatest tensions. Stuart W. Sanders dives into the history of this remarkable steamer—a story of double murders, secret identities, and hasty getaways—and reveals the bloody roots of antebellum honor culture, classism, and vigilante justice.
Author: Candace Bailey Publisher: SIU Press ISBN: 0809385570 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 276
Book Description
Candace Bailey’s exploration of the intertwining worlds of music and gender shows how young southern women pushed the boundaries of respectability to leave their unique mark on a patriarchal society. Before 1861, a strictly defined code of behavior allowed a southern woman to identify herself as a “lady” through her accomplishments in music, drawing, and writing, among other factors. Music permeated the lives of southern women, and they learned appropriate participation through instruction at home and at female training institutions. A belle’s primary venue was the parlor, where she could demonstrate her usefulness in the domestic circle by providing comfort and serving to enhance social gatherings through her musical performances, often by playing the piano or singing. The southern lady performed in public only on the rarest of occasions, though she might attend public performances by women. An especially talented lady who composed music for a broader audience would do so anonymously so that her reputation would remain unsullied. The tumultuous Civil War years provided an opportunity for southern women to envision and attempt new ways to make themselves useful to the broader, public society. While continuing their domestic responsibilities and taking on new ones, young women also tested the boundaries of propriety in a variety of ways. In a broad break with the past, musical ladies began giving public performances to raise money for the war effort, some women published patriotic Confederate music under their own names, supporting their cause and claiming public ownership for their creations. Bailey explores these women’s lives and analyzes their music. Through their move from private to public performance and publication, southern ladies not only expanded concepts of social acceptability but also gained a valued sense of purpose. Music and the Southern Belle places these remarkable women in their social context, providing compelling insight into southern culture and the intricate ties between a lady’s identity and the world of music. Augmented by incisive analysis of musical compositions and vibrant profiles of composers, this volume is the first of its kind, making it an essential read for devotees of Civil War and southern history, gender studies, and music.
Author: Beverly Jenkins Publisher: Kimani Press ISBN: 1426826249 Category : Juvenile Fiction Languages : en Pages : 252
Book Description
After a grueling escape north, Belle Palmer is free, yet lost and alone. Separated from her father on the harrowing journey, Belle has nowhere to turn until she finds shelter with the Bests, the first free family she's ever known. For the first time in her sixteen years, Belle is able to express herself freely—except where her feelings for a certain dark-eyed young man are concerned. Daniel Best is headed for great things. Educated and handsome, at eighteen he is full of the promise and dreams of his people, and is engaged to the prettiest (if the most spoiled) girl around. So when a bedraggled stranger arrives in his household and turns into a vibrant, lovely young woman, his attraction to her catches him entirely by surprise. While Belle is determined to deny her feelings for him, Daniel is caught between his conscience and his infatuation with her. That the two belong together is undeniable, but that it could ever happen seems impossible.
Author: Adam Gamble Publisher: Good Night books ISBN: 1602192634 Category : Juvenile Fiction Languages : en Pages : 20
Book Description
Welcome to Kentucky! A celebration of the Bluegrass State, this delightful board book takes young readers on a tour of Kentucky’s most famous and beloved icons, including the Mammoth Caves, the Kentucky Derby, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Louisville Slugger Museum, Newport Aquarium, Black Mountain, University of Kentucky, Kentucky State Fair, Louisville Zoo, Belle of Louisville riverboat, and Dinosaur World.
