New South Labor

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Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996
From: David Herr
Subject: Discussion Question - New South Labor

H-South Discussion question:
Periodically H-South will offer discussion topics. These are provided so that we might debate the issues and discuss how they are presented in the classroom. Contributors are invited to submit course syllabi, recommended books and their opinions.

"As cotton rose to king in the century preceding the Civil War, the leaders of the region found it increasingly profitable to import manufactured goods and export the South's prime crop. Consequently, in contrast to the rest of the nation, the Southern work force was focused more and more in agriculture, even into the twentieth century. This trend allowed the South to develop a unique class structure, one that would prove, when the economic tide ultimately turned, extremely well suited to provide the new working class called for by the first advocates of a "New South" eager to catch up with a quickly industrializing nation."

Marc S. Miller ed. WORKING LIVES: THE SOUTHERN EXPOSURE HISTORY OF LABOR IN THE SOUTH. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1980) , 3.

What do we teach about the people who made the "Farm to Mill" transition and what about those people in the rural South that did not make the transition? What has been said about this period and what needs to be said?

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Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996
From: Richard Straw
Subject: Discussion Question - New South Labor

For the best discussion of this question as it applies to Appalachian mountain farmers and their transition to industrial workers read, Crandall Shifflett's excellent book, _Coal Towns: Life, Work, and Culture in Company Towns of Southern Appalachia, 1880-1960_ For an alternative view of this same topic read Ron Eller's _Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers_

Richard Straw

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Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996
From: Russell Motter
Subject: Discussion Question - New South Labor

In my high school US survey I explore the cultural tension between southern textile workers and northern reformers who travelled south and tried to "educate" southerners in the ways of modernity. A. Newby's PLAIN FOLK IN THE NEW SOUTH: SOCIAL CHANGE AND CULTURAL PERSISTANCE, 1880-1915 treats millhands with dignity and on their own terms.

Russell Motter
University of Hawaii Lab School