{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/44798"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/44798","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"\"Dropped \"\"from the clouds\"\": Cincinnati and manumission among the fancy and newly freed, 1831-1901\"","abstract":"This dissertation argues that numerous ex-slave mistresses and the children they produced with white men thoughtfully rebuilt their lives as newly freed people by capitalizing on earlier, sometimes ongoing, ties to white men, but also by relying on themselves and others sharing their circumstances. Some such women appear to have been “fancy girls,” the brand name for enslaved women and girls sold for use as prostitutes and concubines during the slavery era of United States history. Relying greatly on letters from ex-slaves and an ex-slave narrative, this study pays close attention to the ways in which some such women were highly valued in the slave market because of their fair complexion, but shifts attention to their experiences outside the market, specifically to their lives as “favored” ex-slaves. It does so by focusing on the migration of such ex-slaves from the Deep South to Cincinnati, a city that had the highest population of mulattoes outside the South before the Civil War. This migration occurred during the rising surveillance of people of African descent in the South during the 1830s and the concurrent rise of cotton as a premier crop, two factors that figured greatly into elite white men’s unwillingness to have their relations with women of African descent scrutinized at the community level. Ultimately, this dissertation seeks to shed light on black-white intimacies and the ways in which Southern white men were hidden actors in antebellum black urban histories. It also hopes to reveal the degree to which focusing on a select slave expands our understanding of how oppressed bodies fit into both political and social histories because of their ability to draw upon the social capital that accrued from their connections to whites in authoritative positions.","abstract_html":"This dissertation argues that numerous ex-slave mistresses and the children they produced with white men thoughtfully rebuilt their lives as newly freed people by capitalizing on earlier, sometimes ongoing, ties to white men, but also by relying on themselves and others sharing their circumstances. Some such women appear to have been “fancy girls,” the brand name for enslaved women and girls sold for use as prostitutes and concubines during the slavery era of United States history. Relying greatly on letters from ex-slaves and an ex-slave narrative, this study pays close attention to the ways in which some such women were highly valued in the slave market because of their fair complexion, but shifts attention to their experiences outside the market, specifically to their lives as “favored” ex-slaves. It does so by focusing on the migration of such ex-slaves from the Deep South to Cincinnati, a city that had the highest population of mulattoes outside the South before the Civil War. This migration occurred during the rising surveillance of people of African descent in the South during the 1830s and the concurrent rise of cotton as a premier crop, two factors that figured greatly into elite white men’s unwillingness to have their relations with women of African descent scrutinized at the community level. Ultimately, this dissertation seeks to shed light on black-white intimacies and the ways in which Southern white men were hidden actors in antebellum black urban histories. It also hopes to reveal the degree to which focusing on a select slave expands our understanding of how oppressed bodies fit into both political and social histories because of their ability to draw upon the social capital that accrued from their connections to whites in authoritative positions.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Green, Sharony"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"History","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Roediger, David R.","Espiritu, Augusto F.","Lang, Clarence E.","Levine, Bruce"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2013,"date_issued":"2013-05-28T19:20:21Z","date_published":"2013-05-28T19:20:21Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:34Z","subjects":["fancy girls","Ballard, Rice","Franklin, Isaac","pillow talk","Cincinnati","Ohio","manumission","freedom","Underground Railroad","family","love","African Americans","antebellum","domestic slave trading","White, Avenia","Green, Sharony Andrews","mulatto","women","gender","slavery","Virginia","planter","cotton","Kentucky","Cabois, Louise","Scott, James","hidden transcript"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright 2013 Sharony Green"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/44798","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Roediger, David R.","Espiritu, Augusto F.","Lang, Clarence E.","Levine, Bruce"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Green, Sharony"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2013-05-28T19:20:21Z","2015-05-28T10:01:32Z","2013-05"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["History"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["fancy girls","Ballard, Rice","Franklin, Isaac","pillow talk","Cincinnati","Ohio","manumission","freedom","Underground Railroad","family","love","African Americans","antebellum","domestic slave trading","White, Avenia","Green, Sharony Andrews","mulatto","women","gender","slavery","Virginia","planter","cotton","Kentucky","Cabois, Louise","Scott, James","hidden transcript"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2013 Sharony Green"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/44798"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["This dissertation argues that numerous ex-slave mistresses and the children they produced with white men thoughtfully rebuilt their lives as newly freed people by capitalizing on earlier, sometimes ongoing, ties to white men, but also by relying on themselves and others sharing their circumstances. Some such women appear to have been “fancy girls,” the brand name for enslaved women and girls sold for use as prostitutes and concubines during the slavery era of United States history. Relying greatly on letters from ex-slaves and an ex-slave narrative, this study pays close attention to the ways in which some such women were highly valued in the slave market because of their fair complexion, but shifts attention to their experiences outside the market, specifically