Rich Man's War, Poor Man's Fight: Race, Class, and Power in the Rural South during the First World War [Paperback]

Jeanette Keith (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0807855626 | ISBN-13: 978-0807855621 | Publication Date: November 1, 2003

During World War I, thousands of rural southern men, black and white, refused to serve in the military. Some failed to register for the draft, while others deserted after being inducted. In the countryside, armed bands of deserters defied local authorities; capturing them required the dispatch of federal troops into three southern states.

Jeanette Keith traces southern draft resistance to several sources, including whites' long-term political opposition to militarism, southern blacks' reluctance to serve a nation that refused to respect their rights, the peace witness of southern churches, and, above all, anger at class bias in federal conscription policies. Keith shows how draft dodgers' success in avoiding service resulted from the failure of southern states to create effective mechanisms for identifying and classifying individuals. Lacking local-level data on draft evaders, the federal government used agencies of surveillance both to find reluctant conscripts and to squelch antiwar dissent in rural areas.

Drawing upon rarely used local draft board reports, Selective Service archives, Bureau of Investigation reports, and southern political leaders' constituent files, Keith offers new insights into rural southern politics and society as well as the growing power of the nation-state in early twentieth-century America.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Keith provides a thoughtful, discerning account of the distinctive character of the anti-war movement in the rural South. . . . A welcome addition to the history of this period."
— History News Network

"Keith's wonderfully lucid account of draft resistance in the rural South offers an exemplary case study of how state efforts to impose rational order were frustrated by ordinary people getting on with their lives."
— American Historical Review

"[Keith] provides a good, comprehensive overview of the political and social aspects of dissent."
— H-SAWH



"This carefully argued book broadens our understanding of early twentieth-century southern society [and] America's response to World War I."
— Gaines M. Foster, Louisiana State University

From the Inside Flap

Keith examines southern draft resistance, evasion, and desertion during World War I, when over 95,000 southern men refused to serve in the U.S. Army. She offers new insights into both New South politics and society and the growing power of the nation-state in early twentieth-century America.

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press (November 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807855626
• ISBN-13: 978-0807855621
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,221,764 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5.0 out of 5 stars Inequities of the draft, December 15, 2008

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Michael A Neulander "Political Philosophy" (VA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Rich Man's War, Poor Man's Fight: Race, Class, and Power in the Rural South during the First World War (Paperback)

This was required reading for a graduate course in the history of American military affairs. Jeannette Keith's excellent study Rich Man's War, Poor Man's Fight: Race, Class, and Power in the Rural South during the First World War explained that the Wilson administration quickly realized it had to institute a draft system to quickly build a two million man army, but it also had to avoid the pitfalls of the disastrous draft used during the Civil War. Secretary of War Newton Baker, thought that one of the ways to avoid previously held hard feelings about a federal draft was to create a system made up of local draft boards, which would give the draft a more local appeal to America's communities. This is one more example of an institution invented for the Great War that lasted until the draft was abolished by the government in 1973. Although the local draft board looked good on paper and the government conscripted the soldiers it needed without a repetition of draft riots like the ones that took place in New York City during the Civil War, Keith's research proved that the system was not without its faults. The local draft boards, "Intended to be sensitively responsive to local conditions, they were also susceptible to local political pressures, and not immune to local prejudices." Keith's book examined in detail the conscription program and state mobilization policies implemented in the rural South during the Great War. What Keith found bore out Kennedy's conclusions about the problems of the local draft boards. Keith observed that many Southern rural white draft board members used "...their power to get their sons exempted from service. However, powerful white men also intervened with draft boards to obtain exemption for their black workers and tenants." Thus, this inequity in the draft system sent a disproportionate number of poor blacks and whites to war.

Recommended reading for anyone interested in American history.