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The social, political, and economic factors that shaped southern cities. Historian Thomas Hanchett cites Charlotte, North Carolina, as an example to support his argument that racial and economic segregation are not age-old givens, but rather resulted from a gradual process of industrial development and urban renewal. 4 color and 59 b&w illustrations. ... Read more

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Cities were the core of a changing economy and culture that penetrated the rural hinterland and remade the South in the decades following the Civil War.In New Men, New Cities, New South, Don Doyle argues that if the plantation was the world the slaveholders made, the urban centers of the New South formed the world made by merchants, manufacturers, and financiers.The book's title evokes the exuberant rhetoric of New South boosterism, which continually extolled the "new men" who dominated the city-building process, but Doyle also explores the key role of women in defining the urban upper class.

Doyle uses four cities as case studies to represent the diversity of the region and to illuminate the responses businessmen made to the challenges and opportunities of the postbellum South.Two interior railroad centers, Atlanta and Nashville, displayed the most vibrant commercial and industrial energy of the region, and both cities fostered a dynamic class of entrepreneurs.These business leaders' collective efforts to develop their cities and to establish formal associations that served their common interests forged them into a coherent and durable urban upper class by the late nineteenth century.The rising business class also helped establish a new pattern of race relations shaped by a commitment to economic progress through the development of the South's human resources, including the black labor force.But the "new men" of the cities then used legal segregation to control competition between the races.

Charleston and Mobile, old seaports that had served the antebellum plantation economy with great success, stagnated when their status as trade centers declined after the war.Although individual entrepreneurs thrived in both cities, their efforts at community enterprise were unsuccessful, and in many instances they remained outside the social elite.As a result, conservative ways became more firmly entrenched, including a system of race relations based on the antebellum combination of paternalism and neglect rather than segregation.Talent, energy, and investment capital tended to drain away to more vital cities.

In many respects, as Doyle shows, the business class of the New South failed in its quest for economic development and social reform.Nevertheless, its legacy of railroads, factories, urban growth, and changes in the character of race relations shaped the world most southerners live in today. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Tracing the transition years
Doyle traces the transition years between Old South and New South in Atlanta, Nashville, Charleston and Mobile between 1860 and 1910.Wonderful compilation of both quantitative and qualitative sources; the sources from newspapers during the time act like time capsules into the period.The newspaper sources combined with some photographs and maps make Doyle's book a well-researched place for students of Southern history and culture to enjoy an insightful glimpse into particular loci in the south.Chapters include:
Preface
Acknowledgments
Urbanization of Dixie
The New Order of Things
Ebb Tide
Patrician and Parvenu
The Atlanta Spirit
The Charleston Style
New Class
Gentility and Mirth
The New Paternalism
Paternalism and Pessimism
Epilogue
Notes
Index

Students interested in the too-often forgetten urban south should get this book ... Read more

Product Description
Exploring the history of Civil War commemorations from both sides of the color line, William Blair places the development of memorial holidays, Emancipation Day celebrations, and other remembrances in the context of Reconstruction politics and race relations in the South. His grassroots examination of these civic rituals demonstrates that the politics of commemoration remained far more contentious than has been previously acknowledged.

Commemorations by ex-Confederates were intended at first to maintain a separate identity from the U.S. government, Blair argues, not as a vehicle for promoting sectional healing. The burial grounds of fallen heroes, known as Cities of the Dead, often became contested ground, especially for Confederate women who were opposed to Reconstruction. And until the turn of the century, African Americans used freedom celebrations to lobby for greater political power and tried to create a national holiday to recognize emancipation.

