Rhonda Ragsdale

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Book Review: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers: Their Common Element

            In Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild’s collection of essay’s Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy, several scholars address the issues of modern domestic workers. While some may wonder what nannies, maids, and sex workers actually have in common, many global feminists find that their connection is obvious. . . . continued -->

Book Review: The Great Southern Babylon

            While some historians have chosen to study prostitution and other less reputable behaviors from social and cultural perspectives; others view the subject through the gaze of law, politics, and crime.  While Alecia Long’s narrative is driven by a series of five Louisiana Supreme Court cases, her entrance into this historiography with The Great Southern Babylon: Sex, Race, and Respectability in New Orleans, 1865-1920 resembles more of a town studies approach.  Her objectives, stated from the first page of the preface, are to explain a place – Storyville – and how it came into existence. . . . continued -->

Book Note: 

Trumpet Records: Diamonds on Farish Street

To be published in upcoming edition of The Journal of Southern History

            Trumpet Records: Diamonds on Farish Street by Mare W. Ryan is as good as it gets for an audiophile.  This work tells the unlikely story of Trumpet Records primarily through the life of Lillian McMurry, who at twenty-eight and from a white, middle-class background, founded the label that would be dedicated primarily to marketing African American artists in the Deep South.. . . . continued --> 

Book Note:

Community Memories: A Glimpse of African American Life in Frankfort, Kentucky 

To be published in upcoming edition of The Journal of Southern History

            Community Memories: A Glimpse of African American Life in Frankfort, Kentucky furthers recent scholarship of community and memory with a “brief glimpse into the everyday life of several Black individuals and communities….”  Relying on remembered stories, photographs, songs, and newspaper articles, the editors reveal a rich diversity of neighborhoods within the black population of Frankfort and Franklin County.. . . . continued -->