Type of Document	Dissertation
Author	Levin, Cherry Lynne
Author's Email Address	clevin2@tigers.lsu.edu
URN	etd-04252012-225800
Title	Wedding Belles and Enslaved Brides: Louisiana Plantation Weddings in Fact, Fiction and Folklore
Degree	Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
Department	English
Advisory Committee	Advisor Name Title Lowe, John Committee Chair Costello, Brannon Committee Member deCaro, Frank Committee Member ware, carolyn Committee Member Bach, Jacqueline Dean's Representative
Keywords	weddings Louisiana plantation
Date of Defense	2012-04-17
Availability	unrestricted
Abstract Wedding Belles and Enslaved Brides: Louisiana Plantation Weddings in Fact, Fiction and Folklore Dissertation directed by Professor John Wharton Lowe, Robert Penn Warren Professor of English Pages in dissertation, 380, Words in Abstract, 234 Abstract Along with rites of passage marking birth and death, wedding rituals played an important role in ordering social life on antebellum Louisiana plantations, not only for elite white families but also for the enslaved. Louisiana women's autobiographical accounts of plantation weddings yield considerable insights on the importance of weddings for Louisiana plantation women before, and especially during, the Civil War. Moreover, information contained within the Louisiana Writers' Project narratives reveal various types of wedding ritual used to unite the enslaved on Louisiana plantations despite laws and codes that prohibited slave unions. In contrast to these historical accounts, plantation weddings in the fictional imagination reveal that the figure of the bride reflects careful authorial negotiation of racialized and gendered ideologies. Fictional images found in a wide-ranging collection of texts portray the Louisiana plantation wedding as a site of struggle by white or black brides against racial and patriarchal constraints. Currently, heritage tourism perpetuates notions of whiteness on Louisiana plantations, fostering romantic nostalgia of the past and adaptation of that past into the present. For contemporary brides, choosing a Louisiana plantation as a wedding venue evokes stereotyical notions of the Old South in terms of gendered femininity. Yet, there is some indication that previously entrenched notions of racial and class hierarchies are slowly being overturned. This project begins with a reenacted wedding at Rosedown Plantation State Historic Site, providing a discursive framework for examining the manner in which the white southern belle or the enslaved bride and her wedding on a Louisiana plantation recycle through historical, fictional and contemporary productions.
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