Blair's analysis shows that some festive occasions that we celebrate even today have a divisive and sometimes violent past as various groups with conflicting political agendas attempted to define the meaning of the Civil War. ... Read more

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In the post-Civil War period, Southern women slowly shook loose from the longstanding image of "the lady on the pedestal" and, through club work and group association, developed independence and began to affect public life. One such notable "new woman" was Charleston's Susan Pringle Frost (1873-1960). This book recounts the life story of this active woman, describing her background, philosophy, and accomplishments in the area of advancing the image of the woman in society. A member of an illustrious old family, Frost constantly challenged convention, as a federal district court stenographer, as a real estate woman with an office in the professional district, as a women's rights advocate. She helped get women admitted to the College of Charleston and headed city and state National Woman's Party efforts to achieve women's suffrage and later, the Equal Rights Amendment. Bland asserts that Frost is chiefly important, however, as an historic preservationist. In a rapidly expanding sweep, beginning about 1909, Miss Frost bought and renovated numerous houses in the historic East Battery ristrict. Indebtedness mounted, and to aid her efforts she founded and for many years headed the Preservation Society of Charleston. On several Charleston civic commissions and, in her seventies, still a member of the Zoning Board, Susan Frost was a life-long worker for city betterment and tirelessly monitored Charleston preservation efforts. Preserving Charleston's Past, Shaping Its Future shows how a preservation pioneer, Susan Pringle Frost, helped shape the Southern "new woman" image and served as a role model for women of all generations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A Charleston Treasure
Preserving Charleston's Past, Shaping its Future: The Life and Times of Susan Pringle Frost is a small book that packs a big punch.Weighing in at 110 pages (171 counting index, sources, and notes), this book is a fascinating account of Susan Pringle Frost and her firm hand in the creation of the preservation movement in Charleston, South Carolina.To understand this story, one must know a little history of Charleston.Once one of the richest and most beautiful cities in the country, Charleston took a devastating downturn after the Civil War.So when ravaged by fire, hurricanes and even a destructive earthquake, Charlestonians did not have the money to raze and rebuild like many others cities (including Richmond and Atlanta).Instead, they had to restore.As a result, the turn of the century saw many of Charleston's historic buildings still intact but needing lots of work.

Enter Miss Susan Pringle Frost.Born in 1873 to a very old Charleston family that became impoverished after the Civil War, Pringle Frost was a woman way ahead of her time.She was able break away from the ties that bound traditional Victorian women and to move into a more modern age.Having never married, she first went to work as a court stenographer in 1901--a time when women weren't accepted into the workplace.She eventually went into real estate and became the first woman realtor in Charleston.She was a firm believer in civil rights when it was an unpopular stand in the south.She got involved in the suffrage movement, and hitched her star to Alice Paul.The skills that she learned during the suffrage battles, she used to great effect to get the preservation movement started.She badgered public officials, she recruited followers, she begged loans from bankers, and she was the key motivator in founding the Preservation Society of Charleston--still the premier preservation society in the city.Even before the PSC was founded, she single-handedly contributed to preservation efforts by purchasing run down homes in once properous neighborhoods and restoring them at her own expense.When the city wanted to tear down the homes that make up the now famous Rainbow Row and build something modern, Miss Susan purchased six of them and saved the entire block from the wrecking ball.Without Pringle Frost, Charleston would not be the charming city that attracts millions of tourists each year.Her contributions to the city of Charleston are so very impressive and author Sidney Bland does a fine job of bringing this story to life.

Triumph over extreme adversity
The life of Susan Pringle Frost, the Mother of Historic Preservation in Charleston, is explored with perception and sensitivity by Dr. Sidney R. Bland, whom I had the honor of assisting with a small portion of his research.Her father, Dr. Francis L. Frost, a brave Confederate surgeon, spent an angonizing and wholly fruitless decade after the end of the Civil War trying to re-start rice planting on his family's rice plantations on South Carolina's North Santee River.After his failure (and none of his neighbors fared any better), he turned to several other occupations, each of which proved equally fruitless."Miss Sue," as she was called, along with her two sisters, rose above the limitations of her aristocratic breeding and lent a shoulder to the wheel, taking outside jobs to provide the failed family with an income.Southern gentlewomen that they were, they gave all their earnings to their father, in order that he might remain the titular head of the family.Miss Sue's rise from martyr to the Lost Cause to court stenographer to Charleston's leading Suffragette to the city's first real estate agent to its pioneer historic preservationist blazed the trail for many women both in Charleston and outside the Palmetto State.Sidney Bland's unblinking yet compassionate study of Miss Sue and her era is a precious insight into the rapidly-changing face of the South in the early twentieth century.-- Richard N. Cote', author of Mary's World: Love, War, and Family Ties in Nineteenth-century Charleston (Corinthian Books, 2001). ... Read more

