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Fred W. Morrison Series in Southern Studies book cover 1
Fred W. Morrison Series in Southern Studies book cover 2
Fred W. Morrison Series in Southern Studies book cover 3
Fred W. Morrison Series in Southern Studies
Series · 35
books · 1980-1998

Books in series

Prosperity Road book cover
#2

Prosperity Road

The New Deal, Tobacco, and North Carolina

1980

This study is the first to trace a single Agricultural Adjustment Administration commodity program and to assess the impact of a major New Deal program in North Carolina. The freezing of tobacco growing brought prosperity to the growers but little benefit to the small and tenant farmer. Given the problems that affected both AAA policy making and implementation, the New Deas' choice lay not between a limited or a radical program but between the limited program or none at all. A UNC Press Enduring Edition—UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.
Soldiers of Light and Love book cover
#3

Soldiers of Light and Love

Northern Teachers and Georgia Blacks, 1865-1873

1980

Soldiers of Light and Love is an acclaimed study of the reform-minded northerners who taught freed slaves in the war-torn Reconstruction South. Jacqueline Jones' book, first published in 1980, focuses on the nearly three hundred women who served in Georgia in the chaotic decade following the Civil War. Commissioned by the American Missionary Association and other freedmen's aid societies, these middle-class New Englanders saw themselves as the postbellum, evangelical heirs of the abolitionist cause. Specific in compass, but wide-ranging in significance, Soldiers of Light and Love illuminates the complexity of class, race, and gender issues in early Victorian America.
"Man Over Money" book cover
#4

"Man Over Money"

The Southern Populist Critique of American Capitalism

1980

A UNC Press Enduring Edition—UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.
Regionalism and the South book cover
#5

Regionalism and the South

Selected Papers of Rupert Vance

1982

Rupert Vance is known as one of the principal developers of the intellectual apparatus of regional sociology, and he observed and commented for some fifty years on the problems and progress of his native region. In these wide-ranging articles, Vance masterfully combines data drawn from historical, demographic, geographical, and statistical sources with anecdotes, personal recollections, and a journalist's ability to extract the telling image from a welter of complex circumstances.
A Southern Rebel book cover
#7

A Southern Rebel

The Life and Times of Aubrey Willis Williams, 1890-1965

1983

Williams, an Alabama liberal committed to civil rights long before such a position was expedient in the South, became the director of the National Youth Administration where he hired blacks and supported labor unions, public housing, public health, and public education. This biography contributes to our knowledge of the Roosevelt administration and sheds new light on the civil rights movement and the power of right-wing political groups to undermine the democratic process.
South-Watching book cover
#8

South-Watching

Selected Essays by Gerald W. Johnson

1983

Gerald W. Johnson of North Carolina and Baltimore was one of the most prominent American journalists of the twentieth century and one of the outstanding essayists of any age. The author of some three dozen books of history, biography, and commentary on American politics and culture, he was an editorial writer for the Baltimore Sunpapers from 1926 to 1943, a contributing editor of the "New Republic" from 1954 until his death in 1980, and an advocate of liberal causes for half a century. Johnson was, as Adlai Stevenson said, "the conscience of America." Before Johnson examined the health of America, however, he examined the health of the South—and generally, in the 1920s, he found it poor. The revival of the Ku Klux Klan, the Scopes trial, the anti-Catholicism sparked by Al Smith's presidential candidacy, and the labor violence of 1929 made the South the nation's number one news item, reinforcing the national image of a Savage South. In "South-Watching," Fred Hobson contends that Johnson's most important accomplishment was his role as brilliant critic and interpreter of Southern life during this crucial stage in the making of a modern Southern mind. This volume is the first collection of Johnson's essays about the South, and Hobson's perceptive introduction is the first biographical treatment of a man whose vision shaped the destiny of his native region. Originally published in 1983. A UNC Press Enduring Edition—UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.
Cotton Crisis book cover
#10

