Volume VII. Number 7.

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Quite apart from the general profit that is to be derived from acquiring a knowledge of environments other than one's own, an investigation of the history of the new South ought to have, for the boys and girls of other parts of the United States, an interest and importance that are distinct and peculiar. If, in the present war in Europe, we have been stirred by examples of brave resistance to adversity and moved by the accounts of destruction and desolation, and if the question of the reconstruction of Europe and the fate of the conquered people is already in our minds, then surely the story of the rehabilitation of part of cur own people and the consideration of these special problems, must make an appeal to the historicallyminded and must receive from text-books and teachers somewhat extended treatment as a topic of recent history. The political history of reconstruction has been narrated from many points of view, both with reference to the period as a whole and with regard to particular States; but the vast social and economic changes, which beginning in the reconstruction time are still in progress, usually receive in our text-books less attention. Our boys and girls study carefully the work of the Gracchi, the organization of the medieval manor, the effects of inclosures in England, and the condition of the peasants in France before the revolution. Is it not possible to awaken an intelligent interest in the tasks with which emancipation and the industrial revolution have confronted the people of the South?

To point out to teachers some of the more important phases of this topic and to make some suggestions as to the literature to be consulted, constitute the purpose of the present paper. While some retrospect is necessary the period of time covered is principally that which began with the close of the reconstruction era, at the time when the South was permitted once more to exercise self-government, and when some progress had been made toward repairing the economic losses of the war.1

At the outset, the reader must be warned against three possible misconceptions. (1) The uniqueness of any section may easily be exaggerated. In no case is this more true than in that of the South. The progress " that I shall discuss later is a phenomenon which the southern people share with all the people of the United States. If the agriculture and the manufactures of the South have greatly increased, so have the agriculture and the manufactures of other regions. If the South has better schools and more of them than it formerly had, so has the West. While the South is especially indebted to northern capital, in the constant shifting of population which characterizes the United States the southern States have given more people to other sections than they have received. The influence of southerners in the North, especially in New York, and of northerners in the South, while incapable of exact statement, is an important factor in establishing a common understanding. The same language, religious and legal ideas held in common, inter-state business and commerce, the workings of the Federal Government-a thousand things tend to nationality and uniformity for one that tends to separation. From this point of view it might seem illogical to treat of the New South in a separate paper, when the new South is growing with and in the new nation. But in what follows we shall see that there is quite enough of a distinction to justify our topic. It is only exaggeration that must be avoided.

(2) The teacher must establish in his or her mind a proper balance with regard to the unity within the South. A review of the physical geography of the southern States, already studied, it is to be hoped, for the history of the Colonial Period, for the Westward Movement, and for the War and Reconstruction - will show what a land of contrasts the Southland is. Except in the one characteristic of political solidarity where the question of white self-government may be concerned, the South is a very indefinite term.

Besides the cotton belt there are sugar regions and rice districts and tobacco fields, and as will appear below, the South raises a considerable proportion of the grain crops of the United States. There are several great sea ports where the water is about as salt as in sea ports elsewhere. Much of the South lies near the sea level; yet the Allegheny Mountains reach into the heart of the South to raise some of their highest peaks. In many respects the common western characteristics of the southern States in the Mississippi Valley, as distinguished from those of the Atlantic seaboard, are quite as noticeable as those which contrast the South and the North. One great common characteristic is the presence of the Negro race; yet even this is a factor of enormous variations. Within the single State of Tennessee is a county where the Negroes form seventy-five per cent. of the population, and one where they constitute two-tenths of one per cent. of the population. An important word of advice, then, to the teacher who is undertaking to discuss southern history, in recent years or in any period, is that he should be cautious in the matter of generalizations and should keep the upper hand of adjectives.

(3) It must be remembered that the new South is not entirely new. So far as the progress of mechanical invention had then permitted, the South, in the decade of 1850-1860, had made, in agriculture, in manufactures, and in transportation, very rapid advance. The abolition of slavery indeed removed from the white race many of the barriers of progress; but the price for the way in which this was done was the ruin of southern capital and the interruption and delay of an evolution which in 1860 had already slowly but surely manifested itself.

Our subject seems naturally to divide itself into four chief heads. We must consider (1) the Economic Revolution which the war and emancipation brought to pass in the South, and the changes in the social structure which resulted; (2) the Educational Renaissance, in which the idealism of the new South has found its highest expression; (3) the Political and Constitutional Changes, and (4) the Negro-"the southerner's problem."

