Author: Bryan Giemza
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807150916
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 376
Book Description
In this expansive study, Bryan Giemza recovers a neglected subculture and retrieves a missing chapter of Irish Catholic heritage by canvassing the literature of American Irish writers from the U.S. South. Giemza offers a defining new view of Irish American authors and their interrelationships within both transatlantic and ethnic regional contexts. From the first Irish American novel, published in Winchester, Virginia, in 1817, Giemza investigates a cast of nineteenth-century writers contending with the turbulence of their time—writers influenced by both American and Irish revolutions. Additionally, he considers dramatists and propagandists of the Civil War and Lost Cause memoirists who emerged in its wake. Some familiar names reemerge in an Irish context, including Joel Chandler Harris, Lafcadio Hearn, and Kate (O’Flaherty) Chopin. Giemza also examines the works of twentieth-century southern Irish writers, such as Margaret Mitchell, John Kennedy Toole, Flannery O’Connor, Pat Conroy, Anne Rice, Valerie Sayers, and Cormac McCarthy. For each author, Giemza traces the influences of Catholicism as it shaped both faith and ethnic identity, pointing to shared sensibilities and contradictions. Flannery O’Connor, for example, resisted identification as an Irish American, while Cormac McCarthy, described by some as “anti-Catholic,” continues a dialogue with the Church from which he distanced himself. Giemza draws on many never-before-seen documents, including authorized material from the correspondence of Cormac McCarthy, interviews from the Irish community of Flannery O’Connor’s native Savannah, Georgia, and Giemza’s own correspondence with writers such as Valerie Sayers and Anne Rice. This lively literary history prompts a new understanding of how the Irish in the region helped invent a regional mythos, an enduring literature, and a national image.
Irish Catholic Writers and the Invention of the American South
Author: Bryan Giemza
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807150916
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 376
Book Description
In this expansive study, Bryan Giemza recovers a neglected subculture and retrieves a missing chapter of Irish Catholic heritage by canvassing the literature of American Irish writers from the U.S. South. Giemza offers a defining new view of Irish American authors and their interrelationships within both transatlantic and ethnic regional contexts. From the first Irish American novel, published in Winchester, Virginia, in 1817, Giemza investigates a cast of nineteenth-century writers contending with the turbulence of their time—writers influenced by both American and Irish revolutions. Additionally, he considers dramatists and propagandists of the Civil War and Lost Cause memoirists who emerged in its wake. Some familiar names reemerge in an Irish context, including Joel Chandler Harris, Lafcadio Hearn, and Kate (O’Flaherty) Chopin. Giemza also examines the works of twentieth-century southern Irish writers, such as Margaret Mitchell, John Kennedy Toole, Flannery O’Connor, Pat Conroy, Anne Rice, Valerie Sayers, and Cormac McCarthy. For each author, Giemza traces the influences of Catholicism as it shaped both faith and ethnic identity, pointing to shared sensibilities and contradictions. Flannery O’Connor, for example, resisted identification as an Irish American, while Cormac McCarthy, described by some as “anti-Catholic,” continues a dialogue with the Church from which he distanced himself. Giemza draws on many never-before-seen documents, including authorized material from the correspondence of Cormac McCarthy, interviews from the Irish community of Flannery O’Connor’s native Savannah, Georgia, and Giemza’s own correspondence with writers such as Valerie Sayers and Anne Rice. This lively literary history prompts a new understanding of how the Irish in the region helped invent a regional mythos, an enduring literature, and a national image.
