SOURCE: Piacentino, Ed. “Contesting the Boundaries of Race and Gender in Old Southwestern Humor.” Southern Literary Journal 32, no. 2 (spring 2000): 116-40.

In the following essay, Piacentino explores the treatment of African Americans and women in Southwestern humor fiction.

As has been generally acknowledged, the humor of the Old Southwest has often featured African American and women characters, but most typically in secondary roles. And the portrayal of blacks and women has usually reaffirmed popular nineteenth-century socio-cultural attitudes and assumptions regarding race and gender, thereby sustaining the marginalization of women and blacks. Still, there are a number of tales and sketches in southern frontier humor which seem to challenge, intentionally or unconsciously, the racial and gender status quo. Granted, the authors of southern antebellum humorous pieces were typically conservative gentlemen of Whig persuasion who not only publicly supported the patriarchal and proslavery stances of the region but also wrote exclusively...