Participation Type
Paper
Session Title
Session 8.04 Women and Gender
Presentation #1 Title
"'By respectable people she was considered of a doubtful character': A Working-Class Marriage in an Appalachian River City"
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
This paper explores the marriage of a working-class couple in Wheeling, West Virginia, after the Civil War, using their relationship to address issues of race, gender, sexuality, class, and labor in nineteenth-century urban Appalachia. In the early postwar years, a Wheeling, West Virginia, couple decided to end their increasingly acrimonious marriage. On February 18, 1867, Amanda Trimble filed for divorce against her husband, Ephraim, a riverboat engineer. Over the next four years, the pair flooded the Ohio County Circuit Court with depositions, summons, and petitions, revealing sordid tales of abuse, adultery, abortion, and neglect. In the end only one thing was clear – both Amanda and Ephraim wanted this separation, and in 1871, the court agreed, placing the blame on neither, and granting their divorce. The voluminous records left by Amanda and Ephraim’s divorce give historians a rare and vital window into the courtship, marriage, and family life of one working-class couple on the edge of Appalachia. The testimony of their friends, neighbors, and relatives reflects issues of race in a border South community, sexuality among urban southerners, attitudes toward gender roles among the working class, and discussions of labor in a booming river city. Generally, working-class southern marriages have been overlooked by both historians of the South and women, and, as Barbara Howe argues, “historians of Appalachia study West Virginia but too often ignore urban and industrial history.” Using the Trimbles’ story, this paper sheds light on the lives of those on the margins of society, Appalachia, and the South.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Allison Fredette is an adjunct instructor of history at Appalachian State University, where she teaches classes on American history, world cultures, and the American Civil War. She has published her work in West Virginia History and received her Ph.D. in American history from the University of Florida in May 2014.
"'By respectable people she was considered of a doubtful character': A Working-Class Marriage in an Appalachian River City"
This paper explores the marriage of a working-class couple in Wheeling, West Virginia, after the Civil War, using their relationship to address issues of race, gender, sexuality, class, and labor in nineteenth-century urban Appalachia. In the early postwar years, a Wheeling, West Virginia, couple decided to end their increasingly acrimonious marriage. On February 18, 1867, Amanda Trimble filed for divorce against her husband, Ephraim, a riverboat engineer. Over the next four years, the pair flooded the Ohio County Circuit Court with depositions, summons, and petitions, revealing sordid tales of abuse, adultery, abortion, and neglect. In the end only one thing was clear – both Amanda and Ephraim wanted this separation, and in 1871, the court agreed, placing the blame on neither, and granting their divorce. The voluminous records left by Amanda and Ephraim’s divorce give historians a rare and vital window into the courtship, marriage, and family life of one working-class couple on the edge of Appalachia. The testimony of their friends, neighbors, and relatives reflects issues of race in a border South community, sexuality among urban southerners, attitudes toward gender roles among the working class, and discussions of labor in a booming river city. Generally, working-class southern marriages have been overlooked by both historians of the South and women, and, as Barbara Howe argues, “historians of Appalachia study West Virginia but too often ignore urban and industrial history.” Using the Trimbles’ story, this paper sheds light on the lives of those on the margins of society, Appalachia, and the South.