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807150916
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 376
Book Description
In this expansive study, Bryan Giemza recovers a neglected subculture and retrieves a missing chapter of Irish Catholic heritage by canvassing the literature of American Irish writers from the U.S. South. Giemza offers a defining new view of Irish American authors and their interrelationships within both transatlantic and ethnic regional contexts. From the first Irish American novel, published in Winchester, Virginia, in 1817, Giemza investigates a cast of nineteenth-century writers contending with the turbulence of their time—writers influenced by both American and Irish revolutions. Additionally, he considers dramatists and propagandists of the Civil War and Lost Cause memoirists who emerged in its wake. Some familiar names reemerge in an Irish context, including Joel Chandler Harris, Lafcadio Hearn, and Kate (O’Flaherty) Chopin. Giemza also examines the works of twentieth-century southern Irish writers, such as Margaret Mitchell, John Kennedy Toole, Flannery O’Connor, Pat Conroy, Anne Rice, Valerie Sayers, and Cormac McCarthy. For each author, Giemza traces the influences of Catholicism as it shaped both faith and ethnic identity, pointing to shared sensibilities and contradictions. Flannery O’Connor, for example, resisted identification as an Irish American, while Cormac McCarthy, described by some as “anti-Catholic,” continues a dialogue with the Church from which he distanced himself. Giemza draws on many never-before-seen documents, including authorized material from the correspondence of Cormac McCarthy, interviews from the Irish community of Flannery O’Connor’s native Savannah, Georgia, and Giemza’s own correspondence with writers such as Valerie Sayers and Anne Rice. This lively literary history prompts a new understanding of how the Irish in the region helped invent a regional mythos, an enduring literature, and a national image.
Irish Catholic Writers and the Invention of the American South
Author: Bryan Giemza
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807150924
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 491
Book Description
In this comprehensive study, Bryan Giemza retrieves a missing chapter of Irish Catholic heritage by canvassing the literature of American Irish writers from the U.S. South. Beginning with the first Irish American novel, published in Winchester, Virginia, in 1817, Giemza investigates nineteenth-century writers contending with the turbulence of their time -- writers influenced by both American and Irish revolutions, dramatists and propagandists of the Civil War, and memoirists of the Lost Cause. Some familiar names arise in an Irish context, including Joel Chandler Harris and Kate (O'Flaherty) Chopin. Giemza then turns to the works of twentieth-century writers, such as Margaret Mitchell, John Kennedy Toole, and Pat Conroy. For each author, Giemza traces the impact of Catholicism on their ethnic identity and their work. Giemza draws on many never-before-seen documents, including the correspondence of Cormac McCarthy, interviews with members of the Irish community in Flannery O'Connor's native Savannah, Georgia, and Giemza's own correspondence with writers such as Valerie Sayers and Anne Rice. This lively history prompts a new understanding of how the Catholic Irish in the South helped invent a regional myth, an enduring literature, and a national image.
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807150924
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 491
Book Description
In this comprehensive study, Bryan Giemza retrieves a missing chapter of Irish Catholic heritage by canvassing the literature of American Irish writers from the U.S. South. Beginning with the first Irish American novel, published in Winchester, Virginia, in 1817, Giemza investigates nineteenth-century writers contending with the turbulence of their time -- writers influenced by both American and Irish revolutions, dramatists and propagandists of the Civil War, and memoirists of the Lost Cause. Some familiar names arise in an Irish context, including Joel Chandler Harris and Kate (O'Flaherty) Chopin. Giemza then turns to the works of twentieth-century writers, such as Margaret Mitchell, John Kennedy Toole, and Pat Conroy. For each author, Giemza traces the impact of Catholicism on their ethnic identity and their work. Giemza draws on many never-before-seen documents, including the correspondence of Cormac McCarthy, interviews with members of the Irish community in Flannery O'Connor's native Savannah, Georgia, and Giemza's own correspondence with writers such as Valerie Sayers and Anne Rice. This lively history prompts a new understanding of how the Catholic Irish in the South helped invent a regional myth, an enduring literature, and a national image.