Cotton Crisis

1984

Snyder, Robert E.
The Road to Redemption book cover
#11

The Road to Redemption

Southern Politics, 1869-1879

1984

One of the most dramatic episodes in American history was the attempt to establish a two-party political system in the South during Reconstruction. Historians, however, have never systematically analyzed the region's political process during that era. Michael Perman undertakes this task, arguing that the key to understanding Reconstruction politics can be found in the factions that developed inside the two parties. Not only did these factions play a crucial role in determining each party's policies and electoral strategies, but they also shaped the course of the South's overall political development during this critical period. In the first section of Road to Redemption, Perman offers a provocative and original analysis of the characteristics and priorities of the two parties, explaining how the South's untried and volatile party system operated during Reconstruction. By the mid-1870s this system had begun to collapse. The book's concluding section explains how and why the Republican party and Reconstruction were overthrown and describes the Democratic ascendancy that replaced them. Perman's innovative study integrates the history of Reconstruction and Redemption and challenges the prevailing interpretation of who the Redeemers were and how they rose to power.
A Good Southerner book cover
#13

A Good Southerner

The Life of Henry A. Wise of Virginia

1985

Wise (1806-76) was extremely active on the Virginia and national political scene from the early 1830s to the mid-1860s, drawing popular support because of his projection of hopefulness and energy. Regarded as eccentric, Wise is given, in this study, an interpretation that finds consistency in his life-long controversial and impulsive behavior. Simpson stresses Wise's ambivalent attitude toward slaves and slave-holding, authority and authority figures, and Virginia and the United States.
The Enclosed Garden book cover
#15

The Enclosed Garden

Women and Community in the Evangelical South, 1830-1900

1986

The southern women's reform movement emerged late in the nineteenth century, several decades behind the formation of the northern feminist movement. The Enclosed Garden explains this delay by examining the subtle and complex roots of women's identity to disclose the structures that defined—and limited—female autonomy in the South. Jean Friedman demonstrates how the evangelical communities, a church-directed, kin-dominated society, linked plantation, farm, and town in the predominantly rural South. Family networks and the rural church were the princple influences on social relationships defining sexual, domestic, marital, and work roles. Friedman argues that the church and family, more than the institution of slavery, inhibited the formation of an antebellum feminist movement. The Civil War had little effect on the role of southern women because the family system regrouped and returned to the traditional social structure. Only with the onset of modernization in the late nineteenth century did conditions allow for the beginnings of feminist reform, and it began as an urban movement that did not challenge the family system. Friedman arrives at a new understanding of the evolution of Victorian southern women's identity by comparing the experiences of black women and white women as revealed in church records, personal letters, and slave narratives. Through a unique use of dream analysis, Friedman also shows that the dreams women described in their diaries reveal their struggle to resolve internal conflicts about their families and the church community. This original study provides a new perspective on nineteenth-century southern social structure, its consequences for women's identity and role, and the ways in which the rural evangelical kinship system resisted change.
Southern Liberal Journalists and the Issue of Race, 1920-1944 book cover
#16

