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Debunking the Yule Log Myth: The Disturbing History of a Plantation Legend

Debunking the Yule Log Myth: The Disturbing History of a Plantation Legend - Hardcover

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Availability:In StockContributor:Robert E. MayPublish date:2024-12-01Pages:204
Language:EnglishPublisher:Rowman & Littlefield PublishersISBN-13:9798881801786UPC:9798881801786Book Category:HistoryBook Subcategory:African American & Black, United StatesBook Topic:Civil War Period (1850-1877), State & LocalSize:9.08 x 6.35 x 0.71 inchesWeight:1.0119Product ID:SC15BCFWE2

A powerful new book that corrects a false myth in African American history that Kirkus Reviews calls "a thoughtful antidote to white Southern propaganda."

According to an oft repeated legend, during Christmas before the Civil War, all enslaved people in the American South enjoyed lengthy vacations of a week or more depending on how long an oversized "Yule log" burned in their master's fireplace. As long as the log held out, slaves escaped heavy labor and their masters' whips and enjoyed a rare freedom of movement to go and do what they wished as well as gorge themselves on food and drink they never got the rest of the year. No wonder they soaked those logs in swamps to make them burn even longer.

But is it true?

In this book, historian Robert May takes readers on a detective caper as he investigates a story that reaches back to colonial America and continues today. May finds no evidence of the Yule log tradition in the historical record, instead showing that it originated with pro-Confederate Lost Cause propagandists attempting to present the South's prewar system of human bondage in as soft tones as possible. Tales about good-natured masters and unresentful slaves jovially sharing Christmases played to this impulse beautifully.

Debunking the Yule Log Myth does more than correct the historical record. It serves as a highly instructive case study in the process of historical mythmaking. This captivating tale will appeal to all readers interested in African American history and the long struggle to support white supremacy by creating a mythical antebellum American South.

Language:EnglishPublisher:Rowman & Littlefield PublishersISBN-13:9798881801786UPC:9798881801786Book Category:HistoryBook Subcategory:African American & Black, United StatesBook Topic:Civil War Period (1850-1877), State & LocalSize:9.08 x 6.35 x 0.71 inchesWeight:1.0119Product ID:SC15BCFWE2

Robert E. May is Professor Emeritus of History at Purdue University and the author of Yuletide in Dixie: Slavery, Christmas, and Southern Memory; Slavery, Race, and Conquest in the Tropics: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Future of Latin America and other works about slavery and the South.


Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Contributor(s)

Robert E. May

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