Product Description
More than 1,400 neighborhoods in the United States, most of them African American, were leveled in the name of urban renewal during the mid-twentieth century. "South of Main" recreates the culture and history of just one of those, the Southside of Spartanburg, South Carolina, founded in the 1860s by a group of ex-slaves who lived together at the end of a dusty road called Liberty Street. This poignant and sometimes painful history examines the experiences of the people who called the Southside home and whose lives were affected by the bulldozers of urban renewal. Through oral histories, photographs and maps, their memories survive through this rich collection of stories called "South of Main." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

A magnificent treasure for ALL FAMILIES
I received this book recently, and couldn't put it down until after I perused every page. This book is a remarkable compilation of photos and stories of the rich history of descendants of slaves who planted an indelible mark of courage, perseverance, strength and faith into the lives of everyone and anyone who's ever lived in Spartanburg or surrounding areas. I was born in Spartanburg over 50 years ago, and never knew about the rich heritage and traditions of some of the people who raised and nurtured me during the primary years of my life. This book ignited wonderful memories of the matriachs/patriachs-- who lived in Tobe Hartwell Extension where I lived with my mother, brother and sister--who watched out for your safety. I graduated from Mary H. Wright Elementary, and spent a summer in band practice at the beloved Carver High School just prior to relocating to NY. A few years later, Urban Renewal came in and completely transformed not just my old neighborhood, but the only community I've ever known. Thanks to Beatrice Hill and Brenda Lee for re-planting in our hearts the memories of our beginnings, for re-paving the pain and loss of a thriving and successful African American community, for the rehabilitation of all the parts, pieces and past that they so eloquently portray in this book. Undoubtedly, your heart will be full, page after page, when you read this book. Thanks to Beatrice and Brenda for the gift of the restoration of a historical treasure in my lifetime! M. Drake

Well Done
This book has truly been a blessing for me. When I received the book in the mail - I could not put it down. I read the book in one sitting.

My late parents were both born and raised in Spartanburg. My father's military career kept him traveling around this country and other parts of the world so my brothers and sisters and myself only knew of Spartanburg through visits. We lived in Spartanburg for one year while our father was stationed in Korea so I don't remember a lot about Spartanburg. I have been attempting to do some research of both sides of my family in Spartanburg. This book has reignited that spark for me to continue.

This book shed a piece of information about my family that I was not aware of and all the rich history of the "South of Main" area that is a must know for all, especially for the black people near and far who have roots in Spartanburg.

God Bless you and thank you Beatrice, Brenda and Raymond for a job well done.

Inspiring
I was anxious to receive my copy of South of Main and my waiting was not in vain.I'm truly Blessed to have come from these roots and be able to claim my portion of such an uplifting heritage.Once, I picked up the book, it was so hard to put it down.I fell asleep a couple times only to wake up with it lying on my chest, ready to dive back into the words that jumped out at me giving me the feeling of being in Spartanburg as a child again.I want to thank all of you who took the time and energy to publish this book.It's very educational and will serve as a source of knowledge for the children and future offsprings that
reside in Spartanburg.

Continuing the History of South of Main
I was very intriguedwith all the information about the South side of Spartanburg.I lived there from age 9 until age 17 after I graduated from Carver High.I was not aware of how the area began. Neither was I aware of the role that some of theresidents played in establishing the neighborhood. I am looking forward to a sequel to the book that will tell the story of some of the other people that played an important part in establishing the city.

