Deep Souths: Delta, Piedmont, and Sea Island Society in the Age of Segregation [Hardcover]

J. William Harris (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 7, 2001

Deep Souths tells the stories of three southern regions from Reconstruction to World War II: the Mississippi-Yazoo Delta, the eastern Piedmont of Georgia, and the Georgia Sea Islands and Atlantic coast. Though these regions initially shared the histories and populations we associate with the idea of a "Deep South"—all had economies based on slave plantation labor in 1860—their histories diverged sharply during the three generations after Reconstruction. With research gathered from oral histories, census reports, and a wide variety of other sources, Harris traces these regional changes in cumulative stories of individuals across the social spectrum. Deep Souths presents a comparative and ground-level view of history that challenges the idea that the lower South was either uniform or static in the era of segregation. By the end of the New Deal era, changes in these regions had prepared the way for the civil rights movement and the end of segregation.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This lucid, scholarly social history of three lower-South regions the Mississippi-Yazoo Delta, the eastern Georgia Piedmont, and the Sea Islands and rice coast of Georgia examines three generations after the Reconstruction (1876-1939). Using plantation records, county newspapers, census records, tax returns, oral histories, journals and diaries, Harris (Plain Folks and Gentry in a Slave Society) chronicles economic developments, culture and politics. A history professor at the University of New Hampshire, he challenges the conventional picture of the Deep South as a static and uniform society. "The ebbs and flows of capital and labor" form the bones of Harris's work, while the lives of real people give it vitality women as well as men, poor farmers and wealthy land-owners, Pentecostals and politicians, sharecroppers and educators, lynchers and their victims, suffragists and blues singers, entrepreneurs and activists often rendered in pertinent, vivid biographical detail in this absorbing work, which is based on more than a decade of research. The book concludes with an "Essay on Sources" that should be very useful to fellow researchers, as well as a highly intelligible appendix providing statistical data on population, lynchings, presidential votes, farm ownership, farm production, occupations, marriage and household status, and church membership.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This is one of those uncommon scholarly works that combines remarkable research and a fluid writing style into an illuminating and highly readable book. Harris (Plain Folks) compares the economic, social, and political histories of three areas of the lower South. While the term Deep South conjures a picture of backward areas little changed since the Reconstruction, Harris shows that land ownership, race relations, and political structure varied greatly among the Georgia Sea Islands, the Georgia Piedmont, and the Mississippi Delta. He argues that even during the darkest period of segregation, African Americans successfully challenged their oppression in many ways and thus sowed the seeds that grew into the Civil Rights movement. Harris gives voice to a heartbreaking story of economic struggle, racial conflict, and glacial change through memoirs, letters, and newspaper articles. He writes with genuine sympathy for the inhabitants of each region but never loses sight of the broad forces that shaped their lives. Highly recommended for academic and larger public libraries. Duncan Stewart, State Historical Society of Iowa Lib., Iowa City
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 496 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press; First Edition edition (May 7, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801865638
• ISBN-13: 978-0801865633
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,094,093 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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