Cultivating a New South

"Thanks to Monica Maria Tetzlaff, we now have a clearly written, well documented, and generously illustrated biography of Abbie Holmes Christensen, pioneer collector of African American folklore and champion of social reform. Cultivating a New South will be an eye-opener for anyone wishing to understand the relationships among race, gender, politics, and folk culture in the crucial years of the New South."—Charles Joyner, author of Down by the Riverside

"A significant contribution to southern women's history that offers fresh insights into race relations, reform, and 'woman's place' in the New South, Monica Maria Tetzlaff's gracefully written, meticulously researched book exemplifies biography at its best. Abbie Holmes Christensen challenged the racial and gender conventions of her own time, and her life story compels historians to rethink our assumptions about white southern female reformers."—Anastatia Sims, author of The Power of Femininity in the New South