Southern Liberal Journalists and the Issue of Race, 1920-1944

1985

Before the Civil Rights movement, southern liberal journalists played a crucial role in shaping southern thought on race and racism. John Kneebone presents a richly detailed intellectual history of southern racial liberalism between World War I and World War II by examining the works of five leading southern journalists—Gerald W. Johnson, Baltimore Evening Sun ; George Fort Milton, Chattanooga News ; Virginius Dabney, Richmond Times-Dispatch ; Hodding Carter, Greenville (Miss.) Delta Democrat-Times ; and Ralph McGill, Atlanta Constitution . The South's leading liberal journalists came from varied backgrounds and lived in different regions of the South, but all had one characteristic in as public advocates of southern liberalism, each spoke as a southerner with deep roots in the southern past. Yet their editorials were not intended solely for local audiences; they wrote essays for national and regional journals of opinion as well, and each of these men published important books on the South and its history. Through their writings, they gained reputations throughout the country as articulate spokesmen for southern liberalism. Their essays, editorials, books, and letters provide rich and abundant sources for studying the changing patterns of southern liberal thought in the critical years from the 1920s to the 1940s. Moreover, these journalists were members of southern liberal organizations—Will W. Alexander's Commission on Interracial Cooperation, the Southern Commission on the Study of Lynching, the Southern Policy Committee, the Southern Conference for Human Welfare, and the Southern Regional Council—and so they helped devise the reform programs that they in turn publicized. While they believed that social and economic change in the modern South required reform of race relations, the journalists felt that these reforms could be accommodated within the framework of racial segregation. The protests of blacks against segregation during World War II challenged that way of thinking and created a crisis for southern liberals. Kneebone analyzes this crisis and the disconnection between the southern liberalism of the 1920s and 1930s and the Civil Rights movement. Originally published in 1985. A UNC Press Enduring Edition—UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.
Mammals of the Carolinas, Virginia, and Maryland book cover
#17

Mammals of the Carolinas, Virginia, and Maryland

1985

The only volume to deal specifically with the mid-Atlantic region, this practical guide describes in detail the 88 terrestrial mammals found there as well as the 33 marine species that inhabit the offshore waters. The authors offer expert descriptions of each species, including feeding habits, activity cycles, reproductive biology, and relation to other animals and humans. By emphasizing the relationships between mammals and their environments, the authors reveal how these animals live throughout the year. They guide readers to an appreciation of mammalian life and a keen awareness of the importance of conservation and habitat preservation.
Catesby's Birds of Colonial America book cover
#18

Catesby's Birds of Colonial America

1985

With this lovely and informative volume, Alan Feduccia preserves the pathbreaking work of Mark Catesby, the English naturalist and illustrator who founded natural history and bird art in America. First published by UNC Press in 1985, the book features all 109 bird illustrations, 20 color plates, and the entire text from Catesby's pioneering Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahamas . Annotating Catesby's writings from a modern perspective, Feduccia discusses the perception of each species during the Colonial period, comments on its habits, and compares Catesby's observations with those of such other early naturalists as John White, John Lawson, Alexander Wilson, and John James Audubon.
Southern Capitalists book cover
#20

Southern Capitalists

The Ideological Leadership of an Elite, 1832-1885

1986

Studying the changing strategies used by the nineteenth-century southern leaders to justify their direction of the South's economy and politics, Shore shows how leaders before, during, and after the Civil War attempted to set standards of success in southern society and to clarify the relations between those standards and national prosperity. Shore offers a new perspective on southern leaders' worldview and helps clarify the enduring question of what is new about the "new South." Originally published in 1986. A UNC Press Enduring Edition—UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.
#21

The Republican Party and the South, 1855-1877

The First Southern Strategy

1986

Book by Abbott, Richard H.
Francis W. Pickens and the Politics of Destruction book cover
#22

Francis W. Pickens and the Politics of Destruction

1986

Pickens (1807-69) was the first Civil War governor of South Carolina, the most difficult governorship in the nation's history. He led that state during the secession, prepared for and went to war, urged sister southern states to secede, and embarked on a novel experiment in government. Edmunds shows Pickens as always seeking higher political position, only to be trapped by his own ambitions, flawed personality, and self-generated animosities. Originally published in 1986. A UNC Press Enduring Edition—UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.
A Hard Country and a Lonely Place book cover
#23