Rethinking the Irish in the American South
Author: Bryan Albin Giemza
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1617037982
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 233
Book Description
A fresh look at a multifaceted minority culture
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1617037982
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 233
Book Description
A fresh look at a multifaceted minority culture
Journal of the Civil War Era
Author: William A. Blair
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469616009
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 171
Book Description
The Journal of the Civil War Era Volume 4, Number 4 December 2014 TABLE OF CONTENTS Articles Gary Gallagher & Kathryn Shively Meier Coming to Terms with Civil War Military History Peter C. Luebke "Equal to Any Minstrel Concert I Ever Attended at Home": Union Soldiers and Blackface Performance in the Civil War South John J. Hennessy Evangelizing for Union, 1863: The Army of the Potomac, Its Enemies at Home, and a New Solidarity Andrew F. Lang Republicanism, Race, and Reconstruction: The Ethos of Military Occupation in Civil War America Professional Notes Kevin M. Levin Black Confederates Out of the Attic and Into the Mainstream Book Reviews Books Received Notes on Contributors
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469616009
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 171
Book Description
The Journal of the Civil War Era Volume 4, Number 4 December 2014 TABLE OF CONTENTS Articles Gary Gallagher & Kathryn Shively Meier Coming to Terms with Civil War Military History Peter C. Luebke "Equal to Any Minstrel Concert I Ever Attended at Home": Union Soldiers and Blackface Performance in the Civil War South John J. Hennessy Evangelizing for Union, 1863: The Army of the Potomac, Its Enemies at Home, and a New Solidarity Andrew F. Lang Republicanism, Race, and Reconstruction: The Ethos of Military Occupation in Civil War America Professional Notes Kevin M. Levin Black Confederates Out of the Attic and Into the Mainstream Book Reviews Books Received Notes on Contributors
Southern Cultures: The Irish Issue
Author: Harry L. Watson
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 0807868396
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 131
Book Description
In the Spring 2011 issue of Southern Cultures -- The Irish Issue -- Front Porch by Harry L. Watson "The authors in this special issue on Ireland and the South argue that the Irish left an outsized imprint on the cultures of the American South and forged a persistent affinity between Ireland and the South." "A lengthening chain in the shape of memories" The Irish and Southern Culture by William R. Ferris "Irish rockers U2 are committed fans of B.B. King and wrote the song 'When Love Comes to Town' at his request. The song introduced King to important new rock audiences." Tara, the O'Haras, and the Irish Gone With the Wind by Geraldine Higgins "Into the debate about place, race, and the second-best-selling book of all time, we can also bring Irishness." Another "Lost Cause" The Irish in the South Remember the Confederacy by David Gleeson "As there had been only two prominent Irish generals, and only one, Cleburne, had had a very distinguished record, the story of the common soldier was the story of the Irish Confederate." Blacks and Irish on the Riverine Frontiers The Roots of American Popular Music by Christopher J. Smith "One of the realities of American life is that certain features of African American performance style will remain strange and alluring to those outside the culture. Not least among such features is the making of hard social commentary on recurring problems of life, often through cutting and breaking techniques-contentious interactions continually calling for a change of direction." Smoke 'n' Guns A Preface to a Poem about Marginal Souths, and then the Poem by Conor O'Callaghan "Addressing a jubilant crowd in Belfast shortly after the declaration of the original ceasefire in 1993, Gerry Adams reminded his audience that 'they haven't gone away, you know.' He meant that even as 'the cause' was dwindling, its upholders-'the boys'-were still among us. He might just as easily have been talking about the Klan."
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 0807868396
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 131
Book Description
In the Spring 2011 issue of Southern Cultures -- The Irish Issue -- Front Porch by Harry L. Watson "The authors in this special issue on Ireland and the South argue that the Irish left an outsized imprint on the cultures of the American South and forged a persistent affinity between Ireland and the South." "A lengthening chain in the shape of memories" The Irish and Southern Culture by William R. Ferris "Irish rockers U2 are committed fans of B.B. King and wrote the song 'When Love Comes to Town' at his request. The song introduced King to important new rock audiences." Tara, the O'Haras, and the Irish Gone With the Wind by Geraldine Higgins "Into the debate about place, race, and the second-best-selling book of all time, we can also bring Irishness." Another "Lost Cause" The Irish in the South Remember the Confederacy by David Gleeson "As there had been only two prominent Irish generals, and only one, Cleburne, had had a very distinguished record, the story of the common soldier was the story of the Irish Confederate." Blacks and Irish on the Riverine Frontiers The Roots of American Popular Music by Christopher J. Smith "One of the realities of American life is that certain features of African American performance style will remain strange and alluring to those outside the culture. Not least among such features is the making of hard social commentary on recurring problems of life, often through cutting and breaking techniques-contentious interactions continually calling for a change of direction." Smoke 'n' Guns A Preface to a Poem about Marginal Souths, and then the Poem by Conor O'Callaghan "Addressing a jubilant crowd in Belfast shortly after the declaration of the original ceasefire in 1993, Gerry Adams reminded his audience that 'they haven't gone away, you know.' He meant that even as 'the cause' was dwindling, its upholders-'the boys'-were still among us. He might just as easily have been talking about the Klan."
