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Restless Visionaries: The Social Roots of Antebellum Reform in Alabama and Michigan

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Historians of antebellum reform have tended to divide their subject along sectional lines, with northern reform being considered normative. Antebellum reform in the North has been difficult enough to understand, so it should be no surprise that few scholars have dared to reconcile the reform impulse in the North and South. Even admitting that the reform impulse existed in the South has been a somewhat recent development in the historiography (for examples, see Anne Loveland's Southern Evangelicals and the Social Order, Stanley Harrold's Abolitionists and the South, and Janet Cornelius Duitsman's Slave Missions and the Black Church in the Antebellum South). Quist, however, tackles the problem head-on by comparing reform in two counties, one in Alabama and one in Michigan. That he finds significant differences should surprise no one. That he also finds striking similarities, however, may require us to do some rethinking about reform in the antebellum South. Just as in the North, he sees reform in the South as "compatible with the demands of market behavior." His study is truly pathbreaking in that it opens up new territory and problems to explore. Because of Quist, any comprehensive account of antebellum reform will need to incorporate the Southern reform experience. I highly recommend this work to students of antebellum reform.

This book does for the subject of southern reform what J. Mills Thornton's Politics and Power in a Slave Society did for southern politics. We simply have to reevaluate out traditional approach to antebellum southern culture after this book. Absolutely not for general readers, who do not like such detail and a 57.50 (!) price tag, but essential for South historians.