A Hard Country and a Lonely Place

Schooling, Society, and Reform in Rural Virginia, 1870-1920

1986

William Link's account of the transformation of Virginia's country schools between 1870 and 1920 fills important gaps in the history of education and the social history of the South. His theme is the impact of localism and community on the processes of public education—first as a motive force in the spread of schooling, then as a powerful factor that collided with the goals of urban reformers. After the Civil War, localism dominated every dimension of education in rural Virginia and in the rural South. School expansion depended upon local enthusiasm and support, and rural education was increasingly integrated into this environment. These schools mirrored the values of the society. Drawing expertly from varied sources, Link recreates this local the ways in which schools were organized and governed, the experiences of teachers and students, and the impact of local control. In so doing, he reveals the harmony of the nineteenth-century, one-room school with its surrounding community. After 1900, the schools entered a long period of change. They became a prime target of urban social reformers who regarded localism as a corrosive force responsible for the South's weak political structure, racial tensions, and economic underdevelopment. School reformers began a process that ultimately reshaped every dimension of rural public education in Virginia. During the decades surrounding World War I they initiated sweeping changes in governance, curriculum, and teacher training that would have an impact for the next several generations. They also attempted—for the most part successfully—to impose a segregated pedagogy. Link carefully develops the role of the Virginia reformers, never assuming that reform and modernization were unmixed blessings. The reformers succeeded, he argues, only by recognizing the power and significance of local control and by respecting the strength of community influence over schools. Originally published in 1986. A UNC Press Enduring Edition—UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.
Turners and Burners book cover
#24

Turners and Burners

The Folk Potters of North Carolina

1986

This richly illustrated portrait of North Carolina's pottery traditions tells the story of the generations of "turners and burners" whose creations are much admired for their strength and beauty. Perhaps no other state possesses such an active and extensive ceramic heritage, and one that is entirely continuous. This book is an attempt to understand both the past and the present, the now largely vanished world of the folk potter and the continuing achievements of his descendants. It is a tribute that is long overdue. From the middle of the eighteenth century through the second quarter of the twentieth century, folk potters in North Carolina produced thousands of pieces of earthenware and stoneware—sturdy, simple, indispensable forms like jars and jugs, milk crocks and butter churns, pitchers and dishes, ring jugs and flowerpots. Their wares were familiar and everyday, not innovative or unusual, because they were shaped through generations of use for specific functions. The utilitarian forms were so commonplace and embedded in daily life that few individuals documented the craft. Turners and Burners is the first book to chronicle these pottery traditions, with close attention to distinct regional and temporal patterns and the major families involved. It explores in detail the traditional technologies used, from the foot-powered treadle wheel to the wood-fired groundhog kiln. Terry Zug became interested in North Carolina pottery in 1969 shortly after moving to Chapel Hill. In 1974 he began documenting the craft and traveled throughout the state recording the reminiscences of potters, former potters, and members of potters' families who recalled the old craft in remarkable detail. He systematically photographed and cataloged old pots, located early shop sites, and carefully recorded the remaining waster dumps of broken shards and decaying equipment. His primary source, however, was the potters themselves. Their tape-recorded interviews provide an insider's view of their world and reveal the powerful underlying logic and autonomy of their craft.
Class and Tennessee's Confederate Generation book cover
#27

Class and Tennessee's Confederate Generation

1987

This unique study of a generation of Tennessee soldiers contrasts in detail the lifestyles and class attitudes of the nineteenth-century South. Bailey has gleaned a vast amount of information on landownership and slaveownership, occupations, wealth, education, social-class relationships, Civil War experiences, and post-bellum careers. He argues that class differences and conflict were stronger that suggested by earlier scholars. Originally published in 1987. A UNC Press Enduring Edition—UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.
From Slave South to New South book cover
#28

From Slave South to New South

Public Policy in Nineteenth-Century Georgia

1987

Tracing the development of public policy in America, Wallenstein focuses on the southern variant of the national pattern and demonstrates the impact of the Civil War on public policy in Georgia. He relates political power to policy objectives as he draws connections among economic conditions, political conflict, and the social consequences of government actions. In investigating taxes, railroads, schools, and racial regulations, he reveals that prewar, wartime, and postwar patterns varied in significant ways. Originally published in 1992. A UNC Press Enduring Edition—UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.
William Lowndes and the Transition of Southern Politics, 1782-1822 book cover
#31

