Hurtin' Words

When Tammy Wynette sang “D-I-V-O-R-C-E,” she famously said she “spelled out the hurtin'' words” to spare her child the pain of family breakup. In this innovative work, Ted Ownby considers how a wide range of writers, thinkers, activists, and others defined family problems in the twentieth-century American South. Ownby shows that it was common for both African Americans and whites to discuss family...