A New South?--Chapter 17
North vs. South in 1861:
Wealth: South had 25% of the nation’s wealth.
Farmland: South had 25% of the nation’s farmland.
Railroad Milage: South had 29% of the railroad lines.
Factory Production: South had 9% of the nation’s industrial capacity
Population: South had 29% of the nation’s population.
In 1877, the South is:
Run by Pre-Civil War Elites and Veterans of the Civil War: 90% of Southern White Men had served in the Civil War (25% died). By 1877, the Southern Republicans are dead and the South is run by the Democratic Party, which is dominated by the pre-Civil War land owning and slave owning class.
Not Fully Segregated: Many Blacks have been forced to stop voting, but some still do and society is not yet fully segregated.
Cotton Dependent: The Southern Economy still depends on cotton, even though it is no longer very valuable.
Poor: As a result, Southerners are pretty poor, though some are rich.
The New South?: Efforts at Southern Industrialization
1886--Henry Grady, a Southern journalist, called for an industrialized New South, built on Northern capital and Southern labor. He sought to reconcile the South to the realities of an industrial future and to bring about national reconcilliation between North and South by this project. (He thus rejected the 'Old South' of slavery and secession.) Many in both regions found this appealing, though many Southerners remained sentimental about the pre-Civil War South (especially while Civil War veterans yet lived and dominated society.)
Southern Pride: Many Southerners had long pointed out that at a Southern funeral, only the dead body and the hole in the ground came from the South; everything else used likely was made in the North. Some Southerners wanted to reduce dependence on Northern goods.
Southern Poverty Provides Workers: Those Southerners who pushed Southern industrialization were able to do so because many Southerners were poor.
Inefficiency of Sharecropping: Both Whites and Black farmers were mainly sharecroppers, who paid their land rent in a share of their crop. This trapped them in a debt cycle. Many of their children were willing to try industrial work to escape poverty at home.
Industrialization between 1877 to 1900:
Steel Mills and Textiles: In 1861, the South had only one large iron foundry--the Tredegar company in Richmond, and some smaller companies in Chatanooga. By 1889, the iron mills of Birmingham Alabama rivalled those of Pittsburgh. In the Carolina piedmont, southern textile mills exploited the easy availability of Southern cotton, thus saving on transportation costs. By 1900, the South produced more textiles than New England.
Tobacco and Soft Drinks: The development of the cigarette in North Carolina by James Duke increased the profitability of southern tobacco. Southern chemists and pharmacists began to develop what are now known as 'soft drinks', various kinds of carbonated beverages:
Coca-Cola: Atlanta, Dr. John Pemberton, 1885
Dr.Pepper: Waco, Charles Alderton, 1885
Pepsi-Cola: New Bern, North Carolina, Caleb Bradham, Early 1890s
Railroads: Southern rail milage doubled between 1880 and 1890, outpacing the rest of the country. Railroads strengthened interior cities and opened new regions to industrial development. Dallas grew from 3000 in 1872 to over 10,000 by 1880, for example. Towns with less than 5,000 people doubled in number 1870-80 and again by 1900. By 1900, 1 in 6 southerners lived in a city.
The Limits of Growth: The South still grew slower industrially than the rest of the country. Between 1860 and 1900, the South's share of national manufacturing grew by only .2%. Per Capita income declined from 72% of the national average in 1860 to 52% in 1880, and by 1920, it had only reached 62%
Low Wages: A strong birth rate outpaced the ability of the land and manufacturing to employ people, and most of the industrial work was low-skill work. The south spent half as much per capita on education, producing fewer high skilled people.
Capital Problems: The South's native capital was largely wiped out by the civil war and collapse of cotton prices, and the south struggled to attract Northern capital. Only the cigarette industry was well funded, due to its huge profits which let it fund its own growth.
Southern Cities: Nevertheless, Southern cities flourished, growing more cosmopolitan, larger, and more prosperous. They drew in the young and ambitious and bright. At the same time, rural folk, more connected to the cities than ever before, often didn't like what they saw and became alienated from them.
The Southern Agrarian Revolt
The Cotton Trap: Only cotton could be easily sold to pay off the debts incurred in order to grow it and to survive the long gap between harvests. But with its price collapsed, it was hard to impossible to avoid sinking further and further into debt. By the 1890s, most white and black farmers were debt-trapped sharecroppers.
The Agrarian Revolt: Southern farmers wanted lower-interest credit, lower rail shipping rates, lower prices for food and necessity and better prices for their crop. They turned to forming organizations.
The Grange: By 1875, the Grange had 250,000 members, but was dominated by large land owners.
The Southern Farmer's Alliance: Founded in Texas in the late 1870s. They formed farmer's co-ops to gain better credit terms, cheaper prices for necessities, and to market their crops together to exert more weight on businesses and railroads. By 1890, it had over a million members. It was an explicitly Christian organization, preaching good works and good farming, pressing legislatures for farm reform and public schools. Women played prominent roles, but blacks were excluded.
