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Gender Role Attitudes since 1972: Are Southerners Distinctive?

Karen E. Campbell and Peter V. Marsden

in Social Trends in American Life: Findings from the General Social Survey since 1972

Several previous General Social Survey-based studies have revealed increasing acceptance of nontraditional gender roles. This chapter builds upon and extends these findings. It shows that adults ... More

Several previous General Social Survey-based studies have revealed increasing acceptance of nontraditional gender roles. This chapter builds upon and extends these findings. It shows that adults became less predisposed toward a “separate spheres” conception holding that women should specialize in caring for children and households while men predominate in the more public arenas of employment and politics. Most growth in acceptance of broadened women's roles took place by the mid-1990s, however, mirroring trends in women's labor force participation and their representation in political office. The chapter then illustrates the regional convergence noted by Fischer and Hout (2006), showing that southerners continue to espouse more traditional views about gender, but less so over time.Less

Election News

Edward L. Ayers

in Southern Crossing: A History of the American South, 1877-1906

This chapter discusses the political climate affecting the New South. Patronage was a constant and party loyalty was the basis on which everything else stood. This chapter also discusses the effects ... More

This chapter discusses the political climate affecting the New South. Patronage was a constant and party loyalty was the basis on which everything else stood. This chapter also discusses the effects of the redemption in politics particularly the dynamics between the Democrats and the Republicans. The tradition of black Southerners to vote only for Republicans is made evident in this chapter and the effect of this towards the political climate is likewise discussed. That is not to say that vote-buying did not exist as it did but not for money but more for the benefit it may have afforded the blacks. The battle over the prohibition of alcohol likewise had an impact in the ensuing political debates. The currency crisis that emerged during that time served to contribute to political conflict. Political life in the New South was complicated.Less

The Liberal Republican Dilemma over Reconstruction, 1865–1868

Andrew L. Slap

in The Doom of Reconstruction: The Liberal Republicans in the Civil War Era

This chapter discusses the liberal republicans' goals for Reconstruction—restoring republican government, incorporating freed slaves into Southern society with basic ... More

This chapter discusses the liberal republicans' goals for Reconstruction—restoring republican government, incorporating freed slaves into Southern society with basic protections, and changing the basis of that society—and the reasons they failed to implement their program fully. The liberal republicans had a dilemma: How was it possible to have the strong federal government necessary for implementing Reconstruction without destroying the republican institutions they considered so essential? How could they institute changes and create republican institutions without using the strong-armed tactics that they opposed? In the end, the intransigence of President Andrew Johnson and white Southerners generally in the face of attempts at change led liberal republicans to support a more extensive Reconstruction that made it necessary to use seemingly tyrannical power. Ultimately, they concluded that the South had been reconstructed as much as it could be without destroying republican government in the country, and the compromise they reached was unsatisfying.Less

Enforcement of the Second Act: Lincoln and Bates

John Syrett

in The Civil War Confiscation Acts: Failing to Reconstruct the South

Lincoln acknowledged the importance of the second act in a number of instances in the weeks after its passage. He and Attorney General Edward Bates chose not to implement the law vigorously. The ... More

Lincoln acknowledged the importance of the second act in a number of instances in the weeks after its passage. He and Attorney General Edward Bates chose not to implement the law vigorously. The second act proved important before it became law as a threat of change and as a symbol to both slaves and Southerners of what the government could do if it wished to reconstruct the South. There are a number of reasons why the Second Confiscation Act was an imperfect instrument. Congress's expanded role during the war was new and unexpected. Bates's administration of the laws was honest, sincere and careful; it lacked any conviction they were just or useful laws. The problems of implementing confiscation also involved the roles of the military and Treasury Department.Less

The Politics of Confiscation

John Syrett

in The Civil War Confiscation Acts: Failing to Reconstruct the South

The failure of the confiscation acts, particularly the second, owed to the inattention and declining interest of the Republicans in Congress. The public also expressed serious doubts about altering ... More

The failure of the confiscation acts, particularly the second, owed to the inattention and declining interest of the Republicans in Congress. The public also expressed serious doubts about altering the goals of the war, as reaction to Lincoln's proclamation of September 22 on freeing slaves and the fall elections in 1862 made clear. The reaction to Lincoln's September 22 preliminary emancipation proclamation revealed the North's divisions over this limited assault upon slavery. Not everyone was pleased with the effect that Lincoln's pardon policy and Bates's instructions had on confiscation. Some supporters of the Union feared that Southerners would lie, take the oath, and avoid confiscation. They were doubtful that these policies were effective strategies to end allegiance to the Confederacy or to halt the rebellion. The Republicans' unwillingness to move together on the land issue needs to be seen clearly. Republican support for the original premises of confiscation had eroded.Less

Lincoln's Assassination and John Wilkes Booth's Confederate Connection

John Y. Simon, Harold Holzer, and Dawn Vogel

in Lincoln Revisited: New Insights from the Lincoln Forum

The tragedy of Abraham Lincoln's death gripped the North like no other event in the nation's young history. Southerners had lost their only hope for a just and magnanimous peace. However, like so ... More

The tragedy of Abraham Lincoln's death gripped the North like no other event in the nation's young history. Southerners had lost their only hope for a just and magnanimous peace. However, like so much of the story of Lincoln's assassination, this view of his death is a myth — a myth that has been manufactured. In reality, the great majority of people throughout the South rejoiced at the news of Lincoln's assassination. Contrary to the popular myth that Lincoln's death was a national tragedy, Southerners saw Lincoln's death as tyrannicide — the killing of a great tyrant. What this chapter claims is that Confederate officials were closely involved with John Wilkes Booth from the outset of his plot to remove Lincoln as president and commander in chief of the military. Confederate agents who worked for Judah P. Benjamin, Confederate Secretary of State, provided key contacts to Booth along with financial assistance to help carry out his operation.Less

