Join us for a talk by author Elizabeth S. D. Engelhardt on her new book, "Boardinghouse Women: How Southern Keepers, Cooks, Nurses, Widows, and Runaways Shaped Modern America." Engelhardt argues that modern American food, business, caretaking, politics, sex, travel, writing and restaurants all owe a debt to boardinghouse women in the South.
From the 18th century well into the 20th, entrepreneurial women ran boardinghouses that were often hubs of business innovation and engines of financial independence. Within their walls, residents and owners developed the region's earliest printed cookbooks, created space for making music and writing literary works, formed ad hoc communities of support, tested boundaries of race and sexuality, and more. Engelhardt, the Kenan Eminent Professor of Southern Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, draws on a vast archive to recover boardinghouse women's stories.
The Carole Weinstein Author Series supports the literary arts by bringing both new and well-known authors to the Library of Virginia through online or in-person events. Free and open to the public, the series focuses on Virginia authors and Virginia subjects across all genres. This book will be available soon at the Virginia Shop.
For more information, contact Anne McCrery at anne.mccrery@lva.virginia.gov or 804.692.3568.This is a free event. Registration is required. Limited free parking is available in the deck underneath the Library building.