Southern Cultures
Author: Harry L. Watson
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469609053
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 131
Book Description
In the Summer 2013 issue of Southern Cultures: Dixie Bohemians and Inner Hillbillies. Poutin' Houses and Moon Pies. The economics of slavery and the integrity of farming. The Wilmington Insurrection and Wednesday morning miracles. The Summer Issue promises more of what Southern Cultures does best: southern lives, real and imagined, re-imagined. Southern Cultures is published quarterly (spring, summer, fall, winter) by the University of North Carolina Press. The journal is sponsored by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Center for the Study of the American South.
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469609053
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 131
Book Description
In the Summer 2013 issue of Southern Cultures: Dixie Bohemians and Inner Hillbillies. Poutin' Houses and Moon Pies. The economics of slavery and the integrity of farming. The Wilmington Insurrection and Wednesday morning miracles. The Summer Issue promises more of what Southern Cultures does best: southern lives, real and imagined, re-imagined. Southern Cultures is published quarterly (spring, summer, fall, winter) by the University of North Carolina Press. The journal is sponsored by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Center for the Study of the American South.
Catholics' Lost Cause
Author: Adam L. Tate
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 0268104204
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 350
Book Description
In the fascinating Catholics’ Lost Cause, Adam Tate argues that the primary goal of clerical leaders in antebellum South Carolina was to build a rapprochement between Catholicism and southern culture that would aid them in rooting Catholic institutions in the region in order to both sustain and spread their faith. A small minority in an era of prevalent anti-Catholicism, the Catholic clergy of South Carolina engaged with the culture around them, hoping to build an indigenous southern Catholicism. Tate’s book describes the challenges to antebellum Catholics in defending their unique religious and ethnic identities while struggling not to alienate their overwhelmingly Protestant counterparts. In particular, Tate cites the work of three antebellum bishops of the Charleston diocese, John England, Ignatius Reynolds, and Patrick Lynch, who sought to build a southern Catholicism in tune with their specific regional surroundings. As tensions escalated and the sectional crisis deepened in the 1850s, South Carolina Catholic leaders supported the Confederate States of America, thus aligning themselves and their flocks to the losing side of the Civil War. The war devastated Catholic institutions and finances in South Carolina, leaving postbellum clerical leaders to rebuild within a much different context. Scholars of American Catholic history, southern history, and American history will be thoroughly engrossed in this largely overlooked era of American Catholicism.
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 0268104204
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 350
Book Description
In the fascinating Catholics’ Lost Cause, Adam Tate argues that the primary goal of clerical leaders in antebellum South Carolina was to build a rapprochement between Catholicism and southern culture that would aid them in rooting Catholic institutions in the region in order to both sustain and spread their faith. A small minority in an era of prevalent anti-Catholicism, the Catholic clergy of South Carolina engaged with the culture around them, hoping to build an indigenous southern Catholicism. Tate’s book describes the challenges to antebellum Catholics in defending their unique religious and ethnic identities while struggling not to alienate their overwhelmingly Protestant counterparts. In particular, Tate cites the work of three antebellum bishops of the Charleston diocese, John England, Ignatius Reynolds, and Patrick Lynch, who sought to build a southern Catholicism in tune with their specific regional surroundings. As tensions escalated and the sectional crisis deepened in the 1850s, South Carolina Catholic leaders supported the Confederate States of America, thus aligning themselves and their flocks to the losing side of the Civil War. The war devastated Catholic institutions and finances in South Carolina, leaving postbellum clerical leaders to rebuild within a much different context. Scholars of American Catholic history, southern history, and American history will be thoroughly engrossed in this largely overlooked era of American Catholicism.
