Roxanna Britton

Rating:
Summary: Letter to the author
Review: Dear Shirley,

I have just finished reading your wonderful book. I couldn't put it down. It was sensitively written in a easy to read style. You captured the psychology of women in relationships with husbands and other women and fit it to the culture and attitudes of everyday life in the 1800's.

The fact that it is a biography of uour great grandmother and carefully researched has made it valuable historically.

I can't think of a book I've enjoyed reading more. You should be on the Oprah Winfrey show to let other people know now good this book is. Congratulations on your achievement.

Rating:
Summary: Letter to the author
Review: Dear Shirley,

I have just finished reading your wonderful book. I couldn't put it down. It was sensitively written in a easy to read style. You captured the psychology of women in relationships with husbands and other women and fit it to the culture and attitudes of everyday life in the 1800's.

The fact that it is a biography of uour great grandmother and carefully researched has made it valuable historically.

I can't think of a book I've enjoyed reading more. You should be on the Oprah Winfrey show to let other people know now good this book is. Congratulations on your achievement.

Rating:
Summary: Roxanna Britton: A Biograhical Novel
Review: Why might an Ohio housewife and mother circa 1850 dispense disparaging cliches to her daughters such as "better the devil you know than the devil you don't", or encourage loveless, albeit, financially secure marriages for those daughters? Why might she find herself unable to credit her daughters with the innate intelligence to
realize their aspirations, despite her firsthand knowledge of their abilities? Why, moreover, might she express the rigid perspective that her daughters could interpret as their true inheritance; the belief that flawed judgment is a universally female characteristic?
Shirley Allen's biographical novel, based on the life of her great grandmother Roxanna Britton, provides the historical context to, if not answer, at least ask such questions. In a social and political climate that does not allow women to vote, to have money, property or identity outside of marriage, we experience the consequences for one exceptionally gifted, resilient daughter who has the good fortune to find male partners who see beyond the gender role assumptions of the time. Roxanna realizes and develops abilities including teaching, farming, homemaking, motherhood, single parenting, dressmaking, enterpeneurship, homesteading and property ownership. Whether selling eggs to establishing financial independence or designing dresses for a shopkeeper's marketing, Roxanna is freshly creative, adapting herself to utilize and maximize the circumstances of the moment.
Married at nineteen, widowed and at age twenty two, mother of two baby girls,
she moves from her own home in Cleveland to her parents home in Avon. Due to hardship, the extended family then moves to Brimfield, Indiana to join Roxanna's maternal grandparents. There she witnesses the critical tongue of her grandmother towards her mother. This multi generational pattern of nonsupportive female
relationships is captured by Allen via the three generation household, clearly a reflection of the broader cultural attitude toward women. Although this is sufficiently convincing proof of the lack of status of women, Roxanna must reside with her new husband, Amos, in his parent's home, where her mother-in-law competes to retain her
role as Amos's primary resource.
Finally, in 1865, a move to Chicago brings a change of status for Roxanna; she may and does purchase her own property. But Chicago brings other difficulties; oldest daughter Sylvia has left home, only to be found one year later, eight months pregnant, murdered by her husband. Chicago 's great fire is depicted vividly, the dangers of city life, the harshness of a mushrooming commercialism without laborer restrictions is made specific. In Chicago, Roxanna meets her first husband's sister, Lizzie. An active suffragette, it is Lizzie who begins to stir Roxanna's awareness of the political and social disparity between men and women.

Roxanna moves once again with her family, this time to Nebraska for homesteading. Daughter Martha has married an abusive, alcoholic husband who uses her for target practice. It is Roxanna's ingenuity and adaptation that confronts the injustice.
Paralleling the Civil War and the emancipation of slaves, women's plight is poignantly illustrated. Death of children is a common occurrence. The exorbitant work day hours devoted to manual labor and child care precludes us from consulting
women writers of the time. However, through this reconstruction of Allen's foremothers, coupled with a rapidly industrializing America, we are permitted a glimpse of the grace and courage of our founding mothers.

Rating:
Summary: Roxanna Britton: A Biograhical Novel
Review: Why might an Ohio housewife and mother circa 1850 dispense disparaging cliches to her daughters such as "better the devil you know than the devil you don't", or encourage loveless, albeit, financially secure marriages for those daughters? Why might she find herself unable to credit her daughters with the innate intelligence to
realize their aspirations, despite her firsthand knowledge of their abilities? Why, moreover, might she express the rigid perspective that her daughters could interpret as their true inheritance; the belief that flawed judgment is a universally female characteristic?
Shirley Allen's biographical novel, based on the life of her great grandmother Roxanna Britton, provides the historical context to, if not answer, at least ask such questions. In a social and political climate that does not allow women to vote, to have money, property or identity outside of marriage, we experience the consequences for one exceptionally gifted, resilient daughter who has the good fortune to find male partners who see beyond the gender role assumptions of the time. Roxanna realizes and develops abilities including teaching, farming, homemaking, motherhood, single parenting, dressmaking, enterpeneurship, homesteading and property ownership. Whether selling eggs to establishing financial independence or designing dresses for a shopkeeper's marketing, Roxanna is freshly creative, adapting herself to utilize and maximize the circumstances of the moment.
Married at nineteen, widowed and at age twenty two, mother of two baby girls,
she moves from her own home in Cleveland to her parents home in Avon. Due to hardship, the extended family then moves to Brimfield, Indiana to join Roxanna's maternal grandparents. There she witnesses the critical tongue of her grandmother towards her mother. This multi generational pattern of nonsupportive female
relationships is captured by Allen via the three generation household, clearly a reflection of the broader cultural attitude toward women. Although this is sufficiently convincing proof of the lack of status of women, Roxanna must reside with her new husband, Amos, in his parent's home, where her mother-in-law competes to retain her
role as Amos's primary resource.
Finally, in 1865, a move to Chicago brings a change of status for Roxanna; she may and does purchase her own property. But Chicago brings other difficulties; oldest daughter Sylvia has left home, only to be found one year later, eight months pregnant, murdered by her husband. Chicago 's great fire is depicted vividly, the dangers of city life, the harshness of a mushrooming commercialism without laborer restrictions is made specific. In Chicago, Roxanna meets her first husband's sister, Lizzie. An active suffragette, it is Lizzie who begins to stir Roxanna's awareness of the political and social disparity between men and women.

Roxanna moves once again with her family, this time to Nebraska for homesteading. Daughter Martha has married an abusive, alcoholic husband who uses her for target practice. It is Roxanna's ingenuity and adaptation that confronts the injustice.
Paralleling the Civil War and the emancipation of slaves, women's plight is poignantly illustrated. Death of children is a common occurrence. The exorbitant work day hours devoted to manual labor and child care precludes us from consulting
women writers of the time. However, through this reconstruction of Allen's foremothers, coupled with a rapidly industrializing America, we are permitted a glimpse of the grace and courage of our founding mothers.