Good study of urban renewal
Okay, I'm a tad prejudiced because I'm a native of Spartanburg, SC (the city studied in this book) and I have family members whose photos appear, but I'll keep it objective.

Basically, this is a case study of a Black neighborhood formed by ex-slaves in the above-mentioned city. In spite of Jim Crow, a narrowly-averted race riot in 1917 (described in one oral history by 97-year old Ms. Harriet Dawkins) and attempt to sabatoge their education, these people manage to build a thriving, self-contained community known as the Southside, with it's own hospital, hotel, movie theater, restaurants, Red cross, Boy Scouts, etc. Sort of the (early) Harlem of South carolina's upstate. The book is filled with pictures and oral histories that cover all this.

One particularly inspiring story tells the tale of Cedar Hill Academy. When the School superintendant tries to reduce the level of courses in the city's Black schools in the 1910s, local parents and educators break away and form their own Cedar Hill Academy.

Then in the late 1960s and early 70s, urban renewal comes in and under the guise of promises of better homes, the city all but destroys the Southside. No wonder Dick Gregory has referred to urban renewal as "Negro removal." For the record, the Southside neighborhood and most of its schools still exist, although most of the businesses are gone.

Variations of this story can be told of many other such neighborhoods and cities, and South of Main does a good job as a case study of urban renewal/Negro removal. The large number of oral histories and photos and stories of the Southside's heyday really helps to personalize what many Black neighborhoods were about in the Jim crow era, which is becoming a distant memory.

However, I like the fact that the book does not fall into the foolish trap that some other books of this time do in going too far into glorifying the Jim Crow era. The book makes clear the obstacles that the residents faced in those days and should offer hope for the current generation to escape it's crisis. But all in all, Black history and urban studies fans will find this a worthwhile purchase.

Incidentally, another book that covers some information not included in this about Spartanburg's Black history is "Things Hidden" by Dwain Pruitt which is avaiable mostly in Spartanburg and "Hub City Music Makers," which includes some more information of the "Sparkle City's" major contributions to Black musical history and is also available on Amazon. ... Read more

Product Description
Material Culture in Anglo-America examines the extent to which regions project cultural identities through the material forms of objects, buildings, and constructed environments. Utilizing more than 130 illustrations and essays by scholars representing a variety of disciplines, this volume explores the material constitution of the West Indies, Carolina lowcountry, and Chesapeake Tidewater—three historically related regions that shared strong likenesses in culture, commerce, and political development in the colonial through antebellum eras, yet also cultivated the distinctive regional flair with which they are now associated. Without reducing regionality to iconic signatures of place, the essays in this volume explore broadly the built and crafted artifacts that define and confine cultural identity in these geographic areas, locating regionality in the distinctive uses of objects as well as in their design and creation.

The contributors—an impressive and international array of historical archeologists, art historians, literary historians, museum curators, social historians, geographers, and historians of material culture—combine theoretical reflections on the poetics of representative material culture with empirical studies of how things were made and put to use in specific locales. They argue that there was a “presence of place” in the built environments of these regions but that boundaries were imprecise. The essays illustrate how the material culture of urban and rural settings interpenetrated each other and discuss the complications of class, race, religion, and settler culture within developing regions to reveal how all of these factors influenced the richness of crafted artifacts. The study is further grounded in several striking case studies that dramatically demonstrate how constructed things can embody communal self-understanding while still participating in an overarching transatlantic cultural community.

In addition to Shields, the contributors are Benjamin L. Carp, Bernard L. Herman, Paul E. Hoffman, Laura Croghan Kamoie, Eric Klingelhofer, Roger Leech, Carl Lounsbury, Maurie D. McInnis, Matthew Mulcahy, R. C. Nash, Louis P. Nelson, Paula Stone Reed, Jeffrey H. Richards, Natalie Zacek, and Martha A. Zierden. ... Read more

Product Description

The Kent Trilogy, consisting of Blackways of Kent (1955), Millways of Kent (1958), and the previously unpublished Townways of Kent, forms a remarkable southern ethnography that maps the social stratification of the Piedmont mill town of York, South Carolina, in the late 1940s, after the effects of the Great Depression and preceding the coming civil rights era. In 1946 the University of North Carolina's Institute for Research in Social Science commissioned a series of southern community studies under the direction of anthropologist John Gillin from which these volumes resulted.