William Lowndes and the Transition of Southern Politics, 1782-1822

1989

This first scholarly biography of Lowndes establishes his place in history, even though he was overshadowed by contemporaries John C. Calhoun and Henry Clay, and provides valuable insights into our understanding of the development and decline of republicanism. Lowndes served in Congress during a time when the rising spirit of democracy challenged the elitist character of republicanism and advanced majority rule, thus raising questions concerning the nature of the Union. Originally published in 1989. A UNC Press Enduring Edition—UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.
Reluctant Confederates book cover
#32

Reluctant Confederates

Upper South Unionists in the Secession Crisis

1988

Daniel Crofts examines Unionists in three pivotal southern states—Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee—and shows why the outbreak of the war enabled the Confederacy to gain the allegiance of these essential, if ambivalent, governments. "Crofts' study focuses on Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee, but it includes analyses of the North and Deep South as well. As a result, his volume presents the views of all parties to the sectional conflict and offers a vivid portrait of the interaction between them.— American Historical Review "Refocuses our attention on an important but surprisingly neglected group—the Unionists of the upper South during the secession crisis, who have been too readily ignored by other historians.— Journal of Southern History
Gunnar Myrdal and America's Conscience book cover
#33

Gunnar Myrdal and America's Conscience

Social Engineering and Racial Liberalism, 1938-1987

1990

Gunnar Myrdal's An American Dilemma (1944) influenced the attitudes of a generation of Americans on the race issue and established Myrdal as a major critic of American politics and culture. Walter Jackson explores how the Swedish Social Democratic scholar, policymaker, and activist came to shape a consensus on one of America's most explosive public issues.
Frank Porter Graham and the 1950 Senate Race in North Carolina book cover
#35

Frank Porter Graham and the 1950 Senate Race in North Carolina

1990

The tumultuous North Carolina Senate primaries of 1950 are still viewed as the most bitter chapter in the state's modern political history. The central figure in that frenzied race was the appointed incumbent, Frank Porter Graham, former president of the University of North Carolina (1931-49) and liberal activist of national stature. As a Senate candidate, Graham was unrelentingly attacked for both his social activism and his racial views, and the vicious tactics used against him shocked his supporters and alarmed national observers. Peeling away the myths that have accumulated over the years, the authors present the first thoroughly researched account of Graham's eventual defeat by Raleigh attorney Willis Smith. The result, a balanced study of North Carolina politics at mid-century, is a convincing explanation of the 1950 election. Using the campaign as a prism, the authors assess the factional struggles within the state, showing that Graham was defeated by a massive loss of support among white voters in eastern North Carolina. The principal force behind this switch was the fear promulgated by the Smith campaign that a vote for Graham was a vote to end statutory segregation in North Carolina. The authors also offer the fullest portrait to date of Frank Porter Graham as political candidate and social reformer. They examine his career as an educator and public activist, the steps that led to his unorthodox appointment, and his strengths and weaknesses as a political candidate. Frank Porter Graham and the 1950 Senate Race in North Carolina is based on manuscript materials never before examined, on interviews with more than 50 campaign participants and associates of both Graham and Smith, and on a thorough analysis of newspaper coverage and campaign literature. Originally published in 1990. A UNC Press Enduring Edition—UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.
Patriotism for Profit book cover
#36

Patriotism for Profit

Georgia's Urban Entrepreneurs and the Confederate War Effort

1990

Book by Mary A. DeCredico
The North Carolina Railroad, 1849-1871, and the Modernization of North Carolina book cover
#38

The North Carolina Railroad, 1849-1871, and the Modernization of North Carolina

1991

In telling the story of the North Carolina Railroad's independent years (1849-71), Trelease covers all aspects of the company and its development, including its construction and rolling stock; its management, labor force, and labor policies; its passenger and freight operations; and its role in the Civil War. He also assesses the impact of the railroad on the economic and social development of North Carolina. Originally published in 1991. A UNC Press Enduring Edition—UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.
From Slavery to Agrarian Capitalism in the Cotton Plantation South book cover
#39

