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The South in Modern America

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- A well cut, well combed, well coifed view of the South.
If one can view history as if it were groomed with a fine toothed comb, Dewey W. Grantham has viewed and displayed it as such. In The South in Modern America A Region At Odds, Grantham clips and styles his interpretation of history into a well-coifed account of the complex post-Reconstruction history of the South. Packing an extensive body of data into four hundred pages, he adds insight to a confusing era in American history. Although his point, counter-point style of comparison tends to be confusing, and his considerable use of statistics is coupled with plentiful politico name dropping, his knowledge of the era is evident in his work. Beginning with the sluggish economy that followed Reconstruction, Grantham describes the contrast between North and South and the differences between their industrial and agrarian societies. The industrialized North gained control of the limited southern corporations and industries and the resources that supplied them. The poor farmers of the South were, according to Grantham, "poorer than other Americans. Those who farmed -- the great majority of the region's inhabitants -- were steadily more landless" while workers in the South had fewer vocational and industrial skills during the era. The "Lost Cause" became the myth of the region through the declamation of men like Confederate hero, General John B. Gordon. By linking religion and Confederate images together a "civil religion" formed in the minds, hearts and legends of the southern populace. "This mythology," Grantham claims, "became a powerful factor in shaping southern politics during the next half-century." Quoting economist Gavin Wright, Grantham describes the South as a "colonial economy" in the control and coercion of the society to the north. Railroads, mines, financial corporations furnaces and many distribution institutions in the South were owned and controlled by northerners. The Spanish American War of 1898 brought northerners and southerners together to rally around the American flag. Nationalism superseded sectional diversity while political realignment in the late 1890's helped to "disfranchise most blacks..., and create the Solid South. The Populist movement grew in the region. Southern politicians gained influence and domination of the Democratic party in Washington. The economic outlook brightened while racial freedoms diminished. "By the turn of the century," Grantham states, illustrating the nation's passivity concerning African-American rights, "some southerners were contemplating a new role for the South in American life, a role made possible by the North's... ultimate approval of the southern mission to preserve the nation's racial purity." Moving into the era of Woodrow Wilson's presidency and World War I, Grantham slides into a deluge of political names -- McLemore of Texas, Swanson and Tillman of the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs, Kitchin of the House Ways and Means Committee, William Jennings Bryan. On and on he seems to name the entire congress and presidential cabinet of the Wilson period. His accuracy is obvious, but his prose is lost and adrift in the sea of names and political positions. With the rise of Franklin D. Roosevelt to power, regional differences were tolerated. Roosevelt's use of local political power, however, did little to change the structure of politics and racial freedom in the South. Nevertheless, "it did a good deal to change the political outlook of southerners," by creating "a politics of class and economic interest in the South...." The South began to catch up with the other regions of the nation. After the Second World War a "South within the North" was generated by the lower-class job-searching transients moving into northern ghettos. With the outbreak of rioting of the 1960's in northern and western cities, the inequality of blacks and their demand for change stood preeminently in national political debate. The Civil Rights movement gained momentum and force in violent as well as non-violent expression. "Many white northerners viewed the ghetto riots as evidence of black ingratitude," Grantham explains, with light sarcasm, "since they themselves in large numbers had supported the earlier objectives of the equal rights movement. But now the reformers were going beyond the overthrow of Jim Crow to demand things like jobs, open housing, and better schools." Into Americana came the terms "busing" and "affirmative action," terms frowned upon by "most whites, North and South." With the southern strategy of Richard Nixon the end to the "Second Reconstruction" of the South was complete. Nixon's opposition to busing and "excesses" of the civil rights movement satisfied demands of conservatives of in the South. As the era waned, the stereotypical view of a racist South began to dissipate as the "Sunbelt South" emerged. No longer was the region a "colonial appendage" of the North and Midwest. North and South intermingled in the industrial parks and retirement Sun-Cities that flourished below the Mason-Dixon Line. Grantham concludes by stating, "The South has been almost as essential to the North... [as] North to the South in shaping of national character and mythology.... The reciprocal effects of this regional interaction reveal an important aspect of the national experience." It was, he says, integral to the shaping of the nation. The South modified the direction of the North as much as the North did in redirecting the South -- two parts of the whole. The inter-regional compromises accommodated the economical, ideological and political interest in both regions. Grantham's work is a valuable lesson in Southern history. The span of time and the enormity of information needed to explain the post-civil-war South can excuse one obvious shortcoming in his text. In background information for his readers he omits the adequate and full definition of various terms; Jim Crow, progressivism and populism being examples. These exclusions can send one searching through the closest, convenient encyclopedia or reference on the history of the region. One can conclude that Grantham has the assumption that the reader has previous knowledge of the expressions. A newcomer to southern history can become lost in the immensity of the work -- but it's a good work in which to find oneself lost. -- James D. Byous

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