In Millways of Kent John Kenneth Morland's skill as an oral historian and his fundamental respect for his blue-collar subjects allowed him to describe the anonymous textile mill workers of York as sympathetic, three-dimensional human beings, something more than their insular white neighbors in the town of York might have viewed them as. Morland discovered that the segregation of poor white mill workers from the existing town of York mirrored the experiences of early waves of European immigrants as they settled in established American cities. The plight of working families in the mill village, their daily joys and disappointments, and the governing call of the mill whistle are all brought vibrantly to life through Morland's words, creating a powerfully detailed snapshot of an American subculture that no longer exists.

This Southern Classics edition is expanded with a new preface by John Shelton Reed on the origins and impact of the Kent Trilogy and a new introduction by Dan Huntley assessing the lasting importance of Morland's telling case study. The volume is further supplemented with a 1995 interview with Morland and his wife detailing their experiences with the "Kent" research and including photographs from the period.

Customer Reviews (1)

A well-balanced portrait of Southern textile mill culture.
If you're interested in sociology, or in the culture of the South, this book is worth reading.It's a sociological study of the types of peoplewho worked in textile mills in an unnamed medium-size city in an unnamed Southern state in the late 1940s/early 1950s.The author, John Kenneth Morland, lived in the mill community for an extended period of time (almost a year) while observing the interactions amongst the mill workers, and between them and the other segments of society (the mill "townies" and the rural farming society from whence came the mill workers).Morland writes well enough that the prose is not stultifyingly academic, and the statistical tables are numerous enough to illustrate the points being made, but don't overwhelm the book.So, if you're of Southern descent and wish to learn a little about how your grandparents or other relatives may have lived in the mill culture (which extended from the late 19th century to the mid 1970s), then this book is worth reading.I'm looking forward to reading the companion volumes, which examine the African-American society of the time, and the remnants of the plantation culture, as soon as I can find those out-of-print books. ... Read more

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How have civil rights transformed racial politics in America? Connecting economic and social reforms to racial and class inequality, Conjuring Crisis counters the myth of steady race progress by analyzing how the federal government and local politicians have sometimes "reformed" politics in ways that have amplified racism in the post civil-rights era.



In the 1990s at Fort Bragg and Fayetteville, North Carolina, the city's dominant political coalition of white civic and business leaders had lost control of the city council. Amid accusations of racism in the police department, two white council members joined black colleagues in support of the NAACP's demand for an investigation. George Baca's ethnographic research reveals how residents and politicians transformed an ordinary conflict into a "crisis" that raised the specter of chaos and disaster. He explores new territory by focusing on the broader intersection of militarization, urban politics, and civil rights. ... Read more

Product Description
From a small radio studio in the heart of the Deep South, the voices of gay and lesbian Southerners suddenly filled the AM airwaves. ''For far too long,'' the announcer stated, ''talk radio airwaves have been dominated by the people who talk about us. Starting this fall, we speak for ourselves!'' What began in 2005 as an experiment Rainbow Radio, South Carolina's first gay and lesbian radio show has since offered diverse, accurate, and often unparalleled stories of gay and lesbian Southerners, their families, and their friends.

