Caught between slave-owning husbands who held dominion over their lives and the enslaved individuals who worked with them closely to manage a household, what did the women of the period before the Civil War think about their roles? As women, were they free to speak and act according to their conscience? Some wept with misery, some lived in fear of their lives, some decried the necessity to discipline, some relished their power. America’s troubling toleration of slavery is expressed in many ways through the words of these women in their diaries and letters.