White southerner’s backlash to Reconstruction prohibited black women from completely escaping white women’s authority, however, at this time, freed black women were able to negotiate some victories for themselves. While southern white women believed they could continue to control black women’s labor, black women’s rebelliousness of that control made sure that white households persisted as “a space of contested labor and gender relations.” After the war, white women found themselves negotiating with black women rather than relying on violence. They also found themselves performing tasks that were previously associated with slave labor. Glymph utilized sources or “hidden transcripts” such as WPA narratives to recall and piece together stories
