Sites of Slavery: Gender, Race and Tourism in America's Slavery Memory

In this study, I probe the romantic, tourism-originated myths embedded in America’s Slave memory introducing a fresh site of inquiry, the efforts of three White female Jim Crow era historians Carita Doggett Corse, Minnie Moore Willson and Bernie Babcock who wrote them into slave history. All three go on to play influential roles in the WPA Slave Narrative Project. To unfold this story, I explore their lives, careers, and relationships with an eye towards ferreting out the interconnected roles racial and gender barriers play, to understand the why and how behind the production of the problematic history they write.

This dissertation argues that their ex-slave narratives have deep roots in cultural heritage tourism and romantic fiction, creating a distinct and problematic slavery legacy that because of its association with the WPA Slave Narrative Project, continues to play out in dangerous ways today. Investigating the lives, relationships and work of these women at the center of this story, provides a multi-dimensional view into the life cycle of a slave memory born from romantic fiction and tourism, charting its dangerous transition to history and into the American imagination. This project traces this troubling lineage in an effort to give coherence to the reasons behind its production and to better understand the implications of its historical legacy today.