"For endless decades, white American authorities sought to police racial boundaries and define racial identities. But that dubious enterprise was subject not just to human error but to changing concepts of race. Thus was Michael O'Malley, a descendant of a Philadelphia Irish-American family, brought to have "colored" ancestors in Virginia. The meanings of the names and relationships in the official record kept shifting in confusing and unexpected ways. O'Malley teases out how those changes affected his ancestors as they ...
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"For endless decades, white American authorities sought to police racial boundaries and define racial identities. But that dubious enterprise was subject not just to human error but to changing concepts of race. Thus was Michael O'Malley, a descendant of a Philadelphia Irish-American family, brought to have "colored" ancestors in Virginia. The meanings of the names and relationships in the official record kept shifting in confusing and unexpected ways. O'Malley teases out how those changes affected his ancestors as they navigated what it meant to be "white," "colored," "mixed race," or anything else in America from the nineteenth century onward-even today, when digitization and privatization are changing how such racecraft manifests"--
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Add this copy of The Color of Family: History, Race, and the Politics of to cart. $30.23, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2024 by University of Chicago Press.