Race, Politics, and Irish America
Author: Mary M. Burke
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192675842
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Book Description
Figures from the Scots-Irish Andrew Jackson to the Caribbean-Irish Rihanna, as well as literature, film, caricature, and beauty discourse, convey how the Irish racially transformed multiple times: in the slave-holding Caribbean, on America's frontiers and antebellum plantations, and along its eastern seaboard. This cultural history of race and centuries of Irishness in the Americas examines the forcibly transported Irish, the eighteenth-century Presbyterian Ulster-Scots, and post-1845 Famine immigrants. Their racial transformations are indicated by the designations they acquired in the Americas: 'Redlegs,' 'Scots-Irish,' and 'black Irish.' In literature by Fitzgerald, O'Neill, Mitchell, Glasgow, and Yerby (an African-American author of Scots-Irish heritage), the Irish are both colluders and victims within America's racial structure. Depictions range from Irish encounters with Native and African Americans to competition within America's immigrant hierarchy between 'Saxon' Scots-Irish and 'Celtic' Irish Catholic. Irish-connected presidents feature, but attention to queer and multiracial authors, public women, beauty professionals, and performers complicates the 'Irish whitening' narrative. Thus, 'Irish Princess' Grace Kelly's globally-broadcast ascent to royalty paves the way for 'America's royals,' the Kennedys. The presidencies of the Scots-Irish Jackson and Catholic-Irish Kennedy signalled their respective cohorts' assimilation. Since Gothic literature particularly expresses the complicity that attaining power ('whiteness') entails, subgenres named 'Scots-Irish Gothic' and 'Kennedy Gothic' are identified: in Gothic by Brown, Poe, James, Faulkner, and Welty, the violence of the colonial Irish motherland is visited upon marginalized Americans, including, sometimes, other Irish groupings. History is Gothic in Irish-American narrative because the undead Irish past replays within America's contexts of race.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192675842
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Book Description
Figures from the Scots-Irish Andrew Jackson to the Caribbean-Irish Rihanna, as well as literature, film, caricature, and beauty discourse, convey how the Irish racially transformed multiple times: in the slave-holding Caribbean, on America's frontiers and antebellum plantations, and along its eastern seaboard. This cultural history of race and centuries of Irishness in the Americas examines the forcibly transported Irish, the eighteenth-century Presbyterian Ulster-Scots, and post-1845 Famine immigrants. Their racial transformations are indicated by the designations they acquired in the Americas: 'Redlegs,' 'Scots-Irish,' and 'black Irish.' In literature by Fitzgerald, O'Neill, Mitchell, Glasgow, and Yerby (an African-American author of Scots-Irish heritage), the Irish are both colluders and victims within America's racial structure. Depictions range from Irish encounters with Native and African Americans to competition within America's immigrant hierarchy between 'Saxon' Scots-Irish and 'Celtic' Irish Catholic. Irish-connected presidents feature, but attention to queer and multiracial authors, public women, beauty professionals, and performers complicates the 'Irish whitening' narrative. Thus, 'Irish Princess' Grace Kelly's globally-broadcast ascent to royalty paves the way for 'America's royals,' the Kennedys. The presidencies of the Scots-Irish Jackson and Catholic-Irish Kennedy signalled their respective cohorts' assimilation. Since Gothic literature particularly expresses the complicity that attaining power ('whiteness') entails, subgenres named 'Scots-Irish Gothic' and 'Kennedy Gothic' are identified: in Gothic by Brown, Poe, James, Faulkner, and Welty, the violence of the colonial Irish motherland is visited upon marginalized Americans, including, sometimes, other Irish groupings. History is Gothic in Irish-American narrative because the undead Irish past replays within America's contexts of race.
