Virginia Van der Veer Hamilton

Dr. Virginia Hamilton has long been admired for the prose styling of her academic publications and the vigor of her research. In Teddy’s Child: Growing Up in the Anxious Southern Gentry Between the Great Wars, the respected historian chronicles her own lineage and discovers the commonalities that transcend the generations. Supplemented by images of family memorabilia, this scrapbook cum thesis explores the foibles, virtues, singularities, and collective tendencies that constitute a heritage and help explain one generation to another.

This memoir describes the author's life, reflecting on the major changes that have taken place in her native south during the 20th century. It describes how certain social mores, such as virginal brides, lifelong marriages and family pilgrimages, have vanished from the white American scene.

Lists and describes battlefields, forts, historic mansions, pioneer settlements, civil rights monuments, and other historic sites

Pause for a moment before a gallery of fading portraits, and you will sense the beginnings of Alabama's troubled history--homespun pioneers gripped by "Alabama fever," chained and manacled black people quietly awaiting a slave trader's order to move on, newly rich planters and iron barons holding tightly to the reins of power. You will also be caught in the tangled web of the South's past.