The Paradox of Southern Progressivism, 1880-1930
The Paradox of Southern Progressivism, 1880-1930

Author: William A. Link

Publisher:

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 440

ISBN-13: 9780807843765

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Focusing on the cultural conflicts between social reformers and southern communities, William Link presents an important reinterpretation of the origins and impact of progressivism in the South. He shows that a fundamental clash of values divided reformers and rural southerners, ultimately blocking the reforms. His book, based on extensive archival research, adds a new dimension to the study of American reform movements. The new group of social reformers that emerged near the end of the nineteenth century believed that the South, an underdeveloped and politically fragile region, was in the midst of a social crisis. They recognized the environmental causes of social problems and pushed for interventionist solutions. As a consensus grew about southern social problems in the early 1900s, reformers adopted new methods to win the support of reluctant or indifferent southerners. By the beginning of World War I, their public crusades on prohibition, health, schools, woman suffrage, and child labor had led to some new social policies and the beginnings of a bureaucratic structure. By the late 1920s, however social reform and southern progressivism remained largely frustrated. Link's analysis of the response of rural southern communities to reform efforts establishes a new social context for southern progressivism. He argues that the movement failed because a cultural chasm divided the reformers and the communities they sought to transform. Reformers were paternalistic. They believed that the new policies should properly be administered from above, and they were not hesitant to impose their own solutions. They also viewed different cultures and races as inferior. Rural southerners saw their communities and customs quite differently. For most, local control and personal liberty were watchwords. They had long deflected attempts of southern outsiders to control their affairs, and they opposed the paternalistic reforms of the Progressive Era with equal determination. Throughout the 1920s they made effective implementation of policy changes difficult if not impossible. In a small-scale war rural folk forced the reformers to confront the integrity of the communities they sought to change.

The Paradox of Southern Progressivism, 1880-1930
The Paradox of Southern Progressivism, 1880-1930

Author: William A. Link

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2000-11-09

Total Pages: 462

ISBN-13: 0807862991

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Focusing on the cultural conflicts between social reformers and southern communities, William Link presents an important reinterpretation of the origins and impact of progressivism in the South. He shows that a fundamental clash of values divided reformers and rural southerners, ultimately blocking the reforms. His book, based on extensive archival research, adds a new dimension to the study of American reform movements. The new group of social reformers that emerged near the end of the nineteenth century believed that the South, an underdeveloped and politically fragile region, was in the midst of a social crisis. They recognized the environmental causes of social problems and pushed for interventionist solutions. As a consensus grew about southern social problems in the early 1900s, reformers adopted new methods to win the support of reluctant or indifferent southerners. By the beginning of World War I, their public crusades on prohibition, health, schools, woman suffrage, and child labor had led to some new social policies and the beginnings of a bureaucratic structure. By the late 1920s, however, social reform and southern progressivism remained largely frustrated. Link's analysis of the response of rural southern communities to reform efforts establishes a new social context for southern progressivism. He argues that the movement failed because a cultural chasm divided the reformers and the communities they sought to transform. Reformers were paternalistic. They believed that the new policies should properly be administered from above, and they were not hesitant to impose their own solutions. They also viewed different cultures and races as inferior. Rural southerners saw their communities and customs quite differently. For most, local control and personal liberty were watchwords. They had long deflected attempts of southern outsiders to control their affairs, and they opposed the paternalistic reforms of the Progressive Era with equal determination. Throughout the 1920s they made effective implementation of policy changes difficult if not impossible. In a small-scale war, rural folk forced the reformers to confront the integrity of the communities they sought to change.

A Hard Country and a Lonely Place
A Hard Country and a Lonely Place

Author: William A. Link

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2018-11-15

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1469644126

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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 world: 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.

Roots of Secession
Roots of Secession

Author: William A. Link

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2004-01-21

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13: 0807863203

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Offering a provocative new look at the politics of secession in antebellum Virginia, William Link places African Americans at the center of events and argues that their acts of defiance and rebellion had powerful political repercussions throughout the turbulent period leading up to the Civil War. An upper South state with nearly half a million slaves--more than any other state in the nation--and some 50,000 free blacks, Virginia witnessed a uniquely volatile convergence of slave resistance and electoral politics in the 1850s. While masters struggled with slaves, disunionists sought to join a regionwide effort to secede and moderates sought to protect slavery but remain in the Union. Arguing for a definition of political action that extends beyond the electoral sphere, Link shows that the coming of the Civil War was directly connected to Virginia's system of slavery, as the tension between defiant slaves and anxious slaveholders energized Virginia politics and spurred on the impending sectional crisis.

The Problem South
The Problem South

Author: Natalie J. Ring

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 0820329037

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For most historians, the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw the hostilities of the Civil War and the dashed hopes of Reconstruction give way to the nationalizing forces of cultural reunion, a process that is said to have downplayed sectional grievances and celebrated racial and industrial harmony. In truth, says Natalie J. Ring, this buoyant mythology competed with an equally powerful and far-reaching set of representations of the backward Problem South—one that shaped and reflected attempts by northern philanthropists, southern liberals, and federal experts to rehabilitate and reform the country's benighted region. Ring rewrites the history of sectional reconciliation and demonstrates how this group used the persuasive language of social science and regionalism to reconcile the paradox of poverty and progress by suggesting that the region was moving through an evolutionary period of “readjustment” toward a more perfect state of civilization. In addition, The Problem South contends that the transformation of the region into a mission field and laboratory for social change took place in a transnational moment of reform. Ambitious efforts to improve the economic welfare of the southern farmer, eradicate such diseases as malaria and hookworm, educate the southern populace, “uplift” poor whites, and solve the brewing “race problem” mirrored the colonial problems vexing the architects of empire around the globe. It was no coincidence, Ring argues, that the regulatory state's efforts to solve the “southern problem” and reformers' increasing reliance on social scientific methodology occurred during the height of U.S. imperial expansion.

Those Terrible Carpetbaggers
Those Terrible Carpetbaggers

Author: Richard Nelson Current

Publisher: New York : Oxford University Press

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 512

ISBN-13:

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Set within the larger context of Congressional politics and the history of individual Southern states, Current's narrative reveals a group of men who were often highly educated, almost all of whom had served with distinction in the Union Army (three were generals), and several of whom brought their own money down South to help rebuild a war-torn land. Daniel H. Chamberlain, for instance, was educated at Yale and Harvard Law School--he was described by the President of Yale as "a born leader of men"--Was governor of South Carolina, and later made a fortune as a Wall Street lawyer. Adelbert Ames, far from exploiting the black, was a leading exponent of black rights, the author of the main brief of the Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson, a major court battle against segregation. And Albion W. Tourgee, author of the best-selling A Fool's Errand, was praised after his death by W.E.B. du Bois for his efforts on behalf of the freed slaves.

Southern Crucible
Southern Crucible

Author: William A. Link

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780199763634

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Southern Crucible: The Making of an American Region seeks to fashion a new narrative about the American South. Informed by the most current scholarship in the field, the book offers a balanced look at the region's social, political, cultural, and economic history over four centuries, from pre-contact to the present. Focusing on several major themes in southern history--including the role of racial hierarchy, the role of women and gender, and the impact of immigration--author William A. Link presents the area's distinct history while carefully highlighting its remarkable diversity and geographic, cultural, and economic differences. Fast-paced and engaging, Southern Crucible challenges students to reexamine the region's history and culture and discover the legacy that the South has had on the entire nation's history. Southern Crucible: The Making of an American Region is available in a combined volume and two split volumes.