The Colored Farmer's Alliance: Founded in Texas in 1886, it was similar to TSFA, but was a black organization with more sharecroppers and very small landowners.
The Fall: Collapsing cotton prices after 1891 destroyed TSFA, which joined with the Populist Party in 1892.
The Populists: Founded in the North by those disappointed by Republican failure to address farm problems. The Populists backed major changes to the political system (referendums, direct election of senators, secret ballot, etc) as well as economic measures to aid farmers and urban workers (easier credit, railroad regulation, etc) They were ambivalent about blacks, who remained loyal to the Republicans. This led to Populist defeat in 1892. More on this later.
Women in the New South
Limits of Feminism: The connection of northern feminism to abolitionism and the deification of traditional gender roles by defeated Southern men after 1865 meant Southern women had to move carefully if they left their pedestals.
Urban Middle Class Women: The conveniences of the city and the support of servants gave them the free time to engage in activism.
Church Work: Churches were an ideal arena for women to operate in, as no one could complain about them doing 'the work of the Lord'. In the south, Settlement Houses were sponsored by churches to bring a mix of the gospel and practical advice to working class families.
Women's Christian Temperance Union: First southern locals arose in the 1880s to fight for the abolition of alcohol production and consumption. They framed it as a family issue--alcohol consumption poisoned families. By the 1890s, some members began pushing for votes for women to better fight alcohol. The WCTU often clashed with men, who drank more and opposed women's suffrage.
Memorials: Many Southern women also became involved in commemorating the Civil War and Southern soldiers and heroes. 1894--United Daughters of the Confederacy
Women's Clubs: Typically founded as social and literary clubs in the 1880s, by the 1890s, many became more activist. Child labor, education, and prison reform became areas for moral crusades.
The Triumph of Jim Crow: The Consolidation of the Southern System of Segregated Race Relations
1877-1890: An Uncertain System. Reconstruction had broken Black political power in the south and crippled the Southern Republican party, but there was only partial segregation in this period. In the 1880s, a new generation of Blacks arose who wished to get rid of the disabilities they suffered in voting and economic life.
White Backlash: Raised on the myth of the Lost Cause, the new generation of Southern whites pushed back, seeking to create a system of segregation to put blacks in their place and to enable themselves to feel superior to someone at a time when most Southern whites suffered heavy poverty. The deteriorating economy also heightened competition for jobs as cotton collapsed further after 1891.
Lynch Mobs: A major problem for blacks, especially those who ended up in confrontations with whites in business or politics, was lynching. 235 lynchings in 1892. 1882-1903, nearly 2000 black southerners were lynched. Most lynchers were working-class whites. Most lynching was 'justified' by claims of sexual predation by black men; most lynching victims were male. (Only 25% of lynchings were actually sparked by any sort of sexuality related issue, however)
Segregation: It spread in the South after the 1870s, while going into decline in the North. Railroads were a major focus for segregation. Plessy vs. Ferguson was a challenge to the segregation of Railroads.
Plessy vs. Ferguson: 1890, Henry Plessy refused to leave the first class car of a train. 1896, the Supreme Court ruled seven to one that segregation did not violate the 14th amendment, so long as equal facilities were provided for all, the so called 'separate but equal' doctrine. Only Justice Harlan voted against it, saying it would spark massive anti-black discrimination.
Jim Crow Laws: This nickname came from a minstrel stage show performer, Thomas Rice. A system of laws now methodically disenfranchised, segregated and discriminated against blacks. Blacks were driven out of many trades and occupations, such as carpentry and masonry.
Voting Disenfranchisement: States instituted poll taxes, literacy tests, and 'understanding tests' to block black voting, then used grandfather clauses (you could vote if your grandfather could vote) to let poor whites vote, though some whites got locked out anyway. Overall voter turnout dropped by 50%.
Racism: Segregation passed with little protest because of white racism. Even most social progressives subscribed to ideas of racial hierarchy in this age of 'scientific racism', and 'social darwinism'. The Republican party was able to rule without the South, so they left it to rot. The position of Northern blacks also began to decay.
Black Response: Attempts at organized protest were unsuccessful. Some blacks chose to leave the South. Blacks withdrew into their own communities, developing a communal life centered around black businesses and black churches. The Black middle class founded fraternal and self-help organizations. They also focused on education
Black Women's roles: Black women's clubs worked against segregation, protected abused women, and worked for the right to vote. They also used connections to organizations of white women to push for improved health and education for blacks.
Booker T. Washington--Black leader who emphasized the development of southern education and industry; urged the Black community to work hard and improve itself so as to gain a position of better leverage to reclaim its rights.
1881--Tuskegee Institute. BTW (son of a slave and a white man) becomes the president and founder. He sought to create a school for agricultural research and to create teachers.
George Washington Carver: Director of Agricultural Research at Tuskugee. Innovator with peanuts, sweet potatos, and soybeans. Carver called for the south to abandon their crops.
1895: Atlanta Compromise. Booker T. Washington called for accomodation between the races and for blacks to engage in education and self improvement at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta. Many blacks saw this as too submissive.