I. THE ECONOMIC REVOLUTION.3

We turn first to the readjustment of social and economic affairs which took place in the southern States in the fifteen years between 1865 and 1880-a read

2 A very serviceable introduction to the whole subject of the New South will be found in some of the papers contributed to "Studies in Southern History and Politics," inscribed to W. A. Dunning. To the several papers that bear directly on the topics discussed below, specific reference is made in the proper place. The work of P. A. Bruce, "The Rise of the New South," which constitutes Vol. 17 of Lee's "History of North America" ably covers the whole field. The concluding "general summary" is helpful. The work, however, is unannotated and lacks a bibliography. Perhaps the most complete body of information is found in the following volumes of "The South in the Building of the Nation": Vol. 6, "Southern Economic History," edited by J. C. Ballagh; Vol. 7, "History of Intellectual Life," edited by J. B. Henneman; Vol. 10, "History of the Social Life," edited by S. C. Mitchell. These volumes are made up of articles by special students, on almost every phase of Southern life, with excellent bibliographies. A. B. Hart's "The Southern South," attempts a general survey, but is characterized by some amazing inaccuracies. The same writer contributes the article, "The South" to the "Cyclopedia of American Government." Channing, Hart and Turner's "Guide to the Reading and Study of American History" has a chapter on "The South, 1870-1895." The topics have apparently been left as in earlier editions, but the references have been brought up to date.

justment more fundamentally important than the political events which in large degree overshadowed the less dramatic factors. To rebuild railroads and bridges, to re-establish factories, to repair fences, barns and houses, to replace tools, to secure cattle,

3 For the agricultural history of the South a book of unusual merit is the text designed for young students, "The Story of Cotton and the Development of the Cotton States," by E. C. Brooks. This has a bibliography, which, however, omits the standard works of E. von Halle, "Baumwollproduktion und Pflanzungswirtschaft" and of M. B. Hammond, "The Cotton Industry." Better for young students than these last is M. B. Hammond's chapter on "Cotton Production in the South" in "S. in B. of N.," Vol. 6, pp. 87ff., with a valuable bibliography. For elementary students, Prof. C. A. MacMurry, of the George Peabody College for Teachers, has worked out an excellent "Type" study on "Corn and Cotton." There is no general detailed study of land tenure; but the changes in the State of Georgia have been made the basis of two excellent monographs, "The Economics of Land Tenure in Georgia," by E. M. Banks, and "The Agrarian Revolution in Georgia," by R. P. Brooks. Valuable for Mississippi are chapters in A. H. Stone's "Studies in the American Race Problem," and "A Study of Tenant Systems of Farming in the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta," by E. A. Berger and E. A. Goldenweiser, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Bul. 337. Suggestive also are a chapter by W. L. Fleming, in "S. in B. of N.," Vol. 6, pp. 6-10, and a paper by L. C. Gray in "Annals of American Academy of Political and Social Science," Vol. 40, No. 2, pp. 90-99. For the development of the newer type of agriculture, the chapters by various specialists, the best guide is found in Vol. 6 of the "S. in B. of N., with biblographies which point the way to the papers and reports of the Department of Agriculture, the Bureau of Statistics, and the Census Reports. Examples of such papers are C. W. Dabney's "Progress of Southern Agriculture," and S. A. Knapp's "Causes of Southern Rural Conditions and the Small Farm as an Important Remedy." On this as on the preceding topic, Bruce's treatment is very full. The "Manufacturers' Record," the reports of State agricultural bureaus, and the publications of the agricultural colleges also contain much valuable information.

The rise of the manufacturing industries is sketched in Holland Thompson's chapter, "The New South, Economic and Social, in Studies in Southern History and Politics." The same authors, "From the Cotton Field to the Cotton Mill" is more extensive in detail, but is limited chiefly to North Carolina. The chapters of Bruce's work are very full. Perhaps the best survey of the whole subject is found in V. S. Clark's two chapters in Vol. 6 of the "S. in B. of N.," with excellent bibliographies. The latest information is presented in the "Manufacturers' Record." E. G. Murphy discusses the Child Labor Problem at length in his "Problems of the Present South," one of the indispensable works for every serious student, who will consult also the publications of the National Child Labor Committee and the National Consumers' League, and various bulletins of the Census and the Department of Labor. A summary, with a selected list of references, is given by W. B. Palmer, of the Bureau of Labor, in Vol. 6 of the "S. in B. of N." The "mountain whites" have been the subject of special work, among which are Horace Kephart's "Our Southern Highlanders," T. R. Dawley, Jr.'s "The Child that Toileth Not " -which throws some doubt on the usual description of conditions-and M. W. Morley's "The Carolina Mountains." Interestingly written and full of information is Ethel Arme's "The Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama."

even to purchase seed-all these things required money. Much capital came in from the North, but for the southern farmer the chief resource was of necessity his land or the products of his land. To make the land productive demanded labor, and the labor problem was a most serious one. The Negroes were now "free." How could a new social system restore agriculture? That was the first problem of the men of that day, and it is properly the first problem of our study.