Author: Tamera Alexander Publisher: Zondervan ISBN: 0310413133 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 504
Book Description
From bestselling author Tamera Alexander comes an exquisite historical novel set against the real history of Belle Meade Plantation in Nashville, Tennessee, that explores the struggles of real people of the post-war South and the journeys of a man and a woman scarred by betrayal. Olivia Aberdeen, destitute widow of a man shot as a traitor to the South, is shunned by proper society and gratefully accepts an invitation from Elizabeth Harding, mistress of Belle Meade Plantation. Expecting to be the Hardings’ head housekeeper, Olivia is disillusioned when she learns the real reason Elizabeth’s husband, Confederate General William Giles Harding, agreed to her coming. Not finding the safe haven she expects, Olivia is caught off guard by her feelings for Ridley Adam Cooper, a man who seems anything but a Southern gentleman. Branded a traitor by some, Ridley Cooper, a Southern son who chose to fight for the Union, is a man desperate to end the war still raging inside him. Determined to learn “the gift” that Belle Meade's head horse trainer and former slave, Bob Green, possesses, Ridley harbors secrets that threaten both their lives. As Ridley seeks to make peace within himself for fighting against the South he loved, Olivia is determined to never be betrayed again. Praise for Tamera Alexander: “To Whisper Her Name has everything a fine historical novel needs: characters we truly care about, struggles that really matter, splashes of humor to engage us, and period details that bring the past to vibrant life. Ridley and Olivia both arrive with heartaches and disappointments tucked in their traveling bags. Watching them unpack those memories and make room for the Lord’s cleansing touch is pure reading pleasure.” —Liz Curtis Higgs, New York Times bestselling author “Rich in history, romance, and human drama, To Whisper Her Name is a book to be savored, like a sumptuous Southern banquet. Tamera Alexander’s skills as a master storyteller have never been more evident.” —Robin Lee Hatcher, bestselling author of Cross My Heart and Who I Am with You “To Whisper Her Name will grab you and not let go. It’s a beautiful, powerful story with unforgettable characters who face the unthinkable with honor while a captivating romance blooms where seeds should never have been scattered.” —Cindy Woodsmall, New York Times and CBA bestselling author This inspirational historical romance can be read as a stand-alone novel or enjoyed as the first book in Tamera Alexander’s Belle Meade series Book length: approximately 125K words Includes discussion questions for book clubs, a recipe, and a note from the author
Author: Margaret Ripley Wolfe Publisher: University Press of Kentucky ISBN: 0813157927 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 312
Book Description
From Gone with the Wind to Designing Women, images of southern females that emerge from fiction and film tend to obscure the diversity of American women from below the Mason-Dixon line. In a work that deftly lays bare a myriad of myths and stereotypes while presenting true stories of ambition, grit, and endurance, Margaret Ripley Wolfe offers the first professional historical synthesis of southern women's experiences across the centuries. In telling their story, she considers many ordinary lives—those of Native-American, African-American, and white women from the Tidewater region and Appalachia to the Mississippi Delta to the Gulf Coastal Plain, women whose varied economic and social circumstances resist simple explanations. Wolfe examines critical eras, outstanding personalities and groups—wives, mothers, pioneers, soldiers, suffragists, politicians, and civil rights activists—and the impact of the passage of time and the pressure of historical forces on the region's females. The historical southern woman, argues Wolfe, has operated under a number of handicaps, bearing the full weight of southern history, mythology, and legend. Added to these have been the limitations of being female in a patriarchal society and the constraining images of the "southern belle" and her mentor, the "southern lady." In addition, the specter of race has haunted all southern women. Gender is a common denominator, but according to Wolfe, it does not transcend race, class, point of view, or a host of other factors. Intrigued by the imagery as well as the irony of biblical stories and southern history, Wolfe titles her work Daughters of Canaan. Canaan symbolizes promise, and for activist women in particular the South has been about promise as much as fulfillment. General readers and students of southern and women's history will be drawn to Wolfe's engrossing chronicle.
Author: Randolph Paul Runyon Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press ISBN: 1621908518 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 187
Book Description
"Born into a politically connected Kentucky family, Sallie Ward (1827-1896) began her public career as a southern belle who captivated the popular press in Kentucky and throughout the nation. Known for her somewhat scandalous behavior, including obtaining a divorce and smoking cigars, she cut a swathe across the nineteenth century that seems out of proportion to her real circumstances. While Sallie and her frequent travels and adventures are the focus, there is also valuable material on her family, and especially on the murder trial of her brother Matt Ward, in which he was rather deplorably let off by virtue of his connections to the rich and powerful. This study is both an analysis of a unique character in nineteenth-century America and an examination of how celebrity was created and perpetuated before the rise of mass culture"--
Author: Maryjean Wall
Author: Sara Havens
Author: Stuart W. Sanders
Author: Candace Bailey
Author: Beverly Jenkins
Author: Adam Gamble
Author: Tamera Alexander
Author: T. Bell Chambers
Author: Margaret Ripley Wolfe
Author: Randolph Paul Runyon