Citadel cadets, drag queens, a slam poet from Columbia, a Spartanburg schoolteacher, a seminary student in Atlanta, a gay army vet just back from the Middle East, West Columbia rednecks, rural Texas tomboys, South Carolina's first lesbian Congressional candidate, a young man talking about his gay uncle, a retired attorney talking about her gay son, two boys who dare to dance at the prom, a psychic who may be attuned to the gay agenda, and a dying man who makes his last visit to church on Christmas all these voices have now been collected in Out Loud: The Best of Rainbow Radio, edited by Ed Madden and Candace Chellew-Hodge. Their stories will inspire you, enrage you, and transform the way you think about what it means to be gay and lesbian in the South. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

For anyone who seeks stories of gay and lesbian progress
To have a voice is a great thing. "Out Loud: The Best of Rainbow Radio" discusses Rainbow Radio, a radio show in the Southern states which has made its own mark on Southern society for gay and lesbian individuals in an area which isn't known for being open to their existence. A collection of stories from the radio show, for anyone who seeks stories of gay and lesbian progress, "Out Loud" will prove to be quite the compendium.

Hey Y'all
Madden, Ed and Candace Chellew-Hodge (editors). "Out Loud: The Best of Rainbow Radio", Hub City Press, 2010.





Hey Y'all





Amos Lassen



Gays and lesbians really live in the South and in fact, they thrive there and are not afraid to be out and out loud. Rainbow Radio in South Carolina, the first GLBT radio show in the state has become a grassroots community since 2005 and it offers diverse programming and stories of gay life to its listeners, their friends and families. "Out Loud" brings many of their stories into a single volume and they are inspiring and can probably change your ideas about being gay below the Mason-Dixon Line.
The essays and poetry here are wonderful. There were times that as I read I felt that I was actually talking to the person face-to-face.
Being from and in the South, I found many of the essays relevant and sincerely honest---as well as well-written. The issues covered are important and certainly thought provoking. By the sharing of these ideas, we are given an insight into the gay mind and we hear from people who are dedicated to providing equality for all and making sure that the world we live in is a better place. ... Read more

Product Description
How did the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee break open the caste system in the American South between 1960 and 1965? In this innovative study, Wesley Hogan explores what SNCC accomplished and, more important, how it fostered significant social change in such a short time. She offers new insights into the internal dynamics of SNCC as well as the workings of the larger civil rights and Black Power movement of which it was a part. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

SNCC As It Was
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) meant many things to many people and remains so today. Wesley Hogan brings SNCC to us in all its strengths and weaknesses for better and for worse. She reveals a driven group of individuals who reached out to local people in the Black Belt South, listening to what they wanted and linking up with the local leaders who were there and who had fought the fight of the oppressed, down-trodden, and poverty-stricken. The study reveals how SNCC staffers went into rural Mississippi, Southwest Georgia, and Alabama and reached out to the local people whether they were literate or not, helping them voice their problems and overcome them by joining together no matter what the danger to them or the SNCC workers who came and stayed among the people and fought the fight with them. While doing this SNCC staffers listened to local elders as well as the young people and heard their stories and paid attention to their recommendations in discovering new leaders and training them to do what needed to be done in creating local movements. Hogan does not shy away from SNCC's difficulties in the Deep South in fighting its violent and brutal enemy and in the process reveals to the nation through its fight that white America needed to be pushed into helping the African Americans of the South by losing some of its best and its brightest in that battle.The course chosen by SNCC is revealed as one of a democratic group operating by consensus decisions rather than leadership from the top like other civil rights organizations. This choice is discussed and documented and examined for where this led and how it finally left the Black Belt South without the SNCC presence that drove the movement there from 1960 to 1966. Hogan documents this study with interviews, archival materials, bibliographic citations, and insightful use of extensive resources. ... Read more

Product Description
People said he was different and possessed by a dream, but such comments did not deter David English Camak as he worked to fulfill his vision of a common school for textile mill workers. Using his considerable persuasive skills, Camak convinced prominent citizens of Spartanburg, South Carolina, to support the establishment of Textile Industrial Institute.Common Ties is the story of that school from its establishment in 1911 through its time as Spartanburg Junior College and now Spartanburg Methodist College, a two-year liberal arts institution approaching its centennial. Katherine Davis Cann, a professor of history at SMC, brings the school's rich and unique history to life through the voices of students and the countless men and women who gave their best to assure its future. ... Read more