From Slavery to Agrarian Capitalism in the Cotton Plantation South

Central Georgia, 1800-1880

1992

Reidy has produced one of the most thoughtful treatments to date of a critical moment in southern history, placing the social transformation of the South in the context of 'the age of capital' and the changes in the markets, ideologies, etc. of the Atlantic world system. Better than anyone perhaps, Reidy has elaborated both the large and small narratives of this development, connecting global forces with the initiatives and reactions of ordinary southerners, black and white.—Thomas C. Holt, University of Chicago "Joseph Reidy's detailed analysis of social and economic developments in central Georgia during and after slavery will take its place among the standard works on these subjects. Its discussions of the expansion of the cotton kingdom and of the changes after emancipation make it necessary reading for all concerned with southern and African-American history.—Stanley Engerman, University of Rochester "Successfully places the experience of one region's people into the larger theoretical context of world capitalist development and in the process challenges other scholars to do the same.— Rural Sociology
Sweet Chariot book cover
#42

Sweet Chariot

Slave Family and Household Structure in Nineteenth-Century Louisiana

1992

Sweet Chariot is a pathbreaking analysis of slave families and household composition in the nineteenth-century South. Ann Malone presents a carefully drawn picture of the ways in which slaves were constituted into families and households within a community and shows how and why that organization changed through the years. Her book, based on massive research, is both a statistical study over time of 155 slave communities in twenty-six Louisiana parishes and a descriptive study of three plantations: Oakland, Petite Anse, and Tiger Island. Malone first provides a regional analysis of family, household, and community organization. Then, drawing on qualitative sources, she discusses patterns in slave family household organization, identifying the most significant ones as well as those that consistantly acted as indicators of change. Malone shows that slave community organization strongly reflected where each community was in its own developmental cycle, which in turn was influenced by myriad factors, ranging from impersonal economic conditions to the arbitrary decisions of individual owners. She also projects a statistical model that can be used for comparisons with other populations. The two persistent themes that Malone uncovers are the mutability and yet the constancy of Louisiana slave household organization. She shows that the slave family and its extensions, the slave household and community, were far more diverse and adaptable than previously believed. The real strength of the slave comunity was its multiplicity of forms, its tolerance for a variety of domestic units and its adaptability. She finds, for example, that the preferred family form consisted of two parents and children but that all types of families and households were accepted as functioning and contributing members of the slave community. "Louisiana slaves had a well-defined and collective vision of the structure that would serve them best and an iron determination to attain it, " Malone observes. "But along with this constancy in vision and perseverance was flexibility. Slave domestic forms in Louisiana bent like willows in the wind to keep from shattering. The suppleness of their forms prevented domestic chaos and enabled most slave communities to recover from even serious crises."
A Southern Life book cover
#45

A Southern Life

Letters of Paul Green, 1916-1981

1994

This exceptional collection provides new insight into the life of North Carolina writer and activist Paul Green (1894-1981), the first southern playwright to attract international acclaim for his socially conscious dramas. Green, who taught philosophy and drama at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1927 for In Abraham's Bosom, an authentic drama of black life. Among his other Broadway productions were Native Son and Johnny Johnson . From the 1930s onward, Green created fifteen outdoor historical productions known as symphonic dramas, thereby inventing a distinctly American theater form. These include The Lost Colony (1937), which is still performed today. Laurence Avery has selected and annotated the 329 letters in this volume from over 9,000 existing pieces. The letters, to such figures as Sherwood Anderson, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, John Dos Passos, Zora Neale Hurston, and others interested in the arts and human rights in the South, are alive with the intellect, buoyant spirit, and sensitivity to the human condition that made Green such an inspiring force in the emerging New South. Avery's introduction and full bibliography of the playwright's works and first productions give readers a context for understanding Green's life and times.
How Curious a Land book cover
#47