Famine Irish and the American Racial State
Author: Peter D. O'Neill
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 131539345X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 295
Book Description
Interdisciplinary and transnational in scope, this book analyzes an array of state theories, literary figures, religious apparatuses, cultural artifacts, and political movements to demonstrate how the Irish not only fitted into, but also helped to form, the US racial state.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 131539345X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 295
Book Description
Interdisciplinary and transnational in scope, this book analyzes an array of state theories, literary figures, religious apparatuses, cultural artifacts, and political movements to demonstrate how the Irish not only fitted into, but also helped to form, the US racial state.
Reassessing the 1930s South
Author: Karen Cox
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807169234
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 334
Book Description
Much of American popular culture depicts the 1930s South either as home to a population that was intellectually, morally, and physically stunted, or as a romantic, sentimentalized haven untouched by the nation’s financial troubles. Though these images stand as polar opposites, each casts the South as an exceptional region that stood separate from American norms. Reassessing the 1930s South brings together historians, art critics, and literary scholars to provide a new social and cultural history of the Great Depression South that moves beyond common stereotypes of the region. Essays by Steven Knepper, Anthony J. Stanonis, and Bryan A. Giemza delve into the literary culture of the 1930s South and the multiple ways authors such as Sterling Brown, Tennessee Williams, and E. P. O’Donnell represented the region to outsiders. Lisa Dorrill and Robert W. Haynes explore connections between artists and the South in essays on New Deal murals and southern dramatists on Broadway. Rejecting traditional views of southern resistance to modernization, Douglas E. Thompson and Ted Atkinson survey the cultural impacts of technological advancement and industrialization. Emily Senefeld, Scott L. Matthews, Rebecca Sharpless, and Melissa Walker compare public representations of the South in the 1930s to the circumstances of everyday life. Finally, Ella Howard, Nicholas Roland, and Robert Hunt Ferguson examine the ways southern governments and activists shaped racial perceptions and realities in Georgia, Texas, and Tennessee. Reassessing the 1930s South provides an interpretation that focuses on the region’s embrace of technological innovation, promotion of government-sponsored programs of modernization, rejection of the plantation legend of the late nineteenth century, and experimentation with unionism and interracialism. Taken collectively, these essays provide a better understanding of the region’s identity, both real and perceived, as well as how southerners grappled with modernity during a decade of uncertainty and economic hardship.
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807169234
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 334
Book Description
Much of American popular culture depicts the 1930s South either as home to a population that was intellectually, morally, and physically stunted, or as a romantic, sentimentalized haven untouched by the nation’s financial troubles. Though these images stand as polar opposites, each casts the South as an exceptional region that stood separate from American norms. Reassessing the 1930s South brings together historians, art critics, and literary scholars to provide a new social and cultural history of the Great Depression South that moves beyond common stereotypes of the region. Essays by Steven Knepper, Anthony J. Stanonis, and Bryan A. Giemza delve into the literary culture of the 1930s South and the multiple ways authors such as Sterling Brown, Tennessee Williams, and E. P. O’Donnell represented the region to outsiders. Lisa Dorrill and Robert W. Haynes explore connections between artists and the South in essays on New Deal murals and southern dramatists on Broadway. Rejecting traditional views of southern resistance to modernization, Douglas E. Thompson and Ted Atkinson survey the cultural impacts of technological advancement and industrialization. Emily Senefeld, Scott L. Matthews, Rebecca Sharpless, and Melissa Walker compare public representations of the South in the 1930s to the circumstances of everyday life. Finally, Ella Howard, Nicholas Roland, and Robert Hunt Ferguson examine the ways southern governments and activists shaped racial perceptions and realities in Georgia, Texas, and Tennessee. Reassessing the 1930s South provides an interpretation that focuses on the region’s embrace of technological innovation, promotion of government-sponsored programs of modernization, rejection of the plantation legend of the late nineteenth century, and experimentation with unionism and interracialism. Taken collectively, these essays provide a better understanding of the region’s identity, both real and perceived, as well as how southerners grappled with modernity during a decade of uncertainty and economic hardship.