While, in 1860, agriculture in the South had been to no small extent one of diversified crops, it was natural, in the situation which confronted the South in 1865 that the chief resource at once was seen to be cotton. It is a characteristic of this plant that, although it demands some labor all the year, it tolerates a neglect which would ruin other crops. Once the routine is learned almost anyone can raise some cotton. Moreover it was the surest money crop and the best security for loans, and cotton prices were high. Therefore the South, following the line of least resistance, retrograded as to varied agriculture and went back to cotton. Fortunately in those years the South, though suffering politically from the carpetbagger and the scalawag, was spared the pest which has since caused so much loss-the boll-weevil. Yet so great was the prostration of the South that in spite of good prices it was thirteen years after 1866 before the cotton crop equalled that which had been raised in 1860.

Of the three types of farms producing cotton-the large plantation, the small plantation and the small farm--the first and second, operated by Negro slaves under skilled supervision had formerly produced the greater part of the crop. How could the plantation continue after the overthrow of this long established system of controlled labor? The efforts of 1865 to find a substitute had not been successful. The experiment of a wages system had broken down, through the migratory tendencies of the freedmen and through the excessive competition for their labor. Immobile during the earlier war period, the Negroes rapidly became demoralized. The local attempts at regulation-the so-called "black codes," honestly, if not wisely, designed to restore industrial order had been obnoxious to the dominant authority of the North; the well intended but mischievous activities of the Freedman's Bureau had been obnoxious to the South. Visions of forty acres and a rule provided by the magic hand of the government filled the mind of the Negro; unscrupulous sharpers sometimes pretended to sell him plots of land, by means of painted sticks.5 One solution indeed would have been to sell the land to the Freedman, but had the planters wished to sell, the Negroes in general had no money to buy.

4 W. A. Dunning. "Reconstruction Political and Economic," pp. 57-58.

5 Cf. W. L. Fleming's "Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama," pp. 421-470.

• Conditions in the coast region of Georgia where the negroes did early acquire the lands of what had been large

Out of this difficult situation arose an institution cr custom, attended beyond question with many abuses, which, however, held society together economically and kept the fields productive. This custom is known as cropping, share-cropping, share tenancy, or by European analogy metayage. The owner of the land provided the land and house for the tenant, the live stock, the farming implements and the seed. The tenant furnished only his labor for the raising and gathering of the crop. The product was then divided between the landlord and the cropper, each ordinarily receiving half. Besides this custom which still prevails, others have made their appearance. In the

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third and fourth" plan of "share renting," the landlord provides land, buildings and fuel; the tenant supplies his own stock, implements and support. The landlord receives one-third of the corn (where this is raised), and one-fourth of the cotton. Or the tenant may pay a fixed "standing rent" of so many pounds of cotton. Again the tenant may pay a cash or money rent.

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Careful consideration of these plans will reveal a certain gradation. It will be seen that the fundamental questions involved are (a) the degree of supervision retained by the landowner and (b) inversely the degree of responsibility thrown upon the tenant. The cropper is really a day laborer paid by the year in a varying agricultural product instead of in money. He has no financial responsibility. At the end of his year contract he is legally free to move and enter into a new one. On the other hand, it is easy for him to anticipate his returns and to keep in debt. The vexation and loss caused by the irresponsibility of the Negro with little capacity for or incentive to efficient farming will lead to the disposition on the part of the landowner to make it difficult in practice for the Negro N to move. On the other hand the landlord is able to direct the planting and all the mechanism of production. In the "third and fourth" system and all the gradations towards cash renting, the responsibility of the tenant is increased. He has a chance to make more; he bears more risk of failure. The cash renter if he is industrious and if prices rise may

prosper; but the Negro cash renters of the Georgia black belt, without the superior direction of the landowners, became, in the words of a careful student "the poorest class of farmers to be found in any civilized country."