How Curious a Land

Conflict and Change in Greene County, Georgia, 1850-1885

1996

The story of the Civil War and Reconstruction in Greene County, Georgia, is a remarkable tale of both fundamental change and essential continuity. In How Curious a Land, Jonathan Bryant follows the county's social, economic, and legal transformation from a wealthy, self-sufficient plantation economy based on slavery to a largely impoverished, economically dependent community dominated by a new commercial class of merchants and lawyers. Emancipated slaves made up two-thirds of the county's population at the end of the Civil War, and thanks to an able, charismatic, and politically active leadership, they enjoyed early success in pressing for their rights. But their gains, says Bryant, were only temporary, because the white elite retained control of the legal system and used it effectively against blacks. Law also helped shape the course of economic change as, for example, postbellum laws designed to benefit the new commercial elite ensured poverty for most of the county's small farmers, both black and white, by relegating them to the status of sharecroppers and tenants. As a result, the county's wealth, though greatly diminished in the postbellum years, remained concentrated in the hands of a small elite.
The First American Frontier book cover
#49

The First American Frontier

Transition to Capitalism in Southern Appalachia, 1700-1860

1996

In The First American Frontier, Wilma Dunaway challenges many assumptions about the development of preindustrial Southern Appalachia's society and economy. Drawing on data from 215 counties in nine states from 1700 to 1860, she argues that capitalist exchange and production came to the region much earlier than has been previously thought. Her innovative book is the first regional history of antebellum Southern Appalachia and the first study to apply world-systems theory to the development of the American frontier. Dunaway demonstrates that Europeans established significant trade relations with Native Americans in the southern mountains and thereby incorporated the region into the world economy as early as the seventeenth century. In addition to the much-studied fur trade, she explores various other forces of change, including government policy, absentee speculation in the region's natural resources, the emergence of towns, and the influence of local elites. Contrary to the myth of a homogeneous society composed mainly of subsistence homesteaders, Dunaway finds that many Appalachian landowners generated market surpluses by exploiting a large landless labor force, including slaves. In delineating these complexities of economy and labor in the region, Dunaway provides a perceptive critique of Appalachian exceptionalism and development.
Schooling the New South book cover
#50

Schooling the New South

Pedagogy, Self, and Society in North Carolina, 1880-1920

1996

Schooling the New South deftly combines social and political history, gender studies, and African American history into a story of educational reform. James Leloudis recreates North Carolina's classrooms as they existed at the turn of the century and explores the wide-ranging social and psychological implications of the transition from old-fashioned common schools to modern graded schools. He argues that this critical change in methods of instruction both reflected and guided the transformation of the American South. According to Leloudis, architects of the New South embraced the public school as an institution capable of remodeling their world according to the principles of free labor and market exchange. By altering habits of learning, they hoped to instill in students a vision of life that valued individual ambition and enterprise above the familiar relations of family, church, and community. Their efforts eventually created both a social and a pedagogical revolution, says Leloudis. Public schools became what they are today—the primary institution responsible for the socialization of children and therefore the principal battleground for society's conflicts over race, class, and gender. Southern History/Education/North Carolina
What Do We Need a Union For? book cover
#53

What Do We Need a Union For?

