While old-fashioned virtues of patience, endurance, and forbearance are emphasized in Hitty: Her First Hundred Years, there is little concern for major social issues, with a single exception.

During her life in New Orleans, Hitty realizes that Southerners, regarded by her Philadelphia family as enemies, can be as kind and as gentle as Northerners and that they suffered even more during the Civil War.

Even though conscious social concern is lacking, there is little that might be considered even casually offensive.

Some segments of society are presented as distinctly different from the mainstream, but there is nothing derogatory in any of the descriptions. For example, the Quakers in Philadelphia are commendable in every way. The episode at the black church in Mississippi will not offend thoughtful black readers, who will recognize it as an authentic depiction of Southern life near the turn of the century. The...