Between North and South: The Letters of Emily Wharton Sinkler, 1842-1865

Emily Wharton, a Philadelphian, in 1842 married Charles Sinkler, a midshipman in the US Navy. Sinkler took his 19-year-old wife to live among his family, wealthy cotton planters outside Charleston, SC. For much of her married life Emily traveled between the two places; her letters, edited by her great-great-granddaughter (a librarian at the U. of Tennessee), were retrieved from the attics of relatives Northern and Southern. LeClercq sees her forebear as a pioneer of sorts, adapting well to the rural, antebellum South—a paternalistic society where opportunities for women were circumscribed—while also thriving in cosmopolitan Philadelphia and endearing herself to the people whose lives she touched in both worlds.

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