The TWUA in the South, 1945-1955

1997

The rise in standards of living throughout the U. S. in the wake of World War II brought significant changes to the lives of southern textile workers. Mill workers' wages rose, their purchasing power grew, and their economic expectations increased—with little help from the unions. Timothy Minchin argues that the reasons behind the failure of textile unions in the postwar South lie not in stereotypical assumptions of mill workers' passivity or anti-union hostility but in these large-scale social changes. Minchin addresses the challenges faced by the TWUA—competition from nonunion mills that matched or exceeded union wages, charges of racism and radicalism within the union, and conflict between its northern and southern branches—and focuses especially on the devastating general strike of 1951. Drawing extensively on oral histories and archival records, he presents a close look at southern textile communities within the context of the larger history of southern labor, linking events in the textile industry to the broader social and economic impact of World War II on American society.
A New South Rebellion book cover
#55

A New South Rebellion

The Battle against Convict Labor in the Tennessee Coalfields, 1871-1896

1998

In 1891, thousands of Tennessee miners rose up against the use of convict labor by the state's coal companies, eventually engulfing five mountain communities in a rebellion against government authority. Propelled by the insurgent sensibilities of Populism and Gilded Age unionism, the miners initially sought to abolish the convict lease system through legal challenges and legislative lobbying. When nonviolent tactics failed to achieve reform, the predominantly white miners repeatedly seized control of the stockades and expelled the mostly black convicts from the mining districts. Insurrection hastened the demise of convict leasing in Tennessee, though at the cost of greatly weakening organized labor in the state's coal regions. Exhaustively researched and vividly written, A New South Rebellion brings to life the hopes that rural southerners invested in industrialization and the political tensions that could result when their aspirations were not met. Karin Shapiro skillfully analyzes the place of convict labor in southern economic development, the contested meanings of citizenship in late-nineteenth-century America, the weaknesses of Populist-era reform politics, and the fluidity of race relations during the early years of Jim Crow.
The Southeast in Early Maps book cover
#56

The Southeast in Early Maps

1998

First published in 1958, "The Southeast in Early Maps" is William Cumming's classic study of the mapping of the Southeast before the American Revolution. By analyzing printed and manuscript maps of the region in light of other contemporary primary documents, the book traces the expansion of geographical knowledge about the Southeast over the course of its discovery and colonization. With 124 illustrations—including a gallery of 24 color reproductions of maps selected from the Cumming Collection in the E. H. Little Library at Davidson College—this edition will be a valuable reference for collectors, cartographers, geographers, historians, archaeologists, archivists, librarians, genealogists, and surveyors.

Authors

Timothy J. Minchin
Author · 3 books
Timothy J. Minchin is professor of history and deputy head of the School of Historical and European Studies at La Trobe University. He is a recipient of the Richard A. Lester Prize from Princeton University and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. He has published widely on recent American history, especially that of the southern states. He lives in Melbourne, Australia.
Michael Perman
Author · 6 books
Michael Perman is professor of history emeritus at the University of Illinois-Chicago. He earned his B.A. in 1963 at Hertford College, Oxford University, his M.A. in 1965 at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1965 and his doctorate at the University of Chicago in 1969.
Gerald White Johnson
Author · 4 books
Gerald White Johnson, often credited as Gerald W. Johnson, was a historian and journalist.
John A. Salmond
Author · 3 books
John A. Salmond, professor emeritus of history at La Trobe University, is the author of numerous books, including Gastonia 1929: The Story of the Loray Mill Strike, He is also a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. He lives in Melbourne, Australia.
Paul Green
Author · 1 books

Librarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. Paul Green was an American playwright best known for his depictions of life in North Carolina. Green served as a professor of drama at UNC until his death in 1981.

Anthony J. Badger
Anthony J. Badger
Author · 3 books
Anthony John "Tony" Badger is a British academic and historian. Until 2014 he was Paul Mellon Professor of American History at Cambridge University and Master of Clare College, Cambridge.
Joseph P. Reidy
Author · 2 books
Joseph P. Reidy is professor emeritus of history at Howard University.
William A. Link
Author · 2 books

William A. Link earned his B.A. in history from Davidson College in 1976 and his doctorate in history from the University of Virginia in 1981. For twenty-three years, he was a professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, teaching courses in North Carolina history, the history of the American South, and twentieth-century American history. In 2004, he became the Richard J. Milbauer chair in history at the University of Florida.

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Fred W. Morrison Series in Southern Studies