to their lives as “favored” ex-slaves. It does so by focusing on the migration of such ex-slaves from the Deep South to Cincinnati, a city that had the highest population of mulattoes outside the South before the Civil War. This migration occurred during the rising surveillance of people of African descent in the South during the 1830s and the concurrent rise of cotton as a premier crop, two factors that figured greatly into elite white men’s unwillingness to have their relations with women of African descent scrutinized at the community level. Ultimately, this dissertation seeks to shed light on black-white intimacies and the ways in which Southern white men were hidden actors in antebellum black urban histories. It also hopes to reveal the degree to which focusing on a select slave expands our understanding of how oppressed bodies fit into both political and social histories because of their ability to draw upon the social capital that accrued from their connections to whites in authoritative positions.","Item withdrawn by Mark Zulauf (zulauf@illinois.edu) on 2013-03-27T15:52:50Z Item was in collections: University of Illinois Theses & Dissertations (ID: 1) No. of bitstreams: 2 Green_Sharony.docx: 327036 bytes, checksum: f46c47ed35b8b217889720c6263ad2e3 (MD5) Green_Sharony.pdf: 987242 bytes, checksum: aa35c9ce03d3f2bf039b734989153b8b (MD5)","Made available in DSpace on 2013-05-28T19:20:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 3 Sharony_Green.pdf: 987188 bytes, checksum: d4d4ef33914cf1cec8415b016f8028e5 (MD5) Green_Sharony.docx: 327292 bytes, checksum: a0bf1f7545db65d061b70f39fff6c2df (MD5) license.txt: 4063 bytes, checksum: e702751b6da66cedefe88fd7eeb405bf (MD5)","Item marked as restricted to the 'Administrator' Group (id=1) by Seth Robbins (srobbins@illinois.edu) on 2013-05-28T19:21:57Z Item is restricted until 2015-05-28T19:21:22Z","Restriction data tranferred 2014-07-01T11:17:08-05:00 Original Data Group with Access Administrator Release Date: 2015-05-28 14:21:22 UTC Reason: Author requested closed access (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD system","Limited Restriction Lifted for Item 44773 on 2015-05-28T10:01:32Z.","Embargo requested by author, approved by Laura Spradlin. Embargo placed by kappleg2@illinois.edu 2015-6-25.","Open"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["\"Dropped \"\"from the clouds\"\": Cincinnati and manumission among the fancy and newly freed, 1831-1901\""]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Roediger, David R.","Espiritu, Augusto F.","Lang, Clarence E.","Levine, Bruce"],"dc:creator":["Green, Sharony"],"dc:date":["2013-05-28T19:20:21Z","2015-05-28T10:01:32Z","2013-05"],"dc:description":["This dissertation argues that numerous ex-slave mistresses and the children they produced with white men thoughtfully rebuilt their lives as newly freed people by capitalizing on earlier, sometimes ongoing, ties to white men, but also by relying on themselves and others sharing their circumstances. Some such women appear to have been “fancy girls,” the brand name for enslaved women and girls sold for use as prostitutes and concubines during the slavery era of United States history. Relying greatly on letters from ex-slaves and an ex-slave narrative, this study pays close attention to the ways in which some such women were highly valued in the slave market because of their fair complexion, but shifts attention to their experiences outside the market, specifically to their lives as “favored” ex-slaves. It does so by focusing on the migration of such ex-slaves from the Deep South to Cincinnati, a city that had the highest population of mulattoes outside the South before the Civil War. This migration occurred during the rising surveillance of people of African descent in the South during the 1830s and the concurrent rise of cotton as a premier crop, two factors that figured greatly into elite white men’s unwillingness to have their relations with women of African descent scrutinized at the community level. Ultimately, this dissertation seeks to shed light on black-white intimacies and the ways in which Southern white men were hidden actors in antebellum black urban histories. It also hopes to reveal the degree to which focusing on a select slave expands our understanding of how oppressed bodies fit into both political and social histories because of their ability to draw upon the social capital that accrued from their connections to whites in authoritative positions.","Item withdrawn by Mark Zulauf (zulauf@illinois.edu) on 2013-03-27T15:52:50Z Item was in collections: University of Illinois Theses & Dissertations (ID: 1) No. of bitstreams: 2 Green_Sharony.docx: 327036 bytes, checksum: f46c47ed35b8b217889720c6263ad2e3 (MD5) Green_Sharony.pdf: 987242 bytes, checksum: aa35c9ce03d3f2bf039b734989153b8b (MD5)","Made available in DSpace on 2013-05-28T19:20:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 3 Sharony_Green.pdf: 987188 bytes, checksum: d4d4ef33914cf1cec8415b016f8028e5 (MD5) Green_Sharony.docx: 327292 bytes, checksum: a0bf1f7545db65d061b70f39fff6c2df (MD5) license.txt: 4063 bytes, checksum: e702751b6da66cedefe88fd7eeb405bf (MD5)","Item marked as restricted to the 'Administrator' Group (id=1) by Seth Robbins (srobbins@illinois.edu) on 2013-05-28T19:21:57Z Item is restricted until 2015-05-28T19:21:22Z","Restriction data tranferred 2014-07-01T11:17:08-05:00 Original Data Group with Access Administrator Release Date: 2015-05-28 14:21:22 UTC Reason: Author requested closed access (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD system","Limited Restriction Lifted for Item 44773 on 2015-05-28T10:01:32Z.","Embargo requested by author, approved by Laura Spradlin. Embargo placed by kappleg2@illinois.edu 2015-6-25.","Open"],"dc:identifier":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/44798"],"dc:language":["en"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 2013 Sharony Green"],"dc:subject":["fancy girls","Ballard, Rice","Franklin, Isaac","pillow talk","Cincinnati","Ohio","manumission","freedom","Underground Railroad","family","love","African Americans","antebellum","domestic slave trading","White, Avenia","Green, Sharony Andrews","mulatto","women","gender","slavery","Virginia","planter","cotton","Kentucky","Cabois, Louise","Scott, James","hidden transcript"],"dc:title":["\"Dropped \"\"from the clouds\"\": Cincinnati and manumission among the fancy and newly freed, 1831-1901\""],"dc:type":["text"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["History"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:34Z"}