The Old South's modern worlds : slavery, region, and nation in the age of progress
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The Old South's modern worlds : slavery, region, and nation in the age of progress
Oxford University Press, c2011
- : pbk
Available at 10 libraries
Note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
- Volume
-
ISBN 9780195384017
Description
The Old South has traditionally been portrayed as an insular and backward-looking society. The Old South's Modern Worlds looks beyond this myth to identify some of the many ways that antebellum southerners were enmeshed in the modernizing trends of their time. The essays gathered in this volume not only tell unexpected narratives of the Old South, they also explore the compatibility of slavery-the defining feature of antebellum southern life-with cultural
and material markers of modernity such as moral reform, cities, and industry. Considered as proponents of American manifest destiny, for example, antebellum southern politicians look more like nationalists and less like separatists. Though situated within distinct communities, Southerners'-white, black, and
red-participated in and responded to movements global in scope and transformative in effect. The turmoil that changes in Asian and European agriculture wrought among southern staple producers shows the interconnections between seemingly isolated southern farms and markets in distant lands. Deprovincializing the antebellum South, The Old South's Modern Worlds illuminates a diverse region both shaped by and contributing to the complex transformations of the nineteenth-century
world.
Table of Contents
- Introduction Reimagining the Old South- L. Diane Barnes, Brian Schoen, and Frank Towers
- Part One: The South in a World of Nations
- Ch 1- Antebellum Southerners and the National Idea- Peter S. Onuf (University of Virginia)
- Ch 2- A World Safe for Modernity: Antebellum Southern Proslavery Intellectuals Confront Great Britain- Matthew Mason (Brigham Young University)
- Ch 3- The Burdens and Opportunities of Interdependence: The Political Economies of the Planter Class- Brian Schoen
- Part Two: Slavery in a Modernizing Society
- Ch 4- "A Disposition to Work": Rural Enslaved Laborers on the Eve of the Civil War- Larry E. Hudson, Jr. (University of Rochester)
- Ch 5- Rethinking the Slave Trade: Slave Traders and the Market Revolution in the South- Steven Deyle (University of Houston)
- Ch 6- The Pregnant Economies of the Border South, 1840-1860: Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Possibilities of Slave Labor Expansion- James L. Huston (Oklahoma State University)
- Part Three: Material Progress and Its Discontents
- Ch 7- The Southern Path to Modern Cities: Urbanization in the Slave States- Frank Towers
- Ch 8- "Swerve Me?": The South, Railroads, and The Rush to Modernity- William G. Thomas (University of Nebraska- Lincoln)
- Ch 9- Industry and Its Laborers, Free and Slave in Late Antebellum Virginia-L. Diane Barnes
- Part Four: The Blurred Boundaries of Southern Culture
- Ch 10- Zion in Black and White: African American Evangelicals and Missionary Work in the Old South- Charles F. Irons (Elon University)
- Ch 11- The Return of the Native: Innovative Traditions in the Southeast- Andrew K. Frank (Florida State University)
- Ch 12- Sex, Self, and the Performance of Patriarchal Manhood in the Old South- Craig Thompson Friend (North Carolina State University)
- Part Five: The Long View of the Old South
- Ch 13- Counterpoint: What if Genovese is Right? The Pre-Modern Outlook of Southern Planters- Marc Egnal (York University, Canada)
- Ch 14- The American Civil War, Emancipation, and Reconstruction on the World Stage- Edward L. Ayers (University of Richmond)
- Afterword -Michael O'Brien (University of Cambridge)
- Conclusion The Future of the Old South- L. Diane Barnes, Brian Schoen, and Frank Towers
- Volume
-
: pbk ISBN 9780195384024
Description
Before the Civil War, America's slave states were enmeshed in the modernizing trends of their time but that history has been obscured by a deeply ingrained view of the Old South as an insular society with few outward connections. The Old South's Modern Worlds looks beyond this myth of an isolated and backward-looking South to identify some of the many ways that the modern world shaped antebellum southern society. Removing the screen of southern traditionalism turns
up new stories about slaves as religious missionaries, Native Americans as hard-driving capitalists, cotton cultivators as genetic scientists, proslavery politicians as nationalists, and planters as experimenters in sexuality. The essays gathered in this volume not only tell these jarringly modern
tales of the Old South, they also explore the compatibility of slavery-the defining feature of antebellum southern life-and cultural and material markers of modernity such as moral reform, cities, and industry.
The Old South emerges from this volume in a new relationship to national and global histories. Considered as proponents of American manifest destiny, antebellum southern politicians look more like nationalists and less like separatists. Southerners' enthusiasm for humanitarian missions and their debates with moral reformers across the Atlantic bring out the global currents that cut against the localism of southern life. The roles that cities played in marketing, policing, and leasing slaves
counteracted the erosion of slave discipline in urban settings. The turmoil that changes in Asian and European agriculture wrought among southern staple producers show the interconnections between seemingly isolated southern farms and markets in distant lands. Diverse and riddled with contradictory
impulses, antebellum southerners encounters with modernity reveal the often discomforting legacies left by the Old South on the future of America and the world.
Table of Contents
- Introduction Reimagining the Old South- L. Diane Barnes, Brian Schoen, and Frank Towers
- Part One: The South in a World of Nations
- Part Two: Slavery in a Modernizing Society
- Part Three: Material Progress and Its Discontents
- Part Four: The Blurred Boundaries of Southern Culture
- Part Five: The Long View of the Old South
- Afterword -Michael O'Brien (University of Cambridge)
- Conclusion The Future of the Old South- L. Diane Barnes, Brian Schoen, and Frank Towers
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