“I’ll Always Love the Union”

Susan Chandler and Jill B. Jones

in Casino Women: Courage in Unexpected Places

This chapter tells the stories of African American women who came to Las Vegas in search of employment. Black Southerners had been making their way across the desert to Las Vegas since the early ... More

This chapter tells the stories of African American women who came to Las Vegas in search of employment. Black Southerners had been making their way across the desert to Las Vegas since the early 1940s when jobs for African Americans first opened in numbers. By 1970, 14,000 African Americans lived in Las Vegas, up from 165 in 1940, and they were key to the city's rising economy. Black Southerners, however, quickly discovered the city's downside. Aside from the intense desert heat, Las Vegas was a Jim Crow town, and life was divided white and black, rich and poor as completely as it had been in the South. But there was work and plenty of it. Women found jobs in the hotels, restaurants, casinos, and, as always, private homes. Some made their way to the one place that provided entry to casino jobs: the Culinary Union hiring hall. While a union was new to nearly all the African American women, fighting back and overcoming were not. And in the 1970s the civil rights movement was never far from the women's minds.Less

A Social Portrait of Conservative Christians

in The Truth about Conservative Christians: What They Think and What They Believe

Stereotypes about Conservative Protestants abound. Religious issues aside, they are pigeonholed as Southern, uneducated gun owners who live in trailers parks or at least far from town. This chapter ... More

Stereotypes about Conservative Protestants abound. Religious issues aside, they are pigeonholed as Southern, uneducated gun owners who live in trailers parks or at least far from town. This chapter draws a social portrait of Conservative Protestants and other religious traditions from data on where each lives, the race and ethnicity of members, marriage and family patterns, education, socioeconomic status, and key habits and activities. It shows that Conservative Protestants are everywhere—though they are more Southern than other groups. They are whiter because segregation split them from the Afro–American Protestant churches with whom they share most religious precepts and practices. They are also slightly more likely to be married, less educated, and less affluent than many other groups. Most behavioral differences between Conservative Protestants and others reflect these differences of geography, education, and income.Less

Marching through Metaphors

Anne Sarah Rubin

in Through the Heart of Dixie: Sherman's March and American Memory

This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to explore the myriad ways in which Americans have retold and reimagined Sherman's March. It looks at the March from a range of ... More

This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to explore the myriad ways in which Americans have retold and reimagined Sherman's March. It looks at the March from a range of perspectives—from the participants themselves, including white Southerners, African Americans, Union soldiers, to a mosaic of sources: travel accounts, memoirs, music, literature, films, and newspapers. It unpacks the many myths and legends that have grown up around the March, using them as a lens into the ways that Americans' thoughts about the Civil War have changed over time. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.Less

The National Citizens’ Rights Association

Carolyn L. Karcher

in A Refugee from His Race: Albion W. Tourgée and His Fight against White Supremacy

Chapter 4 examines the National Citizens’ Rights Association (NCRA), the interracial civil rights organization Tourgée founded in October 1891 to agitate for equal citizenship. After detailing ... More

Chapter 4 examines the National Citizens’ Rights Association (NCRA), the interracial civil rights organization Tourgée founded in October 1891 to agitate for equal citizenship. After detailing African American newspaper editors’ role in publicizing the NCRA, the chapter focuses on the organization’s three main membership groups: black Southerners, black Northerners, and white Northerners. Their letters to Tourgée show how members enlisted new recruits, used Tourgée as a secret conduit for reporting local atrocities, and expressed frustration with his refusal to move beyond recruitment to a concrete plan of action. In turn, Tourgée’s replies provide insight into the obstacles that prevented the NCRA from fulfilling its ambitious goals: his deficiencies as an organizer, his lack of access to capital, the repression that limited black Southerners’ activities, the inadequate enrollment of black Northerners, and the racial separatism that deterred whites and blacks from socializing together.Less

Revolt Family Troubles in the House Divided

Julia A. Stern

in Mary Chesnut's Civil War Epic

In order to appreciate Mary Chesnut's response to black on white bloodshed in her own South Carolina, it is helpful to understand her somewhat idiosyncratic ideas about the institution of African ... More

In order to appreciate Mary Chesnut's response to black on white bloodshed in her own South Carolina, it is helpful to understand her somewhat idiosyncratic ideas about the institution of African American bondage. Like many elite white Southerners on the eve of the Civil War, Chesnut worried about the looming prospect of “another St. Domingo” or a “second John Brown.” Such terms constituted planters' shorthand for a number of apocalyptic racial fantasies: the slave caste rising up en masse against the masters and slaughtering them, eventually overturning the brutalities of the plantation system (as in Haiti) or an armed white visionary evangelizing enslaved blacks to end their subjugation through violent conflict (as had John Brown). Details from Chesnut's 1880s narrative suggest that, although she shared many of the racist attitudes of her social class, she had come to conclude that slavery was wrong as early as the 1830s.Less

Prelude: Supposing we have us a Little Tune Here

John Minton

in 78 Blues: Folksongs and Phonographs in the American South

This chapter sets out the book’s purpose, which is to explore how Southerners during the period between the mid-1920s and World War II thought about folksongs and phonograph records, and how oral ... More

This chapter sets out the book’s purpose, which is to explore how Southerners during the period between the mid-1920s and World War II thought about folksongs and phonograph records, and how oral tradition bearers navigated a mass medium. How did people accustomed to communicating musically in face-to-face settings learn to interact with an electronic medium and, through it, with one another? How did such a community experience records as musical events, comparable, say, to a mother lulling a child to sleep or a noisy house party?Less