{"id":42342,"date":"2015-08-22T01:13:38","date_gmt":"2015-08-22T01:13:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=42342"},"modified":"2015-08-22T01:15:21","modified_gmt":"2015-08-22T01:15:21","slug":"its-no-disgrace-to-a-colored-girl-to-placer-sexual-commodification-and-negotiation-among-louisianas-quadroons-1805-1860","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=42342","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s no disgrace to a colored girl to placer\u2019: Sexual Commodification and Negotiation among Louisiana\u2019s \u201cQuadroons,\u201d 1805-1860"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018It\u2019s no disgrace to a colored girl to placer\u2019: Sexual Commodification and Negotiation among Louisiana\u2019s \u201cQuadroons,\u201d 1805-1860<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Ohio State University
\n2014
\n284 pages<\/p>\n

Noel Mellick Voltz<\/strong><\/p>\n

Doctor of Philosophy in History<\/em><\/p>\n

In 1805, a New Orleans<\/a> newspaper advertisement formally defined a new social institution, the infamous Quadroon Ball<\/a>, in which prostitution and pla\u00e7age<\/a> \u2013 a system of concubinage<\/a> \u2013 converged. These balls, limited to white men and light-skinned, free \u201cQuadroon<\/a>\u201d women, became an interracial rendezvous that provided evening entertainment and the possibility of forming sexual liaisons in exchange for financial \u201csponsorship.\u201d At these balls, money and other forms of payment were exchanged for the connubial placement of free women of color with wealthy white men.<\/p>\n

My dissertation entitled, \u201c\u2018It\u2019s no disgrace to a colored girl to placer\u2019: Sexual Commodification and Negotiation Among Louisiana\u2019s \u201cQuadroons,\u201d 1805-1860\u201d seeks to understand how free women of color used sex across the colorline as a tool of negotiation in various spaces, like the Quadroon Ballroom, in antebellum<\/a> Louisiana<\/a>. More specifically, utilizing contemporary travelers\u2019 journals, newspapers, poems, songs, letters, notarial and ecclesiastical records, court cases and other legal documents, my dissertation examines the sexual agency exerted by Louisiana\u2019s free women of color in four sites of contestation \u2013 the body, the ballroom, the courtroom and the sanctuary.<\/p>\n

Free women of color occupied a precarious position in antebellum Louisiana, often subjugated because of their race, gender and class; yet, this very positioning also afforded them a space in which to maneuver socially and economically. I contend that in these literal and figurative spaces, these women drew upon their sexuality to make strategic claims to their freedom advancing themselves socially and economically. This work pushes the boundaries of current scholarship engaging questions of sexual agency and trauma, race and identity, hegemonic myth and cultural reappropriation. In so doing, I build upon and push beyond historiographic<\/a> discussions of the fetishizing and fanticizing gaze of white men and the overly simplistic dichotomous images of the hypersexualized jezebel<\/a> and the totally victimized yet \u201crespectable\u201d free woman of color. Ultimately, this research illuminates a more nuanced understanding of black female agency in the antebellum era.<\/p>\n

For more information, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018It\u2019s no disgrace to a colored girl to placer\u2019: Sexual Commodification and Negotiation among Louisiana\u2019s \u201cQuadroons,\u201d 1805-1860 Ohio State University 2014 284 pages Noel Mellick Voltz Doctor of Philosophy in History In 1805, a New Orleans newspaper advertisement formally defined a new social institution, the infamous Quadroon Ball, in which prostitution and pla\u00e7age \u2013 a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[838,459,369,8,20,25],"tags":[1438,20787,20786,3177,4248,3850],"class_list":["post-42342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dissertations","category-history","category-louisiana","category-media-archive","category-usa","category-women","tag-new-orleans","tag-noel-m-voltz","tag-noel-mellick-voltz","tag-noel-voltz","tag-ohio-state-university","tag-quadroon-balls"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42342"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42343,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42342\/revisions\/42343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}