Charleston Belles Abroad

"In her meticulously researched new study, Candace Bailey explores women's lives through the music they performed and owned. She traces local and regional networks of the antebellum South, illuminating connections with wider American and European elite culture. Both broad conventions and the voices of individual women emerge in a fascinating picture of social identity shaped and expressed through music."—Jeanice Brooks, University of Southampton

"Candace Bailey provides fascinating historical insight of great value to scholars of the antebellum South. Her careful examination of music books owned by three upper-class Southern women reveals much about them, their families, and their communities and clearly illustrates the importance of music in the antebellum South and the wealth of information revealed by the study of musical artifacts."—Katherine K. Preston, past president, Society for American Music

"Deftly navigating between the disciplines of southern studies, women's history, and musicology, Bailey has created a meaningful and readable tour through a morass of silent papers. Charleston Belles Abroad recovers a lost conversation about music, culture, and society in an engaging manner deserving of emulation."—Nicholas Butler, historian, Charleston County Public Library

"Candace Bailey examines the binder's volumes of Harriet Lowndes, Henrietta Aiken, and Louisa Rebecca McCord, daughters of some of the wealthiest and most influential families in Charleston, South Carolina. The bulk of this book is a deeply researched study of the provenance of these pieces, mostly for voice and piano... it teases out information on the quality of available instruction, the influence of opera, opportunities for attending musical performances in Charleston and abroad, trends in musical styles, the backgrounds of music sellers and teachers, and the existence of touring professional musicians and women composers...Bailey's careful research lays the basis for a reappraisal of southern women's accomplishments."—Journal of American History