@article{1480210,
      recid = {1480210},
      author = {Dabel, Jane E., },
      title = {A Respectable Woman : The Public Roles of African American  Women in 19th-Century New York /},
      pages = {1 online resource},
      abstract = {In the nineteenth century, New York City underwent a  tremendous demographic transformation driven by European  immigration, the growth of a native-born population, and  the expansion of one of the largest African American  communities in the North. New York's free blacks were  extremely politically active, lobbying for equal rights at  home and an end to Southern slavery. As their activism  increased, so did discrimination against them, most  brutally illustrated by bloody attacks during the 1863 New  York City Draft Riots.The struggle for civil rights did not  extend to equal gender roles, and black male leaders  encouraged women to remain in the domestic sphere, serving  as caretakers, moral educators, and nurses to their  families and community. Yet as Jane E. Dabel demonstrates,  separate spheres were not a reality for New York City's  black people, who faced dire poverty, a lopsided sex ratio,  racialized violence, and a high mortality rate, all of  which conspired to prevent men from gaining respectable  employment and political clout. Consequently, many black  women came out of the home and into the streets to work,  build networks with other women, and fight against racial  injustice. A Respectable Woman reveals the varied and  powerful lives led by black women, who, despite the  exhortations of male reformers, occupied public roles as  gender and race reformers.},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/1480210},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9780814785188.001.0001},
}