Mary Chestnut Show on CSPAN

[ForeverFree]

CSPAN has a very good show on Mary Chestnut. It's here:
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/MaryCh

It's long, but very engaging. It not only goes over the life of Chestnut, but also her times.

One interesting moment was where one of the historians, who appears to be a Chestnut "fan," says that Chestnut was an abolitionist. The other historians make the point that this was not the case.

There is a lot of discussion of the Southern woman's view of the war, and Chestnut is described as something of a "proto-feminist." Clearly, she felt she had more to offer than she was able to because she was female.

 

[dvrmte]

Thanks for the heads up! I haven't watched it all yet. I see that they talked about William Ellison too.

 

[ole]

Mary Chesnut, according to her writings, didn't like the idea of slavery, but she did nothing about it. Her husband owned quite a few. She just lived in town and wrote in her diary and went to balls and recceptions.